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Post by
Magician22773
Definite lack of empathy. Lets see something 1000 times your size kick you around for "fun". You're a six foot, tattooed, hard ex military guy right? You'd just be a little bit pissed off, right, but no hard feelings?
Assuming that I had a brain the size of a walnut, that was wired in such a way that what was going on likely had little to no effect on my "thought processes", and that I had a body that was designed in such a way that I did not feel pain from the act, and that I was not injured in any way from it.....yeah...I would probably react in a similar fashion...curl up until I could waddle away. You are trying to apply human characteristics to an animal, and specifically, an animal that is low enough on the genetic tree that it barely has a mental concept of pain, much less emotions.
Are you seriously trying to justify animal cruelty?
The #$%^ dude.
In a way, yes.
But my guess is that everyone here has participated or been complicit in acts that were just as, if not much more cruel than "possum soccer". Do you wear makeup? Do a little searching around about some of the things cosmetic companies do to animals. Take medication? The medical industry does some of the most horrendous acts on animals while developing drugs. Hell, do you own a purebred dog or cat? Look at what puppy and kitten "mills" look like. Eat meat? Look at how slaughterhouses operate. Like watching, or participate in rodeos? How do you think a bull feels about having a strap around its testicals and a rider on its back? Or a calf getting a rope flung around its neck, a 200lb man jumping on its back off a horse, flipping it over, and its legs tied together?
And speaking of that....even seen a cow being branded? White hot iron seared into their leg, anybody? Or how about the process of making a bull into a steer? Castration without anesthetic?
I happen to think that torturing animals is something that other people should get involved with, and I would absolutely call a cop justified to use force to interrupt the torturing of an animal.
If you are talking about the abuse of a domesticated animal, or at least of an animal that would be not considered more of a "pest" (like a possum, armadillo, rat, ect), then you can try. But from what I have seen, cops usually are some of the worst when it comes to animal abuse and cruelty. Just google all the dogs that cops shoot because they think they may be a threat. We have an issue around here right now where a couple had the cops called because they had a large number of cats. These people were running an unofficial "rescue" of sorts. They had spent thousands of dollars having the animals spayed or neutered, were providing vet care for the sick ones, and they were all well fed. The "humane" society removed all the animals and euthanized the majority of them because they had no room for them in their shelter.
Post by
ElhonnaDS
There are differences in the the types of activities, though.
1) Killing animals who are a threat, killing animals for food, testing medicine on animals to save human lives.
This is putting humans before animals in importance, and I agree with that. Human lives take precedence, and if you have to kill or harm an animal to keep them from killing a person, to feed a person, or to find out how to cure a human illness, then I believe that is fine.
2) Keeping domesticated animals in poor conditions to save money, testing non-life-saving products on them like cosmetics, euthanizing animals you can't afford to care for, etc.
This is putting financial well-being and your own personal convenience above an animal's well-being. Our society is guilty of this a lot.
In some cases I think it may be unavoidable (animals put down because there are no homes, or because they have gone feral and are destroying the local ecosystem and it would be expensive to keep them), and while it's sad, it's generally done in a way causes as little pain as possible to the animals, because even when people involved in these efforts decide to put a price-tag above the life of the animal, they know it's wrong to cause them any more pain to do so than necessary.
In other instances I think it's greedy and callous (puppy mills, corporate food production, etc.), and in these instances the issue is self-centeredness and greed, and an indifference to the suffering of the animals. They don't go out of their way to make the animals feel pain, but they don't worry about spending extra money to prevent it.
3) Possum soccer, Dog Fighting, Animal beating- This is an activity in which the suffering of the animal is actually the end goal and reward of the action. None of these activities facilitate a separate goal through hurting the animals- they are about hurting the animals. These are people hurting animals because the power to cause them pain gives them satisfaction, or because the animal's suffering is entertaining to them.
I'm not going to defend a society that is indifferent to animals suffering when it is more convenient and less expensive than caring, but that is still worlds away from someone enjoying the suffering itself.(##RESPBREAK##)8##DELIM##ElhonnaDS##DELIM##
Post by
240140
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
ElhonnaDS
I'm just pointing out that there is a difference in the thought process of someone who is indifferent to an animals suffering, and someone who enjoys it. Neither is right, one is much more worrisome than the other.
Post by
1069282
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Patty
I'm speechless...
Post by
Gone
I'm speechless...
Speechless? Really? Nothing against Russians per say, but this is the same government that advocated Iran's right to develop nuclear weapons.
Post by
Magician22773
I'm just pointing out that there is a difference in the thought process of someone who is indifferent to an animals suffering, and someone who enjoys it. Neither is right, one is much more worrisome than the other.
