There is a conflict raging in New York City, it has been going on for years, it is coming to a head in a critical way soon on one of the world’s most important stages. The outcome will help determine the future of domesticated animals in our world and whether or not they will remain in our every day lives, or be removed from the lives of people and from the world.
There are many sad things about the New York Carriage Horse controversy, including the fact that it is happening at all. Perhaps the saddest things is that we seem to have lost the opportunity to have a full and open public debate over the future of animals in our world; the true meaning of abuse; and the duty of a democratic and progressive government. The carriage horse story has gone dark, as they say on Broadway, moved underground into the backrooms of politician’s offices and lawyer’s conference rooms and out of sight of the people who love animals, cherish the bond between people and horses, and fear that animals are being taken away from people and will soon vanish from our consciousness.
The horses are full of magic and mystery and romance, they have so many supporters in so many places, their fate is, in so many ways, the fate of many other animals.
The idea that carriage horses need to be banned because working with people is torture and abuse has been thoroughly discredited for anyone who is paying attention to this story. It turns out that the animal rights groups are the gangs that couldn’t shoot straight, they seem to have had trouble convincing anyone but one another this year that the animals do not belong in New York City.
Unfortunately, one of the very few people they have convinced is the mayor of New York City. He has proposed that the horses be banned. The City Council says it will conduct hearings on the issue this month, and a vote on the proposed ban could come as early in July.
The issue speaks to much more than the horses. It speaks to whether animals and people ought to live together and work together, and more broadly, to issues of freedom, justice, decency and the way a democratic government is supposed to function.
Rightful liberty, wrote Thomas Jefferson, is unobstructed action according to public will within the limits of the equal rights of others. Law, Jefferson warned, is often but the tyrant’s will, always so when the individual rights of the individual are violated.
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The mayor and his supporters in the animal rights movement believe animals and people ought not ever work together. This, they say is a form of cruelty and exploitation. Animals belong in nature, in the wild, or failing all else, on private preserves away from people. The carriage trade is now perhaps the most significant conflict in America over the future of animals in our world, yet it has become a secret war, out of sight and view, a lobbying conflict behind closed doors and secret meetings. The mayor is reported to be intensely lobbying the members of the City Council, the Teamsters Union is believed to be lobbying council members on behalf of the carriage trade.
But there are no TV reports, no stories in the papers or blogs, no public debates in or outside of government, no demonstrations, marches, press conferences by lawyers or lobbyists, protests or picketing. This has become a non-story, a backroom story. In the outside world, transparency infuses culture and politics. There is no transparency in the carriage horse ban effort. The animal rights people have no idea what the carriage trade is doing, the carriage trade has no idea what the mayor is doing, nobody knows what the so-called animal rights lobby is doing. There is no debate, no negotiation, no give-and-take.
If you haven’t followed the story all year, you wouldn’t have a clue it was even still an issue. I get e-mails every day asking me when the carriage horses were banned. One day next month, the horses will either be banned or not, one of the best opportunities ever for society to consider the future of animals and their survival will be lost.
All year, polls have shown that two-thirds of the city’s residents opposed a carriage horse ban, all three newspapers support the carriage trade, along with the Chamber Of Commerce, the Central Park Conservancy, The Working Families Party, the city’s powerful labor unions. The mayor has brushed off the supporters of the carriage trade. It is common sense, he says, that horses do not belong on the modern streets of New York City.
It might also seem to be common sense that every respected biologist, veterinarian, equine veterinarian, neighbor, visitor or behaviorist who has examined the horses has pronounced them fit and well cared for and reported that they among the luckiest and safest horses on the earth. Buck Brannaman, the world famous horse trainer and the inspiration for Robert Redford’s Horse Whisperer, has written that the New York Carriage Horses are the lucky ones, the ones to pity, the ones who are abused are those abandoned on preserves and private farms with nothing to do but eat and drop manure.
