Can Life Not Go On Without Regulation?
Walter Olson at Overlawyered posts about the Ernest Hemingway Museum and its 40 to 50 cats, descended from Hemingway's six-toed cat:
A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit ruled Friday that the Hemingway Home falls under the classification of an "animal exhibitor," subject to regulation by the U.S. Department of Agriculture under the Animal Welfare Act.
If there's no sign these cats are being tortured or otherwise abused, why should they be regulated? Why must so many animals be regulated? (It isn't regulation that stops people from abusing animals; it's humanity.)
More on the story from David Demirbilek at The Daily Caller.
Do people not understand that regulating is not free? And now we regulate just about everything short of...well, we regulate pretty much everything.
And people think it's some sort of cure.
Witness all the calls for gun regulation on Twitter, following the horrible mass murder in Connecticut. As I wrote to a few of those calling for it:
@Sustainable2050 @Reillymj @mims Do you really think gun control w/keep guns from murderous any better than drug laws stop drug use?
I continued:
@Reillymj @mims I could walk eight blocks -- if even -- and buy illegal guns & illegal drugs & be home in about 20 minutes, round trip.
And people think it's some sort of cure.
Much of the time, I think the regulations are more for the benefit of the regulators than the regulated.
Old RPM Daddy (OldRPMDaddy at GMail dot com) at December 15, 2012 7:22 AM
It's not about hardy American values and overregulation. Some things need the force of law to eliminate the constant repetition of events like yesterday's slaughter. The blogger at tellthestories.blogspot.com said it best: This will go on "as long as we pretend that the time is appropriate for mourning but not prevention. As long as we value our guns more than our children. As long as we give assault weapons moral and constitutional equivalency to a colonial-era musket. As long as we slash mental health funding and glorify violence and expect these twin evils to have no consequence."
Katherine at December 15, 2012 11:38 AM
Firearms are in the top regulated things in the United States. The shooter obtained his weapon illegally by killing his mother. No amount of regulation would have stopped him.
To the point of why Amy posted this:
There is a difference between the EPA stopping polluters that caused the Cuyahoga River to burn, and trying to regulate CO2 which is emitted by every living thing.
When a judge uses the statement "Plaintiffs do not have a fundamental right to own and use a dairy cow or a dairy herd" in a court ruling, it says to me that the government is working to restrict your liberties, not give you more.
Jim P. at December 15, 2012 1:01 PM
Katherine, you're WAY off about this.
"Constant repetition"?
Violent games, videos, movies are violent and glorified by the audience because humans have a need to win something, and as they become more and more powerless in their daily lives, this becomes acute.
What is your world like? Does it have regulators everywhere, making sure only "approved" activities are planned or in progress?
It is not enough to pass a law. Even as you demonstrate by this very statement that you do not know anything about current laws!
Radwaste at December 17, 2012 2:47 AM
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