Q. What is the dumbest petition/movement you have seen against husbandry?

[xAnthemia]

Dumb? This petition was formed out of fear and the fear is real not just imagined.

People don't want an 18 foot python roaming around in their neighborhood, and I don't blame them... You are entitled to your opinion on if this petition is overstepping but these folks want action before someone, or something gets hurt.

Take a look at how many cities have banned certain breeds of dogs.

Dangerous animals...are being regulated, controlled and banned.

To start with the things we are in agreement of, I agree that the petition was formed out of fear and that the fear is real not just imagined. I also agree that councils and the state should have the right to ban and regulate dangerous animals. I myself, for example, am not particularly happy with the fact that, in the UK, you do not need any license whatsoever to buy a king cobra — you need a license to sell one, but not to buy one (don't feed it live though, that's illegal — go figure). The idea of some drunken idiot in the UK buying a king cobra should be an idea that upsets people.


To end with the things we disagree with.

"but these folks want action before someone, or something gets hurt." Call me a conspiracy theorist, but this is not what I believe they want. They want power, and only power. If these people geniunely cared about the health of their fellow citizens, they wouldn't have been so lazy when writing this petition. The formatting of the petition is awful: it reads like a rant, not a petition. Furthermore, there are numerous factual errors in the petition (they want venemous snakes to be banned, yet they refer to them as poisonous). When someone writes a petition to take away both my and my fellow keeper's rights, I at least expect them to be anatomically correct to the animals that they describe; this is not a friendly conversation between two mates, this is a demand to the government—be correct. Lastly, the petition is repeatedly vague ("equally dangerous reptiles" — this is equivalent to a legal et cetera; "emergency button" — no specification, usage, or installment guide of this button is provided, it just uses the word "emergency" to encite fear). A key point to my belief is that I do not believe the vagueness of this petition was an accident. There is a dangerous trend in the United Kingdom for laws to be passed with as many grey areas as possible. The online communications act and its revisions are an example of this. The goal of these people is to allow the goverment as much wiggle room as possible. Being exact to what they want would limit their power, so they make themselves intentionally vague. Furthermore, we can prove that they're nothing but power hungry individuals because the petition does as much as to confirm it in their demands. "Neighbours with babies and children or fragile adults like elderly or invalids (also with animals eg farmers) should have right to OBJECT and disallow their neighbours in radius of 50 yd from keeping large snakes." Remember, large has been defined as 3ft+ in this petition, not the 18ft banana that broke into the petitioner's bedroom. This is a demand that specifically grants regular citizens a power equivalent to the government itself; the power to regulate other citizens. This is absurd: in no way is this demand actually required for this petition, or to regulate animals: it's just there because that's they want, they want the power of the state to themselves. There are literally zero reasons for this to be implemented: if the snake owner has a license from the council, the RSPCA, and the police, as this petition itself also requires, then there is no reason whatsoever for a random citizen to have as much power as to restrict the owning individual - three organisations have already determined the owner to be safe (through the dystopian policies of the petition, might I add), the random citizen in question has no reason to interfere with this decision making, other than the fact that they seek more power. Again, rereading this, I understand that I probably sound slightly insane, but I think it's true: they just want power. In the United Kingdom, it's always been about wanting more power. It's never been about protecting the children, or the teenagers, or the adults, or the elderly, or the "invalids" as they put it, it's about power and control.

"Dangerous animals...are being regulated, controlled and banned." In the context of this petition: no, they are not. The petition in question wishes for 3ft+ snakes to be regulated, and "equally dangerous reptiles". In other words, anything that can bite you, because that's the only thing a 3.1ft snake is going to do. Yes, you could make the argument that if it can bite you it's dangerous. Sure, that's technically correct. However, this would require the state to regulate pretty much every single pet that there is. Dogs, cats, mice, rats, birds, snakes, lizards, some fish, rabbits, literally everything would be regulated by multiple licenses if the definition of "dangerous" is the one this petition provides. I understand that some people in the UK love to have a license for literally everything on the planet, but I'm not one of them.


In conclusion, you've made a good point about fear, and perhaps I'm being a bit too mean when I say "dumb" — ignorant would've likely been a better adjective. There are in fact reasonable arguments for 18 foot pythons to be banned. You could argue why someone even needs such an animal? What is the purpose of this animal in your collection? Is it business, or is it a pet? We've heard it all before and, while I do disagree with them, they aren't ignorant arguments. However, if you're going to attempt to take my rights away, I expect legitimate reasons like these and not ignorant reasons. The issue is that petition in question seems to have made it its mission to provide only ignorant arguments — arguments that are anatomically incorrect to the animals they describe, arguments that are vague, and power-grabbing arguments that are not even required for such a piece of legalisation to exist and work effectively.

As someone who does, in fact, have a phobia of dogs, I have sympathy for people who are fearful. However, I do not have sympathy for people who use their fear to take my rights away. My pet ball python, Noodle, will one day be larger than 3ft. Me and Noodle have been through a lot over the past few months. He and he alone has helped lift me out of my depression. To me, he is the greatest little snake on the planet, who himself has fully overcame a health issue that a reptile vet couldn't even diagnose. He never bites, never hisses, just chills out in his hides and occasionally uses me as a pillow. I think myself not worthy of his bliss... should the government one day pass a law that bans his existence and permits his removal, my local politicians will be in danger of their removal. Don't tread on me.