When Is Freedom Of Speech Nothing More Than A Vessel For Half Truths, Slander, Misrepresentations, And Insinuations In Order To Deprive An Individual Of Constitutional Rights?

 

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Let Us Be Reminded Of The Long-Standing Decades Old Motto Of The UGBA

 

 

"COURAGE WINS THE VICTORY—NOT THE SWORD!"

Courtesy: UGBA Motto

 

".......In This Fight Against The Animal Rights Idiots"

Courtesy: BD Jones AR Agenda Description

 

 

http://www.furcommission.com/debate/words2.htm

 

 

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From THE HILL Comes.............

 

It’s time to put a halt to cruelty of cockfighting and dogfighting
By Wayne Pacelle

Travel through some rural reaches of many parts of the United States and you will see an unusual type of animal operation: rows of small A-frame huts or small barrels, each with a brightly colored rooster on a short tether.

The birds are raised not for meat or for show but for battle. They are fighting cocks — bred for aggression, trained to fight and destined for mortal combat in the pit.

Cockfighting, and its evil relative dogfighting, are thriving underground industries. Although animal fighting is illegal in the vast majority of states (only Louisiana and New Mexico allow cockfighting, and none allows dogfighting), an organized criminal network raises millions of birds and dogs for staged fights at home and abroad.

The industries persist because prohibitions against the activities are too porous, penalties are too weak and enforcement is too lax.

It is hard to precisely measure participation in the shadowy world of animal fighting. We do know that there are three national, monthly subscription cockfighting magazines — each chock full of advertisements for fighting cocks, for drugs that are pumped into the birds to heighten aggression and clot blood, and for razor-sharp knives and gaffs that are affixed to the birds’ legs. There are about a dozen underground dogfighting magazines and a slew of websites promoting dogfighting and cockfighting. Some California agriculture-industry officials have speculated that some 50,000 individuals are raising fighting birds in California alone.

Last year’s farm bill included a provision to ban any interstate transportation or exports of fighting birds and dogs. Sens. Wayne Allard (R-Colo.), Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) and John Ensign (R-Nev.) and Reps. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.), Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.) and Collin Peterson (D-Minn.) championed the change in the law. Though the House and Senate animal-fighting provisions were identical, conferees stripped the felony-level penalty, defaulting to the misdemeanor-level jail penalty that had been in effect since 1976 and that had proved anemic in deterring illegal fighting activities.

Conferees also delayed the effective date of the provision for one year, claiming that cockfighters and dogfighters should have a grace period to make a final round of profits by selling their animals to the states and other jurisdictions where fighting is legal, including Louisiana, New Mexico, Guam, Puerto Rico, the Philippines and Mexico.

On May 14, the federal provision kicks in and the interstate commerce in fighting animals is supposed to stop. But don’t hold your breath. Cockfighters and dogfighters are a lawless subculture, engaged in not only animal cruelty but also narcotics traffic, illegal gambling and violent acts against people. They will cease their illegal activity only when the costs of arrest, jail time and financial loss exceed the benefits they derive from participation. Paltry fines and misdemeanor charges are considered a cost of doing business.

That’s why Sens. Ensign, Allard and Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) and Reps. Roscoe Bartlett (R-Md.) and Robert Andrews (D-N.J.) have introduced new legislation, S. 736 and H.R. 1532, respectively, to restore the felony-level penalty that had been inexplicably removed in the farm-bill conference. U.S. prosecutors have told lawmakers that they are more likely to pursue cases against animal fighters if they can bring felony charges.

In addition to law enforcement and humane groups, mainstream agriculture is now calling for upgraded penalties for animal fighting. An outbreak of exotic Newcastle disease (END) — a highly contagious scourge that kills almost all infected birds — occurred in California last fall.

The evidence suggests that END found its way to California from infected birds smuggled from Mexico.

Once the disease reached the state, the massive network of backyard cockfighting operations provided the “perfect storm” circumstances for its spread throughout southern California and now into Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico and Texas.

Federal and state authorities have killed more than 3.3 million birds and spent more than $90 million to contain the disease, and there’s no end in sight.

Interestingly, the federal government has paid millions of dollars to cockfighters for the depopulation of their birds — remunerating lawbreakers for their live contraband at rates of up to $350 per fighting bird.

So here we have an industry in which the core conduct involves naked animal cruelty. It is an industry where staged fights are venues for other criminal behavior. And it is an industry that threatens mainstream agriculture.

Isn’t it time to pass S. 736 and H.R. 1532 and clamp down on these gladiatorial spectacles of animal cruelty?

Wayne Pacelle is a senior vice president at the Humane Society of the United States, www.hsus.org.

Source: http://www.thehill.com/news/043003/ss_fighting.aspx

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