It is a serious thing – more serious than taxing tea – when government acts without mandate or cause destroys the work and reputation and way of life – the freedom – of innocent and blameless people, and joins with the mobs harassing and frightening them and accusing them of crimes they did not commit. Americans have always been divided, often bitterly, about many things, but they have always been united about one thing: it is the role of government to protect freedom and property, and to preserve liberty and provide the security that citizens need to live their lives in peace, contentment and prosperity. This has drawn all sorts of people to the cause of the carriage trade – workers, poets, progressives, actors, conservatives, artists and animal lovers and romantics from all over the world. The horses have transcended the hoary divisions of left and right, they have called to their cause and survival people who love freedom and grasp its importance. For more than 150 years, the people in the carriage trade have lived in peace and freedom. They have worked long and hard and honestly, provided for themselves and their families, run their business successfully, obeyed the laws and regulations of the city and the state, paid their taxes. Today, they find themselves under a cruel and prolonged assault that threatens to take away their liberty and security and their property as well, and that has already damaged or destroyed their dreams for their children and grand-children. Their government has not protected or defended them from this unjust persecution, quite the opposite, it has initiated and sanctioned the assault on their way of life and is seeking to destroy their industry, deprive them of their sustenance, security and property. All of this has been done without any consultation of representation of them or their interests, it has been done outside of the law and the purview of the civic bodies and agencies that have regulated them well and for generations. And it has been done in defiance of all evidence and of the public will, which has repeatedly and overwhelming said it supports the carriage trade and wishes that the horses remain in New York. In New York City, the mayor has chosen to take away the freedom, way of life, liberty and security of hundreds of his citizens. In this, he is opposed by nearly three-fourths of the citizens of the city. By every newspaper. By labor unions and business organizations. By the rich and the poor, by every racial, gender, age, ethnic and geographical entity in his city, and by countless animal lovers, children, tourists, visitors and lovers of the great park that is a crown jewel of the city. He has consulted no experts, taken no surveys, talked to no driver or horse owner, entered into no dialogue, negotiation or discussion. He has, by decree, labeled the targets of his campaign and their work immoral, and refused to discuss it further, stating repeatedly that he is correct, and that he knows he is correct because he believes it to be so. This, then, enters the realm of tyranny, not democracy, and Paine cautioned that there is no such thing as tyranny small or tyranny large, once the crack is opened, it can open wide. He has introduced legislation that would ban the carriage horses and banish them from New York with no mandate at all... There are many disturbing issues to talk about it in the campaign against the carriage trade. The campaign against them is cruel and unjust, characterized by harassment, dehumanization, defamation and unproven accusation. They is absolutely no evidence that the horses are being mistreated, that they are unhappy or discontent, that they are unsafe in the city, that they are ill from dangerous fumes, or are unfortunate in any way. Quite the opposite, animal lovers know they are the luckiest horses in the world. There is no evidence that they are a danger to others, that they would prosper or prefer a life in the wild, or that they are being abused. But there is also this other issue, the one raised by Paine in Common Sense more than two hundred years ago, but that is as relevant today as it was then. The mayor of New York, in almost every respect when it comes to the carriage horse issue, is behaving like a King, not the leader of free people in a free city in America. In this, he is behaving like a monarch, not a mayor. He is speaking only to his God, he has no need to consult the people, listen to them, or represent them... When prejudice warps our wills, or private interest darkens our understanding, the simple voice of common sense, of justice and reason, must say, there is a right, and there is a wrong, and the campaign against the people and the horses of the carriage trade is wrong. (Full article in the link below...)
Posted on: Wed, 07 Jan 2015 01:28:28 +0000
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