!!Please read the entire post and think about it before forming an opinion!!
Now wether we agree with certain things like cock fighting or dog fighting is irrelevant to what I am about to say. There is an associated press article at the bottom of my writings this spurred my post. The reason for this post is to remind everyone that to truly fight Breed Specific Legislation we have to realize that our dogs and animals are ‘our property’ and the government has no right to take our property, wether this is dogs, guns or roosters, unless we violate laws that affect another person’s right to life, liberty or property. If it is OK for the government to take someone’s dogs away because they fight them or do not feed them enough or do not give them good enough care then it is OK for the Government to take away our dogs, guns, cats, or whatever, for any other reason they feel is enough reason. I could sum it up as basically quit letting people legislate their opinion on others.
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,"
— The Declaration of Independence of the United States of America ----------
"What seems simple is that happiness is so straightforward that we all have a right—a right!—to seek it; what seems complex is the idea that what we’re entitled to is, indeed, a pursuit, something strenuous and not necessarily successful. Some Marxists have thought that the right to pursue happiness was a last-minute substitution for a previously drafted right to property..."
While the author of the above comments goes on to argue that the ownership of property was not meant, many historians and not just Marxists believe that it actually does mean right to property. Indeed how can you be "free and self-sufficient" without owning property? How can you be beneficial to your country without owning and using your property to make a profit.
Indeed Leonard W. Levy who is Professor Emeritus at the Claremont Graduate School, in his book ‘Origins of the Bill of Rights’ goes on to say,
"From the premise that man was born free, the deduction followed that he came into the world with God-given or natural rights. Born without the restraint of human laws, he had a right to possess liberty and to work for his own property."
— Leonard W. Levy ----
William Pritt said in 1763 in a speech in Parliament,
"The poorest man may, in his cottage, bid defiance to all the forces of the Crown. It may be frail; it’s roof may shake; the wind may blow through it; the storm may enter; the rain may enter; but the King of England may not enter; all his force dares not cross the threshold of the ruined tenement."
----- William Pritt----
Our 4th amendment was based on this concept which had been preached since the 1500's. I could go on and on quoting some of the most brilliant minds in American and English history to support our right to own property, but a couple should have been enough. It seems that a lawyer has finally come to this realization and is taking the Animal rights activists and the law to court. I firmly believe that our only way to stop BSL is to stand on the "Right to Property precedent. But to do this we have to realize that our right to own property is over and above any concept of animal rights you could imagine. This is truly our only hope. If you stand on anything else it is simply modern opinion. the "Right to Property precedent" is over 500 years old indeed our laws and legislation are built upon it. The very fabric of free America was built upon this principle. Neither our government nor the humane society should be allowed to go on our property and confiscate parts of our property unless this property is taking away another person’s life, liberty or property.
So finally the article that spurred my thought. If you agree feel free to post this any and everywhere.
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Humane Society sued by man charged in cockfighting case
Associated Press
NEWPORT, Tenn. — A man whose roosters were killed last year after a raid on a cockfighting pit is suing the Humane Society of the United States.
William Todd Webb of Sevierville is seeking $25,000 in compensatory damages and additional unspecified punitive damages, according to his lawsuit filed in Cocke County Circuit Court last month.
The FBI led a raid on Del Rio Cockfighting Pit on June 11, 2005, and seized more than 300 roosters that were later euthanized. Misdemeanor charges were brought against 143 people and about $40,000 in cash was seized.
"Whether cockfighting is right or wrong, and whether or not our client was involved in cockfighting, any person who has property in the United States is entitled to have that property protected and to have due process before the destruction of that property, especially by a private organization," said Joe Baker, one of Webb's attorneys.
John Goodwin, the Humane Society's deputy manager for animal fighting issues, was listed as a defendant in the lawsuit along with John Does one through 25, court records show. Goodwin, who works in Washington but took part in the task force that raided the Del Rio pit, declined to comment on the lawsuit.
Webb is one of at least six people who have chosen to fight misdemeanor charges in court and is scheduled to go to trial next month, Baker said.
Webb's lawsuit accuses Goodwin and others of conspiring to destroy his roosters and killing the birds by placing them in 55-gallon drums and piping in carbon monoxide.
"Despite the fact that the plaintiff had claimed his roosters and that the defendants and others had told the plaintiff that if he claimed his roosters, he could take possession of them, the defendants willfully and maliciously and intentionally destroyed the plaintiff's personal property over the plaintiff's objection," the lawsuit states.
Shortly after the raid took place, Goodwin said the birds found at the site were killed in the most painless way possible.
"I don't like the euthanasia," he said. "I don't like seeing those little guys die. The problem is that these people are breeding these gamecocks to be extremely aggressive to any other rooster they see. It's not like we can adopt them out to families."