I’ve been dreaming of a resolution to the horse controversy, a fantasy based on John Locke’s idea of a moral government being one that protects freedom and property, promotes justice and seeks resolution rather than conflict.
My dream incorporates Jefferson’s idea of a democratic society, in which differences are resolved by negotiation and compromise, not war. I think as well of Plato’s idea that rulers should be wise and generous and well-informed. I suppose it is something of a fantasy, but it came to me in a dream and I wanted to share it.
The strange thing about it is that it would work quite easily if our leaders remained true to the principles upon which our society, our great democratic experiment, was founded.
First, the mayor would acknowleldge that he is not the leader of one group of people, but of all people. His role is not to remove the freedom and way of life from blameless people without legal cause, but to understand the sometimes complex and painful issues that occur wherever people gather and and live. The role of leaders in our government is not to rule by fiat, but to try and resolve conflict in a way that is civil and protects both liberty and subsistence.
A leader talks to everyone, not just the people he likes and agrees with. So in my dream, the mayor calls the principals in this conflict together, into Gracie Mansion for a conference on the carriage horses – the carriage owners, the carriage drivers, the real estate developers interested in the stable properties, veterinarians, the police, the A.S.P.C.A., N.Y. Class, the Humane Society, city transportation officials.
Other people and groups could be heard and participate: the leaders of the other animal rights groups that have been trying to drive the carriage trade away for years now. Some children should be considered, some tourists and visitors, the older immigrants who built the carriage trade, and the guardians of Central Park. The conference would include some participation from the citizens of New York, the Teamsters, members of the Chamber Of Commerce, the many people who wish to horses to stay and who do not believe it is abusive for working animals to work.
The proceedings would be televised so that citizens could make up their own minds, not be manipulated by disturbing images and eternal arguments and media hysterias.
Before any meetings, it would be stipulated than all parties enter in good faith and dignity, the issue is not abuse or cruelty, it is not where the horses might go if they are banned, it is not how many incidents have occurred over the past decades. The meeting is not called for argument or accusation but for resolution and common ground. If people cannot agree to communicate without argument or accusation, they will be prohibited from attending, cut out of the conversation, booted out of the conference. People who love animals as much or more as themselves will want to be there. On a much smaller scale, this is essentially the same rule I apply to my own website – disagreement, even heated disagreement, is welcome, so is discussion. Attacks, accusations and hostility are forbidden. It works, banning hateful people is a joy and a privilege. It is how the country essentially was founded.
l. The mayor would ask the animal rights groups what their concerns are and what steps might be taken to address them. If they are concerned, for example, that the horses are breathing too many fumes from cars and trucks, would they accept regular tests of the horse’s respiratory systems from accredited veterinarians as proof that they are okay in the city? Would they agree that new and bigger stables closer to the park – or new traffic lanes during rush hour for the horses – might make everyone as safe as possible?
2. The mayor could ask the developers if they would buy the horse stables in exchange for tax or zoning benefits and in exchange for building or paying for and building open spaces for the horses – perhaps in the park, perhaps in the many acres of green along the West Side. The horses could spend even more time outdoors, with one another and in rest. A place where they could graze occasionally in good weather and spend their long vacations, rather than be hauled to farms in New Jersey or Long Island.
3. The mayor could ask the police if they needed any additional resources to monitor the horses or the stables, or, as appears to be the case, are they satisfied that the regulations affecting the horses – there are 144 pages of them – are adequate?
4. The mayor and the city government would guarantee not only the rights of the horses, but the human rights of the carriage trade owners and drivers. If it is cruel to abuse animals, it is equally so to abuse people. The people in the carriage trade have the right to their livelihood and their way of life, so long as they break no laws, commit no crimes, violate no regulations, as they have all repeatedly agreed to. They have the right to work free of unproven accusation and harassment. Their customers, especially the children who ride in their carriages, have the right to ride through the park in peace.
It is not that difficult to imagine what might be accomplished if the mayor decided to be both humane and progressive in the case of the carriage horses. Anyone who wonders what a city like New York might accomplish need only to walk through Central Park or the Cloisters or the bridges and tunnels and take a look. Building traffic lanes or a new stable or providing some access to grass is petty stuff compared to that.
The issue is not whether the horses should be banned, that is the demand of a tiny fraction of citizens with no mandate or broad public support. This movement has already failed – and quite spectacularly – in that goal, and in their looney-tunes plan to flood the park with vintage electric cars they claim are more eco-friendly than horses. Even if the mayor can’t admit it, he surely knows it. The question now is how to move to a better place, past all of the arguments and accusations and ugliness. So far, the carriage trade people appear quite willing to talk to anybody about anything. The animal rights people do not seem willing to talk to anybody about anything.
The mayor, who calls himself a progressive and has close ties to the animal rights movement, could quite possibly bridge that gap and demonstrate what it really means to live in a progressive democracy. These steps and processes are not controversial, radical, expensive, difficult, or even new.
They represent the best ideas of the founding fathers – Jefferson and Washington pulled together warring factions from all over the country and made them work together until they found common ground and resolution. Solving the carriage horse problem should be a good deal simpler and faster. The inspirations behind our world, men like John Locke and Thomas Paine and Jefferson, all believed conflict was inevitable in a society, but their ways of dealing with it were quite new and successful, they shocked the world with what they accomplished. Jefferson would have handled the carriage horse issue at lunch, it should never have gotten this far.
The horses have a right to exist in our world, so do the people who own and work with them. Those of us who wish, also have the right to live among them. That is the most urgent right of animals in our time, to survive.
The mayor has undermined his own credibility and sense of moral purpose. In aligning himself so closely to people who appear to dislike the democratic process, in taking sides with people who have given him so much money, in refusing to so much as speak to the stable owners or drivers, he has damaged his own moral authority and that of his government. He has the right to his opinions. If he feels the the treatment of the horses is inhumane and needs improvement, he has the tools and the resources and the mandate to make their lives better. So far, his only idea is to destroy the livelihoods of hundreds of people and send the horses away, something his constituents have made it clear they don’t wish to happen. In a democratic society, that ought to be the end of it, not the beginning.
There are substantial issues to be considered here, the world is watching. Animal rights. Human rights. The future of animals in our world. The connection of urban environments to the natural world. The power of money in politics. The abuse of free speech and political expression.
The dignity and freedom of people must be protected by government. The animal rights movement has deprived the carriage trade human beings – the owners and drivers – of their dignity and sense of self, they have tried to exclude them from the community of moral people. They must be given their dignity back, they deserve to be heard. No one is more affected by the outcome of this struggle than they are. How can anyone justify taking the position that they are the only elements in this conflict that have no right to be spoken or listened to? Persecution without representation is not an American idea.
John Locke, the inventor of liberty in modern times, wrote that “the improvement of understanding is for two ends; first, our own increase of knowledge; secondly, to enable us to deliver that knowledge to others.” Government needs leaders, wise and thinking men, not combatants incapable of thought, afraid to listen.
Wise and moral leaders must listen to all of the arguments and propose solutions that are seen as fair and untainted by power, money or influence. The mayor has a wondrous opportunity to rise above this ugly fray, this symbol of a dysfunctional government and hysterical dialogue, a perversion of democracy in many ways, and demonstrate to the city and the world how free people resolve their differences, how the system was meant to work. To respect, not demonize. To resolve, not argue. To listen, not overwhelm. To understand, not intimidate. To compromise.
How sad that the very process that founded our country seems like a naive fantasy in it’s greatest city.