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RE: R snake men lazy?
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by 23bms on February 4, 2009
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pictigaster1
This hobby IS in its death throes. In municipality after municipality and state after state, laws are being passed that are shutting down your freedom to keep whatever. Like a cancer, these laws are metastasizing throughout the nation. Read Z's posts. National laws are being proposed as well. Denial is fine for the short term, but someday you will suddenly wake up and find that you were wrong and the sickening realization will set in that it is too late to do anything about it.
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RE: R snake men lazy?
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by 23bms on February 4, 2009
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I run a business out of my house and receive a steady stream of customers there. If word ever got out of what is in my basement, given peoples mindless prejudices in this area, I would be shut down. I am semi-retired, but I happen to like the little bit of mad money that comes in on the side. I am not going to jeopardize that to satisfy YOUR curiosity or anyone else's. I believe I made myself clear?
jrb
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RE: R snake men lazy?
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by 23bms on February 4, 2009
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Correction: I believe I HAVE made myself clear.
Spelling and grammar are important.
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RE: R snake men lazy?
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by pictigaster1 on February 4, 2009
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GET REAL I AM VERY VERY WELL KNOWN I HIDE NOTHING.I will not argue I apologize for my attack.I am very involved in trying to keep this hobby legal.The hobby is not in death throws the hobby will live on.Those who hide who they are ,are killing this hobby as well as the legal system .Stand up for what you believe in.If you stand for nothing you will fall for anything.Archie bottoms.
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RE: R snake men lazy?
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by Chance on February 5, 2009
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See Z, snake guys aren't lazy. They're perfectly willing to fight it out on an online forum if one only takes the time to insult another's manhood.
I'm afraid 23bms is correct though, like it or not. This hobby, in a legal sense, seems apparently destined for failure. Can you really blame people who know nothing about venomous reptiles?
I mean just think about it for a second. To your average layperson, who in his/her right mind would keep something like a cobra or rattlesnake in a spare bedroom or outbuilding? Snakes are the most reviled animals on the planet. Does it surprise you that irrational fears would build large enough to cause legislators to want to take action?
To Joe Schmoe with his 5 kids living next door to freaky Sam the Snakeman and his 100 poisonous snakes, each and every one of those snakes represents a direct threat to his family. Irrational or not, the fear is real. So how does one deal with the fear? As usual, we make laws. Sucks for us, but good thing we're only 0.001% of the entire US population (as far as venomous snake keepers go). We have about as much impact lobbying a particular politician as NAMBLA (google that one if you're unfamiliar), and we probably seem about as sane.
We keep talking about ways to stop the tide, but honestly I think it's far too late for any action on our part. We've vastly outnumbered and out-financed. And hell, the other side even looks better, or at least more civilized - just go to a typical herp show to see that.
Nothing in our country's Constitution guarantees us any "right" to keep an animal in a cage. You might argue the whole 'pursuit of happiness' angle, but that same argument can be applied to an entire host of other illegal things you probably don't mind remaining illegal (heroine anyone?). Other people, and the law, view it that our hobby could directly impact the health and safety of our neighbors. Of course driving cars and consuming alcohol kill far more innocent people but shhh, that's beside the point. Those are major revenue generators.
So in reality, we don't really have a constitutional foot on which we can stand. Ours is a privilege, revocable upon showing that we can't keep ourselves and our neighbors safe. After the rash of bites and notable escapes of late, we've now shown that we can't handle the responsibilities, at least to them. The legislators.
I just have to sit back and wonder why anyone is surprised by this?
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RE: R snake men lazy?
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by tigers9 on February 5, 2009
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Chance, expand your horizons, the recent bans are not jsut about snakes, snakes are just one of many species/breeds of animals included. The bans often include gerbils, ferrets, sugar gliders, hedgehogs...what have they done to humankind and unruly children? How often to you hear about gerbil attacks?
And unreasonable bans are happening in other aspects of our lives, we just notice the animal portion of this insanity more because we are passionate about our animals.
Z
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RE: R snake men lazy?
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by CharlieO on February 5, 2009
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I haven't spoken much on this type of post, so I guess I'm overdue. Something I think is being overlooked here, these proposed (and in many cases, passed) laws didn't just crop up because someone decided "Oh my...we should really ban <insert favorite animal/mineral/vegetable here>" out of the blue. These things come about because someone has noted either an extremely visible incident or trend of incidents that caused (in their mind) legitimate concerns about the safety of the community at large. While the perception may be wrong (and I, for one, will not discount the possibility of such perception being right in a given instance), the motives are (generally) honorable.
Rather than viewing everyone on the other side with suspicion and ire, do a better job of empathizing and understanding, then you can do a better job of countering the position rationally and in a manner with a better chance of winning others to your side.
Left and Right, Liberal or Conservative don't really matter; what matters is the ability to convince a majority of legislators and a large percentage of the pooulation as a whole, that (since this is a herp site) that ownership of venomous/exotic snakes can be both responsible and a benefit to society at large.
If you can do that, then you have a shot...
Now to speak to the *original* posting...
As a frequent visitor (almost daily) who does not keep snakes but is interested in both venomous snakes and the hobby as a whole, I find the "fastest/deadlist/etc." topics interesting to a point, however, they quickly grow tiresome. I also find the scientific information interesting to a point, but those posts often get over my head (as a layperson) and become difficult for me to understand.
Things that would pique my interest greatlywould be more discussions (and more articles) on snakes in the news, general scientific information aimed more at novices/laypeople, a library of general venomous species information (e.g. Rattlensake species with ranges, habitat, habits, etc. along with pictures (as already shown in the Rattlesnakes section)), etc.
Thanks for allowing my rant...
Charlie O.
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by tigers9 on February 5, 2009
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CharlieO wrote <<the motives are (generally) honorable. >>
This is where they/AR distracted you and naïve public and legislators.
These bills are proposed in the name of public safety, but there is no public safety issue in a big scheme of things. There might be some hobby/occupational hazard issues, but if we fall for this approach we better ban all sports as well.
Lost of these bills are advertised as ‘pet tiger bans’, never mind that pet (aka non USDA) tiger is a myth, phantom, I don’t think there is more than 50 strictly pet tigers left in the whole USA.
However, when you read the actual bills/bans, they are stuffed with harmless animals. But since most people only listen to the media version, aka pet tiger (or hot) ban , (and how can normal boring people disagree with that, right?)and don’t bother to read the whole bill text and LOOONG list of HARMLESS species, these bans get passed using distraction techniques on the part of AR groups. How is that honorable?
These bans happen because AR want them and the visibble incidents are just used as an excuse to finally find an idiot brain less legislator to pass them.
Z
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