RSPCA Gestapo
From Times Online - Newspaper Edition
Kill a snail and go to jail?
By Valerie Elliott, Countryside Editor
PEOPLE who mistreat animals will face fines of up to £20,000 and year-long prison sentences under welfare laws to be announced next week.
I have no problem with that, real cruelty should be reponded to in kind.
RSPCA inspectors will be given powers to enter premises without a warrant, even by using force, to rescue animals believed to be suffering or at risk of harm.
Sorry? the RSPCA is a becoming a radical campaigning charity, what next? War-on-Want having the right to raid my wardrobe to get jumpers for cold Sudanese babies?
Remember some of the RSPCA is not just against hunting, they embrace all the wackier animal right mantras - do you want them to have the right to storm your house to free your goldfish?
Comments
Odd that you call entering premises to enforce the law ‘campaigning’.
You’re also wrong when you say those who mistreat animals should be treated in kind. While I would have little sympathy for a fox hunter ripped apart by a pack of hounds (and his colleagues would have to say such a death was humane), to bring that about would be to sink to his level of barbarism.
Posted by: Stephen Newton | July 11, 2004 2:35 PM
Personally, I value human life higher than animal life.
Maybe that's just me.
Posted by: Paul | July 11, 2004 3:07 PM
Stephen misunderstands me - though I think I was clear. I described the RSPCA as a campaigning charity, as it describes itself. I didn't describe the forceable entry into homes as part of that campaigning and I don't think any voluntry organisation should have that right. The Adam Smith Institute is a fine campaigning organisation but to suggest it could break down doors in Islington to save children from the horrors of bookcases with socialist twaddle on them would not get my support.
Posted by: Tim | July 11, 2004 3:15 PM
Paul: Preventing cruelty to animals and valuing human life over animal life are not mutually exclusive concepts.
Posted by: Stephen Newton | July 11, 2004 7:28 PM
I am amazed and yet not suprised at the proposed powers for the RSPCA. Many people think the charity already has those powers, and some of them work for the RSPCA.
I find it disturbing that any NGO should have such powers of entry, especially as we know that the RPSCA is highly political and increasingly (at the top anyway) populated by people best described as animal rights zealots.
Posted by: Mark | July 11, 2004 7:44 PM