I know you’re employing a bit of the old hyperbole, but isn’t this just the truth of the issue?
No.
The issue of rejecting the law is still a very hot one in this country. We have barely emerged from the COVID crisis where people grew violent because they could not be compelled to comply with public health law or their employer's regulations, both deployed to stem an epidemic.
People became physically violent on MANY commercial flights. People came to work while contagious with COVID knowing they were contagious. People refused to mask to at least inhibit the amount of virus being ejected with breaths. And in these same cases, they raved against the goverment, including state leaders, while taking billions of dollars of compensation and then turned about later to complain about the economic impact of the money they had happily taken.
The issue of quarantines and public health law goes back a long way, before Typhoid Mary. In my 20's, NYC faced a serious crisis with addicts breeding tuberculosis. The State provided free prophylaxis and the addicts would not take it until it worked. So, the State provided a prophylaxis for the second strain that evolved. And the same thing happened. It continued to a third strain. Finally, a fourth strain evolved for which there was no treatment. Hospitals were creating isolated wings with separate air systems and controls to prevent the spread. Doctors and nurses and employees exposed during treatment were potentially exposed to a fatal incurable illness.
During that crisis, the government was forced to consider incarcerating the patients by force until they completed treatment for any of the advanced strains. They chose instead to send agents to deliver daily doses and witness them swallowed.
The problem with illegal pets is very real. Whether Peanut's demise is excessivve or not, and it sounds on the surface as though it was, the State absolutely SHOULD have thte right to control the keeping of livestock within its borders, be they commercially raised for slaughter for fur, such as minks, or for food, such as poultry, or for entertainmentt, such as pets. The State has an even higher right to protect species through hunting restrictitons and prohibitions against domestication.
The State also has mechanisms to provide for animals to be sheltered for exhibition and education or for protection. Mr. Longo had the responsibility and the obligaion to apply for such a permit to see if he qualified. He did not. He set himself up above the law and decided that the State had no right to limit his money making enterprise. If he had not used public sentiment to monetize his efforts, he likely would not have seen the State take action, becaue WHO would have known he had a squirrel, and then a raccoon, outside his intimate circle.
But he didn't do that. He chose to use it for a commercial purpose, to make income. And then, when finally prevented after seven years of ongoing violation, he used the same social media to wage war against the State.
Am I happy a squirrel was eithanized? No. I deliberately filll my bird feeders often enough to allow the daily raids of squirrels on my property because I like squirrels. But, some are killed by hawks, and porbably, some who sneak in during the night to feed are killed by the owl. And that doesn't make me sad at all. They lived a good life, and things die one way or another. In Peanut's case, it died after living a pampered life longer than it could enjoy in nature.
The hype Mr. Longo is peddling suits the right's governmental overreach narrative, the same right that is telling doctors they have to report patients inquiring about abortions, etc. Mr. Longo's emotional pain, if there is any, is a direct result of him setting himself up above the government, over animal control laws, that incude rabies control. He was dealing with two species that are common carriers of rabies.
If he had been a victim instead of the problem, I would care about his narrative, but he is the equal of some habitual speeder who weaved in and out of traffic, led the cops on a high speed chase, and then posted photos of his bruised and bloodied face when they slammed him to the ground when he resisted arrest. Cry me a river.
