I haven’t seen or heard any liberal bloggers portraying Romney’s treatment of Seamus as deliberate cruelty, but of callous and inhumane indifference. That’s a major difference, though neither is good.
It might not have been obvious to you 40 years ago that strapping a dog up in his carrier atop a station wagon for hours and hours of highway driving is cruel, but it sure would have been seen that way by many others.
And I think you and Spengler are both right—Obama was merely bragging about his exotic cultural experience, but he also does identify with the third world as morally superior to the US.
Fair enough. I got that from the comments section. On the other hand, it's hard to believe Lanny Davis could be any harsher on Romney if he outright accused him of deliberate cruelty. And that's the thing about the Internet, somebody pushes as hard a line as possible and the readers and commenters take it from there, crossing over the line into even more extreme statements, almost as if the original writer intended them to.
It might not have been obvious to you 40 years ago that strapping a dog up in his carrier atop a station wagon for hours and hours of highway driving is cruel, but it sure would have been seen that way by many others.
I don't want to be one of those people who drags out hazy personal memories of years gone by, but for once I will be. As a child I went on cross-country trips with my parents. I remember seeing all that luggage on top of cars -- much more often than I see that today. On some of those cars there were dog carriers or animal containers -- again, something you rarely see today. I'm sure that not all of those cars belonged to the Romneys.
So I have to wonder: did all those families with dog containers on the roof travel with their dogs down below with the family? Isn't it possible that some dogs road in the containers on top? Isn't it possible that some people assumed you could transport an animal in an animal transporter? If they were taking dogs with them in the cab of the car would they really need to have a cage and put it on the roof?
I don't know the answers. I just wonder. I have to wonder whether all the people who are shocked, shocked by Romney's behavior now really would have thought that way if they were around 30 or 40 years ago. Or if their parents or grandchildren would have been horrified by a dog traveling in a container on the roof of a car.
I don't know the answer, but it does seem to me that our expectations have changed over the years -- helmets on children, special car seats, etc. Things our parents had no problems with become criminal offenses. And if enough people get indignant enough about something long enough, other people come to assume that the angry ones must be right. And of course, politics is involved: if Romney were a Democrat, Lanny Davis would most likely view things very differently.
If I'm wrong, then I'm wrong, but I don't remember any serious discussion or remonstration about dog carriers on auto roofs way back in the 70s and 80s. Is that because nobody drove with a dog up there, or because nobody thought it was wrong?
And I think you and Spengler are both right—Obama was merely bragging about his exotic cultural experience, but he also does identify with the third world as morally superior to the US.
That's a judgment call. Say somebody comes back from some country and tells you how wonderful their trip was. Whether they were really telling you that culture is morally superior is more something you read into what they're telling you. Jimmy or Jenny College who comes back from Guatemala may just be telling you about their one big adventure.