Love Ayn Rand.

The government keeps wanting to regulate more and more of our lives. Wkae up America.

What is the old line? I'm from the government and I'm here to help.

And what happens to the person that throws food outside for the cats that just show up? I'm out in the country and have three or four that hang around. They keep the mice down.

Willie Shakespeare had it right: "First, we kill all the lawyers." It should be a law that you can't have more than 3 lawyers per law office, and you can't have more than 3 law offices within 200 miles of each other! That'll teach 'em!

Seriously, though, there are too many damn lawyers and not enough frivilous lawsuits to keep them all in the style to which they WANT to be accustomed. I know only a few decent ones, and most of the rest of them seem to be money-grubbing attention seekers. And greedy too!

You know why sharks don't attack lawyers, right? Professional courtesy.

Willie Shakespeare had it right: "First, we kill all the lawyers." It should be a law that you can't have more than 3 lawyers per law office, and you can't have more than 3 law offices within 200 miles of each other! That'll teach 'em!

Seriously, though, there are too many damn lawyers and not enough frivilous lawsuits to keep them all in the style to which they WANT to be accustomed. I know only a few decent ones, and most of the rest of them seem to be money-grubbing attention seekers. And greedy too!

You know why sharks don't attack lawyers, right? Professional courtesy.

Posted by: Flynne at November 4, 2009 5:33 AM
-----------------------------------
A big Amen on that.

No offense to lawyers here, but some laws, and lawsuits, are really fucking ridiculous.

To wit:
Judge: Mich. man can sue store he robbed

What happens when a cat has a litter? Shouldn't the cat be fined for breaking the law and having more than 3 kittens, rather than the cat owner?

I can see why they have the law...but setting the limit at 3 is a little absurd. Maybe 5 or 6 would be a better number.

Jim P. brings up a good point. Do the cats have to be inside the house, or just on the property? The woman we bought our house from had 7 cats when she moved out (and we've already found 6 more buried in the yard). She also fed all the strays in the neighborhood. So, when we moved in there were about 4 strays that hung around our yard. Could we have been arrested for that? Seems a bit silly, no?

Furthermore, this should really be evaluated on a case by case basis. Like I said, that lady had 7 cats and probably dozens of others though her years in the house. Sure, there are some scratches in doorways and such, but she wasn't exactly walking around in feces like something you'd see on Animal Cops. She was just a nice lady with a big heart who couldn't have children so she had cats. Who was she hurting?

Jazz...that's silly. You can't fine cats for having a litter. They have a right to reproduce even if they can't take care of their litter. It's not their fault anyway. They grew up without daddy cats. Wait...who were we talking about? :)

we have two dogs and four cats. technically, where i live - in the midwest of all places - i'm not allowed to have more than two animals, be it two dogs, two cats, or one of each, without a home inspection, which gives me the title of 'pet fancier' and the right to have - three. they're all supposed to be licensed with the state. the dogs are, they're harder to hide. the cats are illegal aliens. shh, don't tell on me. it's a lot of vacuuming, a word which i can never remember if it has two c's or not. and a lot of cat litter. a humongous threat to the state.

I'm violating the terms of my lease by having three pets, two cats and small dog. We refer to the second cat as "spare cat," and the government can take her litter box out of my cold, dead hand.

I won't tell, whatever. Cats don't need to be liscensed in my state and there's no limit that I know of...but I do have my dog registered as a "Lab Mix" instead of a "Lab/Pit" mix because I'm scared of what will happen if breed specific legislation comes to my town. I'm with Monica. They can pry his leash out of my cold, dead hand if they want him.

Personally, I don't see how they can pass these kinds of laws. I have seen people with one cat that live in filth and let the cat terrorize the whole neighborhood. I've also moved into a clean, neat, fresh smelling house that has housed dozens of cats. It's not the pets or the number of them....it's the people.

If cats are outlawed, only outlaws will have cats.

...that's silly. You can't fine cats for having a litter....

Oh, but you can fine people for their litter. I see what's going on here. It's blatant specism. There oughta be a law.

"If cats are outlawed, only outlaws will have cats."

I have cats, (5) and guns (13+/- 2 or 3) The only way you are going to take my cats is to pry them and the guns from my cold dead fingers. :-) Isabel

It's a good law. One of my rentals is next door to cat-aholics. They have probably 15 or 20 cats, and every one of them deposits poop and urine in other peoples yards. People who let their cats run around as they please are a menace.

And along those lines, people who breed animals for profit and then drop off the puppies\kittens that don't sell at the local shelter should be responsible for those costs as well.

Flynne, David M., and other lawyer-bashers,

In your zeal to find a ready-made, one-size-fits-all scapegoat, you show that a (very) little knowledge is indeed a dangerous thing:

Shakespeare's quote from Henry VI, Part II, (Act IV), Scene 2, "THE FIRST THING WE DO, LET'S KILL ALL THE LAWYERS," was in fact an acknowledgement of lawyers' crucial role in preserving a free society.

The line is spoken by Dick the Butcher, a follower of anarchist Jack Cade, whom Shakespeare depicts as "the head of an army of rabble and a demagogue pandering to the ignorant," who sought to overthrow the government. Shakespeare's sardonic acknowledgment that the first thing any potential tyrant must do to eliminate freedom is to "kill all the lawyers" is, indeed, a classic and well-deserved compliment to an honored profession.

