Posted on 10/31/2011 9:52:06 AM PDT by Feline_AIDS
While visiting my cousin this weekend, I drove through South Carolina country roads for long stretches, because for some stupid reason, they live out in the middle of nowhere. No, they don't farm, keep livestock, or even own much land. They are also scared of the quiet loneliness of the country, so there's no good reason for them to be there. Yet I digress.
It was dark on my way in. I saw movement at the side of the road and slowed to see a yellow lab / retriever dog licking an identical dog who had been hit by a car and was lying just off the road in the grass. Just beyond them was a deer that had been hit, too. I called 911, informed the operator it wasn't an emergency, but a dog was by the road and one had already been hit, so I wanted animal control to come get them.
On the way home from church yesterday, we saw a dog running along the road against traffic. He was a mastiff. His hip bones were sharp jutting out of his back, and the rest of his skeleton showed, too. He was scared. I slowed down and he kept running along in front of my car, and eventually moved into a field by the road. Again I called animal control and told them where he was.
Now, I'm not a moron. I know that animal control will come and pick them up, give people a day to claim them, and if the dogs are unclaimed, put them down. The only reason I call animal control each time is that I think dying slowly on the side of the road after being hit by a car is worse than dying in an oxygen/CO chamber. Just like the time I was in a bigger city's interstate at rush hour and saw a deer that had just been hit by a car and I called the state police to ask them to send an officer out to shoot it, because it was writhing around on the side of the road.
As I understand it, South Carolina has very lax spay and neuter laws. As a result, there are uncountable unwanted animals trotting along the road and getting run over or being put down by over-crowded shelters. Not long ago there was a news story about a county animal control in SC taking dogs to the dump and shooting them, presumably because they were either unable to deal with the numbers or too lazy to do it the lawful way. This is not to mention the dog fighting, which the mastiff probably wandered away from, considering the way he looked.
So here's my dilemma. (1) Animals are property. In most of these cases, irresponsible owners let their unspayed/unneutered dogs wander around, resulting in unwanted puppies or dogs in the road, or dogs on other people's property, where they're a problem. (2) I don't think the government should dictate what we do with our property. (3) Animals, though, are capable of suffering in a way that the rest of my property isn't. (4) They also are at the mercy of good citizens. Don't think I'm equating animal life with human life, because I'm not when I make the following comparison. Liberals would have us believe that "fetuses" are property, too--property they can destroy if they wish. We think that human life is sacred and needs to be protected when vulnerable. Does the same not apply to vulnerable animals, too? It doesn't take much to see that animals are vulnerable when bad owners treat them poorly, which is different from liberal hand-wringing about distant possible must-save causes like global warm-cool-whichever's-convenient-ing.
If it costs $40,000/year to keep an inmate in prison, (that's just a recent general statistic I heard, and it may not be exact), could we find a way to recoup that loss and use that money to improve the way we treat our animals? Why not make inmates pay for their accommodations? Or at least part of them. (Unrealistic, I know.)
Best idea yet: why not take the money Planned Parenthood gets and use it to control breeding of a species that should be controlled?
So, does this make me a bleeding-heart liberal?
“Best idea yet: why not take the money Planned Parenthood gets and use it to control breeding of a species that should be controlled?”
If you read the words of Planned Parenthood’s founder, Margaret Sanger, you’d know that this is exactly what they believe they are already doing.
First, don’t worry about what people may call you. There are some who believe that Ebenezer Scrooge was too liberal at the beginning of “A Christmas Carol”. Compassion for them is an unforgivable sin of “liberalism”.
Second, what you express is a concern about how tax monies are being spent. That is a prudent concern, not a “bleeding-heart” concern. Is the money being spent wisely? A legitimate question for everyone.
Third, government involvement has much to do with the level of government. The closer to the people, the more adaptible and broadbased it’s concern should be.
For example, Congress should in no way be involved in a law that sets times and limits on noise in a residential neighborhood, but that is a legitimate function of a town council.
Likewise, a law providing money to spay and neuter pets passed by a Federal or even State level legislative body would not be appropriate, but for a county which is dealing with a large number of roadway strikes and a large feral population, that might be an appropriate use of tax funds.
It a matter of perspective, and I don’t see anything wrong with bringing it up for discussion.
We have the ASPCA and anti-animal cruelty laws. Your impulse is humane and laudable. It is the belief that the government ought to fund every notion that conforms to your impulses that is dangerous. Citing one abuse = $40,000 to house a prisoner - does not justify another, even a lesser abuse. That’s a tu quoque argument.
Your are not a bleeding heart liberal until you surrender to sentimentality and use it as the primary instrument to guide your decisions.
I’m a dog lover, and I’m a conservative.
A lot of conservatives aren’t Christian, or smoke weed, or don’t own a gun.
One of the problems with our society is that if you subscribe to one belief, it’s sort of expected that you subscribe to the entire laundry list of other stuff folks who share the intial belief are supposed to endorse.
It’s not that easy -
Ultimately, animals are property, and the last thing any conservative would want is more government or regulation on these things.
That does not mean you shouldn’t feel deep anger or sorrow at the treatment dogs receive at the hands of negligent or cruel owners.
Ultimately, the problem goes much deeper than the liberal/conservative polarization in America, however - When any semblance of basic human goodness is stripped from society, and morality is relative - Legislation becomes the the only remaining (albeing very ineffective) method of behavior enforcement.
