Posted on 07/23/2007 11:10:30 PM PDT by goldstategop
With the recent charges that a major National Football League player had allowed cruel dog fights on his home property, the issue of cruelty to animals has been brought to national attention.
Nearly everyone acknowledges the obvious -- that a person who is cruel to animals, who enjoys sees seeing an animal suffer, is likely to inflict suffering on human beings. Cruelty to animals is one of the very few predictors among children of later criminal behavior.
So, aside from altruistic concern for animals, we human beings also have a selfish concern about people who enjoy making animals suffer. People who enjoy hurting animals will very likely hurt us, too.
The problem arises when we assume that the converse is equally true -- that just as cruelty to animals leads to cruelty to human beings, kindness to animals leads to kindness to people.
It doesn't. Kindness to animals is entirely unrelated to kindness to human beings -- except perhaps in the reverse order: People who treat people kindly are less likely to treat animals with cruelty.
But there is no connection whatsoever between treating animals kindly and treating people kindly. You know nothing about a person's treatment of people by knowing that he or she is kind to animals or is an "animal lover." Indeed, if there is any connection, it is more likely to be in the opposite direction. It seems that at a certain point of preoccupation with animals, there is a real chance that such a person may well treat people worse.
In his book "The Nazi War on Cancer (Princeton University Press, 1999)," Stanford Professor Robert N. Proctor writes a great deal about the Nazis' antipathy to animal experimentation. For example, the book features a Nazi cartoon depicting "the lab animals of Germany saluting Hermann Goring" for his protection of them.
This Nazi protection of animals is described by the leftist writer Alexander Cockburn:
"In April 1933, soon after they had come to power, the Nazis passed laws regulating the slaughter of animals. Later that year Herman Goering [sic] announced an end to the 'unbearable torture and suffering in animal experiments' and -- in an extremely unusual admission of the existence of such institutions, threatened to 'commit to concentration camps those who still think they can continue to treat animals as inanimate property.' Bans on vivisection were issued -- though later partly rescinded -- in Bavaria and Prussia. Horses, cats and apes were singled out for special protection. In 1936, a special law was passed regarding the correct way of dispatching lobsters and crabs and thus mitigating their terminal agonies. Crustaceans were to be thrown into rapidly boiling water. Bureaucrats at the Nazi Ministry of the Interior had produced learned research papers on the kindest method of killing."
In the case of the Nazis, the moral inversion is particularly dramatic, since the Nazis' opposition to experimentation on animals was accompanied by their support for the grotesque and sadistic medical experiments on innocent Jews and others in Nazi concentration camps.
The ancient Hebrew Prophet Hosea saw this inverted morality in his day as well: "Those who offer human sacrifice kiss calves" (Hosea 13.2).
For those tempted to caricature the argument presented here, I should make it clear that no one is making the absurd argument that animal rights activists are likely to be Nazis. Pointing out that the Nazis were major animal rights activists -- and that Hitler was a vegetarian -- is done only to offer a vivid illustration of how easily kindness to animals and cruelty to humans can coexist.
Human beings are not moderates, but extremists, by nature. Attitudes toward animals provide an excellent example. On the one hand are the innumerable human beings throughout history who have regarded animals as things to be treated as mercilessly as one would an inanimate object. This accounts for the widespread practice of cock fighting and other 'sports' that feature animals painfully killing one another for humans' entertainment.
And on the other hand are those, especially today, who equate animal worth with human worth -- such as People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), which inaugurated a campaign a few years ago called "Holocaust on your plate." The program equates the barbecuing of chickens with the Nazi burning of Jews.
So, in our appropriate condemnation of those who organize dog fights, let's not fool ourselves about the impact of animal kindness on human beings' character. It simply doesn't exist.
>As I said, I don’t agree, but it’s logically consistent.<
I disagree that your aquaintance is in anyway logically consistent. Pet ownership in and of itself, is in no way cruel. People treat their pets as famiy members. Dogs, and cats, for that matter, display obvious signs of contentment, and happiness, within human families.
There is no way to come to the conclusion, that because some animals are cruelly treated, that all animal ownership needs to be ended. That is as absurd as saying that because child abuse occurs, then no children should be born.
