Friday, July 20, 2007

Three Interesting Questions

I received this comment on my "Michael Vick vs. Rover" post:

I always wondered how animal protection services came to be an organized institution before children's protective services came about. We think it's okay to put all sorts of sports above general education in our schools, it's okay for two men to get into a ring and cause brain damage to each other, it's okay to exploit little girls by dressing them up in makeup and small versions of women's clothing when they're two but today we take exception to a sport that has gone on for ages. I hate dog fighting; I'll make that clear up front--I hate everything to do with fights between animals, not to mention humans. When you breed anything for a specific purpose and it goes bad, its not economical to keep it living. Don't we more or less do the same thing with race horses? My dad use to breed, train, and fight pitbulls, so I know just how big of a racket it is. So much inbreeding goes on with a fighter that if he can't fight he isn't much use for anything--a "good" fighting pit bull will not make a good pet; they're crazed and attack everything. Until we all can agree on the barbaric nature of all contact sports, then I'm sure we'll all keep hearing these kinds of stories.

This evokes three different discussions: 1) Why we protect children and animals. 2) Why we let adults do stupid thinks that might kill them. 3) Why it's wrong to genetically engineer an animal in order to enhance a specific trait, to the detriment of the species' evolutionary fitness.

But I just woke up after my long shift yesterday, I'm still working on my first cup of coffee, and right now I have to get in the shower and get ready for my long shift today. I'll be back to later, though, to kick these topics around.

In the meantime, feel free to contribute opinions on any of these subjects.

3 comments:

super des said...

oh I have opinions. BUT it would take too long to express them. Summary: children good. animals good. breeders / fighters bad. And some people should not be allowed to have children OR animals.

Anonymous said...

The question isn't why we protect animals and, children. It's why haven't we ? Since the mid to late 1990'2 dog fighting (to include dog on dog............dog on pig.................dog on cat ect ect )has grown by 300 %. And, more and, more becoming a family event. The attention getter for this specific incident by the higher authorities was the money exchanges. Animal torture with gambling and drugs to enhance the serial abusive mindset and, here we are with yet another so called athletic hero setting example for a very large culture of people.

Suzanne said...

I think it is an interesting point that we often leave the most vulnerable to fend for themselves. It's just assumed that obviously parents love their kids/pets and want to do what is right for them, so people are reluctant to interfere. Although, of course, in ye olden dayes, kids were considered property and it wasn't anyone's business to tell someone what to do with their possessions. We just live in a really screwed up world.