BTW, what do "lawyers", as such, have to do with a city ordinance involving the permissible number of cats? Even as gubmint's regulatory reach into our lives increases, statistics show that fewer and fewer lawyers make up the members of legislative bodies. This sounds like the work of the most terrible and autocratic of all regulatory bodies -- an HOA Board!

Who do you think it is that protects your individual rights by getting governmental over-reaching declared unconstitutional, hmmm?

Everyone loves to hate lawyers -- until they need one. And then, it's "stand up for my rights!" and "just win, baby!"

"Even as gubmint's regulatory reach into our lives increases, statistics show that fewer and fewer lawyers make up the members of legislative bodies."
And the problem with that, of course, is that the idiots who write the laws can't actually interpret them. (Oh, wait, the legislators don't write the laws, their 23-year-old, just out of college aids do. Or the lobbyists hand them a blank bill to sign. Even better.)

Wow Jay R. Did you think I didn't know where that quote came from, or what it actually meant? Because of course, you know, I do.

My point was (and still is) that too many lawyers take on too many frivilous lawsuits, which tend to transmute into standards by which some other types of laws are enacted for our own good. Detect that little note of sarcasm there? Here's the thing: if someone wants to own more than 3 cats, and keeps the house/cat box/yard clean and vermin free, and makes sure those cats are not a neighborhood nuisance, why should a law (presumably drawn up by, oh, I don't know, lawyers?) be enacted that says that person must be licensed? What about those with cats whose maybe one female cat has just had a litter? There are too many grey areas to just pass a law carte blanche like that. Yes, there are irresponsible cat owners, but why penalize all cat owners for the few that are not?

I don't believe I just had to explain that to you. Sheesh. Dad's right. Common sense ain't so common anymore.

And this: Who do you think it is that protects your individual rights by getting governmental over-reaching declared unconstitutional, hmmm? ain't so common lately either.

Just sayin'.

o.O

...few that are not responsible. Sheesh on myself there, eh? o.O

3 cats? There was a lady in my neighborhood where I grew up who should be on death row, then. She's had as many as eight. I used to be friends with her daughter.

She took excellent care of them, and kept her home clean and presentable. She just happened to like cats.

I agree that if I person leaves animal feces all over the place, and the air is so pungent that it not only smells bad, but tastes bad, or the animals or their owners are facing serious health risks, there should be health regulations in place. But my neighbor new what she was doing, and her home was a joy to visit, and I loved her friendly, playful cats.

Our town passed a similar law. They specified a maximum number of cats and required owners to obtain 'free' cat licenses.
I asked one of the councillors why they passed such a law, and they said that it was in response to a single owner who had many cats who roamed free and bothered her neighbors.
They felt that this bylaw was the only way to protect the neighbors from the multiple cats.

We have a cat and will never get a 'free' license.

This is the same town that passed a law banning leaf blowers. When I asked her why they banned leaf blowers when there were already multiple bylaws against noise, littering and smoke, she said that "Leaf blowers were a menace".

When I lived in Hermosa Beach, the woman on the other side of our backyard fence fed all the stray cats in the neighborhood.

Who reproduced until our yard was lousy with their waste, and our sleep routinely disrupted by their fights.

I seem to remember hearing somewhere that your fist's rights stop at my nose.

So, if not some sort of law like this, what are the rest of us to do about a pestilential cat ladies?

More nanny state nonsense.

By the way, how does a libertarian become a cat-hater? Don't you admire cats for their grace, intelligence, and independence?

as i sit here with one of my cats waving his butt in my face.....yum. not really. how about instead of a law banning the number of cats, a law about letting them become nuisances? because 1 cat can be a nuisance. if you're going to have a law, have it be to regulate what you actually want to stop. duh? oh, and my cats don't go outside. they're not leaving urine or poop in anything but their litter boxes.

I lived in a HOA that banned leaf blowers.

I had a freind re configed an old shop vac to blow instead of suck and used it every time my neighbor(the hoa pres) was outside

"I'm out in the country and have three or four that hang around. They keep the mice down."

And everything else. There's not an ecology lab in the country that will tell you that letting cats or dogs roam - at all - is a good idea.

i like that shop vac vs. leaf blower idea. that's funny.
i personally wonder, though, about those ecology labs. is it the cats bringing down the songbird population or is it habitat loss and flying into windows etc? and little boys entertained by bb guns.....i'm not saying it is or isn't, i'm not saying the cats don't have an effect, i just wonder. my cats stay inside because it's healthier for other reasons, also in the middle of the city they'd likely disappear. especially the black ones around halloween.... when i was a kid, my cats went out. only one of them was a decent hunter, at least that i remember. he mostly caught mice, some baby rabbits, a snake now and then.....but the only time he caught birds was when they were already ill, or babies fallen out of the nest, that would have died anyway.

I've got a dog that can snap birds out of the air.

Doesnt bother me in the slightest, all those damn crows just sitting there watching me creeps me out

Wait, Amy is an unmarried woman in her late 30s/early 40s living alone and doesn't own any cats?

Extraordinary!

Yes, Whatever, Kitty is a sport killer. Lately, Kitty has become famous for hanging around the cafeterias at the U of Central Florida, where people feed them. The nearby population of burrowing owls - monitored by several college labs - is disappearing, directly because of these cats.

Puppy is also a sport killer. Here in SC, he can regularly be seen running down deer. That's why a dog with no collar is killed on sight in the woods - or, in lots of cases, simply on sight in rural areas.

People act differently in different social situations. You ladies would be property in parts of the globe. It should not be a surprise that a cherished notion you might have about Kitty or Puppy would turn out not to be true when they are turned out to fend for themselves.