Leave Michael Vick Alone...

[BCPVP]

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If you believe that property rights extend that far then you should have no objection if advanced space aliens were to take over the Earth and force you to box bareknuckle to a KO and then roast the losers over a slow fire. You're their property, right?

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No. Humans cannot be property.

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If you believe that might makes right when it comes to species, then you should have no objection if someday or some century, some more powerful species than humans, enslaves and tortures humans.

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But I don't believe that might makes right so this is irrelevant.

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And perhaps we can extend rights to animals when they petition for them...

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I'm not talking about positive rights, just the right of animals to not be tormented purely for the sake of sadistic glee.

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Perhaps we can extend negative rights to animals whenever they petition for them...Better?

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I must also say that it amazes me how even the ACists seem to be ideologues in their own fashion as well, to the extent of removing common sense or any degree of empathy for others if it conflicts one iota with their ideology

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I can feel sympathy for dogs who fight without feeling people who force dogs to fight need to be fined or jailed.

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I don't think people who force dogs to fight need to be fined or jailed; I just think they should be put into a pit, unarmed, against a very angry, hungry pit bull. GUARANTEED they'd never try that crap again.

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So you think people should be possibly sentenced to death for this?

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In fact, wouldn't people be free to charge that ACists who think people who fight dogs should be jailed are hypocrits when it comes to property rights?

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No idea, and I don't know what that matters.

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We can't have it both ways. We can't argue for a society based on respect for property rights and then turn around and say "Well...respect property except in cases where I'm morally offended." It becomes about forcing our preferences on others, which is something ACists argue shouldn't be done.

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Perhaps a better way to look at it, if you can't get your head around that, could be that the ownership of an animal is actually more of a custodianship than an absolute ownership.

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Besides not liking people who do otherwise, why should we grant animals rights? Why do animals get rights but plants do not?

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Animals FEEL; plants don't. Animals don't get anything approaching human rights but they do deserve to not be tormented purely for sport.

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Again, why should "feeling pain" be the determiner of rights? And this "animals have some rights but not 'full' rights" argument is completely arbitrary. If animals deserve not to be treated cruelly, why don't they deserve not to be killed entirely? Why don't they deserve to be free from ownership as humans are?

And what if it could be shown that plants do feel pain? Would plants then be deserving of rights not to be treated "cruelly"?

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And who is to decide when someone is "aggressing" against the animal?

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Anyone with a lick of sense and decency who isn't blinded to basic compassion by a slavish adherence to some formulaic ideology.

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So only people who agree with you are capable of determining whether an animal is being treated cruelly?

[John Kilduff]

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If you believe that property rights extend that far then you should have no objection if advanced space aliens were to take over the Earth and force you to box bareknuckle to a KO and then roast the losers over a slow fire. You're their property, right?

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No. Humans cannot be property.

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If you believe that might makes right when it comes to species, then you should have no objection if someday or some century, some more powerful species than humans, enslaves and tortures humans.

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But I don't believe that might makes right so this is irrelevant.

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And perhaps we can extend rights to animals when they petition for them...

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I'm not talking about positive rights, just the right of animals to not be tormented purely for the sake of sadistic glee.

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Perhaps we can extend negative rights to animals whenever they petition for them...Better?

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I must also say that it amazes me how even the ACists seem to be ideologues in their own fashion as well, to the extent of removing common sense or any degree of empathy for others if it conflicts one iota with their ideology

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I can feel sympathy for dogs who fight without feeling people who force dogs to fight need to be fined or jailed.

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I don't think people who force dogs to fight need to be fined or jailed; I just think they should be put into a pit, unarmed, against a very angry, hungry pit bull. GUARANTEED they'd never try that crap again.

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So you think people should be possibly sentenced to death for this?

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In fact, wouldn't people be free to charge that ACists who think people who fight dogs should be jailed are hypocrits when it comes to property rights?

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No idea, and I don't know what that matters.

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We can't have it both ways. We can't argue for a society based on respect for property rights and then turn around and say "Well...respect property except in cases where I'm morally offended." It becomes about forcing our preferences on others, which is something ACists argue shouldn't be done.

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Perhaps a better way to look at it, if you can't get your head around that, could be that the ownership of an animal is actually more of a custodianship than an absolute ownership.

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Besides not liking people who do otherwise, why should we grant animals rights? Why do animals get rights but plants do not?

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Animals FEEL; plants don't. Animals don't get anything approaching human rights but they do deserve to not be tormented purely for sport.

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Again, why should "feeling pain" be the determiner of rights? And this "animals have some rights but not 'full' rights" argument is completely arbitrary. If animals deserve not to be treated cruelly, why don't they deserve not to be killed entirely? Why don't they deserve to be free from ownership as humans are?

And what if it could be shown that plants do feel pain? Would plants then be deserving of rights not to be treated "cruelly"?

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And who is to decide when someone is "aggressing" against the animal?

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Anyone with a lick of sense and decency who isn't blinded to basic compassion by a slavish adherence to some formulaic ideology.

