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First, even on their own terms, the creatures’ protest is irrational. The reason Thidwick wants to go to the south side of the lake is that there is no more Moose-Moss on the north shore. If Thidwick were to starve to death, then the creatures would lose their home. But the other two flaws in their protest involve conceptual confusion. Calling it “our home” is to think that moving in uninvited establishes property rights or that mere occupancy creates a proprietary relationship. By that reasoning, there is no such thing as auto theft or theft at all. And saying that Thidwick has no right to take his own horns to wherever he chooses is to deny that Thidwick has a property right to his own self.

For a closer look at why these creatures are mistaken, let us consider the argument made in the seventeenth century by John Locke (1632–1704) in his Second Treatise of Government. Locke’s argument is about human beings, of course, not moose, but since Thidwick is an anthropomorphized fictional moose, with rational self-awareness (and a good command of English), we can take him to be a person at least allegorically, and so Locke’s argument works for Thidwick.

Locke’s argument famously claims that the rationale for forming a government is the protection of rights that we have by nature, antecedently to the creation of any form of government. Locke talks about the protection of our lives, liberties, and property, but he clarifies that by “property” he includes our lives and liberties—in other words, a property right in ourselves. A central principle in Locke’s argument is that since all people are moral equals, no one can have a natural claim of ownership over another. We therefore have a natural right of self-ownership. As Locke puts it, “Though the Earth . . . be common to all Men, yet every Man has a Property in his own Person. This no Body has any Right to but himself. The Labour of his Body and the Work of his Hands, we may say, are properly his.”1

Thidwick, then, is the owner of his horns. The Bingle Bug acquires a right to ride on the horns by asking for, and receiving, permission from Thidwick. This is not the same thing as acquiring a property right. The bug’s request was for temporary occupancy—“would you mind if I rode on your horns for a way?” (Thidwick)—not to establish residence. But even if the request had been “Do you mind if I live here?,” it still would not establish a property right in Thidwick’s horns for the bug. The bug is, as Thidwick puts it, a guest. The idea of an “inalienable” right to self-ownership not only implies that it’s wrong for others to enslave you but also that you cannot rightly enslave yourself. So while the bug is entitled to stay as a guest, if Thidwick consents, the bug cannot ever acquire a right to live there. If the bug had a right to live there, it would mean Thidwick had alienated his self-ownership right, which is impossible.

Most of the other creatures aren’t even guests, despite Thidwick’s referring to them as such. They are all invited by the bug without Thidwick’s consent. As a guest, one does not acquire the right to invite other guests, at least not without clearing it with the owner. The so-called guests do not have proper permission, so their occupancy is illegitimate, even if Thidwick doesn’t realize this. They consume resources that they feel entitled to, but are not. The Zinn-a-Zu bird, for example, plucks out 204 of Thidwick’s hairs, which hurts the moose. The bird is not only unconcerned with the pain he is inflicting but also rationalizes the appropriation of the hairs by noting that “you can always grow more!” (Thidwick). The woodpecker destroys property that is not his by drilling four holes in one of the horns.

In a short time, the one invited guest has been joined by a spider, three birds, four squirrels, a bobcat, and a turtle. Each is a drain on Thidwick’s resources—while the Bingle Bug by himself represents a negligible load for Thidwick to bear, the eleven-creature