Confused.
All the numbers get me confused I have to sit this one out on the sideline. Not really sure what to think, and what to do. When I donīt trust the HCU, Iīm fearful of supporting their initiatives.
Looking back at the past montīs debates, an overview reveals that certain members of HCU have been dominating this forum. I have also dominated this forum, but soon I will be exhausted and things will go back to normal in here. Normal being, the HCU dominating this forum in persistence to derail certain topics, halt others and promote an alternative agenda.
I would argue that members of the HCU are repeatedly obstructing constructive debates in this forum, and that this behaviour has a close resemblence to typical proactive defensive behaviour from the part of Peta, HSUS and a small bunch of others.
In actively influencing public opinion on large important public forums such as this, animal rights organizations may get an early warning that oby is coming out to get them, but they may also reduce the damage by derailing debate calming down anger and distracting focus away from the root of some important problem.
Although unpleasant, this is not illegal in any respect to, and I expect it is not possible to do anything about?
It would be a tyranical practice for moderators to start banning some people for "having the wrong opinions all the time", and it is not easy to think constructively with all the public noise.
I can only begin to imagine what fantastic debates would take place if there was a guarantee that neither oby nor HCU members participated in any thread on this forum, fearing only that we would cheat, for we both just canīt not do this, for the love of animals and humanity. I would go underground and continue the debate in my favorite undercover alias; oby-1, and you would assume your favorite aliases.
This leads me to the conclusion that unless the responsible keepers can dominate the public opinion on kingsnake and similar forums through rational and civilized discourse and exchange of opinion, in the long run, they cannot avoid loosing ground to AR organizations.
In the same time AR organizations are fighting responsible animal companions through irrationally restrictive legislation to a much further extent.
This gives me the feeling that unless things change a lot and fast, responsible reptile keepers in the US will find themselves in an awqward position in 5-10 years from now.
Many regular members of this forum are aware of a big bundle of very important problems which we should address, but it is difficult to lead a constructive debate when someone is intentionally and actively attempting to derail constructive progress.
Sorry for the long rant, I donīt mean to criticize positive development in HB3079, 1500 or HB3391. Still, isnīt it a shot in the night to go after the mosquito bans when giants like HR669 are threatening the very existence of legal responsible terrarium keepers?
Kind regards
obeligz
