AP:
Backers of ballot questions that would end Massachusetts’ income tax, ban greyhound racing and ease marijuana laws say they have enough signatures to make the November ballot.
All three groups already turned in an initial batch of signatures in December and had to collect a second round by Wednesday.
Supporters of a ballot question to phase out commercial dog racing in Massachusetts said they collected 45,000 signatures, about four times the required 11,099.
Backers of a proposal to eliminate the state income tax and of a question to decriminalize possession of an ounce or less of marijuana say they’ve each collected more than 20,000 signatures.
All three appear to be comfortably over the 11,099 threshold, so we can expect a heated series of local issue campaigns this fall.
I will have more money to buy weed with and gamble on cock fights but I will have to give up the dogs?
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p>Life’s a compromise I guess.
We are extremely grateful to everyone who helped collect signatures for the Greyhound Protection Act.
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p>In total, we collected nearly 50,000 Spring signatures with an all-volunteer effort. This is more than the other two campaigns combined, despite the fact that they both used paid signature gatherers. It is likely that we will finish with the most allowed Spring signatures of any campaign in state history.
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p>This election will be a fight between our people and the track’s money and muscle. Please consider joining our grassroots campaign! To find out how you can volunteer go to http://www.ProtectDogs.org.
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p>Carey Theil
Senior Advisor, the Committee to Protect Dogs
Like any other dog lover, I am appalled by the treatment of Greyhounds at these tracks and support the Greyhound Protection Act.
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p>When I visited Spain, I did not attend bullfights because it is not my idea of entertainment to watch an animal being tortured to death. Greyhound tracks are not much better.
ballot initiatives on principal, but I’m going to make a big exception for this one. I’m not sure how much time I’ll have to dedicate to the cause, but I’ll certainly be covering it on my blog (if you’d like to send press releases my way).
Here on the Internet, I had no idea you were a dog!
“You scheduled 201 interviews? What a weird number.”
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p>”You’re weird.”
it’s a function of the number of votes for governor or somesuch.
When I blogged about Referendum Petition in regards to Gay Marriage, it appeared that many bloggers on this site were opposed to people having the power and using RP (“impractical, unethical, tainted by money…”). Has an issue close to people’s hearts caused a flip-flop… How Democratic.
I think last year they lifted 8G’s from me. I’d much rather pay higher local taxes. At least I have some representation on the local level.
did you just skip right by my comment?
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p>However, there is a big difference between voting on someone’s civil rights versus voting on what kind of business practices we want and value in Massachusetts. One is a question of equality, the other is a question of industry.
I don’t care if you want to cohabitate with your pony, your sister, or someone of the same gender. It is none of the states business.
Most folks in MA have cohabitated with both men and women (college, siblings, etc).
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p>It’s about tax fairness.
It’s about medical decision making.
It’s about custody-related decisions for children.
It’s about the fifth ammendment of the US Constitution.
It’s about treating a pair of adults who have made this significant lifelong commitment to each other equally.
You say:
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p>
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p>You’re kidding, right? Webster says:
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p>
One is a question of equality, the other is a question of a person right to use property. One is a civil right, the other a property right.
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p>Is there really any difference between a property right and a civil right? Many scholars conclude there’s no difference. I agree. I therefore conclude that if you think voting on a civil right is wrong, but voting on a property right is right, then…you’re a hypocrite.
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p>Unless of course, you can distinquish between the two.
Business and civil is very different. Civil rights are things that only effect you: free speech ends when you scream “bomb,” after all. Business effects other people, thus it isn’t a civil right. Same thing with propery: decisions of property effect anyone and everyone in a very easy-to-discern way. Otherwise, people could build a skyscraper anywhere they want, or put a nuclear power plant next door. Those decisions deeply effect other people, thus they aren’t civil or human rights. They’re, in some way, akin to screaming “bomb” in a movie theater.
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p>I say all this as someone who’s fairly lax on property issues: I’d like to see more community business, pubs, markets, smart growth, etc. However, I recognize the fact that it’s going to take the Democratic process to accomplish that. It’s my (and your) civil right, however, to preach opinions from soap boxes and organize toward accomplishing goals – if that makes you feel any better.