We can’t fix this stuff with laws. We can only fix it by restoring our basic goodness and morality - And my honest feeling is we’re far to gone for that to happen.
I am absolutely a bleeding heart liberal. But rather than looking to Big Govt to make me feel better, I take action my self. I have FIVE dogs and FOUR cats, all rescues. My wife and I help people in need with our own money, rather than voting for people to do so.
Modern political labels don’t make sense. The term “liberal” used to mean someone that favors liberty and freedom. Today’s liberals most certainly do not. Today’s libs favor Big Govt, which results in less freedom.
As for animals being property, I have mixed feelings about it. They are property in the sense that nobody is permitted to steal them from you. However, unlike most inanimate property, animals feel pain.
I have no problem with animal breeding and sterilization being regulated at the local level. That is what local governments are for. There is a misconception that liberty loving people are anti-government. That is most certainly not true. Government is a necessary evil. Government sets the rules to ensure equality of opportunity.
Local governments took responsibility for feeding their local poor in colonial days. We just want govt to be limited, and not have sweeping Federal laws control every aspect of our lives, especially in such a diverse country that spans a continent. But local governments are the place for laws such as these.
It does bother me that the leftist socialists have hijacked the word “liberal” and turned it into a pejorative.
roflol.
I’m a huge huge lab lover. Have 2 of them.
You did good in calling for animal control to cme pick up the dog. And how very very sad and heartbreaking to see it licking the other one hit.
But I’m just wondering where the idea comes from that spaying and neutering helps keep an animal home ?
What keeps an animal home are responsible pet owners who keep them confined ( by leash on a walk or in a fenced in yard ). Spaying and neutering have nothing to do with it. It’s the pet owners fault plain and simple.
I have neighbors on both sides of me who just let their dogs out to go potty and turn their backs on them. And it pi$$es me off to no end. They come in my yard, and up to my kennel and bark their heads off at my dogs if they’re out in the kennel, they chase my cats, and they growl at whomever is in my yard (me or kids or hubby). And they use my yard and tree’s as their personal toilet. And no, their owners do not clean it up.
They dont watch the dogs and the dogs are in the road and chasing cars and chasing other critters. Not to mention I am freaked out they’ll bite my 5 year old. One is a nasty mean yellow lab mix and one is an italian greyhound and the other side have 2 little froo froo dogs, a couple of mixed breeds and a huge freakin mastiff ~
I told dh that we were going to put up a fence on the south side to keep those 5 dogs out of our field we’ll be planting in the spring.
Enough of my rant.......sigh.....
Because a lot of people, when their dog has puppies, decide that they can sell or give away those puppies and that turns out not to be true. So rather than take the extra dogs to the animal shelter, they figure they will give those dogs "a chance" and let them go in the woods hoping someone will find them and take them in.
It's all done by "feeling" like you want to give the puppies a good chance at life. But these dogs end up starving, hit by cars, or feral and dangerous.
No, you are not a bleeding heart liberal.
“A righteous man cares for the needs of his animal, but the kindest acts of the wicked are cruel” (Proverbs 12:10 NIV)
A biblical truth, and a conservative one.
The same Bible that says we are to care for the needs of our animals, who says we may dig our ox out of a pit on the Sabbath, etc., also says to use animals for sacrifices and for food.
So we must simply keep our view of animals in perspective. We are to be kind and show good stewardship of them, yet, they are not people and should be used as food and for other needs without guilt or hysteria.
Also, to keep things in further perspective, do consider the plight of the many billion animals on this earth who must scrounge for their own food, shiver in the rain, be hunted, deal with various diseases, drink bad water, have no vet care of any kind -
in short, all the wild animals -
who rarely simply die in the street, but are rather hunted and eaten, freeze, die in fights or of injuries, starve to death, etc.
All those beautiful wild animals suffer, and some quite terribly.
The dogs you are feeling sorry for would eat a still-living deer, you know.
First, remember that all things in human society are not to be described on a Left-Right political axis.
Second, even political things can only be described in this way with a strong sense of the limitation of such labels, and a healthy dose of irony.
Third, remember that "Environemntalism" and "Ecology" (politically construed in an Obama-era context) were preceded by a sensible movement known as "Conservation". In a similar way, what is now PeTA/Animal Rights-ism is a strange mutant which branched off from Humane movement, which insists that people act decently toward animals, and whose very name ("humane") indicates an emphasis not on "animal rights" but on the proper nobility of humans.
This is conservative in the best sense.
Carry on.
We have seven dogs and are fostering an eighth. His previous owner left him in the yard of a vacant house. He was there for over a month drinking rain water and eating grass and treated wood. His front teeth are worn down to the nerves and he can no longer eat solid food.
The animal rescue that my daughter runs has had numerous dogs that have been left inside abandoned homes. People get evicted and leave the animals inside to die. They eat the drywall and die a slow, painful death if they aren’t found soon.
The more I know about people, the more I love my dogs.
I've never heard of spay or neuter laws. Do they really exist?
My animals are spayed/neutered through my personal choice, why would the city/state or local govt intervene on something like that?
That's absolutely horrible.
We adopted our dog from the SPCA--she was rescued from a house that contained over 30 dogs. She's still very skittish and scares easily.
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