I Have an Opinion

I often read CNN's website while I am eating lunch. Sometimes that is not a good idea, like today, when I got pretty sick of what I was reading. It was this article here, about that horrid Football man who killed all those dogs and such. In this article, some brilliant rep for the NAACP actually said the following ignorant things:

"'In some instances, I believe [Mr. Football] has received more negative press than if he would've killed a human being,' [Mr. NAACP] said. 'The way he is being persecuted, he wouldn't have been persecuted that much had he killed somebody.'

"[Mr. NAACP] said he believes [Mr. Football] will cut a deal rather than roll the dice on a trial and take a chance on being found guilty, but 'whatever he's done wrongly, he needs to pay for it.'

[Mr. NAACP] also said he didn't understand the uproar over dogfighting, when hunting deer and other animals is perfectly acceptable."

Well, if ignorance is bliss, Mr. NAACP must be a really happy fellow.

First, killing just for the fun you get from torture is nasty. Killing anything just to watch it die a painful death shows there is something deeply wrong with you. And you know I think killing people is bad. But, bad enough to train an animal to do something against its nature, bad enough to torture the animals when they are alive, but then to torture them to death? That is completely sick. And, Mr. NAACP, people DO differentiate between things that were accidents and brutally torturous murderers of humans, too.

And let me count the ways in which torturing dogs to death differs from hunting a deer:

1. Hunters do their utmost to quickly kill animals and not let them suffer. They don't douse them with gasoline and laugh as they die.

2. Hunting originated as a way to feed families. Humans are omnivorous, and to eat meat, something must die. But there is more than one way to do that. Many, if not most, hunters give the animals they shoot to the needy or eat them themselves. I doubt Mr. Football man ate any dead pit bulls. But, I guess he could have. He seems inhuman enough.

3. Deer are prey animals. They were put here to be food for something. Domestic dogs were put here to be companions to humans and help them (herding, protecting, keeping warm).

4. When you are hunting, the animals have a chance to escape--a "sporting" chance. They aren't tied up and brutally killed (yeah yeah, there are some counterexamples to this--I am not for that kind of hunting--well, actually, I am not big on hunting, period, but I don't think it's on par with dog torture).

I could go on, but am sick to my stomach. And when the sports dudes on Monday Night Football went on and on about how the gambling was worse than the dog fighting, they lost all my respect, too. Gambling at least just hurts people who gamble. (Note, I don't gamble, at all, either.) I hope Mr. NAACP never hears the end of it for what he said. And I fantasize that Mr. Football gets sentenced to the job in his high security prison of scooping the guard dogs' poop. With the dogs loose and HIM chained up. Sigh, but I wouldn't do that to a fellow human being, because I am not cruel and vindictive. Lucky Mr. Football.

This is the kind of stuff I try to dwell on so I don't worry about Lee all day. How'm I doin'?