finally

[eppie]

Hi,
I don't see what right the government has to limit what consenting adult animals do in the privacy of their barns. :lol:

Seriously, in one sense I agree with you. While a balance needs to be maintained, protecting animals is a worthwhile cause. On the other hand, this stinks of political correctness. I'm sure that there are more serious problems both in terms of numbers effected and of injury done for your government to address. If not, congratulations on living in a near perfect place.

I wish. Although I don't want to discuss about things like pleasure hunting, bio-industry (do you use that word in english.....I mean cattle raising in very small spaces.....something where the dutch and the danes are masters in), killing animals for fur, there are other things which everyone should agree with they are scandalous. If you seriously mistreat animals (for fun or carelessness) (ending up in them dying, being maimed etc.) you hardly get any fine (that is if they catch you) and you are allowed just as easy to get new animals and treating them the same way again. They might say 'don't do that again' if they catched you three times.

The value of a law as anything other than a political statement depends on how well it is enforced and how big a punishment it earns. More interesting than these votes is what is being done a year from now. If the intention is strictly symbolical done for political hay, then I'd rather the law not be passed at all rather than that the legal code be further encrusted by meaningless additions.

--Pete

You are absolutely right.....and as I said before in this reply, the enforcement remains very bad for all kinds of animal mistreatment. Even though it is a fact that people who hurt animals for fun in their childhood, are very likely of doing the same with people later on. (most sadistic serial killers have abused animals in theior younger years) So with this in mind you should at least heavily check such kind of people.
(around the town where I did my PhD, there were many cases (in a few year span) of sadistic and sexual animal (horses mainly) abuse......once they finally cought the guy (by accident probably) it turned out he had killed a homeless guy a year ago (for the fun of it).

The reason why I don't want to classify this as just symbolical is because of who voted against.
If the PvdD (animal rights party) had voted against because they found this law didn't go far enough, and at the same time they would propose a stricter law, I could understand this, but the parties that voted against just want to use this for their campaign next year (they can say the voted against because of the law not going far enough, even though they never would even consider laws going further.......but their voters will believe them.

So all in all, this is just a proposition, a quick vote, and a new law is in the making......which finally is a good thing. Now slowly, slowly, other parties can lobby for better enforcement.
So although small, it is a step in the right direction.