So recently, it has come to my attention that My Guy reads my blog more than I thought he did. What I thought was that he rarely or never reads it so I was mistaken. Last week he told me he had a topic for my blog, which I thought was great because as you all know, there are days we all search for inspiration for blog topics. Anyhow, he went on to give me his idea, which is really more of a debate, and I immediately dismissed him, with my quick rhetoric and a definitive answer. He, of course had an intelligent rebuttal and a spirited debate ensued. I, clearly for the one side, he for the other.The next day, over dinner he said, "I see you didn't take my advice and post my blog topic." Oh, so you've been reading my blog, I thought. Interesting. I told him that although I thought the debate was pretty cut and dry on the PRO for my side, I agreed that I would give him my forum to house his debate today.
So here goes: And please don't hold back bloggers. Let's show the real world how articulate and convincing us bloggers can be. (and immature and crude and funny too)
What's the difference between the Harvard professor, up in a tree stand killing innocent animals in the wild, and what Michael Vick did with the dogs? Why is one socially acceptable and one is criminal?
I will monitor all responses and post my stance on this issue later today.
Make me proud, peeps.
23 comments:
56 fantasy points?
No the big difference, to me living near where it just turned hunting season, is that (here at least) hunting isn't done just to kill as sport but also to make steaks and jerky and sausage. In fact, last couple of years, there's a few families that really count on the larger savings when they can stock a freezer for basically the price of butchering.
I don't have a problem with hunting so long as people use what they kill for food. And, as someone who has hunted, I have a problem with people who don't and I'm not alone.
That's the natural use of the resource.
I don't think dogs make very good jerky, and it doesn't seem to me they'd be any good with garlic potatoes and ligonberry sauce either. Whereas Bambi was made for that...
to clarify, I don't have a problem with people who don't hunt, I have a problem with folks that don't eat what they kill.
The codified law is the first difference and the second difference being born in America I doubt seriously that Vick had the balls to eat what he didn't have the balls to enter into the blood soaked arena to kill with his teeth and temperament.
One is done for sport and the other for pleasure I'll let you Mr. Candace decide which is which.
Pretty much what RW said, but it raises that age-old question that pops up every once in a while. Why the cow, but not the horse? Why the tuna, but not the dolphin? Why the pig, but not the dog? Regional tastes aside, are they really that different?
Denis Leary has a great bit on it that I can't really remember right now. But pretty much it comes down to that meat tastes like murder, and murder tastes pretty damned good.
Yep. Michael Vick didn't eat the dog.
Being raised in a family that went deer hunting, meant the difference of whether we had meat on the table for the year. If we didn't get one, it was nothing but soup for dinner. I do not hunt now, but have many friends who rely on that source of food. Another reason for hunting is to thin out the herd. Which is important in the animal world (per your discovery and national geographic chanel shows).
However, on another note, I live in the state of Texas where there are a number of hunting farms here that are set up just for the sole purpose of someone taking their kid out for his "first kill". I think that these farms should be outlawed, and the bastards who take their children to learn the wrong reason to hunt should be put in jail!!!
Also, another difference is that Deer are not bred to be family house pets or dog-fighting champs. The human race has increased these animals by overbreeding and lack of spay/neutering their pets.
Melaka
1. As most commenters pointed out, dog-fighting is a criminal enterprise, 2. the objective, as I understand it, in hunting is to kill quickly and humanely, not so with dog fighting, 3. Dog-meat is not generally consumed in the US, 4. peripheral activities which often coincide with dog-fighting include but are not limited to: illegal gambling, racketeering, drug-trafficking and prostitution. (never heard of those activities being linked to hunting.)
People have their own order of importance amongst the animal kingdom. In our modern western society, there are a long number of people who would rank dogs as being just as important as people. Deers are generally lower on the list.
In this hemisphere, dog isn't considered food, deer is. (And deer should be food, it tastes good and is a filling meal.)
Even some pretty steadfast vegetarians can be seen swatting flies.
I grew up here in Colorado, particularly up in the mountains where hunting is a way of life. But I couldn't bring myself to kill an animal. I may think different if it meant the difference between going hungry or eating, I hope I am never in that situation.
The so called sport of dog fighting is heinous. I believe it should carry a higher price to pay than a human murder, because in my mind, most people have a choice as to whether or not they get themselves into that situation. Dogs have no choice.
I think everyone else pretty much covered it, but yeah - one is a man hunting for (presumably - hopefully) food and/ or thinning out the deer population (which is important). He's probably not profiting from it other than the food, and there's no guarantee he's going to come home with a deer.
