I just checked, in case I had missed something new, and the Constitution doesn't mention a right to keep pets.
There are a lot of things that are not specifically mentioned in the Constitution but it was and is worded in such a way as to allow for interpretation. IG made the point with pets being classified as property and that is covered by the Constitution. I worked and I saved and I paid to get my pets and they are just as much property as my PS3, my laptop or my car.
I could even go grasping at straws and say we are all guaranteed the rights of "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." My reptiles make me happy.
And if you want to interfere with the pursuit of that happiness then
That means government is free to regulate what pets we can have. In theory, government is all of us and, if some of us (HSUS, etc.) decide they want to push to limit what pets people can have, others of us who disagree can push back. That's the way things work, as long as a court doesn't rule that the outcome violates the constitution.
It is ridiculous to say "That's the way things work". Maybe that is how it should be but you and I know bloody well that the people with the most money who can afford the best lawyers and/or propaganda are the ones who get there way. Right and wrong have nothing to do with it. The almighty dollar does.
People throw the word "right" around without knowing that a right is a powerful thing and scarcer than we like to think.
Fine call it privilege, call it inclination call it what you will. These people are using their ideology to try and infringe on things that, quite honestly, they have have no right to be infringing on. I do not like tattoos but I dang well will not not tell someone else what they can and can not do with their own body. And you can bloody well bet that I will never EVER support any group that would try to ban people from getting tattoos.
To the extent a law would restrict access to potentially destructive invasive species, animal or plant, I'm in favor of it.
But that is not what this bill is. You keep reprimanding us for not reading it but I am beginning to think maybe you have not read it. This bill wants to put an undisclosed list of non-native (i.e. exotic") animals on the Lacy Act invasive species list. So it takes a position that
all non-native animals are guilty of being invasive without any proof. Are you seriously going to tell me that that is a "good" law you would be in favor of? The bill is specifically targeting the exotic pet industry. Don't believe me? Would it sway you if you read it from HSUS themselves?
Fine, then go hear and read it:
https://community.hsus.org/campaign/FED_2009_nonnativewildife
And I quote
Importing millions of live wild animals every year for the exotic pet trade, and for other reasons, is cruel to the animals
Right there in black and white. They are going after the exotic pet trade. They do not give a flying leap about invasive species, that is just a cover they are using to push the point.
I also particularly love the other "facts" they tout:
They can be released or escape and establish breeding populations, like the Burmese pythons in the Everglades --
For the record, the Burmese pythons have pretty much been proven to be the cause of animals accidentally loosed during Andrew, which also loosed animals form zoos. Oh and peoples dogs and cats too. BUt that is not important enough to mention
and government scientists say these large constrictor snakes could find a conducive climate in one-third of the country.
And this is a flat out lie. A USGS report that was circulated but never published (because it could not withstand a peer review) said that if the global warming models they used were accurate then in 50 years some of these animals could cover that area. This report looked at one single factor: Temperature. If you add in other things like humidity, moisture, habitat akin to the wild type location, Day and night temp swings, etc the numbers tell a much different story. Also of note, the USGS report purposefully used only one snake, they python species with the lowest temperature tolerance, to base this report of how all Pythons, Boas and Eunecties would fair. That is like using S. purp purp from Canada to say that all pitcher plants (Sarrs, Darlings, Helies, Cehs and Neps) could live all over the N. American continent... Great factual reporting there.
Methods used to eradicate species after they're established are inhumane, ineffective, and costly.
When it goes beyond that narrow goal, it quickly falls from favor.
If that is the case then why is it now up for review by the subcommittee? If it was going to quickly fall from favor it ought to have never made it this far.
That's easy to say, not so easy to do and, to repeat myself from an earlier post, the devil is in the details.
YOu keep saying thi but you keep ignoring the one significant detail that
this is not about invasive species. No where dose this bill talk about the ash borer, or the zebra muscle or the walking catfish or the snake head. This bill is talking about animals in the pet trade. Animals that, for the most part (yes I acknowledge the Burmese are there and yes I acknowledge that it is a bad thing) are not, or have never been proven to be, invasive. That is a really big detail to be ignoring.
Learn the details and think about what is right and/or wrong about each one. That's a better way to accomplish what you want than to wrap yourself in the flag and call the opposition radicals and terrorists. No one person did all those things, but each has been done at least once in this thread. That's the real bovine scat.
THose of us that have been following this and fighting it for the last 6-8 months have been learning the details. If you see us fighting to keep our personal pets as "wrap ourself in the flag" then by damn hand me a flag.