Outlawing Pet Sales or Outlawing Pets?
The nanny statists not only want to to take care of you, they want to make sure every hamster in the world gets fair treatment. Supposedly, that’s why they proposed a ban on pet sales in San Francisco, which fortunately was voted down last night. Proponents say too many people make impulse decisions when they buy pets and, therefore, all pet sales should be illegal.
Humane treatment of our furry and not so furry friends surely is an important goal. But apparently advocates of this ban understand that without pet sales, eventually pets could become illegal or at least disappear. And that is in fact what appears to be their ultimate motivation, as one recently admitted. They just don’t want you to own a pet.
But eliminating pets could mean elimination of many pet species. After all, the reason there are so many hamsters in the world is because someone has placed a price on them and designated them property. Assigning property and prices for animals essentially perpetuates their existence by making them valuable and granting them stewards. And this works for more than pets. It explains why we have so many cows in the world whereas other species that had no price have been run into near–if not all-out–extinction, such as the buffalo.
So if you care about hamsters and other creatures, you’d support pet sales. If these creatures served no use as pets, they would remain little more than lab animals if they survived at all.
Image source: JesseBarker photostream on flickr.