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p>SOME decisions regarding property affect other people. Many, many others do not. Whether I choose to take my dog to a groomer to get her clipped, to my back yard to run around chasing squirrels, or to a track where she will race other dogs does not have an easy to discern affect on anyone else. Just like whether I choose to paint my basement gray, green, or purple does not have an easy to discern affect on anyone else. You choose two extreme examples to prove your incorrect point. Its like me saying that Gay Marriage negatively affects the public at large because loud same sex weddings will keep entire neighborhoods awake or murderers who are members of a same sex marriages will get off by claiming spousal privilege. Those are two extreme examples where the presence of gay marriage could potentially affects others, but they are clearly not the norm. Neither are skyscrapers and nuclear power plants.
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p>
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p>The phrase “civil rights” is often misused, or at least is often used to mean something other than what it technically means. Civil Rights technically means rights granted by the state. State recognition of gay marriage is a civil right because it carries with it certain rights and privileges granted by the state (joint tax returns, inheritance rights, custody rights, etc.) Free speech is not a civil right. Whether a state exists or not people can speak when they want to. Free speech is a natural right. I’m not sure whether property rights are best categorized as a civil right or a natural right, I can argue that one either way (You have a right to the proceeds of your work whether gov’t exists or not, but at the same time you only have the right to prevent others from taking your property because of gov’t recognition of your property right). Either way, I think its hypocritical to say that the civil right of marriage is off limits to citizen initiatives but the civil/natural right of property is open to a public vote.
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p>Wanting to vote on getting rid of Gay Marriage is an attempt for one segment of society to impose its moral views on the rest of society. So is wanting to vote on dog racing. Its simply hypocritical to say that the anti-gay marriage movement is wrong to attempt to impose their morality on society as a whole but at the same time supporting the anti-dog racing movement’s attempt to impose their moral view on society as a whole.
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p>I think the confusing distinction is that marriage is a civil right which the government does grant, but the essence of what makes someone eligible for marriage is a natural right.
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p>For example, would it be legal for the government to state that marriage could only be granted to people who are fertile and intend to reproduce? I don’t think so.
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p>Would it be legal for the government to state that people over a certain age could not be married? I don’t think so.
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p>Would it be legal for the government to mandate that marriage could only occur between two people of the same race or ethnicity? I don’t think so.
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p>However, the government could declare that being married gives you no right to inheritance, and as long as it attached that to the concept of marriage rather than the type of person who is married, it would be just fine.
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p>The proposed referendum would not have been to assign civil rights to marriage; it would have been to define what “type” of people are permitted to marry. Treating people differently — discriminating — based on what inherent “type” they are is against natural law.
on whether or not you could your house gray; of course you can. that’s neither here nor there. When there’s a law that prohibits you from doing that, get back to me.
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p>No, it’s not. In one way, it’s telling people how they can live. In the other, it’s telling them how they can do their business. We’ve never, in a million years, allowed people to build whatever they want or practice business free from any regulation. In fact, we’ve banned many kinds of business – from selling illegal drugs, to dog fighting.
I was out of town for the past several days without computer access. The painting my house gray comment was in response to your claim that decisions regarding property rights have an easy to discern affect on other people. Most do not. A person’s choosing to use their property to conduct events where dogs run around in circles does not affect anyone else. You can choose to go there, not go there, ignore that person’s property choice, protest that person’s property choice, or celebrate that person’s property choice. But the simple fact is if I want to have dogs run around in circles in my back yard that decision does not have an easy to discern affect on you.
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p>The petition attempting to ban gay marriage did not tell anyone how they could live. People could take part in same sex relationships before gay marriage, during gay marriage, and could if the petition became law. The petition did attempt to prevent the state of MA from recognizing those relationships as “marriages” within the civil definition along with all the rights and privileges attached to that definition. I see no reason why the state of MA should not recognize those relationships as marriages, and I would certainly have voted against any attempt to prevent MA from doing so.
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p>I just don’t see why the anti-gay marriage petitioners’ attempt to impose their moral views on MA as a whole should have been off limits but the anti-dog racing petitioners’ attempt to impose their moral views on MA as a whole is a worthy cause. I think your “property rights vs civil rights” distinction is very weak seeing as how you have not properly defined either of those concepts, and I don’t see why moral restrictions on other people’s marital choices should be any different from moral restrictions on other people’s property choices or other people’s business choices.
