On Friday, Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal vetoed a
Republican bill requiring dogs in the beds of pickup trucks to be put into appropriate pet safety containers on interstate highways.
It was another glaring example of how this Tea Party breed of Republican serves only a minority of interest groups with little regard for their charge to protect and serve the public while IN office, not just pander to the special interests that got them there.
"Animal cruelty is explicitly prohibited by current law, and I trust that our citizens can care for their pets without the nanny state intervening to dictate how a dog is secured in the bed of a pickup truck," Jindal rationalized.
Republican Tom Willmott (Kenner) sponsored the state bill because animals loose in a pickup bed pose hazards both to the animals and other drivers.
The Humane Society of the United States reports that at least 100,000 dogs die annually after being thrown from the back of pickup trucks or jumping out, or being dragged by the truck when they are tethered in the back and fall over the edge.
Dogs usually are the victims, being thrown under the car, but a 30+ lb dog being projected off of the back of a pickup truck at high speed on a highway can cause the animal to hit the windshield or cause the cars following to veer and end up in accidents causing injuries and fatalities.
The law did not mandate securing the animals at all times, as in out while out hunting, a complaint of a few knee-jerk rednecks who made a little noise on the issue. Heck, the law didn't even cover dogs in pickup trucks on lower-speed streets, which most animal organizations and many state DMVs recommend against doing as well as a safe carry practice.
Just Louisiana's interstates were targeted by the law.
What Jindal's "nanny state" veto of this law speaks to, though, has more to do with Tea Party politics of anti-governance than public safety or animal welfare.
Common sense would dictate that you should not drive a motorized vehicle under the influence of alcohol or drugs. Yet every day people do. We hold them accountable for bad judgment.
Common sense would dictate that dumping toxins into a river would be bad for the users of the water downriver. Yet that happens too.
Every day, whether it's because folks just don't think, or think that they are a bit more entitled to their particular freedoms than are their neighbors, we have situations where various individuals and groups personal liberties collide.
One of the cornerstones of government is as a protector. That's its first and primary mission. Provide for the common defense. Promote the general welfare. It's right there in black and white in the federal Constitution, and has been a foundation of why we form societies.
If you are out four-wheeling and you don't care enough about your animal to secure it properly and it flies out of the truck, it may become a tragedy, but the harm is to the animal in your care and nothing more.
You are driving on a public highway. The car in front of you jams on their brakes, and, to save your own neck, you swerve, sending the dog flying out of the truck into the windshield of the car behind you. The car behind you swerves to avoid hitting and killing your dog, hits the embankment and flips, killing or injuring the passengers of that car.
It would seem like your right to let your dog wander in the back of your truck on the highway is less of a life and liberty issue than the people whose lives you put at risk, not to mention the life of your pet, vet bills if they survive the ordeal, etc.
Government is who gets to make those freedom line calls. They legislate. If we don't like it, we change the law or go to the courts to demand the law be changed.
The veto power of the executive, state or federal, needs judicious exercise. Vetoing a law sponsored by a Republican with broad bipartisan support to impress a small constituency of the redneck hunters who don't already secure their animals in the back of the pickup properly (Many do), trivializes Jindal's office as it disrespects the lawmaking process.
Government is a caretaker of its people. That is its function. Jindal is the caretaker in chief. To use a veto to mock his position only indicates that it should go to someone who understands the role of the executive in governance a bit better.
If Bubba can toss his cooler into the pickup bed before going out to the great outdoors, he can put the pooch in a protected carrier cage tied down to the bed so his dog doesn't become a victim and or a lethal projectile.
Of course it's totally hypocritical.
Jindal and his cronies had no problem with Louisiana's "nanny state" passing House Bill 305 that prohibits family planning services from providing information on health related issues, including sex education, at public and charter schools. He agreed to sign House Bill 388 that uses a few bits of chicanery to close virtually all of the women's clinics which, in addition to all of their other work, provide abortion services. [1]
Jindal is all for personal freedom, unless, of course, you're suing an oil company that destroyed your livelihood. Then he has a law for that that will save BP and its affiliated companies billions, but screw over the citizens of the state he is sworn to protect.
When Republicans like Jindal use code like "nanny state," then, they are more concerned with the nanny taking care of their base and their money that keep them in power, and far less concerned with public safety and welfare.
To be sure, there is a balance between too much and too little government. Jindal signed a bill removing speeding cameras off those same interstates over concerns of a lack of due process. Louisiana tied for second place with Arizona, South Carolina, and West Virginia, ironically all Tea Party strongholds, in the most number of fatalities on the highways in 2009, the last year for which the U.S. Census keeps record.
Where, Mr. Jindal, does this slippery slope end?
Let's drop DUI laws. The "nanny state" shouldn't be telling people what they can do with their automobile's operation as well. Should we drop mandatory insurance laws?
If someone doesn't carry insurance and they slam into a family of four, killing one and creating lifelong injury for others, that driver's freedom to drive without the "nanny state" watching over him trumps the rights of the individuals whose lives he impacts.
This Merry Popoff throws women and dogs under the government bus. Loves Bubba and BP, because they're the source of his spoonful of "sugar."
Louisiana is in sorry state, indeed.
My shiny two.