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So only people who agree with you are capable of determining whether an animal is being treated cruelly?

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Just forget it, BCPVP. When you stop being a slave to some rigid ideological precepts and come back to being a human being, maybe there will be something we can talk about.

[mjkidd]

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Just forget it, BCPVP. When you stop being a slave to some rigid ideological precepts and come back to being a human being, maybe there will be something we can talk about.

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Seriously BCPVP, let us know when you break free of the bonds of the ideas of clowns like Locke, Aquinas, and Jefferson. Then we can have an intelligent conversation.

[morphball]

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Just forget it, BCPVP. When you stop being a slave to some rigid ideological precepts and come back to being a human being, maybe there will be something we can talk about.

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Wow, talk about throwing stones when you run out of arguments.

[valenzuela]

So according to BCPVP and Will I can put my stereo system as loud as I want to because its my property, right?

[WillMagic]

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We can't have it both ways. We can't argue for a society based on respect for property rights and then turn around and say "Well...respect property except in cases where I'm morally offended." It becomes about forcing our preferences on others, which is something ACists argue shouldn't be done.

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gold star

[WillMagic]

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So according to BCPVP and Will I can put my stereo system as loud as I want to because its my property, right?

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An argument could be made that you are "polluting" your neighbors property with sound, and that they could take action to stop it. Also homeowner's associations have rules against this sort of thing, and when you sign a contract saying you will not do x and then you proceed to do x there can be an appropriately forceful response.

[John Kilduff]

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Just forget it, BCPVP. When you stop being a slave to some rigid ideological precepts and come back to being a human being, maybe there will be something we can talk about.

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Seriously BCPVP, let us know when you break free of the bonds of the ideas of clowns like Locke, Aquinas, and Jefferson. Then we can have an intelligent conversation.

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Let's go a step further for a moment, and apply that to ALL philosophers and statesmen for a moment, and imagine we had never heard of any of them or their ideas. Would then he (or you?) then claim that humans have the right to become the gratuitous tormentors of animals? That humans have the right to inflict cruelty solely for the sake of inflicting cruelty? Of course not. So it is the blind adherence to ideological constructs that is the problem.

The same thing happened with the Nazis, to a greater degree: their attachment to their ideology trumped their humanity. Same with the followers of Mao. That is what enabled them to lose their humanity: their absolute belief in an absolute ideology, and their perceived implications of that ideology.

The error BCPVP is making is that he is considering dogs to be equal to inamimate objects in his definition of ownership. The degree to which he is losing his compassion and humanity to this blind ideological construct and attachment is the degree to which he thinks a person should be allowed to torment a dog because it is his "property". Nobody has the right to torment an animal solely for the sake of cruelty. A child might do it, but a child would know it is wrong, and not claim he or she has the right to do it.

Yet an educated adult in the throes of a total ideological attachment thinks humans have the right to torture animals to death for purely gratuitous reasons!

Ownership really has nothing to do with it either way. The right to torture purely for pleasure does not exist.

I don't believe Jefferson or Aquinas would have agreed that ownership of an animal gives one the right to torture it solely for the sake of gratuitous pleasure. They would probably have thought that a man whipping his horse long, needlessly and unmercifully, probably himself would have deserved to be horsewhipped.

Let's use a little common sense and compassion, and realize that NO philosophy on Earth can properly confer the right to inflicting needless and sadistic cruelty upon any other feeling living creature.

BCPVP's definition of ownerwship of animals incomplete and flawed, and his compassion and humanity are lacking and in danger, to the extent that he takes his favored philosophy to protect, as a right, the enactment of unvarnished sadism against helpless creatures.

The dog-fighting Vick engaged in was bad enough, but electrocuting the losing dogs??? That is going yet a step further into the realm of gratuitous cruelty.

As I said, I don't think years in prison would be necessary. I think these guys would quickly and deeply learn the error of their thinking and the wrongness of their ways if they were each forced to face an angry pit bull, unarmed, in the pit for 5 minutes. Should that be done? Well, I don't know, but it's arguably safer than prison, anyway.

Thanks for reading.

[valenzuela]

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So according to BCPVP and Will I can put my stereo system as loud as I want to because its my property, right?

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An argument could be made that you are "polluting" your neighbors property with sound, and that they could take action to stop it. Also homeowner's associations have rules against this sort of thing, and when you sign a contract saying you will not do x and then you proceed to do x there can be an appropriately forceful response.

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Will if we had AC , loud stereos wouldnt be a problem for the reasons you listed.
However in the current world ridicoulosuly loud music on unapropiate times are rightly banned because its very annoying for other people.
In that same way AC could also deal with dog torture on different manners, however in the current world just letting dog owners do whatever they want is not optimal IMO. Remember that this is the same current world that doesnt let people fire someone for his personal life

[elwoodblues]

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Perhaps we can extend negative rights to animals whenever they petition for them...Better?

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Should babies have rights? Can they petition for them?