Yesterday State Senator John Douglas (R-17) brought SB 303 before the Senate Natural Resources Committee. SB 303 is the epitome of stupid legislation. Sen. Douglas brought this legislation because he read a tragic news story about a two year old killed by a python, a family pet, in Florida. Upon further research he found that there were a lot of snakes being released into the wild in Florida.
Sen. Douglas said he wanted to take a proactive approach to this potential problem. There is debate as to whether the snakes could thrive in the wild in Georgia, but Douglas doesn’t want to take any chances. This bill would require owners of anacondas and pythons to purchase a license from the state, register each snake with the state, and microchip said snake. The estimated yearly licensing fee would be $236. The estimated cost to microchip is $100. The average cost of a baby python is $180, but can go much higher depending on age, length, and type. This legislation would effectively make a $180 purchase turn into a $516 purchase. This is nothing more than a tax, and an excessive tax at that at over 200% of the cost of the product.
The issue Douglas used over and over again was safety. If people would have to register and microchip their animals, they wouldn’t be likely to let them loose into the wild. Douglas used the story of the two year old to insinuate that loose pythons would pose a public safety risk. There has never been a single recorded case of a python killing an American in the wild. There was only one recorded death in the US in 2008 relating to pythons, the above mentioned child. While I do not think that it is the role of the civil government to regulate or continually tax private property, if John Douglas is hell bent on doing so, he could have picked a more dangerous target, here are a few: Continue reading John Douglas Hates Snakes and Poor People
There was a meeting in mid January of Tea Party folks, FreedomWorks representatives, local Libertarians and Republicans and others that decided the synergy of working together was best for all of the individual groups. They decided to form a new coalition under the heading Southwest Georgia Patriots.
Since that meeting, a Facebook page (Please friend them if you are on Facebook) has been made, a new web site is being developed, and a blog has been created. I have been asked to be a writer for the new blog. The aim is not to compete with SWGAPolitics. In fact, I hope to maintain my status as a contributor here. In the spirit of this coalition, we get more when we work together. We would like to make it a place where people can gather to discuss plans, events, candidates, etc in the south Georgia Tea Party movement. We have several authors who have expressed an interest to contribute already, many are new names to this blog and some you know from here. This new venture is in its infancy and we still have some tweaking to do. We are still working on our comment section. If you visit it, please bare with us.
In my post from this morning, I address the Republican Party being a Party of One. We are not a party of one at Southwest Georgia Patriots. Everyone is welcome!
Ray McBerry is the second GAGOV candidate to openly support equal ballot access, and I genuinely like his response to at least the first question in the video below.
I can’t say I like his other answers quite as much, though he does make some good points before jumping off the deep end on nullification – as usual.
I encourage Ray, and everyone else, to join our FB group working on this issue, Equal Ballot Access for All! (Ga Chapter). I also hope to have an announcement soon about some further work I may be doing in that regard.