I suppose at least the people who beat each other to a pulp are making a rational decision on their own. However, I don’t like to see that stuff either, even when I know it’s fake. I guess there’s something wrong with me.
susie
It’s logically consistent to insane people. What about all the happy pets who live happy lives with their owners? Put it this way. Would you rather live a life being pampered by a constant companion that loves you and that you love in return, or die?
I admit it’s hard for a human who is used to thinking of themselves as free to put oneself in the position of a dog or cat, but they also have the illusion of freedom.
After all, do you think for one moment that cats think they are owned? Do you think dogs would prefer to be in charge rather than happily subservient? Crazy PETA people do but I am not crazy. If I were a pet, I would rather live.
In the case of chickens and cows, well, the choice is not so clear, yet even a short life might be better than none at all. Especially if it’s spent running around in a pasture rather than a feed lot. Domestic cattle don’t have a bad life. They have no predators thanks to their human protectors so life is less stressful for them than a deer or elk in the wild. They die prematurely of course, but everything alive dies eventually.
I agree with PETA when it comes to inhumane living conditions for animals, but not with their idea that animals are the equivalent of humans. After all, they don’t treat each other with nearly the same degree of compassion we treat them with.
“Animals have no morals. Besides animals don’t have a choice because they can’t think.”
Whats your point? That we should enjoy dog and cock fights?
There certainly are rules in any herd or pack of animals. There is leadership, pecking order and consequences for errant behavior. It may not be written down, but it is their version of a moral code. I've observed horse behavior, and it's complex. There are colonies of other animals who are even more complex in their social order.
And animals certainly think. "I'm hungry, I think I'd like to eat ~that~" is a thought. "That thing is trying to kill me, I'd better run" is a thought.
PETA has evolved into a full-blown cult. They are brainwashing their members into bizarre dogmatic beliefs, such as the belief that a “one-time mass killng of millions of animals” will lead to some sort of permanently beautiful and peaceful state of affairs for all life on earth.
I believe that PETA, like NAMBLA, ought to be RICO’d out of existence. Both of these organizations are nothing more than criminal enterprises.
And I thought there was no one else like me... ;-)
It's called hypocrisy.
It's called "instinct" in animals and thought patterns in humans. I know, there are many who would like to believe their dogs and cats love them because there is no difference between dogs, cats and humans.
What a lousy excuse. Deer don't have a choice either but we have an open season on them.
You gave the example of watching men fight.
Forcing animals to fight is inhumane because they have no choice in the matter and inflicting pain is the result.
The difference in hunting and having animals fight is that we kill for a reason, and we kill quickly.
A true sportsman doesn't get pleasure out of the suffering.
What is amazing about you guys that cannot grasp the evil of having animals fight for sport is that you lack the same discernment that the animal rights people do.
They want to stop hunting, equating it to fighting for sport, and you are indifferent to fighting animals for sport, equating it to hunting.
I equate the outrage over animal fighting to hypocrisy on the part of those who don't see a problem with men trying to beat the brains out of another man but cry bitter tears over animals that do the same thing.
I equate the outrage over animal fighting to hypocrisy on the part of those who don't see a problem with men trying to beat the brains out of another man but cry bitter tears over animals that do the same thing.
So now we are back to the fighting analogy.
The men are fighting willingly and do not kill each other.
The animals have no choice and kill each other or are killed.
You have a problem grasping that difference?
Two points. You never heard of a one fighter killing another? I have. Point two: If the animals have the cabability to think then they have a choice. Run or fight to the death. You have a problem with that?
I do not totally believe the mantra of “cruel to ‘animals’ = cruel to humans”.
I’ve seen write-ups that there is no correlation between treating animals cruelly and then humans.
So it’s a toss-up, I think, on evidence. There’s lots of talk that this premise is true, but I’ve never seen data on it, not even in a simple write-up format (”68% of criminals had animal-cruelty background”, e.g.).
1 of my big questions with this premise is, even if they show data, what is the baseline?
To be truly effective, we should gather up all the people who we know were (truly) cruel to animals, and see how they turn out - if they end up being abusive to humans.
It should not simply be from the standpoint of who is locked up for abuse. That is a different stat. Saying 68% of abuse inmates were cruel to animals is not the same as saying 68% of people noted as cruel to animals ended up cruel to humans.
Because they’re saving them from the horrid fate of being possessed by humans.
It’s sort of like if abolitionists took slaves from the Underground RR and killed them so they’d never have the chance of being enslaved again.
Cruelty to animals as a youth is one marker. There are others.
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