More Fun Than a Pork Barrel of Legislators
February 24th, 2009House Acts Swiftly to Protect Imbeciles From Themselves
I just read that the House has passed a bill that makes it illegal to keep a chimp as a pet. There goes my plan to kidnap the president of Iran.
It is definitely a bad idea to have a chimp for a pet. No doubt about that. Soy-sucking gun-haters who faint at the sight of a .22 cartridge seem to make up the majority of people who own really inappropriate pets or who try to snuggle up to wild animals and then get eaten, but the obvious fact is, a big strong wild animal is much more dangerous than a whole basement full of assault rifles. Here’s the reason: assault rifles won’t escape and rip off the mailman’s testicles. Guns don’t kill people. Angry chimpanzees DO.
That being said, do we really need this bill? Only idiots have dangerous pets, and this particular type of idiot (I want to be careful here) is in the minority. And there is a legal theory called “strict liability” which, if enforced by slimy tort lawyers (thought to be primitive ancestors of chimpanzees), would probably be a pretty good deterrent.
It has been a long time since I studied for the bar exam, but I think it works like this. If you have something really dangerous in your house, and someone gets hurt because of it, you have to pay. Period. The court doesn’t want to know whether you were negligent. Maybe you kept your box of dynamite on top of the fridge where you were sure the kids would never find it. Nobody cares. You’re liable. And the example they always use when they teach about strict liability is a tiger.
Having seen what chimps can do to people–in particular, their peculiar and well-documented fascination with testicles–I can tell you that I would much rather face a tiger, which kills prey pretty quickly. The other day I saw a photo of the last famous chimp victim. He has two fingers left, his genitals are completely gone, he’s in a wheelchair, and while he has skin on the front of his head, I would not call it a face. If a tiger is grounds for strict liability, surely a chimp qualifies.
Ordinarily this kind of law wouldn’t interest me much, but it’s a little unnerving when the feds start deciding what kind of pet you can have. Here in Coral Gables, there is a law that makes it illegal to own any type of reptile. Try to imagine an American childhood that doesn’t feature at least one dead turtle. It’s unthinkable. Under Obama, liberty is going to shrivel like a slug on the Bonneville Salt Flats. Little things like the monkey law help the snowball gain mass.
I guess you could say that if strict liability were a good deterrent, people would not have chimps. Maybe that’s true. I just dread the day when the Obama Jugend comes to my house to make sure my dog is a neutered vegetarian and that I don’t have any dangerous contraband on the premises, such as hamsters.
Let me conclude by proclaiming that only free men own chimps, although not always testicles.
Cue John Gibson.
February 24th, 2009 at 4:45 PM
Steve, having been involved in animal rescue for several years, I can tell you that this kind of bill is most definately needed. Every single day, there are idiots out there that think that large cats are appropriate pets. I’m not talking about your over-fed 20lb tabby, I’m talking about Bengal tigers, leopards, puma’s-you name it some idiot wants one as a pet.
Now granted if said pet would take it’s owner out of the gene pool, I wouldn’t be sad, BUT they never just take out the owner, they always get loose and maul or kill some innocent person.
Go to http://www.shambala.org/ and read some of the stories of the big cats they have rescued.
February 24th, 2009 at 5:15 PM
Too bad for you. If you kidnapped the President of Iran, I don’t think he’d answer to “Bubbles” anyway.
February 24th, 2009 at 5:26 PM
“I just read that the House has passed a bill that makes it illegal to keep a chimp as a pet.”
I guess the really disturbing part of this story is that Congress is wasting it’s time on BS like this while the whole planet’s economic system is circling the drain. Shouldn’t they be focused on fixing that problem 24/7, rather than writing, debating and voting on monkey bills?
I think it’s because they’re worried they may wind up on one of those chimp reservations themselves when they lose their cushy elected positions.
February 24th, 2009 at 5:42 PM
And only chimps own free testicles.
February 24th, 2009 at 5:54 PM
An excellent point. I have known more than my share of people who own “exotics” (that is, animals they have no business owning) and you’re right, they’re liberals. It’s part and parcel of believing they’re above the law, even if it’s the law of nature.
February 24th, 2009 at 6:49 PM
I take the exact opposite attitude of Heather. I cannot explain it, but I get immense joy reading stories about how wild animals (ESPECIALLY big cats) eat their owners, as if the next owner thinks they can domesticate a cougar or tiger. I know, it is a problem that I have, but there it is.
February 24th, 2009 at 8:13 PM
I don’t care how much animals suffer; that isn’t the point. Governmental interference should be the last resort. If we have to waste legislative time on stuff like this, it should be at the city or state level. I can’t believe Congress just passed what amounts to a municipal ordinance. Next they’ll be scheduling trash pickups.
February 24th, 2009 at 9:17 PM
Municipal and state governments? What are those? D on’t you know that this is now the United Soviet States of America, where all legislation comes from the top down? Or it will be, once Obama and his cronies get done.
Okay, paranoid rant over. Let me tell you about the monkey a family friend used to own. My parents hated that thing — they told me all it did was shit all over the place and break stuff. These people lived in West Miami near Miller. I think the family finally got rid of it — gave it to a zoo, or to Monkey Jungle, or maybe they just threw it in the trash compactor and made up a story. Another true story from my life: I went with this woman I knew to her father’s big house out by Tamiami Airport. He had a cougar or a puma or something like that in a cage in his atrium. I have no idea why he had this cat, except to burnish his macho cred, because otherwise he wasn’t a pet kind of person. I don’t think he even looked at it. I don’t know what happened to the cat, but I fear the worst.
And then there’s this: my first job was as a cashier in the Publix in Coral Gables, the one on Le Jeune. Anyway, one Saturday I was working there and there is this hubbub. I turned around and looked out the window and saw a station wagon with a tiger in the back. It was just sitting there looking at all the ambulatory lunches on legs in the parking lot. And then there was this weird kid I met who used to sleep with his boa constrictor. I don’t think the had that kind of relationship, though. Florida is weird pet central.
February 24th, 2009 at 9:20 PM
I still remember the Scarface/Uzis at the Mall/Tiger in the Backseat of the Mercedes days here in Miami.
February 24th, 2009 at 11:00 PM
Maybe the Obamas could adopt a nice chimp, instead of a Bichon Pouffe or Labradoodle. What do you think?
February 24th, 2009 at 11:17 PM
But it will leave a dangerous power vacuum in Tehran.
February 26th, 2009 at 1:12 PM
You know, you could use one of those dangerous power vacuums out in the garage. Shop. I meant shop. Really, I did.
February 27th, 2009 at 12:56 PM
I had a friend and his father ran the chimp farm at the University of Oklahoma. I was out there one day and saw a fully grown chimp playing with a tire (and I mean picking it up and stretching it into an oval) that came from an 18 wheeler. That opened my eyes a bit. You would not stand a chance against one no matter how strong you are.