The distinction I would make is not between a “civil” right or a “property” right.
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p>Rather, I would argue that the Massachusetts initative petition system rightfully makes it considerably more difficult to get a vote on a proposed constitutional amendment than on other matters.
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p>No?
However, my comment to Ryan goes back to the watchphrase of the same-sex marriage advocates who shouted from the roof-tops that “it’s wrong to vote on a civil right”, when in fact, it’s done all the time.
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p>The vote on the Greyhound thing is a vote to deprive some greyhound owners of a property right. There’s plenty of scholars who believe that a property right is no different from a civil right.
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p>I find Ryan’s position inconsistent, but not surprising.
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p>Fact is, it’s wrong to vote on a right when it’s your right! Right?
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p>I don’t disagree that it should be difficult to bring any right to a vote within the initative petition system.
Greyhound tracks would have gone out of business a long time ago if they had not been propped up by the state. Why do you think the track owners are so desperate to get some other form of gambling onto their tracks?
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p>Furthermore, this law would not prevent anyone from owning a greyhound, and unfortunately there will be nothing to stop greyhound breeders from shipping their dogs to other states. Many, if not most, of the dogs who race in MA were bred out-of-state. So it is not the greyhound owner’s whose rights would be restricted but that of the track owners, and after taking advantage of the state for so long I am not at all sympathetic to their plight.
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Please explain how I’m being inconsistent, and then explain how property rights and civil rights are the same thing using examples from the American legal system, not Europe. After that, feel free to suggest which section of the Bill of Rights says property is a civil right and the government can’t regulate it. (A hint: it doesn’t exist.)
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p>If I’m one thing, it’s consistent. Part of my political philosophy for years now is that businesses only have the rights that we, the people, give them. We, the people, can also take them away. However, we, the people, can’t take away the rights of other people save for changing the constitution. Go look up old posts on my blog and at BMG; you’ll see my consistency.
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p>I can’t remember where I’ve ever said that people don’t have the right to vote to change the Constitution; please don’t attribute others’ views as my own. If you want to jump aboard the Delorean and go to June of 2006, what you would have heard me saying is that Senator Murray should kill the process if we couldn’t outright defeat it in the legislature; saying it shouldn’t go on the ballot is a very different thing from saying it couldn’t. “Wrong” in your sense is a matter of morals, not legality. If enough state legislators could be found to support requiring the Governor be a frog, and if that didn’t conflict with federal law, then I’d recognize its right to exist, even if I’d also vote against it.
But wrong nontheless.
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p>You consistently hold that businesses have some lesser degree of rights than people, even though the business are nothing more than groups of… people.
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p>So, it really boils down to: the “rights” I agree with are important, the “rights” with which I disagree are unimportant. The rest is just rationalization.
have the rights, not businesses. I’m sorry. Whether you agree the premise or not, the fact is I’m right and you’re wrong. We create government regulations every day and enforce them. Sometimes, they help businesses, sometimes they put them out of business. It’s just a fact. If you don’t like that, advocate against it, but don’t pretend that it doesn’t exist.
First off, when I say they are making less valuable someone’s property, I’m not talking about land, buildings and dogs. I’m talking about the license.
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p>Tomorrow, you could seek out a marriage license; a liquor license, the right to welfare, or a license to race greyhounds.
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p>Day after tomorrow, the State has the power to remove either or all of those. It could remove them because you’re tall, or black, or gay or it could romove them because it wants out of the welfare business, marriage business, liquor business or greyhound business.
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p>You say selective removal of one of those licenses is a violation of civil rights because you’re treated unequally, and you reference the Constitution.
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p>I say it’s a limiting of my Liberty regardless whether you’re treating me equal or not, and reference the Constitution.
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p>Either way, if the State removes one of our licenses, we’re deprived of something and are invidually worse off.
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p>BTW, I don’t fer certain, recall if your position was and is “it’s wrong to vote on rights”, so if that’s not your position, then nevermind.
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Being married and finding employment is a completely different concept. I guess I’d be agreeing with you if the ballot question were about banning race track owners who were black, gay, ect. That would violate civil rights. However, since it treats everyone equally, it’s something completely different.
