“Whatever is my right as a man is also the right of another; and it becomes my duty to guarantee as well as to possess.” – Thomas Paine, The Rights Of Man.
On this Independence Day weekend, I devote myself and my humble words to the New York City Carriage Drivers, whose persecution continues and whose rights continue to be trampled under the false rubric of mercy and compassion. Thomas Paine, the wordsmith of our Revolution – words and truth matter, he preached – said that all that is necessary for the rights of people to be lost is a lazy and ignorant citizenry. “When men yield up the privilege of thinking, the last shadow of liberty leaves the horizon.”
We are a lazy and distracted people, we get our sense of truth and reality from angry pundits, blogs, Facebook and Twitter messages. We are losing our ability to seek out the truth for ourselves and make up our own minds. That is at the heart of the story of the New York Carriage Drivers. They are not perfect or heroic people, but ordinary people, in so many ways the rightful heirs to the people who created a nation based on the idea of the rights of man, especially the right to live in freedom and dignity. They are people like most of us, close to the immigrant experience.
They and their parents and grandparents came to our world in search of freedom, of the most basic rights to happiness, opportunity and freedom, they all came from the shadows of one kind of oppression or another.
Could any of them have imagined for a moment that riding a horse drawn carriage in a city would become a dehumanizing and almost criminalized experience? Or that a movement that says it wishes to protect animals seeks to take them from us?
Like so many before them for so many generations, the carriage drivers sought work with animals, some of the oldest and most noble work in the world. In many cases, their families had been working with horses for centuries. Under almost relentless assault, they have had to choose between surrender and endurance, and they have chosen the latter, becoming inspirational.
Like Paine, we need to love the man and woman that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength through distress and grow brave by reflection and persecution. That would be the carriage drivers. The big surprise for me upon entering this story in such a belated way this January was the very powerful realization that the movement to ban the carriage horses has little to do with the horses. By almost all credible accounts, the horses are not in trouble or in need of rescue. The crusade against the horses has to do with power and irrationality, politics and money. Although many in New York have been slow to see it, it also has to do with the the rights of the New York Carriage Drivers, who have been abused and persecuted for some years now and whose liberty and rights are in great peril.
What is happening to them could happen to any one of us who owns and loves an animal – a dog, a horse, a pony, a cat. At stake is the future of animals in our world, and the survival of the great horses, who have walked and worked with us since the beginning of time. Will we be left only with the pets we are told we deserve to have? Will all of the domesticated animals left on the earth be confined to rescue ghettos where they will be sent to slaughter or never again be seen by children or the vast majority of people who live in urban areas?
One of the miracles of this story is the scores, perhaps hundreds of people who have decided to seek out the truth for themselves over these months. It is a shocking thing that every single one of them – neighbors, veterinarians, horse and animal lovers, cab drivers, writers and journalists, actors and waiters – have seen the same thing, reached the same conclusion.
I think often of one horse stable neighbor – Cathy Stewart – who hears the clip-clops of the horses every day and understands the horse’s magic. See how she assumed the most noble duty of the citizen and sought out the truth for herself. She did not accept anyone else’s truth, mine or the angry protestors who shout insults at the tourists and carriage horse drivers every week in the park. I was lucky to meet Cathy last month, she is an admirable human being, a true and gentle friend of the rights of people. She is a credible witness, an honest citizen.
The horses are not abused, they are not in danger, they are not suffering, they are not in need of rescue. It is the drivers who suffer the great abuse, who have been cruelly handled. You can find this truth for yourself, and if you believe in the rights of man and woman and live near New York City, you will. So many have answered the call.
The stables are open to anyone at anytime, there is nothing hidden, nothing to hide. Try walking into an animal rights group office to see what is happening there, they will not speak to you, give you their names, show you their documents, explain their beliefs, open their doors, answer their phones. They seem to live in a cloud of paranoia and wild accusation, they feed off a gullible media and emotional imagery online.
