See i love certain animals and if someone hurt them i'd be fucking livid.

It is hypocritical to be able to eat meat but then get in trouble for attacking an animal...so i take it you're also appossed to hate crimes laws then too?

Also it does help your Bears a little too not that i think the Falcons would have been serious contenders.

I didn't realize. When I was asking for advice on things to do during my nawlins visit you never mentioned it!

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A nation of slaves is always prepared to applaud the clemency of their master who, in the abuse of absolute power, does not proceed to the utmost extremes of injustice and oppression.
Edward Gibbon

That's interesting (and just maybe downright 'liberal' of you). I'm not saying that I disagree, but it does seem interesting to protect animals solely on the basis of them not being very good at surviving.

Again, we get back to the "public nuisance" angle. It makes sense to fight for endangered species, so as not to throw off ecosystems and threaten public health. But, on an individual basis, it seems strange that I couldn't use manatees for target practice, sick and weird as that might be. It seems hard to justify putting someone in jail with wife-beaters, arsonists, and what-not for such a thing.

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"Government big enough to supply everything you need is big enough to take everything you have... The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases."

-Thomas Jefferson

See he'd have been laughing if he played for the Saints...

It's really an issue of the common wealth. Just as we have rules about the use of public land, air, water, even radio frequencies, so too we can have rules abut the "use" of wild animals.

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A nation of slaves is always prepared to applaud the clemency of their master who, in the abuse of absolute power, does not proceed to the utmost extremes of injustice and oppression.
Edward Gibbon

Right, and that's the basis for such laws - subjective caprice. Most people like dogs but not snakes, so you go to jail for beating a dog, and you get a cool story to tell over beers for killing a snake. You just need to hope that you're particular taste in animals lines up with the most vocal local lobbies with nothing better to do than dream up specific, feel-good laws

I don't really understand the parallel, but I've never really been a fan of "hate-crime" legislation. Someone is just as dead whether they were killed for being black or whether they were killed because someone just thought it'd be fun to watch someone else die.

Maybe. But last time Vick lined up against that "D", he looked none to happy to be there. As I recall, he couldn't get off the field and next to the heaters fast enough

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"Government big enough to supply everything you need is big enough to take everything you have... The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases."

-Thomas Jefferson

Oh no i don't mean that the ones who can't survive, just the ones i like. I couldn't care less if domesticated cats went extinct, just if it were a big cat like a Tiger or Lion i'd be upset because i love big cats.

Crocodiles and Gators get protection in FL, like i care if anything happens to them. They make good boots.

Maybe that is the most rational way to look at it. I like that.

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"Government big enough to supply everything you need is big enough to take everything you have... The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases."

-Thomas Jefferson

Precisely, and in this instance i'm not a huge fan of dogs but society does generally dictate, however for your theory to work you have to be totally in favor or the right of man to slaughter any animal, only what about those that go instinct because of poachers?

I must like to compare blacks to animals

Nah the reason i asked was because:

Are you then saying a child who couldn't defend himself or a disabled person being beaten up should carry the same sentence for the offender as a brawl in a bar? What's the difference between a dust up and Aggrevated assault?

He just wanted to get those fur mits on.

Leaves the head to head between us two this season, once one of us knocks out the Saints.

Ruh Roh...

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MESMERISM, n. Hypnotism before it wore good clothes, kept a carriage and asked Incredulity to dinner. - Ambrose Bierce

If he takes a please he's looking at about at least a couple years inside, if he fights it and get a tough judge if he ends up being found guilty he could wind up with a longer 5 year stint in the big house. I think he is looking at a very tough time of it right now, he's really not looking likely to be found not guilty so one way or another he;s looking at jail time.

Drgoodtrips,

Personally, I don't think that 'animal rights' are in place to protect animals, but are ultimately in place to protect humans. I believe the fear is, if someone were to maliciously kill an animal for entertainment, then they might be more inclined to 'up the ante' and go after humans. If you were use manatees for shooting practice, it could be assumed that you lack any sort of empathy or respect for life and are a danger to others.

And remember, method and purpose of death are crucial. Pigs at a slaughter house serve a purpose, as they are being killed for food. They're being killed not for the sake of being killed, but to provide a product. It would be much different if someone one just slaughtering pigs to watch them die. You could make a credible case that a person who does this isn't quite balanced in the head.

Same thing with other animals. It's not legal to kill a dog for entertainment, but it is legal to kill a dog because it's a stray, as long as the method of death is approved by the government and you are licensed to kill the dog (such as a vet).

So, reason plays a big part. If you were lost in the wild and the only way you could survive was by killing bald eagles and eating them, I'm sure you wouldn't be hit with a lawsuit after being rescued.

Oh, and as I mentioned above:

MacDonald triad - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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“Who are we? We find that we live on an insignificant planet of a humdrum star lost in a galaxy tucked away in some forgotten corner of a universe in which there are far more galaxies than people.” -Dr. Carl Sagan

I believe some animals do have rights. Their rights are few and limited, but protects them from animal cruelty. There are, however, no animals who have a right to life, only humans have that.

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President Josiah Bartlet: Sweden has a 100% literacy rate. 100%! How do they do that?
Leo McGarry: Maybe they don't and they can't add.

Well it kind of goes to what i was saying above, its ridiculous to give animals rights if we can kill them and eat them. Why is it legal to eat meat (i.e. take them to the slaughterhouse and then cook them) but not to beat the crap out of them? It goes to intent...which is kind of like saying you can kick up some black guy but not just for the sake of him being black, because that of course would be wrong. I know its not exactly comprable because even simple assault is wrong but if you're against laws for animals surely you have to be against hate crimes. Or should we start to give dogs and black folk/women/gays the same rights now?

Looking at it from a different perspective we do give rights to those who can't defend themselves, obviously there's a difference between getting into a fight with a guy in a bar and kicking up some disabled kid - you can't say they're both the same thing. Even if you beat up a guy in a fight at least he can fight back and defend himself, a guy in a wheelchair can't.

Those would be the two oppossing views on it.

I noticed you said, "I believe the fear is..." and then proceeded with an argument (not a logical one, in my opinion, which I will explain). Is that your belief, or are you explaining the logic of others?

The argument seems to be that killing animals for non-utilitarian purposes is likely to cause children to grow into serial killers, rather than exist as a manifestation of the lack of empathy and sadism demonstrated by people with sociopathic or psychotic personalities. That is to say, we could prevent people from committing serial murders if we stop them from killing animals or wetting their beds, neither of which seems to make sense to me. Furthermore, even making these activities illegal seems pretty useless for guaranteeing human safety. A sociopath is unlikely to refrain from killing dogs simply because it's illegal and, the percentage of people that are serial murderers who kill animals as children as a function of society at large is so negligible as to be virtually useless for determining tangentially related serial murders.

Serial killers kill a pretty small section of the population to begin with, being that it is an unusual crime. And, I'm not sure how many of them would grow into what they are regardless, the effect of the legality of killing animals notwithstanding. So, perhaps this policy might save a dozen American lives per decade or something. I understand the value of human life, but aiming public policy at such minimal aspirations seems nonsensical.

I could see a more convincing argument being that allowing such casual violence would lead to a general devaluation of human life in society (not by specifically serial predators), but that still seems like a reach to me, and a foray into the arena of preemptive law enforcement.

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"Government big enough to supply everything you need is big enough to take everything you have... The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases."

-Thomas Jefferson