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p>For example, to address your marriage equality point and put it in line with my over-all view, another way of dealing with marriage equality could have been to have government just stop issuing any marriages, or to give civil unions to everyone. I’d find that constitutionally acceptable, because it would treat everyone fairly, though I think it a much worse policy. I also think the SJC would have accepted that position had that been where Massachusetts moved in (and, again, I’m thankful it didn’t).
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p>We’re not discriminating against dog-track owners in a Constitutional sense, even if the result of the new policy won’t benefit the dog track owners in the short term, because we’re treating all of their shareholders equally. So, I hope you can see my perspective better – and I hope you’ll agree with it, but if not, let’s just agree to disagree.
This is not a property rights issue. No property is being taken in any way.
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p>Instead, it is about what is acceptable to our community. We prohibit many activities because our community finds them unacceptable.
Sorry, but are you nuts? Of course it is. Don’t you think that the dogs, the tracks, the equipment, the land is property owned by someone? And, if the racing is eliminated, the property will be devalued in their hands.
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p>Whether you’re for, or against the issue, of course it’s a property rights issue. You’re advocating to close down greyhound tracks.
I’m curious what attorneys on BMG think of this issue.
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p>Thoughts?
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p>In full disclosure, this is one of the exact arguments that dog track owner George Carney has made before the SJC. On the court’s website, you can find both his brief and our reply brief.
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p>I predict the SJC will rule against Carney.
I just told you what I think.
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p>How is outlawing a person’s business any different from a taking? One day you have a business, the next day, no. Sounds like a taking to me.
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p>And, if his property has just been taken, why should he bear the cost. It should be the Commonwealth’s cost and he should be compensated.
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p>I have no legal opinion of his position, but the stark reality is that it absolutely is a Property Rights issue.
when it doesn’t gain the income from the gains over all these years?
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p>If CA votes to make same-sex marriage illegal again, should CA pay all the losses that the CA same-sex participants will lose? You know, tax benefits, decision making benefits, equal 5th ammendment protection, that sort of thing?
I think it is a ‘taking’. However, in a legal sense, because it probably, it doesn’t fit within the stare decisis et non quieta movere of emminent domain cases, the appeal will likely fail. Too bad.
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p>Consider if the Greens got together and managed to get a petition vote passed that made illegal all gas burning autos such that your car is worth scrap. Is that, practically speaking, any less of a taking than if the Government seized your car?
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p>And to Stomv’s point, why should the Commonwealth pay for the loss, the answer’s simple, the voters saw a gain in making said property worthless. They received a gain; they should pay the person giving up the value for his or her loss.
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p>Same with the Greyhound. Individuals have property. State seeks to make it worthless via a regulation. If the devaluation of property is worth it to the commonwealth then it should pay for it.
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p>Such a short cut around emmient domain. Rather than seizing property, simply pass a law that makes holding the property illegal.
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p>Holding which property will be illegal? Owning greyhounds will remain legal. Owning a race track will still be legal. Heck, encouraging your dog to run in a circle will still be legal.
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p>The issue isn’t holding the property, and laws are changed all the times in ways that impact the value of property, most notably zoning. Thems the breaks my friend, thems the breaks.
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p>For those unaffected personally, that’s the typical response. But, when the government decides to “regulate” something that makes it personal, your perspective may change. Suppose the Commonwealth, in its infinite collective wisdom made bicycling on public ways, statewide illegal. A taking? YMMV.
To my mind this example just shows the absurdity of trying to describe everything in terms of property right. You can do it–our economic system is based on that after all–but you miss a lot.
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p>To answer your question: No, it would not be a “taking” analogous to eminent domain. It would however be a stupid thing to do, don’t you think?
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p>Karl Marx famously wrote to the effect that the ideology of the economic mode of production becomes that of the entire society. If we lived under feudalism I suppose you would be telling us how all rights are really derived from our relationship to our overlord.
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p>I don’t doubt that some property-rights arguments have merit, but you have taken an extreme, reductionist position here and most of BMG has declined to lie on your Procrustean bed.
but ‘thems’ still ‘the breaks.’
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p>Look, we get that you don’t like the current process. But that doesn’t change the fact that the current process exists, whether you think it should or not.
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p>I don’t think that Greyhound racing should be legal, especially in its current form, but that doesn’t change the fact that it is legal. I’m doing my best to change that, as the process affords me. But until I’m successful, ‘thems the breaks.’
