It’s a vestige of our culture war, where the sanctimonious blame individuals for behaviors that were normal in the recent past, heralding a couple data points as supreme truth, while ignoring the broader context and their own hypocrisies. In my opinion, if we are so overpopulated with cats and dogs, such that they cannot roam, people should not have cats or dogs. I’d argue that keeping a cat or dog locked up also makes one an asshole.
The road to extinction is pretty well set, so I don’t see the sense in casting ire upon understandable behaviors. Might as well try to get along on the descent, though I get why such a large subset of the population are salty. For the record, I don’t have a pet, because: overshoot.
Doublespeak has always been their bread and butter, like “trickle down”. Add the mindrot of “faith”, and bang, you have the reigns. My birth family ate that Reagan-era shit up.
edit: heh, I didn’t notice your username until after