T'is an ill wind that blows nobody any good! Allow me to demonstrate.

The Silver Lining # 2:

Last week the Newstalk ZB podcast featured broadcaster Larry Williams interviewing Ray Spring of the Christchurch Cat Control Campaign.

I kept a copy of the podcast, take a listen to it. Listen to how this fruit-loop fanatical and his little gang are attempting to exterminate housecats back home in Christchurch.

I understand their perspective though. Beneath the soft and fluffy exterior cats are are violent preditors. Most people look at a housecat and see a sort of living teddy bear. This mob sees the dark side, the cold-blooded calculating killer. But both of these things are in a cat's nature, and I love cats for the whole. Many owners scold their cat for hunting and try to rescue the little mouse or bird. They are confounded that their 'teddy bear' has missbehaved. Not me! When cats I've known have brought me a kill I fuss over them in genuine appreciation. I pat them and they purr at the recognition, I'm as proud of what they've done as they are themselves. What an unempathetic rebuke it would be to reject them as a bad teddy when they've really been a good cat.

Anyway, these Christchurch extremists have no taste for such terrible beauty. People like this, pushing for law change, can champion their cause and usurp the private property rights of those who would let cats be cats. Listen to the podcast. They want cats registered and chipped and killed if caught out after dark. They want ownership restricted to only one cat per home and suggest cag-proof yard fortifications to keep cats confined! But this is exactly the pattern of bossy-boot busy-body political action group work that has lead to every other unrightful government presence in our everyday lives.

Silver lining: These extremist dorks, like the PC PCs of yesterday, go so far in their cause as to do actual damage to it. Cat-ignorant idiots (many are cat owners) would go along with moderate, though no less totalitarian, regulations. There is plenty of support for the thin end of this wedge, as long as the thick end of the wedge is denied- and it's really hard to for libertarians to oppose this. However, extremist crazies make wedge politics impossible! From the first they are disclosing the full naked motivation of their ambition.

And that is the silver lining. They're so damn trigger-happy they shoot themselves in the foot. To that extent those who want the cat-crazies to die out should finance and support the lunatic fringe. The damage they strike to their own stated intent is cheap at most any price!

ps Ray Spring is an ex-pat Pom. Aren't they always?!!