first to achieve their plan to dominate nature. There were many Democrats as committed as Republicans to the life of children affected by a disability, just as Republicans are not all indifferent to the plight of endangered species, to the environment, and to the quality of the air they breathe. The symmetrical tableau that we are painting thus has its limitations. It is, all the same, sufficiently close to reality that we may use it to see in relief the element common to the two positions: excessiveness, lack of moderation. Excessiveness should be the simplest thing to understand and define. It is everywhere, around us and in us: the excessiveness of the athlete who imperils his body?s integrity in order to break a record; the excessiveness of factory farming that hastens the erosion and the slow death of the humus, the organic constituent of soil, in the service of a temporary increase in production; the excessiveness of the driver whose car consumes ten times more energy than necessary given what it is used for, etc. Always more, always faster! This is the excessiveness of the PLUS sign. But there is also excessiveness on the MINUS side. Always fewer constraints, fewer responsibilities, fewer obligations. And always, no matter what the sign, excessiveness sweeps away the obstacles that it encounters. This is why individual choice, independent of all natural or divine law, is its ally. Is there in this a trait of human nature? This is how some immediately interpret the story