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p>Good for you, then, that the process also affords for giving you ways to change the things you don’t like. Feel free to start your grassroots movement to do so.
This is an excellent example the attitude that requires government to be shrunken, minimized, and curtailed.
but the reality is that every time any piece of legislation changes, there are inevitable losers. When the GOP Congress passed a do-not-call list, they reduced the value of telemarketing businesses, and cut into the profits of businesses doing business with telemarketing business.
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p>Every time any legislation changes, there are inevitable winners and losers. Thems the breaks. What else can be said?
We are arguing about the concept of “regulatory taking” in which the govt extinguishes the value of property. The law is that if the value is reduced to zero, there is a compensible taking, and if not, there isn’t. So you’re right that this racing ban probably isn’t a taking, since the track might be rented out for kids’ birthday parties after a ban, and the puppies might be sold for $2 apiece.
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p>I happen to think that this standard is way to favorable to government, because, generally, government is never, ever, to receive the benefit of the doubt on anything, and can never, ever, be trusted. This is a general problem with takings jurisprudence– far too much deference given to government that deserves no deference at all.
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p>To wit, your town government could designate the house that you own as a blight, and condemn it, along with many of your neighbors’. They will pay you “market value” (which means: significantly less than you could have sold it for yesterday, and maybe not enough to pay off your mortgage, so good luck with that), raze all the property, and sell it to Wal-Mart for the construction of super center.
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p>The positions taken above dismiss this chain of events as a mere imposition of property rights, that pales in comparison to depriving someone of their important “civil rights” to have a piece of paper that uses one word rather than another word, and to take certian tax deductions, etc.
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p>This distinction is, to put it mildly, absurd and patently self-serving.
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Just because it isn’t a Constitutional Right, Gary, doesn’t mean it’s going to happen. People would never, in a million years, vote on the matter of your Green Party red herring. But do they have the right to try to do it? Yes. They could try and fail.
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p>And to Stomv’s point, why should the Commonwealth pay for the loss, the answer’s simple, the voters saw a gain in making said property worthless. They received a gain; they should pay the person giving up the value for his or her loss.
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p>Sorry, that’s not how it works. If you feel it should work differently, you can start your quest to change the state’s constitution.
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p>BTW
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p>In what bizarro land would a place like Wonderland ever be worthless? It’s acres and acres across the street the nation’s first public beach and a major subway station. That’s why your argument will never hold up: no one’s saying the Government is going to take away the land; we just set up regulation for what that land can be used for. As I’ve said elsewhere in this diary, that happens every day – whether you like it or not.
I believe that you were quite outspoken that society should not put same sex marriage up for a popular vote because the right to marry is a civil right. So should siblings be able to marry? What about a 14 year old and a 70 year old?
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p>Our society doesn’t recognize validity to a sibling marriage. But many years ago in Europe royal families thought that siblings should marry so their blood lines would not be tainted.
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p>So where do we draw the lines on what we can vote on and what we can’t? You seem to be ok with putting the property rights of greyhound track owners and greyhound trainers up for a popular vote. I’m really not trying to play gotcha on this one, my sympathies lie with what I think your positions are on both of these issues. I just really can’t get past what I see as rank hypocrisy as to what public referendums our state should be able to have.
they’re not old enough to give consent. The lack of consent is also why discussion of marrying an animal is silly. Case closed.
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p>As for siblings, that’s an interesting question — particularly gay siblings or any other pair of siblings who can’t procreate with each other. Polygamy, in any of its forms, is another interesting question. I think strong arguments can be made to keep both verboten, but since we’re talking about adults with the power of consent and their own bedroom(s), it is deserving of a discussion methinks.
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p>Just not here and now.
It happens every day. Just this year, a packy was denied a license in my town. But it was his property! GAH!
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p>I’m sorry, but you’re not talking about higher law, you’re talking about the law that’s made every day. We vote on what’s legal and what’s not, regarding both business and property, on an every day basis. Hell, the POTUS voted not long ago on a bill that allowed property to be taken by eminent domain as a tool for cities and towns to earn more in property taxes – and that’s your uber conservative Supreme Court talking. This is not a new phenomenon.
