Wednesday, August 22, 2007

Sally Jenkins nails it...

All of the thoughts I've had on the issue of Michael Vick and dog fighting are covered in a well seasoned piece by Sally Jenkins in today's Washington Post in an article entitled, The Gall Of It All. While I understand those who state that we should feel more outrage over people being treated inhumanely, I do feel outrage over that. I feel outrage every time I realize that we as a nation do not value the lives of others as much as we do American lives. Those of us who are carnivores do eat animals that have been killed, but we have taken steps to try to ensure that even while considered a food source animals do not suffer needlessly nor be tortured.

Dog fighting is not for food, it's not a matter of kill or be killed, it's done for sport, the death can not rationalized and while it could be said Americans don't shed the same tears over the death of a chicken or a farm animal the reality is many Americans own dogs as pets. Is there a bit of hypocrisy in this? Of course, there is a certain amount of hypocrisy in all of us. Yet, as Sally Jenkins points out, the outrage at Vick is not misplaced.

4 comments:

Larry said...

Good post.

Watching starving dogs tear each other apart for the sport of betting is a horrible matter, and just because our government ( Both Parties) feel bloodthirsty enough to send innocent soldiers to a worthless death, does not justify the harm to animals, as Vick and many other do.

Unknown said...

I agree 100%, I think all too often people try to rationalize or justify behavior that should just be unacceptable. It would be nice to think we could at least find a starting point where we could all agree that certain things were not necessary and at least go from there. To me dogfighting, cock fighting and the like should be a given that we could all live without it.

Larry said...

Lisa,

One would have to be very cruel to sit and salivate over watching animals tear each other to shreds, then go out and hang and torture the winner.

Unknown said...

Unfortunately given the number of those who participate in dog fighting, even here in my own city of Toledo it appears we have too many people who are that cruel.