Machan's Musings - A Backlash Against Pets?
by Tibor R. Machan
I cannot recall a time I did not had pets. Now, perhaps, is the first time. My gorgeous black cat Vegas was felled by some kind of heart ailment and I haven’t invited a new kitty into my home since then.
One reason is simply that pets get to be almost one’s friend, and friends cannot simply be replaced. But it’s been a long time now.
The other reason I hesitate is PETA and all the animal rights/liberation fanatics. I am scared they will get enough political clout to sic the government on pet owners everywhere. With all those phony rights these zealots insist animals possess, animals may gain extensive, intrusive "protection" from the gendarmes soon; they might be coming around uninvited to inspect how you are treating yours. They do this already with commercial animal farms.
One thing human freedom desperately requires is firm respect for property rights. What’s mine is mine, and others would need to gain my permission to mess with it—that is how it ought to be. Not unless I have violated another’s rights may anyone interfere with what is mine.
But not so in our current legal atmosphere. Meddlesome, intrusive, and regulating governments at all levels—federal, state, county, or municipal—have the power granted to them by legislatures and courts to snoop and intrude on us for all sorts of reasons. Maybe you grow plants they don’t like; or have de-clawed your kitty; or have some medicine in your cabinet they don’t want you to have, etc., and so forth.
William Pitt, Earl of Chatham, made a statement in 1763 that serves well to define how property is to be treated in a free society—namely, that: "The poorest man may in his cottage bid defiance to all the forces of the Crown. It may be frail—its roof may shake—the wind may blow through it—the storm may enter—the rain may enter—but the King of England cannot enter; all his forces dare not cross the threshold of that ruined tenement." This sentiment isn’t even widely respected, let alone enshrined in law. Yes, the Fourth Amendment to the U. S. Constitution states, unambiguously, that "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated." However, government, including the courts, have managed to violate that idea all over the place.
So, in order to reduce the likelihood they will come to my home to flex their muscles, I will try not to get a pet. More likely, I will break down because I’d like to have one. As I said, I’ve had cats, dogs, rabbits, horses, parakeets, gerbils, fish, the whole lot. But I do not want some eager-beaver officer, installed by the likes of PETA to "protect" pets, to come and lord it over me and my home.
Why, you might ask? Because the distrust PETA & Co. show toward ordinary human beings—by insisting that the way to make sure animals are treated decently and humanely is to ascribe to them the kind of basic rights human beings have—is insulting, intrusive, and very irksome. The fact is that animals, though different from rocks and trees, are subject to ownership by humans. But once the right to private property is abolished in law, people no longer enjoy the protection of their property rights, and eager beaver zealots then have no legal barriers standing in their way to invade your home or estate. Sure, tradition would still discourage abusive trespass, but gradually it will be overcome by the new attitude, and soon a guardian class of paternalists and their enforcers will be intruding anywhere they wish, to make sure that we all behave the way they think we ought to.
So, for the time, I am resisting bringing into my house any pet whose "rights" could induce the local animal police to hassle me. I suspect some other folks are beginning to thing this way as well, slowly unleashing a backlash against the animal "rights" crowd.
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