There have been some celebrities defending the dog killings by Michael Vick. However, none of the defenses of Vick are as bizarre as those put forward by Lawrence O'Donnell in his Huffington Post blog, What's Wrong with Killing Dogs? Posted on 08/25/2007 4:31:39 AM PDT by PJ-Comix
There have been some celebrities defending the dog killings by Michael Vick. However, none of the defenses of Vick are as bizarre as those put forward by Lawrence O'Donnell in his Huffington Post blog, What's Wrong with Killing Dogs?
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.
Huh? Didn't O'Donnell ever hear of catch and release? It is done all the time. A fisherman catches a fish and then releases it so it can be caught over and over again. No "murderous torture" of an animal here since the released fish go back to calmly swimming in their watery environs again. From "murderous torture" of fish, O'Donnell goes on to the absurd flesh eating argument in defense of Vick:
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!!!
Perhaps in the insular Hollywood vegan world eating meat is considered weird. It could also be a failed attempt by the former producer of The West Wing at humor. O'Donnell then invokes natural law:
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?
Lawrence, in the course of typing up this blog chronicling your absurdities, I noticed a couple of small insects crawling across my computer monitor. Without a moment of guilty conscience I picked up a paper towel and instantly deprived them of their mortality. This is not something I (or most people) could do to a dog. So, yeah, there is a difference depending on the animal. Keep that in mind the next time the bug exterminator pays a visit to your home.
Following these laughable assertions, O'Donnell then compares humane euthanasia of sick pets to electrocuting dogs:
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.
If you think O'Donnell couldn't get any more aburd in his defense of Vick, you would be wrong. He actually suggests that eating hamburgers is just as morally repulsive as torturing dogs to death:
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.
Between bites of a Big Mac today, Lawrence, I will ponder if President Jed Bartlet ever electrocuted his pet dog in The West Wing.
There is a BIG difference between raising an animal for meat and slaughtering them, and raising a dog to fight (sometimes to the death) and because it loses a fight you beat it to death or hanging it. Most animals for meat products are killed quickly and as humanely as possible. I do not see how you compare a pig which is raised for either medical research or meat, verses a dog which is raised for companionship and protection.
I'm not against medical research on animals or eating animals when it is necessary. I am against denial about it. And I hate cruelty. That's my big turn-off. When James Lipton asks me what turns me off, it'll be cruelty.
cruel is as cruel does.
I watched a German Shepard snatch a salmon out of the water.
O’Donnell is truly one of the most moronic guys I have ever seen. His analogy is ridiculous.
I do think that catching a fish over and over isn’t fun at all for the fish, it is probably horrible. But that is part of nature.
Breeding these dogs to fight each other and killing them himself when they aren’t lethal enough killers...that ain’t anything like fishing.
There is an order to nature.
The dog has set himself aside as man’s companion, protector, servant and most of all, friend. Dog and man have a special relationship that is unparalleled anywhere in the natural world. Mutual admiration over the generations has built a bond that is now pretty unbreakable.
You may equate dogs to pigs and juxtapose morality in killing either but your thin argument doesn’t even address the fact that dog is man’s FRIEND and will be until the end of time. Pigs and cows are man’s food and will be until the end of time. If you cannot tell the difference between friend and food, I really don’t know what to say.
I contend it is far worse to turn our backs on our faithful friends that have been with us since the beginning than to kill a deer and eat it.
My English springer, Jake is getting short. He is coming up on 18. Wonderful companion, bird dog, etc.. It is rough taking care of him (e.g. incontinent, blind, hind parts), but I do it because I love him. If I can't control what little pain he has, I will put him down. And both the First lady and I will be there.
Maybe I'll add on later, but now I've got something in my eye...
5.56mm
I don't think anyone IS in denial about it. As a culture, we have raised dogs above other animals. They are useful workers and loving companions and it doesn't hurt that they're cute.
Mostly, I think we try to strike a balance between using animals for what we need, and doing that in a way that causes them as little suffering as is reasonable.
We eat animals for food. Anyone who would kill animals SOLELY for sport, leaving the animal to rot is universally condemned. Hunters try to kill as quickly and humanely as it can be done.
We thin wild animal herds because they pose dangers to us, and overpopulation harms them as well. Too many deer in any particular area will eventually starve.
There are greyhound rescue organizations out of the realization that killing them at the end of their career is cruel.
I'm sure that slaughtering plants are not pleasant places. The animals likely do suffer and live in less than ideal conditions. That is done to provide us with meat at reasonable prices. There is a trade off.
Michael Vick tortured animals for entertainment and money. Therein lies the difference.
Cows suffer so that humans can eat them and live. Those dogs suffered so that Michael Vick could swagger around like a thug.
Well, just when we thought Rosie was the dumbest O Donnell this idiot makes it a race.
“As a culture, we have raised dogs above other animals.”
And dogs have done the same for us. The dog is singular in the animal kingdom with respect to his admiration of man. Man is without friend in the world, save one. The dog.
I'm not sure I agree. Dogs have been tamed over hundreds of years. Do wild dogs run up to you, tails wagging?
For which, I'm exceedingly happy.
“Dogs have been tamed over hundreds of years.”
The term you are looking for is “domesticated”, not “tamed”. You tame an animal that is currently wild.
No animal has played a greater role in his own domestication than a dog. Historically, he has sought out man, not vice versa. He lived on the outskirts of the villages, consuming the byproducts of man’s existence. In return, he warned them of intrusion and danger. Soon they began fighting alongside man, helping him hunt, protecting him in the wild, and in some cases looking over man’s infant offspring.
He asks for nothing in return but the company and affection of man. He will give his life for you. The mutual respect and admiration man and dog have for each other is unparalleled in nature. It has been written about in literature as long as we have had literature. There is a reason for that.
And I am under no illusion--as the Leftists are--that pristine nature is all peace and harmony. It's a bloodbath. Or, to paraphrase Herman Melville (Moby Dick), its creatures have carried on endless warfare since life on earth began. However, I intend to participate as little as necessary.
You can do as like.
You are reasonable and compassionate, O Goddess of the Hunt. But, though YOU may not be in denial, many are. Those who dine on milk-fed veal or lamb chops choose not to think about the suffering that all this preparation cost, or if they don’t know, choose not to know.
Larry is still crazy.
To return to Moby Dick (hardly a book about animals' rights, but certainly one written by a brilliant and honest observer of the way things are, rather than the way things ought to be), as Starbuck (yes, I think they were named after him), the admirable First Mate, sits in the ship dining on whale steak (it's his due, since he's the one who killed the whale), he can hear, seperated from him by merely the planks of the ship's hull, the sharks feeding, in a frenzy, on the same whale's carcass. The similarity between the behavior of the men and the sharks is not lost on Melville or the reader.
Melville also observes--as you may remember--that the same men who hunt down and slaughter the whales, stroke and caress the heads of the baby whales who come to them for friendship in the open ocean; that the men observe the mother whales nursing their babies just as the same men prepare to hunt and kill the adult whales; and that the whales are slaughtered for their oil so that there will be lamplight in the churches back in New England, where love, kindness, peace, and compassion are preached. This is not an admonition, merely an observation.
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