California’s New Animal Rights Laws Raise Interesting Questions
According to what we read here: California has revised its animal rights laws and is set to become the first state in the U.S. which will ban the manufacture, sale, and purchase of the fur products of certain wild animals. It has also banned most animals for entertainment and circus performances.
I remember a time in my early boyhood in which mink and chinchilla coats, which were ubiquitous at the time, became intensely unpopular, almost overnight, as women’s sensibilities had made a dramatic shift in favor of humanitarian values. Given that this was almost 60 years ago, one wonders: how did fur make a comeback? Have we grown more indifferent to cruelty over the last half-century? Apparently yes, or we wouldn’t need a law to prevent our participating in the fur industry.
It would have been far better, IMO, if we had developed a culture that abhors savagery, and this dichotomy is still all around us: do we need laws banning bad behavior that then need to be enforced, or does bad behavior go away simply because it’s bad, and civil society imposes social penalties for violations?
There’s no clear answer here, nor will there ever be. In many cases, it’s a function of how much money is at stake. Anyone who expects corporations to stop polluting without environmental regulation and threat of enforcement is an idiot. Banning single-use plastic, however, is another matter; the drinking straw industry doesn’t have a huge war chest available to support itself.
It’s said that integrity means doing the right thing even when no one’s looking. Sorry to say, but we’re a very long way from there.
Craig,
Like you, I’m not a huge fan of Fur coats etc Certainly the images of killing baby seals isn’t pleasant.
But emotional legislation can also be misguided, as can public sanctimony and imposing philosophic opinions by legislation.
Moralistic purity as practiced by the puritans, was unhealthy, viscous and repressive. There’s a difference between farming animals for human use and driving wild species into extinction.
The same earnest Vegan activist who self righteously throws red paint over a ‘farmed fur coat’, doesn’t seem to comprehend the irony of kicking out at the policeman with her leather boots.
Is it really cruel to breed and harvest chinchilla? Surely breeding is better than hunting of the wild population to extinction? (Although Rabbits and other little mammals might not agree).
The same argument applies to ‘trophy hunting’. I must confess, I would never hunt any wild animal that isn’t classed a vermin, but most game park sanctuaries have discovered the only way in third world countries to fight poaching is to encourage controlled hunting.
I guess it’s pretty sad to recognize the only way to preserve wild life is to put a commercial value on preservation, but if it works, it’s better than the alternative.
I always wondered what happened to all those Circus animals who had been breed in captivity for generations, once they became redundant?
What happened to all the trainers and handlers?
I guess I worry about the consequences of cruel ‘moralistic’ sanctimony.
In my own suburb, a young and very enthusiastic Mayor persuaded a majority of his fellow Councillors to abolish domestic cats on the basis that killed bird life.
The ban was about to be effected, to the distress of cat owners, when I managed to persuade the State Minister for Local Government to overturn the ban.
I was able to do so, because I commissioned a study showing domestic cats far from killing native species, actually help by eliminating introduced avian competitors. the natives being too quick, wary and tough for domestic city cats, who prefer lazier, slower, fatter and less fierce prey.
I just don’t think it’s that simple…….