Register Your Chickens

For John, BLUF:  The British Government has gone overboard in its fight against avian flue by registering every owner of a chicken in England.  It has not gone well.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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As God Is My Witness, I Thought Roasted Chickens Could Fly

From VodkaPundit, by Blogger Stephen Green, 10:15 AM on 8 October 2024.

Here is the lede plus five:

Ordinary people need to enjoy a little taste of rebellion against their oppressors now and then, particularly when it comes in the form of a delicious roasted chicken. But there's something I need to get off my chest before we get to Britain's tawdry tale of chicken registrations and crashed government websites.

Watching the once-Great Britain slowly slide into soft totalitarianism has been a great disappointment. It's virtually impossible to do anything in the UK any longer without being surveilled on video, audited, indexed, reported to the authorities, or jailed for silently praying. You can't own a pistol, and they've considered banning knives. You'll be hounded or stabbed by Islamic colonizers or beaten with reeds for using the incorrect imaginary personal pronouns.

I made up the part about the reeds. But Britain's Labour government has considered making it a hate crime punishable by up to two years in jail for purposely using the "wrong" pronouns.

All this is from the people who invented the English liberty that evolved here into American exceptionalism.

True, it's sad, but glimmers of Ye Olde English Liberty remain.

Following a 2021 outbreak of avian flu that resulted in millions of culled birds, the UK's Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) was placed in charge of new registration requirements for chickens.

I was beginninhg to have my doubts about Vera Lynn and her singing There Will Always be an England:

There'll always be an England
And England shall be free
If England means as much to you
As England means to me

I am not English.  I am an American.  But, both. physically and politcally I am a descendent of England,  Thus, this gives me hope.  This tells me there are people in Merry Old England who still believe in individual freedom and who are willing to tweek the nose of oppressive government.

The point is that if you have just one chicken, even for a pet — and I won't judge you, I swear — as of Oct. 1, you have to register your bird with DEFRA. (I swear I keep reading that as "DERPA.")

This is when Britons have finally said, "Enough!" because pranksters hit the registration page so hard last week that they crashed it.

The prank registrations aren't limited to Tesco roasted chickens. Some people have reportedly registered rubber chickens and even chicken nuggets.

As of this writing, one week later, the website is still "unavailable due to technical issues."

Good on you People of England.  Good on you for standing up to petty bureaucrats who would crush the idea of individual freedom.  Good laws make everyone safer and happier.  However, oppressive petty restrictions are the bane of freedom and democracy.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff