What's Wrong with Killing Dogs?
So it's a federal crime to be mean to dogs? Who knew?
What's wrong with what Michael Vick did? I have no inclination to do what he did with dogs, but I have no comprehension of what all the fuss is about. Most people who are upset about killing dogs or letting them attack each other have at some point in their lives caught a fish, which is as extreme a form of murderous torture of an animal as I can imagine. Not only have most of them caught a fish, they have actually eaten many more of them than they've caught. Which is weirder, killing an animal or eating its dead flesh? Most of us have never eaten dog meat, but in some countries it is a delicacy. Is there something evil going on in those countries? Are they violating the natural order of things? Should we invade them or get the UN to intervene? They are killing and eating dogs for god's sake!!!
What is the moral basis -- the natural law, if you will -- that accords special respect and protection to dogs in our written laws? And how does that same natural law allow for fish being clubbed to death on boat decks if they haven't died already from the hook-in-mouth trick we so enjoy pulling on them?
Our reverence for dog life resembles our reverence for human life. Up to a point. It's okay to kill your dog if you think your dog is too sick to go on living much longer or if you just can't afford medical help for your dog. And, don't worry, no legal authority is ever going to ask you to prove that your dog was really sick enough to kill or even sick at all. If you don't have the stomach for killing your dog yourself, you contract with a dog killer -- otherwise known as a veterinarian -- to do the dirty work for you. No federal law against that yet. Our dog reverence is so shot full of loopholes that there is no describable moral order to it at all.
Americans revere horses too, but it's okay to shoot your racehorse in the head in public if it so much as breaks a leg--something I saw the first time I went to a racetrack. And it's more than okay--politicians consider it a leadership demonstration--to hunt. Shoot 'em, kill 'em, cook 'em, eat 'em is the American way for a lot of pretty birds and every four-legged animal other than dogs, cats, and horses.
Between bites at McDonald's today there will be a lot of outrage expressed about Michael Vick getting off easy. I won't understand a word of it.
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I find the attitude of this article disturbing. this lack of empathy for a creature who is obviously aware and possessed of feelings is at heart the same indifference that leads to not caring so much about other people either. the more society condones cruelty to animals the more likely it is to condone things like the occupation of Iraq and to be cavalier about mass deaths in other countries. they are not really different in type only in degree.
Vick crossed the line with the torture stuff. But some of the other stuff he is accused of, to me is not any worse than people hunting for sport.
the very "food" of the dog fight is the suffering itself. we should not let butchers kill the animals by torture. do you suggest we should eliminate all laws regarding cruelty to animals. a smart dog is apparently about as aware and intelligent as a 3-4 year old human. should we allow toddler fighting as sport.
Even when animals are killed for food, they should be slaughtered as humanely as possible. We can pressure McDonald's and Burger King, for instance, to buy beef and poultry raised in conditions where they can graze and are not severely over-crowded, although consumers may pay more than now. Fighting animals to the death in your back yard and hanging and drowning non-performers is cruel by definition.
Respectfully, I think the bigger picture and great irony may have been missed in all of this. What amazes me is all of the demonstrations, all the public outrage, the demand for Michael Vicks head, etc. while many of these same people don’t seem to be all that concerned that somewhere between 500,000 and 1,000,000 (as reported by professional and respected sources) innocent Iraqi citizens have been blown into pieces, burned alive by bombs, mortars, etc., millions of families, homes, and individual lives physically, emotionally, spiritually, and financially decimated, and a nation laid to ruin as a result of this proven unjustified war in Iraq. Let’s not forget that number includes innocent men, women, and children. And in that process nearly 4,000 of our fellow citizens in the military have died and tens of thousand grievously injured, while the march for the continuation of this proven unjustified war (without any tangible positive progress to date) both from the Republican and Democrat enablers in Congress and in the current administration continues. Shall we also talk about the present human crisis in Darfur? And yet absent in all of this is diplomacy, human communication, dialogue, and political and diplomatic solutions. Yet, where is the same public outrage? Where is the media reporting and outrage? No, the outrage of the Michael Vick story fills the media, in addition to the daily antics of Paris Hilton, Brittany Spears, etc. instead (which are getting very, very old).
Don’t get me wrong, I think that sort of violence against animals displayed by Mr. Vick is absolutely wrong, and should demand a just penalty. As Lawrence seems to note, certain animal types have been elevated almost to human status, while IMO tangible concern for our fellow man seems to be waning-and the big picture issues don’t seem to be getting their due focus.
Many need to sit down and ponder what God meant when he said that we ARE “our brothers keeper”. And who is a person’s “brother”? The answer lies in Luke 10:30-37.
When I was 9 years old, we had a German shepherd dog which became pregnant. My dad called me outside one morning. The mother dog was tied up and the puppies, 13 in all, were in a box sitting near a blanket. I was instructed to place a puppy onto the blanket and stand back.
He then took a 38 caliber snub nosed pistol and shot the puppy, blowing apart its head. I had to do this ten more times. Sometimes he missed the head and blew apart a stomach or blew off a leg, and had to get closer to finish it off.
People have a history of turning their heads in the face of extreme cruelty, abuse, degradation, because they fear contamination. I was contaminated that day, forever marked by that experience.
What Michael Vick has done is merely another reminder to the rest of us that under a veneer of civility, humans are barbaric in their hearts.
Sure it's natural to eat meat. It's also natural to kill things. As we have become more civilized (which is not natural) our children live to adulthood, we engage in sports, not murder, to determine hierarchy and we develop a distaste for killing a being which struggles and fights to live.
This is a good thing. We can live without meat, natural or not. The only reason we still eat it is because we don't have to see it being made. Our factory farms are far from natural.
I, for one, am happy that we are becoming less violent. I just wish our government felt the same way, and didn't force our troops to go overseas and participate in a violent fiasco for control of resource.
(Yes, I know, the killing of humans and the killing of animals shouldn't be equated. There is a connection, though, between the willingness to perform one act and the willingness to perform the other.)
Lawrence, Your lack of compassion is stunning. Did you see Byrd on the senate floor crying after this case was reported? Apparently his wife of almost 40 years died in 2006 and the only thing he looks forward to when he comes home is to see his dog.
o'donnell
you have (i hope) never owned a dog or you would understand.
also, your "logical" understanding of ethics is seriously impaired.
i won't try to explain it to you, but suggest you find a way to be a bit more understanding of the ethics of the society you find yourself in. and lose that smug "logic."
[but here is a hint for you: my dog and my horses all demonstrate a "loyalty", which if you try to explain away with some mechanico-genetic crap you find yourself explaining away human loyalty, and love, at the same time. in return for their loyalty, i give them mine. but there is nothing rational about it. if you hurt my dog i will attack you as fiercely as he would attack you if you hurt me. heck, even Nietsche seems to have understood this by the end.]
I agree. Not a dog lover,
but I have no use for anyone that practices cruelty to animals. Mean or nuisance dogs are shown too much deference and should be humanely destroyed. There should be no problem with an owner humanely disposing of a dog for any reason. Dog lovers should direct their empathy and money towards deserving humans. Vick should have been fined a couple hundred bucks and his operation shut down.
I hope O'Donnell is being ironic. Michael Vick didn't "be mean to dogs," he trained them -- an extraordinarily brutal process including the use of victim dogs, often stolen from family homes -- to kill and when he killed them, he did it in vicious sadistic ways that served no purpose except to underscore his own viciousness.
There would be outrage, and violation of the law, if he had electrocuted squirrels. It's about the electrocuting, not the doggies. There are two ways to look at it. It's unfortunate, on the one hand, that we don't take as seriously brutality to fish as we do brutality to dogs. But there it is. On the other hand, it's nice, when there is a law and a psychopath breaks it, to see the herd culled.
Unfortunately, they will probably release this one back into the herd within a year.
I agree with you completely. What Vick did is horrendous and he certainly deserves everything he is getting
I think what is being addressed is the fact that many people will get outraged at abuse of dogs on one hand but at the same time will strongly defend the abuse (on the same level of Vick if not worse) of billions of cows, chickens and pigs on a routine basis in order to provide meat (which is unnecessary, unhealthful and ecologically destructive).
We have to work and create a culture respectful of all life.
Killing is killing; one will find their own rationale for brutally killing and then eating any of Nature's Creatures.
Has a fish or cow ever cuddled up to you when you are sleeping? Or run up to you to be petted when you when you come home from work? Dogs and Cats are like friendly little humans, but they are better than humans. They never hurt your feelings, or get mad at you, or try to hurt you. They love. And just want to be petted and fed (not necessarily in that order). To use dogs for game, to watch them destroy each other and get a big thrill out of it, is sick and disgusting. It makes you wonder what the guy would do on the football field to another human being.
Well I have a companion rabbit who cuddles up to me and know people who have farm animals as companions. Why is the fact that you like dogs make it different.
Meat is completely unnecessary and (even the "humane meats" involve a huge amount of suffering on other creatures.
What's with this dog worship?
A dog eats damn near as much as a human. In
fact I'll bet a lot of people in the world don't
get the quality or quantity of food that the average dog in the US gets.
How obtuse can you be, O'Donnell. All life is sustained by consuming some other life form. The issue is causing needless suffering to animals.
I'm a carnivore and I'm revolted by what Vick and his cohorts did. It was vicious cruelty for no other purpose than their sicko amusement.
The one quality that distinguishes humans from other animals is that we have the capacity for moral choice. We can kill "humanely" or cruelly. Vick's choice was criminal and he should go to jail.
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