tirk, you actually sound enlightened. been reading The Gita? this country, and most western countries, illogically give more value to the lives of animals that look "cute". there is also a general philosophy that gives more value to animals that are biologically closer to humans. the regulations regarding scientific research with chickens, for example are much less stringent than those for mice. and the # of hoops you have to jump through to study primates is phenomenal. this is somewhat related to the philosophy that its less bad to treat animals with less developed nervous systems poorly---cockroaches, crawfish. there are actually a lot of whackos out there that believe that plants are sentient. http://skepdic.com/plants.html so i guess if we want to be moral all we can do is drink water.
You guys are totally missing the point. It isn't about "cuteness". It is all about sentience. Dogs, Dolphins, etc... have the ability to understand what is going on in complex situations, and react emotionally to them. They have the self-awareness, emotions, and intelligence of about a 3-5 year old human. A crawfish, chicken, roach, or even a cow, does not. I guess my opinion is that pitting two dogs in deadly combat against each other for the pure spectacle is barbaric and cruel, and the people who do it should be sent to jail and buttraped for being backward ass rednecks. Abusing a dog is no different to me than abusing a child. If someone ever hurt one of my dogs for no good reason I would absolutely break his face.
Not actually. Some young children rarely have a chance to exercise their "power" over another organism except through this activity, and it conveys a sense of superiority. This plays into their narcissism. However, inevitably children grasp that suffering is a part of this equation and quickly grow out of it. Those that don't seem to grow out of this have a personality disorder or seriously warped values = sadism.
Prosecuters are now saying that they have enough evidence to indict Vick: http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=2888085
Really a sad situation all around. If you care about the NFL or the Falcons, those will be the biggest losers in tihs situation. Think of the $ the league has invested in him as a brand, and it's doubtful those endorsements will continue much longer.
Well, the biggest losers are probably the dogs. You know, the ones with their intestines ripped out and left to die in the corner. The ones with the infected festering wounds that weren't properly cared for that have flies and maggots eating the dog alive. The ones that are neglected by their owner b/c they lost a fight which lost the owner bragging rights and money. The ones that are fed gunpowder to give them demensia, the ones that are injected with steroids and testosterone on a weekly basis to make them even more aggressive and deadly. The ones that have a huge lock with a heavy chain around their neck while they are forced to run on a treadmill to build muscle. THOSE are the real losers. If Vick loses all of his endorsements, then I say good.....he deserves it.
I was speaking as a result of this being discovered. The dogs that have died already cannot be saved but exposure has stopped any more of this continuing here. I could care less about Vick losing anything and did not list him as such in order to invoke sympathy. The institutions that are innocent(NFL, Falcons) of this and yet will suffer is what I was describing.
Why do the good ones like Marquise Hill die young, while bastards like Michael Vick and Ron Artest still breathe and never seem to have to suffer any consequences for their actions? Hell, T.O. couldn't even manage to kill himself.
Same principle as Stevie Ray Vaughn or John Lennon dying but somehow Poison and Bon Jovi just keep on chugging. Who can explain it?
