UPDATED UPDATE: Ogre pointed out in the comments that YouTube deleted the Ferrets for Freedom video. I have no idea why YouTube did this, but what a shame. Fortunately, the video is still available on MySpace so click through to watch it there.
Disclaimer: kestrel9000 previously covered much of this territory in an excellent diary from May 3. But I thought this fun new PSA-style video from NY Ferrets for Freedom — plus a few thoughts of my own — made it worth another diary. If I'm wrong about that, I'm sure some kind-hearted folks will let me know ... cross-posted at my place.
Some ferrets talk smack about Rudy G:
[YouTube link no longer working — click here to watch the video on MySpace instead. I'd embed it but for some reason I'm getting an error message when I try to do that.]
There was a time when I used to buy the line that ferrets don't make good pets, before I'd ever gotten to know any. But in recent years my sister has had a couple of ferrets and they've been wonderful companion animals — friendly, happy, gentle, and very strongly attached to the human beings in their household. The bottom line is that a lot of people mistakenly believe that ferrets are wild animals, but they aren't — ferrets are completely domesticated, and have been for a long time. (Possibly going as far back as 1500 BC.)
The phone caller in the famous radio show argument with Giuliani (which you can listen to here) is understandably emotional because the city is trying to take away people's pets and have them destroyed. Any cat or dog lover would react the same way if their own pet were in danger of being impounded and killed.
But where does Giuliani's emotion come from in this exchange? Why does he get so agitated about ferrets, and why does he believe anyone who keeps a ferret as a pet needs therapy? You start to wonder how many other animals he has issues with.
This Majikthise post from last fall provides some additional context, and one commenter thinks Giuliani's role in the NYC ferret ban says a lot about his approach to governing:
"This should really be a lesson about rudy for all the people who don't think his presidency will be that bad ... He is an authoritarian prick who seeks to dominate every aspect of the lives of the people he's supposed to care for. He will try to decide what food we can eat, what pets he deems acceptable, what sort of entertainment we should be allowed to see. He does not believe in individual freedom. He does not believe in privacy. He doesn't even believe in human rights.
... Ferret bans might sound silly. But taken with the totality of everything he did as mayor, it's impossible to ignore. The overriding goal of his political career has been to establish as totalitarian a system as he possibly can everywhere he goes."
Republicans are always claiming that they want to get government off of people's backs, but their actions belie this again and again. Republicans want to regulate who people can marry, what they do in their own bedrooms, what health decisions can be made during a pregnancy, how teachers educate children in classrooms, what we can and can't see on television and in movies, and even what pets we're allowed to have.
In fact, the only thing Republicans don't want to regulate is big business. Corporations can screw people over whenever and however they want; it's just actual human beings that have to be careful what we say and do.
And via another commenter on that post, Rudy apparently has a history of accusing anyone who disagrees with him of being mentally ill.
Related:
• More info on the NYC ferret ban and its history
• Here's a link to the NY Ferrets for Freedom page on MySpace ... hopefully it'll stick around there longer than it did on YouTube.
(h/t Towleroad for the original video link.)