They are a secret society, they seem to have little regard for truth, rationality, fact or reason. They are, in addition, cruel to human beings, they have squandered the right to speak for animals or their rights.
Another attack on the drivers this weekend, Independence Day, this one also a lie and distortion sent out into the ether without honor, truth or shame.
It seems another weak and desperate thing, another manufactured narrative, so easily debunked, so lame. It probably raised a lot of money online. Is this the best they can offer to justify taking away the freedom and property of 300 people and endangering the lives of more than 200 horses? As Paine pointed out, all arrogant rulers and ideologues need is ignorance, they feed on it, and a lazy and manipulable citizenry is happy to embrace it.
Are the people who claim to be supporters of animal rights this desperate, is their cause this pathetic and hopeless? I happen to know this driver, this victim very well, she is Christina Hansen, a life-long horse lover, she has given up her life as a cushy academic to ride the streets of New York in a horse carriage, to spend her life with the horses. My wish for every horse in the world is to be her horse.
Is this the great cause, then, sneaking around taking videos of people doing their work, then lying about what they mean? We need a wiser and more mystical understanding of animals than this.
On this weekend. I think again of Paine, who warned us of the men who make their living and find their purpose in conflict, war and injury, who “make it their duty to sow discord and cultivate prejudices.” Such people, he says, are not friends of freedom, but are “unpardonable.” I have been following Thomas Paine my whole adult life, he is a great inspiration for my work, his spirit stands with the carriage drivers, he understood what the loss of their rights and liberty and way of life would truly mean.
The New York Carriage Drivers have broken no laws, violated none of the 444 pages of regulations that govern their work, drawn the ire of a single one of the five government agencies who watch over their horses, committed no crimes. Yet none of them can say their way of life is safe and secure from the very government that is supposed to protect both, none can say they know how they will pay their bills and educate their children next year.
“When it can be said by any country in the world, my poor are happy, neither ignorance nor distress is to be found among them, my jails are empty of prisoners, my streets of beggars, the aged are not in want, the taxes are not oppressive, the rational world is my friend because I am the friend of happiness,” wrote Paine. “When these things can be said, then may that country boast its constitution and government. Independence is my happiness, the world is my country and my religion is to do good.”
The debate over the carriage horses is not a rational world, it does not support independence, it erodes it, it does not address the grave problems of people, it distracts us from their real needs. There are many animals in our world in need of assistance, the horses in New York are among the most fortunate and contented in all of the world.
The New York Carriage Drivers deserve the rights of man, they are our brothers and sisters. I think of them on this holiday weekend, I wish them continued strength and courage. They deserve to live in security, free to pursue their way of life. People who own and love animals deserve the right to have them, care for them, free of harassment and insult, fear and hate. No law abiding person deserves to be hounded and harassed, insulted, to have their privacy violated, their reputations and livelihood besmirched without rules, due process or reason.
Reasonable people can disagree about the future of animals in New York, but when we give ideologues the right to take away the rights of human beings, we are giving away some more precious than any horse in any stable.
The carriage horse agony transcends the suffocating politics of the left or right. There is nothing progressive about the persecution of the carriage drivers, there is nothing exclusively conservative about loving liberty.
The horses call to us to move beyond argument and hate, to show compassion to animals and human beings, to accord both their rights and well-being. They call each of us to make our own decisions, come and see for ourselves. Ignorance is our common enemy as well as theirs. To the carriage drivers, I pass along the very good news that you are not alone, there are many people awakening to your plight, committed to justice for you and your families and your cause. Freedom is always worth fighting for.
“But such is the irresistible nature of truth,” wrote Paine,” that all it asks, and all it wants, is the liberty of appearing.”
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Friends, I am happy to tell you that my new e-book: “Who Speaks For the New York Carriage Horses: The Future Of Animals In Our World” will be published this coming week, it will be available wherever digital books are sold – smarphones, Amazon, Bn.com, Ibooks, Ipads, tablets and computers. Some of the proceeds will go to the fund to save the horses. The book is dedicated to the New York Carriage Drivers, I wish them peace and freedom.