Famed biologist Jared Diamond has said draft horses are the most domesticable animals in the world for life in urban areas. They tolerate noise and disruption, other species they are gentle, they stay close to one another, they attach to people, they are genetically extraordinarily well suited to work with people in urban environments, more so than dogs. Nearly 300 people were killed in traffic accidents in New York City last year, no person has been killed by a carriage horse in 150 years, yet the mayor and the animal rights groups insist the horses are a danger to the people of New York. He proposes removing the horses and adding more big cars to Central Park.
Common sense might indicate the mayor might speak to or listen to at least one of these experts, scholars and behaviorists, but he will not. He refuses to meet with or speak to the members of the carriage trade as well – but it seems the only equine expert he listens to is the founder of NYClass, the animal rights group spearheading the effort to send the carriage horses to slaughterhouses and private preserves, and who gave the mayor thousands of dollars to support his campaign. In fact, NY Class has spent many thousands of dollars to New York politicians, there is no evidence the group has ever saved a single animal in New York.
Sadly, both the carriage trade and the animal rights groups working in opposition to them share an indifference to transparency or openness. The carriage trade is consulting with powerful and articulate spokespeople, but hardly anyone in New York City knows that. Animals rights groups have been meeting regularly with the members of the City Council, so have lobbyists – Teamsters representatives mostly – for the carriage trade. The public doesn’t know anything about that either. City Council members, intimidated by the furious lobbying of the animal rights groups, are afraid to speak publicly about the issue or say how they will vote. That is also a secret.
It is believed by journalists and politicians in the city that the mayor’s efforts to ban the horses has fallen far short of the votes it needs to succeed, and that it will fail. Recent veterinary studies have found that the horses are not stressed in their work, it has also been reported that the head of a private group appointed by the city to study the environmental impact of a carriage horse ban is a long-time member and supporter of NYClass. Both stories appear to have strengthened the hand of the carriage trade lobbyists.
The mayor, who claims to be a leader of the progressive political movement in America, has failed to persuade anyone in his own city – residents, business people, labor unions, council members of his own party, animal lovers, veterinarians, members of the tourist industry, tourists and equine specialists – that it is progressive or humane to put hundreds of people out of work, pressure them to drive taxis in the outer boroughs instead of horse carriages in Central Park, take away the property and way of life of many people and destroy a 150-year business that is profitable and immensely popular.
But few New Yorkers know that either, because nobody has told them.
I support the carriage horses, and the right of the carriage trade to keep their honest and law-abiding work, property and freedom. I am sorry the conflict has gone underground, it should be right out in the open, for the sake of the animals and for the people. All of the principals – the mayor, the carriage trade lobbyists, the City Council members, the animal rights organizations – have decided to say little or nothing to the public or the people who have supported them all over the country.
Transparency, like compassion, is a popular idea, but a chimera, it seems. It is rarely seen as convenient, expedient or worthwhile. I hope the rumors are true, that the mayor’s efforts to ban these wonderful animals from New York City for no other reason than that a millionaire campaign contributor gave him a lot of money and told him to do so have failed.
It might be legal to make decisions that way, but it sure smells bad and corrodes public faith. Very few people in New York City believe the mayor is sincere in his concern about the horses, he very clearly knows nothing about them. Most people in New York believe he is doing the dirty work of the real estate developers who supported his campaign and who cover the horse stables on the West Side of the city..
So the intense negotiations going on behind closed doors that will so greatly affect the lives of so many animals all over the country and of the people who own them, love them and live with them are secret. We will never know how the decisions surrounding the fate of the horses will be made. If the great city can’t find a way to keep 200 draft horses safe and healthy in New York City, then a black cloud will hang over the future of every animal in America who is not a dog or a cat. It would be nice to have this debate out in the daylight.
Secrecy smells. It is not democratic, progressive, fair or effective. It is the tyrant’s will when individual rights are violated, and the carriage drivers have seen their civil rights violated and denied them. Animal lovers all over the country have awakened to the implications for them of a carriage horse ban in New York. It seems they have a right to know how it is going.
The lawyers and lobbyists have taken over much of our world. It is rarely expedient or comfortable for them to take their work and labors out into the open. I hope they do, there is still time.
Whichever side comes out into the light and tells their story will win the first great moral victory in this conflict.The cause of the horses need to be seen and heard and understand, not hidden behind closed doors in government offices.