For what its worth, which is probably nothing here, but I am ANYTHING but indifferent to animals suffering. I currently have 3 abandoned kittens, which I bottle feed up to 8 times a day, including the middle of the night. I wipe their butts with a cotton ball to help them "do their business", which often ends up more on me, than the cotton ball. I have had countless other "rescue" animals that I have gone to the ends of the Earth for.
But, I still do not believe that a couple of farm kids punting a possum around a field was (or is) animal cruelty. I have explained why, yet still there are responses like this:
If I beat the &*!@ out of
someone
incapable of feeling it, I still beat the &*!@ out of
someone
.
A possum isn't a
someone
, it is barely a
something
. They are a nuisance animal, that are generally shot on sight out here, because they have no use, and are generally either rabid, or destructive.
You are lucky around here, if you can drive 15 miles at night without running over one. And I have never seen anyone stop and take one to the vet when they hit it....unlike a dog or cat, where that is considered the proper thing to do.
Post by
Squishalot
I think the fact that they're a nuisance doesn't really defend the argument.
It's not necessarily cruel to shoot animals that are pests. What makes it cruel is the act of deliberately mistreating it. We regularly shoot / put down dogs that are shown to be harmful / destructive to society. Shooting them wouldn't be cruel. Stringing them up and using them as a gym punching bag for a session is completely unnecessary and ridiculously cruel.
Now, over here in Australia, we have the
cane toad
. A cane toad is a frog by any other definition, and while some people keep them as pets, in Queensland they're treated as pests where people like to celebrate about running them over deliberately because of how damaging they are to the local wildlife.
That doesn't mean that if you get one, you would mistreat it. You're not going to blow it up with helium and run around with an inflatable toad like in cartoons. You would just put it down, reasonably and in a humane manner.
Post by
Sas148
I found this most disturbing:
An executive with a Russian government-run television network said in a nationally televised talk show that gays should be prohibited from donating blood, sperm or organs for transplants, and after their deaths their hearts should be burned or buried.
Source
Post by
Squishalot
Suggesting that Iran should be allowed to develop nuclear weapons would be maintaining a non-hypocritical stance, seeing as they have their own. Ditto would be recommending that anybody can develop unmanned drone weapons - the US really needs to crack down on what they want a long-term international regulation to look like in this respect.
It's fair for Russia to impose their own laws on what discrimination is allowable, even if we don't like it. I'm more curious on how they think they're going to be able to enforce such a law....
Post by
Patty
I'm speechless...
Speechless? Really? Nothing against Russians per say, but this is the same government that advocated Iran's right to develop nuclear weapons.
I'm not surprised the Russian government is doing something repressive, no. I'm just stunned (although again, not all that surprised) by the "there is no war in ba sing se" policy.
Post by
134377
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
240140
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Sagramor
I'm speechless...
Speechless? Really? Nothing against Russians per say, but this is the same government that advocated Iran's right to develop nuclear weapons.
I think you mean
per se
. Also, Iran should totally have the right to develop nuclear weapons.
Post by
1069282
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Gone
Also, Iran should totally have the right to develop nuclear weapons.
You're as dumb as Putin if you believe that. This government has stated it's grand desire is to wipe Israel off the map, it backed, and has refused to lift, a fatwa on Salman Rushdie for writing The Satanic Verses, and has harbored, supported, and endorsed violent terrorist groups. Not even mentioning the fact that developing nuclear weapons spells a death sentence for it's own people since Israel would bomb them into oblivion the second they launched a missile.
Sorry for repost, I accidentally deleted the original trying to edit.
The problem with religious fanatics having nuclear weapons, is that the threat of mutual destruction means nothing. During the cold war, the US and the Soviet Union never came into direct conflict, because both sides knew that they would all die if it came to a nuclear war. We've seen time and again that radical Islamic extremists aren't afraid to die. To these people, Israel and the west are the enemy, and they're ok to die as long as they take as many infidels as possible out with them.
In addition to not caring if they die, they don't care if the 70+ million innocent civilians living in their country die either, which they will.
Post by
240140
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Monday
I'm still not sure why anyone trusts America with nuclear weapons and not Iran, I don't see Iran invading countries whenever they feel like it.
Because America has yet to use nuclear weapons outside of World War and don't have the express purpose of committing genocide?
Also the Iran government are not islamic extremists.
Iran is literally a theocracy who have harbored and trained Islamic extremists. They might not be themselves, but it's a pretty freaking fine line.
but neither do I support America with it.
If America hadn't gotten them first, the Nazis would have. They were scarily close to actually making the breakthrough needed to make nuclear weapons.
And if you'd rather have Nazis in power... well. I don't have too much to say to you at this point.
Post by
1069282
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
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