California To Create Public Animal Abuser Registry 404
An anonymous reader writes "California legislators are moving forward with plans to create a public, online, animal abuser registry identical in function to the public sex offender registry. Is this the slippery slope to further government mandated lists and registries?"
there's a new tax too (Score:5, Interesting)
Apparently they estimate that it will take several hundred thousand dollars to run the registry annually and claim that the number of federal convictions for animal abuse in California is not large enough to levy enough fees on the convicted to fund the registry. In short, they want to levy a tax on pet food to pay for the registry.
Let's Make A Public Registry... (Score:1, Interesting)
I support this. (Score:2, Interesting)
But when it comes to animal abuse, I loose some of that rationality. Animal abusers are dangerous and cant be trusted. And I believe it is a behavior that once practiced may never leave a person. They may suppress it for the rest of their lives, but underneath the potential is there to harm people, especially given a one in a million encounter.
From Wikipedia: "Cruelty to animals is one of the three components of the Macdonald triad, indicators of violent antisocial behavior in children and adolescents. According to the studies used to form this model, cruelty to animals is a common (but not with every case) behavior in children and adolescents who grow up to become serial killers and other violent criminals. It has also been found that animal cruelty in children is frequently committed by children who have witnessed or been victims of abuse themselves. In two separate studies cited by the Humane Society of the United States roughly one-third of families suffering from domestic abuse indicated that at least one child had hurt or killed a pet.[41]".
Sure, let animal abusers serve their time. Even give'em a job. Good luck feeling inner piece when your daughter says she is going camping with him, when his little discresion in life was nailing a cat to a plank of wood while performing some autopsy while it was still alive. Over the course of an hour.
Re:Just another scarlet letter to maintain (Score:3, Interesting)
This is not a system that can last forever, but it is going to get a hell of a lot worse before it falls apart.
Re:Just another scarlet letter to maintain (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:History repeats itself (Score:3, Interesting)
yes i'm illiterate.
Re:Sounds Good To Me (Score:4, Interesting)
I can't stand PETA in general, but (hypocritical as they are) this is one of their few campaigns I *do* support. The fact is, most unwanted pets are not going to find homes, so it's better to take them in, make an effort to place them, and then humanely euthanize them (which no, is NOT animal abuse) than to abandon them at a trash dump, throw them off a pier, or beat them with a club.
Re:Sounds Good To Me (Score:4, Interesting)
I have worked with cows and chickens. I grew up on a ranch, worked on a dairy, and occasionally helped out a friend who worked on a chicken ranch. Cattle are not very bright beasts. The calves will drink their mothers' milk until their innards burst, and the adults are content, so long as they know where to find the food. As for chickens... I just cannot feel remorse for any alleged suffering that has been applied to a creature whose behavior does not change, after its head has been removed, leaving only a portion of its brain stem.
In my experience with these creatures, I have not seen any evidence of sentience. They have no ability to behave outside of instinct, and insofar as I can tell, memory is only established through repetition.
These animals are not people. They are food.
Now, I can understand the concept of a "Sex Offenders" registry. Victims of rape or pedophilia experience a lasting and significant impact on their lives, from the events, impacting everything from their feelings of personal security and self-confidence, to even grander things such as sexual orientation (and all of its permutations). The desires that inspired sex offenders to perform the act(s) which got them on the list are generally not the sort of thing that one leaves behind in his life, but rather, something that (s)he must live with, indefinitely. Therefore, keeping a publicly accessible registry of these people is, more or less, a fair thing to do.
Animal abuse, however, is generally not driven by hormones that are persistent through life, but rather, the adolescent hormone cocktail, or general ignorant belligerence. It's really not the sort of thing that needs a registry, because the behavior can be effectively turned off with minimal effort, or may even go away on its own. Normal punitive measures are generally sufficient. To require people involved in this sort of crime to add their names to a public registry is ridiculous.
Re:End run? (Score:3, Interesting)
There are people on the sex offender list merely "caught" peeing in bushes and then charged with exposing themselves. And how about teens texting nude pics of themselves and charged with child porn? It has become a district attorney's game where they can claim putting X number of sex offenders away. Lots of good people's lives ruined for political bullshit. And the list itself becomes nearly worthless in telling good people from bad.
Animal abusers shouldn't be put on lists. It's disgusting what they did, they should be punished and that's it. But where is the line? If I step on some insects walking or accidently drive into an squirrel crushing it (but not killing it), will a DA who has it out for me (or is merely looking to get reelected) charge me on a high crime betting that I will plea bargain a deal that includes putting me on this list?
America has an obsession with punishing people one way or another for life (I think after people are released from prison for a felony, they can't get a passport which means they can never travel abroad again) for things that don't even approach murder/rape but with like tax evasion. We don't need to become an ever more punitive society for lesser and lesser offenses.
Once they get so big... they become pointless... (Score:1, Interesting)
The problem with "lists" and "registrys" is that they quickly become so broad, they are pointless. See our various "no fly" and "watchlists" which seemigly snags everyone and anyone because they have a common name. Its not uncommon to hear stories about babies named John or whatnot strip searched and interrogated because they are on the no fly list. While the real potential terrorists such as the gentleman over christmas who tried, and failed, to blow up an airliner had no problems purchasing his ticket at the last minute, get accompanyed to the gate by a unrelated relative, and get on an airplane. And again the same logic goes for our sex offender registries. I can pull up the list for my neighborhood, and on the map they are everywhere! Oh the horrors! When in reality, the law is so broad it not only gets the violent ones whom probally should be under close guard, but anyone for even the pettiest of sex crimes (Such as gentleman who 20 years ago when they were 18 had sex with a 17 year old, whom is probally now his wife). We dont have a registry of other convicted felons, whom most i would be more worried about than the majority of people on the sex offender registry.
