There Aught To Be A Law--Part II

(The Government Pooper Scooper)

I have a love-hate relationship with the Europeans.

I know that my ancestry is European, but it seems that my family must have taken all of the brain cells with us across the Atlantic back in the late 1700’s and early 1800’s—leaving behind a meandering, self-defenseless, quivering mass of people looking to their government and the UN to solve even the simplest of life’s problems.

I also generally could care less what the Europeans think or do, except that I worry about some of the hair-brained laws that they pass leaking across the ocean to screw up our lives here in the US.

For instance, did you know that they have a Dog Tax in Vienna? Yes, you heard me right…

Vienna taxes dog owners--$0.15 per day.

Being from Alabama, I have to ask: “Is there also a tax on cats, ferrets, raccoons, ‘possums, and gators; or is it just down right illegal to own a pet rattlesnake in Vienna?”

What about armadillos?

Do they put little license plates on the rear ends of dogs in Austria like we do on our cars here?

Actually, they’re having a problem with unregistered dogs, which makes the recent proposal of a new law requiring DNA registration of dogs even more absurd.

“A local Vienna politician wants to use DNA technology to chase down owners of dogs that leave their droppings on streets and sidewalks.

Manfred Juraczka, a councilor in a Vienna district, said Monday he wants the city to register all dogs' DNA so that droppings left where people walk can be tested and the owner of the guilty dog punished.

"This method offers a multitude of unbeatable advantages," Juraczka said in a statement, adding that all who fail to pick up after their dogs "must count on being caught."

Vienna's sidewalks are littered by dog droppings, and campaigns trying to persuade owners to pick up after their pets have made little difference. The city is home to almost 50,000 registered dogs, but the true number is believed to be much higher as many owners ignore the registration requirement.”

See, here is yet another example of the typical government reaction to their own inability to enforce their existing laws. What do they do?

They pass yet ANOTHER law and make the cost of compliance for the existing law abiding citizens even more expensive, at no cost to the people already breaking the law. The dog owners who have already complied with registration law are probably also cleaning up after their pets.

Meanwhile, the owners of the unregistered pets are merrily watching their mongrels poop illegal steaming piles all over the city and they could care less about the new DNA law. Their illegal cost of pet ownership stays the same, while the cost of the legal pet owners rises substantially, and I bet people will still be cleaning stinky stuff off the soles of their shoes at the end of the day.

The bottom line here is this. Whether it's "gun control laws" banning certain scary looking weapons or "hate crime laws" trying to control what you are thinking when and if you decide to blow someone's brains out, a crime is a crime and you can't be deader than dead. Shooting people is already illegal--what size the bullet is and how many bullets the gun will shoot in ten seconds is irrevelent once you bleed to death.

I suggest that our European friends go after the owners of unregistered dogs rather than raising the cost of legal ownership.

Or maybe they could just find something that actually matters to worry about...here's a quarter, call someone that gives a damn.