But it’s almost definitely not a “taking” that would raise constitutional concerns. I mean, of course gary is right that some “property” will be worth less if the question passes. (Conversely, other “property” may be worth more.) But that happens all the time — the state has very broad police powers, and the state’s exercise of those powers routinely affects the value of property. This strikes me as an ordinary exercise of those powers.
defining who can marry and who cannot marry has always been an ordinary exercise of police power. States have set ages when a person can marry, have required a certain number of days after a divorce before a person can remarry, have prevented certain relatives from being able to marry each other. I don’t think you really want to say that its OK to have a public referendum as long as its within a ordinary exercise of the state’s police powers.
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p>So why is it not ok to vote on the civil right of same sex marriage but its ok to vote on the property right to use your property to conduct dog races?
when you fairly obviously do not. I was one of those “process liberals” who took the view that the legislature should vote on the anti-marriage amendment rather than killing it by procedural means, and should vote “no.” “Let the people vote” with respect to proposed constitutional amendments has always been a PR stunt — I suspect that even the people banging that drum particularly loudly realized it — because the state Constitution clearly gives the legislature a gate-keeping role with respect to constitutional amendments. Start with these two posts for my views on this; there’s a ton more in BMG’s archives.
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p>So, to answer your question: it’s “not ok” to vote on a proposed constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage because the legislature could not muster 25% in favor of the amendment in two consecutive sessions. On the other hand, “its ok” to vote on the proposed law banning dog racing because the proponents got the signatures they needed, and the legislature has no gate-keeping function with respect to proposed laws.
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p>As for the takings issue, the courts will sort that one out. As I’ve already said, I think it very unlikely that a taking will be found. But courts do odd things all the time, so who knows.
I was out of town. I also apologize for imputing the “no voting on marriage rights” position to you. I largely agree with your positions on that issue. I find this comment of yours, directed at Ryepower, to be particularly prescient.
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I can tell you that, in the heat of the moment during the Constitutional Convention, he took a position very much like yours, and emphatically held that “can’t vote on civil rights argfument was (paraphrased) hogwash.
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p>He took a great deal of heat for this position, and a fair number of regular posters were so upset by it that they stopped posting here.
from now on, every time you reduce this to marriage equality. The question is greyhounds.
Are you arguing that the state doesn’t have the right to do anything that might devalue someone’s property? If so, that would mean the state would not be allowed to buy or sell any real estate that might affect the value of other people’s real estate, or build roads that might change traffic patterns around existing businesses, etc? I think that would be a pretty silly line of argument.
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Thanks everyone for a good discussion.
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p>Many narcotics were legal at one time. Until very recently, some states allowed legal cockfights. When these were prohibited, some property must have been “devalued.”
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p>This approach would leave us without any community standards at all.
without the ability to refine and evolve our standards anyway.
While property may be regulated to a certain extent, if regulation goes too far it will be recognized as a taking.
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p>Now you may disagree, but don’t disagree with just me. Those were the words of Justice Holmes in Pennslyvania Coal v. Mahon.
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p>Then, in Penn Central v. NYC, the SOTUS posted up some criteria as to what constituted a taking:
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p>1) The economic impact of the regulation on the property owner;
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p>2) the extent to which the regulation interferes with the owner’s reasonable investment-backed expectations, and
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p>(3) the character of the regulation. When inquiring into the character of the regulation, the court will look to the magnitude of the regulation, how the regulation distributes the burdens and benefits among property owners, and whether it violates any of the owner’s essential attributes of property ownership, such as the right to exclude.
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p>Regulation to shut down dog tracks. A taking? You decide.
Surely, the land that is currently used as the Wonderland Race Track would be worth far more as just about anything else. You could put a whole host of condos there, and the land would sell for millions. You could be more creative, create more jobs and make the land worth even more. You’re going to have a very, very, very tough time convincing anyone that by preventing greyhound racing, the land would be a ‘taking.’
to make the most money out of the land.
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p>Must be because they are just such bad people as to spend money solely for the purpose of being mean to dogs.
It’s private property. Owners can do any legal damned thing they want with it. Apparently they are.
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p>The unspoken assumption behind your remarks suggests that owners always do the most profitable thing. I bow before such breathtaking naivete.
Thank goodness that we have a government that can tell us what to do, and when, and how. Whatever would we do without the government to save us from our silly-billy selves?
pro-dog killing?
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p>should we plea for Michael Vick to be pardoned, or something?