Re:It depends (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Sounds Good To Me (Score:5, Interesting)
Now, I think all of these criminal registries are a bad idea. If somebody is so dangerous that they need to be on a special public list and announce themselves to their neighbors, and never live within a thousand yards of pretty much anything, and so forth, why are they out of jail? If they are not, in fact, that dangerous, how can viciously hounding them for petty political gain possibly do anything but increase their chances of re-offending? You don't want a potential criminal drifting from odd job to odd job, living at a mixture of no fixed address and really shitty parts of town. That's just a recipe for them to do something else in the future. You want them enmeshed in all the cares of a solid citizen with a white picket fence and a mortgage as quickly as possible. Plus, of course, there is the well documented stream of absurd cases, 16/18 couples, yobbish but harmless public urinators, that poor bastard who was wandering around inside his own house without the shades drawn. Just not a good idea. The idea that there are people safe enough to release from jail; but so dangerous that they must be stigmatized forever seems absurdly contradictory; and the consequences of that notion are bad for liberty.
However, that said, I don't think animal abuse cases are any less logical than sex crime cases for the (admittedly bad) idea of a registry. Again, registries are about an individual's dangerousness. This is generally established through some sort of crime, so they end up being based on more or less serious crimes; but the motive is to identify dangerous people(an ordinary criminal record keeps track of crimes). Animal abuse, of the sort that actually makes it to court(which usually implies animal abuse not in the context of some useful production/research activity, or within such a context; but of extraordinary depravity), is not a serious crime compared to sex crimes(since we generally accord animals substantially less moral personhood than we do people, harming them just isn't as serious); but people who harm animals just for giggles are, in fact, generally Bad News. Animals may not experience suffering in any morally salient way; but their pain responses are eminently convincing looking. Anybody who finds those recreational is, indeed, of deeply suspect character(if they also enjoy setting fires, you are in *cough*Macdonald triad*cough* territory).
If anything, animal abusers are probably better subjects for a registry than sex criminals are. In both cases, the crimes are evidence of serious personality and behavioral issues; but the victims of animal abusers are not as morally salient, so it is harder to justify long custodial sentences. Again, I think registries are a bad plan; but I would argue that, if there were a good place to start, it'd be animal abusers. Because such registries inevitably go skiing right down the slippery slope, they would end up containing the poor bastard at the slaughterhouse who managed to make PETA's shit list, some guy who kicked a puppy in a momentary outburst and has felt terrible and done nothing harmful ever since, and a kid who pulled the wings off a couple of mosquitos after a summer of being bitten; but those results are no more absurd than what you get with the present registries.
Or, of course, you could just throw out the crude attempt to classify people based on their crimes, and classify based on psychological evaluation. What you really want is a list of sociopaths, whether they be the blue collar flavor who flip out and kill somebody, or the white collar flavor who can keep their inhumanity in check long enough to make it through business school and do some real damage...
Re:Sounds Good To Me (Score:3, Interesting)
From what I have seen of sex offender registries (from living in two states) they include some case information. That information is usually ignored from my anecdotal experience. I was told the other day that a neighbor about three houses down the street is on the registry. When I asked why the guy is on the registry, they couldn't give me an answer.
Re:Politicians and the public are.. (Score:2, Interesting)
In the spring, you can drive up and down I-5 or highway 99 and see orange trees and fruit orchards as far as the eye can see. Our state produces one metric fuckton of food annually. We have Silicon Valley. We are home to one of the only GEO capable launch sites in the world. California is, in my opinion, a marvelous place.
Now, that said, there is something extraordinarily wrong with California society right now. I hope we can fix it. This place is worth fighting for. But I agree, the general populace seems to be plagued with some sort of mental illness. It's sad.
Re:I support this. (Score:3, Interesting)
I like to think I am as objective as they come.
As do we all.
But when it comes to animal abuse, I loose some of that rationality. Animal abusers are dangerous and cant be trusted.
At least you admit to being irrational. I score you full points for that honesty. But do you really think someone who keeps 24 cats in their house and lives in squalor should be on a public registry? Or what about someone who participated in blood sports that were legal in their own country before they moved here? The first deserves our pity, the second needs either a one-way ticket back home or a quick education on what's acceptable in their new homeland. Neither needs to be saddled with this bit (pardon the puns) all their lives.
slippery slope (Score:3, Interesting)
no. the beginning of the slippery slope was the introduction of sex-offender registers. as has been amply proven by this new register.
Re:slippery slope (Score:2, Interesting)
no.
Because a slippery slope argument is a logical fallacy, therefore false by definition. The introduction of an animal abuser registry does not necessarily lead to nor is it a prerequisite for other criminal offense registries.
That being said, I think criminal offense registries are inherently a bad idea. A good idea would be to extend incarceration sentences and reduce parole eligibility for violent crimes.
Re:I support this. (Score:3, Interesting)
Loss of rationality on the subject is precisely the reason why they chose animal abusers to enact these new unconstitutional laws.
Consider: why don't they do it with murderers? Well, because they don't think they could get the laws passed, because people like you are far more concerned about cute little puppies and cows than people.
No, they'll do this first. Prevent the people from getting jobs, subject them to perpetual shame and humiliation.
If you think our government is concerned about animal welfare, you must be smoking some good shit.
Re:Sounds Good To Me (Score:2, Interesting)
Of course the same feelings can apply to robots (I recall a story about a minefield clearing robot that worked by using loads of legs and triggering mines with them, losing a leg for each mine, after seeing the robot crawl around and lose legs with every explosion the officer in charge of the test ordered it stopped because he felt empathy for the machine).