Almost helps you understand the libertarians

The letter arrived in the mail this morning:

April 23, 2008

Dear Arcata Dog Owner,

We have received no response to our letter dated February 25, 2008, requesting that you license your dog. If we do not receive a response by May 23, 2008, we will turn our records over to the police department. Per the Arcata Municipal Code, Title V, Chapter 2, Section 5221 - License Required. "It shall be unlawful for any person to own, keep or harbor any dog over six (6) months of age within the City for a period of time unless they first procure a license therefore."

(The threatening bolded italics are in the original letter.)

It's the kind of thing that makes one twitch and go, "Huh?"

I mean, wasn't it just six days ago that the city and county turned their collective law enforcement backs as nearly 3000 of our fellow Humboldtians, real and imagined, converged in a city park to light up the afternoon with who knows how many pounds of dope, which, unless someone can tell me different, is still an illegal substance (except for those who've paid off a mercenary physician for a constitutionally questionable note to smoke the stuff)?

I mean, we have drugs being sold in the open on the Arcata Plaza. We've got employable vagrants wanderin' the streets, peein' on walls, and beggin' working folks for cash. We've got contractors hiding environmental hazards on property they hope to turn into tenement housing. We have poachers cutting apart old growth forests to flip stolen shake bolts into cash to feed their meth addictions.

And instead, our fair city chooses to spend its time, money and resources threatening us and an 11 pound dachshund with a violation of the municipal code.

How many others received this letter? I'm gonna take a wild ass guess that the only ones who got it are those who have recently taken their dog to a local vet to have it vaccinated and cared for, and not the casual owners of free range, bastard pit bull mixes, uncollared and uncontrolled, that have never, and will never, see the inside of vet's office much less a vaccination of any kind.

Now, I'm not some right wing, gun'n'religion leaning, anti-pot zealot. But c'mon, can you ID the greater threat to the local peace and community prosperity in the line-up below?

...or...



(bottom photo shamelessly heisted from the HSU Lumberjack.)