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p>I don’t see a tremendous difference between dog fighting and dog racing. Well, except one thing… there’s a whole lot more dogs getting hurt and dying from racing.
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p>
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p>This is why we have simple government regulation. Claim private property protection all you want, but this is about basic human fairness. We have a duty to make sure we aren’t cruel to animals.
I know of two or three dogs that have been hit by cars, or died by eating chocolate, in my neighborhood during that same period of time. Figures for cats are doubtless worse. Maybe we should ban pet ownership as well.
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p>This peice of junk referendum is nothing more than busybody moralizing government. Zero difference between busybody moralizing of this sort and busybody moralizing lawmaking of the sort that tends to focus on people’s sleeping arrangements.
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p>Your arguments about how it “happens all the time” might carry more weight had you not spent the last year and a half preaching about how such votes area a travesty of justice.
I’m not going to defend dogs as pets. Maybe it would be an apt comparison if we were talking about abusive pet owners – the kind of which we see on Animal Planet cop shows – but even that isn’t an appropriate comparison, because we have very strict laws against it. People lose their pets for being abusive pet owners every day.
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p>This “piece of junk referendum” is actually about protecting dogs who live in completely abusive situations. We “moralize” government every day: that’s why it’s a Democracy. We’ve decided stealing is wrong, fraud is dishonest and illegal and that it’s a good thing to own homes (thus, tax incentives). We’ve also done some things I’d be against – like create Blue Laws, many of which are still on the book, which prevent local entrepreneurs from earning as good a living as they could. Thankfully, when we over moralize, people like you and me are able to speak up and do something about it. That’s something dogs can’t.
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p>A new watchword: think of the animals. What, we run out of children causes?
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p>Simple government regulation. Which of these words doesn’t belong? A hint: Simple.
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p>Simple regulation would be: it’s a crime to be cruel to animals. Of course we have that one on the books already.
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p>So typical:
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p>1: The poor animals, we have to do something,
2: This petition thing is something,
3: Let’s do that.
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p>Effect on business? Effect on dogs? Effect on a person’s or peoples possession? Brush it aside because ‘business only has the rights we give them.’ How very effete of you.
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p>Did ya read that Constitution thing? Life, LIBERTY,…
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p>Having no position on whether or not Greyhounds are or are not treated well or poorly, I’m at least confident that this particular question will be defeated.
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p>The better irony would be however 1) that this question passed 2) the income tax repeal passes and 3) Mr. Carey wins his lawsuit and the SJC ruled the passage of the referendum a ‘taking’ and the Commonwealth had to pay him damages from money it now no longer has.
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p>
… and these opinions are pretty far out of the mainstream.
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p>Gary’s perspective could be used to sanction an entire universe of abuses, including dogfighting and cockfighting.
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p>CentralMassDad’s comparison is even more incredible. When a dog is hit by a car in your neighborhood, that is a terrible accident.
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p>When an industry breeds thousands of dogs, subjects them to a life of nearly endless confinement in cages barely large enough for them to stand up or turn around, and causes them to race against each other at fast speeds so that people can gamble on them, knowing that hundreds will suffer broken legs, paralysis and death from cardiac arrest, that is institutionalized cruelty.
…isn’t there already a law preventing cruelty to animals?
(MGL 272 – 77 : http://www.mass.gov/legis/laws… )
If small cages are cruel, why not just regulate the minimum cage size?
If dogs suffer broken legs, paralysis and death from cardiac arrest, why not just prosecute the perpetrators under that law?
Keeping thousands of dogs in small cages barely large enough for them to stand up or turn around for twenty or more hours per day is certainly cruel.
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p>It does not, however, violate the state’s anti-cruelty law which only prevents horrific individual acts of cruelty.
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p>We certainly could require that commercial dog tracks allow dogs the same space they would receive at the MSPCA. However, this regulation would put the tracks out of business and critics would say that voters were closing the tracks in an underhanded way.
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p>Don’t you think that everyone deserves a fair debate on this issue?
No one’s civil rights were infringed in the vote on the anti-marriage amendment, which was entirely within the state constitution.
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p>(Not so, by the way, the Legislature’s shameful adjournment without acting on the health-care amendment, the language of the constitution notwithstanding. There a case can be made that he legislature violated a civil right that is articulated in that document.)
