It's also illegal to own a single guinea pig or parrot (because they are prone to loneliness): https://www.zmescience.com/other/feature-post/guinea-pig-swi...
Please note that I'm not saying anything about the keeping of animals as pets, or the social instincts of parrots or guinea pigs, or even whether or not the regulation is a good one. Just that the analogy you present here doesn't hold.
The "liberty" to keep exactly one guinea pig: that is just silly.
This is just textbook play calling. Removing net neutrality starts "we just want to help hospitals and police have faster internet, don't be ridiculous." Drug prohibition, the War on Terror, the TSA, police militarization. It all, every time, comes with "they're just trying to do something good and it doesn't seriously affect you." Except maybe thre TSA, because when someone starts searching you all of a sudden everyone is a civil libertarian.(1)
The problems 1) One can always make the argument that "those are just not worthwhile freedoms." 2) The idea that using the threat of violence from the government to solve every problem is the actual path to tyranny.
1-https://theintercept.com/2018/02/05/the-nunes-memo-and-katie...
The law is very plainly there to prevent guinea pigs from being abused. It is not there to extend the government's power.
What an extremely odd thing to argue.
>'we already have laws about which people can get married. This is hardly an egregious extension of that power. The law is very plainly there to protect children.'
What you're advocating by disavowing the above, yet allowing the topic is to say you: "agree with authority when it happens to agree with my moral compass."
Sayinf "disagreeing with this is an extremely odd thing to argue," reveals the fact that the original intentions of the founders of this country (assuming you live in the States), as well as those of Enlightenment figures, that government is only legitimate whwn it is limited, is so odd and alienating to you makes me think that no wonder humanity always turns itself in to tyranny, over and over again.
Referendum to kill an existing law, popular initiative to propose a new one.
They use different tricks when they're extending their power. This is definitely not one of them.
Laws they suspect could be overturned by voters they create 2 simular but separate ones shortly after each other, so people get tired of fighting it etc.
It definitely doesn't involve guinea pigs.
(There's no alternative, though, so deal with it)
And this kind of government js actually quite a shift from the type of democracy that Enlightenment figures helped developed for us, which gave us so much in the world.
Governments are responsible for most of the evil in the 20th century. Culling that probably starts with thinking about what a legitimate government should be permitted to do in the first place.
Consider another example: what benefit is there in the government spending so much time and money giving due process, health care and other rights to murderers, child predators or terrorists, while free, good people go without healthcare? It's not because the criminals deserve it. If I advocated human rights for these people when we didn't have them, you would say the same thing you are now: "I agree with human rights, but you just picked a really shitty example." The point is this: to consider what constitutes legitimate government.
Doesn't happen in Switzerland.
> If I advocated human rights for these people when we didn't have them, you would say the same thing you are now: "I agree with human rights, but you just picked a really shitty example."
Nope, I wouldn't. In fact I got heavily downvoted on HN before because I advocated for freedom of speech even for terrorists.
All I'm advocating is the ideals proposed during the Enlightenment and founding of America be taken more seriously.
Most of the evil in the world is done by governments. Once you set them up with the size, authority to do that, it will be done.
One can argue that humans are animals. Animals are protected by law and thus you should not harm any animal being human or from other species.
But in this case the Swiss direct democracy is working exactly as expected by the people of the country. They voted decades ago that the government must be in charge and enforce the protection of the dignity and well-being of animals as well as update the law based on new findings. The new rules (which include the lobster stuff) going into effect are just the current iteration.
For example, from the first of March all devices that automatically punish dogs for barking will be outlawed. This is an intrusion in personal liberty, but the Swiss as a whole seem quite fine with valuing the well being of the animals higher than their owners liberty to use those devices on them.
If the Swiss are unhappy with the decisions made by the government here, we have the referendum as an quite often used instrument to stop it. You would need 55'000 signatures within 100 days if I remember correctly to trigger a vote on the national level.