The dogs have been bred and raised to be vicious and do nothing but attack. That isn't "nature" - that's torture. Neither of the dogs have a choice - it's kill or be killed, in a ring, and someone's profiting from it financially. No one's going to be eating the dog.
One is thug bullshit and the other (which has been put in some elitist light what with the Harvard professor) is necessary to protect our resources.
Plus, I've never seen a dog's head on a wall.
an excerpt from an article written By Bill Simmons @
ESPN.com
If I spent enough time looking at electrocution photos and rape stand photos, I'd inevitably end up despising Vick. But dogfighting isn't much more abhorrent than some of the other ways we abuse animals. Ever watch what happens when a deer gets shot by a hunter but doesn't die right away? Ever watch a group of turkeys get slaughtered for Thanksgiving? Ever watch how a mink coat gets made? Ever research what happens to greyhounds once they stop racing? Hell, I plowed through a veal chop at dinner a few weeks ago. It was delicious. Does that mean I condone the creepy veal industry? Implicitly, yeah, it kinda does. Why didn't it bother me as I was putting salt on my chop and oooohing and ahhhhing about how tender the meat was? I don't know. I wish I knew. More of us are hypocrites about this stuff than we realize.
@Anonymous
Bill Simmons' article is probably more addressed to folks who have deluded themselves that meat grows on trees and nothing really has to be killed in order to get dinner. He fails to make the distinction between the plain fact that animals have to die to provide us with meat and the plainer fact that watching two dogs maul each other exist in completely separate contexts.
Simmons may know more hypocrites than I do. most of the people I know have the ability to differentiate. So his thing was kind of specious, if you ask me.
@ RW
How is Simmons misleading or wrong ? He is merely making an observation based on facts.
Seriously how do you argue that buying a mink coat is ok, even when you kow the seal got clubbed to death,betting on dogs at the track when you know the conditions for those animals are deplorable. Watching a deer helpless for days because the arrow wounded him enough to suffer for sometimes weeks before dying. None of this is cruel ?
I understand mans gotta eat but none of the above mentioned would make you go hungry if it did not happen,except the less than 40% of deer killed each year.
You both/all have valid points...(funny that you quoted Bill Simmons cuz I am a huge Simmons fan)
Sport is sport.
Hunting can be classified under both survival/sport categories, as firing a rifle at an unsuspecting, defenseless animal is abhorrent, but justifiable in most circumstances.
What is Vick's justification?
Simmons' article is not misleading. It is wrong in that it doesn't differentiate between dog fighting and food production.
He's making an observation. So am I. We're discussing the facts.
I'm looking all over for when I was talking about a mink coat, betting on dogs at the track and can't find that part. So I can't answer that one. In fact, we rescued greyhounds so, I'm not really sure where that's even coming from.
It's cruel if hunters leave a wounded animal flopping around in the bush for two minutes let alone two days. That's why you don't allow it to do that.
The last sentence or so was all hurr durr so I'm not sure what to say.
Hunting and harvesting animals for food isn't dog fighting. But the ability to differentiate might be a little trickier.
I will assume you were trying to insult me with your rarely used slang.
"Hurr durr" is the sound of laughter coming from someone with half a brain. Mostly it is used to point out when someone has made an idiotic claim what it really does is make them sound like idiots.
Really ?
I will leave you with this... "Beam me up Scotty there is no intellegent life down here"
@Anon - I don't think RW was trying to insult you. Hurr durr could also mean that he just didn't understand what you were saying in that last sentence. Neither did I, for that matter. Then again, maybe he was trying to insult you.
I'm sure he'll let us know.
That is not an argument.
There is no argument, this is little more than a spirited debate, gentlemen.
I can not condone either activity nor name calling on my blog.:)
How's that for intelligence?
It isn't even a debate.
because puppys are cute but bears eat people.
The Harvard professor has better lawyers?
Although I’m not a fan of hunting and never will be, I do see the need to cull overpopulation so that the others may live. Also, without this culling there would be hundreds or thousands of car accidents due to the overpopulation. When hunters hunt, their aim, I assume, is always a quick kill, even if it’s only to preserve the meat that they are hoping to enjoy.
Dog fighting on the other hand serves no purpose other than the entertainment of a few sadistic individuals. Dogs also die all the time, due to overpopulation, when they are put to sleep in pounds across the world. But no creature deserves to be pitted in a blood sport. Animals do serve to feed us but their lives should never, ever, be reduced to mere entertainment.
There is no comparison. None.
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