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p>Gary: Brian Harvy is one of those provocative thinkers I’m glad civilization can produce, but isn’t he a bit out there?
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p>Under capitalism everything is going to look like a property right along the same lines a the old saw of everything looking like a nail if you have a hammer. But ultimately it’s wrong to be such a reductionist.
I mostly agree with Ryan’s comments throughout this part of the thread. The essence of everything we as Americans stand for (or should, anyway) is found in the second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they our endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” The original Lockean construct refered to life, liberty, and property, but the latter was deliberately substituted. We must remember the context of property rights. At the time Europe still remembered a feudal system, wherein serfs didn’t have property and even most nobles only held theirs until a superior lord decided otherwise. The actual taking of property is allowed by the Constitution provided just compensation is given, but I would narrowly define taking as the forced transfer of the title of real estate from the private holder to the government.
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p>I am against referenda questions except for state constitutional amendments because I believe that is what the legislature is for. I do vote on them if presented because those are the current rules and I still believe if you don’t vote you can’t complain. Prohibiting dog racing may force you to find a different line of work, but it does not discriminate against you because of who you are. The 14th amendment to the Constitution requires states to afford to all its citizens the equal protection of the laws, which is why I believe all federal and state DOMAs are unconstitutional. I would rather not vote popularly on either civil or property rights, but civil is much more offensive to me and I reject the label of hypocrite.
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p>True the 2nd paragraph doesn’t say ‘property rights’. It also doesn’t say ‘civil rights’. Also, it doesn’t exclude either from those unalienable rights.
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p>So, when society wants to regulate a right, how else to do it but by vote, whether that vote be by the Representatives or through some legislated referendum process.
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p>If you have some better means to regulate a civil or property right, please share. Also, if you have some means to distinguish between the two, let me know.
Civil rights are about personhood and human dignity; property rights are about material possessions. As for the Declaration, it does say that all men are created equal. At least when I use the term civil rights, I generally mean the right of all persons to be treated equally regardless of race, gender, etc. Property rights COULD become a civil rights issue IF, for example, certain people were deprived of the right to acquire property simply because of their race. Then it would become an equal protection issue, which is the Constitutional term for civil rights. The legislature can vote on “property rights”, if that’s what you call it (though I think you define it to broadly anyway), but Courts are responsible for protecting civil rights.
It is unconstitutional and undemocratic for a majority to vote on a minoritiy groups inherent natural and civil rights. Imagine if this country had to vote on Brown v Board in 1955 how far a setback that vote would have dealt to the civil rights movement? Imagine if it had voted on slavery in 1860? There are some issues the people are not allowed to vote on. The Constitution was one such issue, as were all the amendments by the way, and no one would dare call the Founders undemocratic elitists but they were smart to limit the peoples power to avoid mob rule.
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p>Personally I believe that all ballot initiatives are stupid and fly smack in the face of that republican (note not democratic) spirit that founded this country and contradicts Locke, Jefferson, Montesquieu and embraces Rousseau so it cannot possibly be a good thing for a body politic to do. Yet as long as they are on the ballot I have a right I do not deserve but shall exercise to have my voice heard. While I oppose ballot referendums on principle I would have come out to vote down the gay marriage ban, I would have come out to vote down the Enabling Act in 1933, and I will come out to vote out Greyhound Racing, vote out overly draconian drug laws, and vote out the dumbest tax cut proposal in state history.
It sounds nice in the abstract, but the ballot iniative question at present has little to do with grass roots movements. In most cases getting a question on the ballot depends on paying for singature collectors. If you have enough money or if a few b backers with deep pockets is willing to fund you you can getg just about anything on the ballot. The results in most cases is a series of extremely narrow questions or questions of the let it be Christmas everyday sort.
Carey Theil’s posting, above, strongly implies that they used no paid signature gatherers. She may want to confirm that.
I have a female friend (an ordained minister) named Carey.
ProDog is a true grassroots organization.
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p>And don’t worry, I don’t sweat pronouns. 😉
where the dogs are ____ing.
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p>Soundgarden was the best.
Is there any difference between the apparent pitfall of the ability of a “cause” being able to pay for signature collectors and a politician being able to pay for advertisements and running an election? Surely the same logic must apply so “Christmas everyday” is on par with “Tax reductions for the middle class, windfall tax on oil companies…”