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No one said the word despicable better than cartoon voice genius Mel Blanc, via the conduit of Daffy Duck.

The word means, among other things, contemptible, vile and loathsome. Daffy's recitation of the word despicable embodies every syllable of its various synonyms, and then some.

And it is precisely the way the word should be phrased when describing how some of have decided to protest what they perceive as social or political injustices or cultural debauchery.

Take, for example, the treatment some in the land of Taos are offering former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

Reports of the alleged arbiters of justice, or at least their self-righteous version of it, refusing to serve Rumsfeld hot chocolate or shouting out inanities in the cozy confines of a Taos Ski Valley bar are, I suspect, badges of honor in certain circles.

As columnist Harold Morgan noted on these pages recently, in the minds of many on the far left, Rumsfeld is the personification of evil.

I'm more inclined to believe someone like Fidel Castro - curiously one of the richest men in the world - more readily fits the evil-personified bill. But, as a friend of mine likes to point out, it's really none of my business what anyone thinks of me or anyone else.

It becomes our business, however, when an opinion is voiced and an action taken in an inappropriate forum. As Morgan rightly stated, Rumsfeld, as in the case of any figure who has stepped out of the public square and isn't acting in a public fashion that opens the door for criticism, has as much a right to live his life in peace quiet as you or I do.

If Bill Clinton rolls into Old Town to look around, absent the spotlight he loves, as much as I might think it would be hip or funny to publicly humiliate him, it would be wrong. I'm pretty certain that's why God made the editorial pages and letters to the editor.

And speaking of God, the same holds true for solemn services such as burials. Few things in recent times have been more heartless and cruel than the antigay protests the Rev. Fred Phelps and members of his Topeka, Kan., church have staged at funerals of Americans who've died in Iraq.

What these people think of homosexuals, again, is none of my business. In America, you get to hold these thoughts, and, in accepted forums, debate them if you want. A funeral isn't an acceptable forum. The venue they've chosen makes it our business. For people of faith, it's embarrassing and angering. The fact that Phelps professes "God hates fags" only fuels rightful contempt for his action. Apparently, Phelps is unfamiliar with the Gospels.

Though cloaked as righteous acts of protests, these displays are actually petty, disgusting acts of egoists who think they're privy to some special insight you and I just don't have. They are simply despicable.