The Batlord

Sadism is just deriving pleasure from someone/something else's pain. And I'd describe calling a cat over and petting it to lull it into a false sense of security as "slow relish".

Simple. You lock up the vigilante, cause in real life someone like that is probably an unstable sociopath or other kind of mental defective, and then you turn around and knock over the cat kicker's wheelchair.

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GuD

I think you're making it out to be far more burdensome than it actually is. A case like this would probably be over in like an hour. The really bad guys are still gonna get theirs too.

Edit: also, I'm adversely affected. Plenty of other people are too. I may not be harmed physically or mentally but I'm pissed that someone hurt a defenseless animal. I don't like being pissed. I'd consider that an adverse affect.

AND, QUIET IMPORTANTLY!
An animal was hurt/adversely affected. Maybe you disagree but I feel as a society we owe it to our dependent and independent critter friends to keep them safe from bullsht like what happened in the video. I'd also go as far as to say we owe them the decency and respect to not raise them by the billions, give them ****ty lives, and kill them for something as pointless as meat but that's another discussion.

By more or less pardoning this act you are in a way condoning it. And outside of MB this particular case has probably been forgotten by most people who've seen the video.

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I spit bullets in my feet
Every time I speak
So I write instead
And still people want me dead
~msc

VEGANGELICA

How best to change a culture so that people are more likely to treat animals kindly is an issue that interests me, since I'd like the most successful method to be used.

Some animal rights groups focus on shaming people. Others focus on educating only, in the hope that people will naturally feel some sadness about hurting animals and, if giving education and alternatives, will tend to choose those alternatives.

I support the non-shaming efforts (but I understand feeling angry when people hurt animals).

I'm glad that animal cruelty laws exist to protect animals not raised for human consumption (and I wish the welfare laws would be extended to protect animals raised as commodities), and I feel that jail time for animal cruelty is reasonable.

But I feel the best way to prevent animal cruelty isn't to stigmatize those who perpetrate it, but rather to try to raise their awareness of reasons not to harm animals.

I believe that being compassionate toward people, even toward perpetrators of cruelty, is most likely to encourage their compassion. I suspect that people who go out of their way to mistreat an animal probably have some personal issues (people who were hurt themselves may be more likely to hurt others) or were raised to feel animals lack inherent value.

In the case of Mr. Robinson who kicked that cat, I think that the actual impact on the cat should be important in determining what sort of repercussion happens if Mr. Robinson is found guilty. I feel a year in jail would be too long if the cat was not seriously injured. Also, the repercussions of hurting a non-human animal should be no greater than those of hurting a human. It doesn't sound like the cat, a stray named King, was seriously hurt, but I'm not sure.

I'm glad that Mr. Robinson didn't do what a fellow Brooklyn man did recently: set a cat on fire, for which he was sentenced to a year in jail. (http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/30/ny...sult.html?_r=0)

In the U.S., farm animals are definitely afforded fewer protections than non-farm animals, and people can do pretty much anything they want to poultry and fish raised for meat, but I wish that weren't so.

The only purpose for cruelty to livestock animals seems to be that it saves people time, money, and effort.

I agree with you about owing animals decency and respect to protect them from being kicked like in the video and to protect them from being raised for slaughter.

I feel the issues of how we can legally treat non-food animals vs. food animals are very much entwined, since raising critter friends to eat them is legal for some "pet" animals like horses and rabbits, and livestock animals often face unnecessarily cruel treatment much worse than a kick.

For example, currently you can have your pet horse killed by a stun bolt to the head followed by cutting the horse's throat: "The American Veterinary Medical Association, AVMA, has defined the method used by slaughterhouses to slaughter large animals as humane euthanasia. In other words, the use of the captive bolt to knock a horse unconcious and then cut the horse's throat is defined by the AVMA as 'humane euthanasia.'" Equine Protection Network - Horse Slaughter is Not for Pet Food!

So in the U.S. you can legally bang a horse's head with a bolt before slitting her or his throat, but you can't kick a cat.

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Lisnaholic

Quick answer because I should really be getting ready for work:-

^ That´s a fair comment, WhateverDude. I was indulging in "reductio ad absurdum", taking an arguement to a ridiculous extreme, which, I accept, can be pretty annoying!
^ I agree with Pet Sounds, and here´s a relevant statistic from Wikipedia to back him up :-

If you don´t want to do the math, that´s like $66,600 per inmate per year back in 2009. Add on inflation to bring it up to date and that´s an even bigger number. I say let the cat-kicker go and use that money to plug some gap in the welfare system.

^ Good answer, and a welcome breath of humour!

@Vegangelica:
It´s a real pleasure to see you post again, Vegangelica. As so often, you bring a more enlightened attitude to the discussion and I´m much happier with your suggestions about compassion and education than Batlord´s approach of breaking legs!

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"Am I enjoying this moment? I know of it and perhaps that is enough." - Sybille Bedford, 1953

John Wilkes Booth

few points, reading over the posts in this thread:

1. if dude punched another person in the face i doubt he'd be looking at a year in jail. this isn't a useful example of criminal justice. putting him in jail for a year only makes it more likely that he will come out an even worse person than he was before. there really isn't anything being accomplished here besides vicarious revenge.
2. karma is bull****.
3. property is not a synonym for inanimate. animals can be property, plants can be property, fungus can be property, bacteria can be property. the only form of life than can't be property (in civilized countries) is human, and even that is a rather recent innovation.
4. people are still unwilling to look themselves in the mirror for the morally bankrupt hypocrites we truly are.

The Batlord

Having an internally consistent moral code does not make you moral, it just makes you logical. I don't care how hypocritical my own morality may be. I am satisfied with it. I can eat a hamburger and still look myself in the mirror, but not if I kicked a cat. Whether or not this makes sense doesn't particularly concern me, as the contradiction obviously isn't making me lose any sleep, and I'd rather worry over things that I don't have to convince myself to worry over.

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John Wilkes Booth

so hypocrisy is apparently irrelevant to morality. who knew? i mean i'm not trying to to convince you to lose sleep. but you speak about morality as if its sole purpose is to make you feel better about yourself.

GuD

A year? Probably not. Depends on criminal record and context. I knew someone who did I think 3 or 4 months for assaulting a bouncer so it definitely varies. He did the same thing again and got 6mo. I'm not sure how extremely you mean your statement but as a society we certainly can't have people just walking around punching people in the face and getting away with it... ideally.

The hell? Who brought up karma? It's legal consequence. He kicked a cat and for the reasons I've already stated his actions deserve repercussions.

Perhaps not but that still doesn't mean animate property should be treated exactly the same as inanimate.

****ing what? Again, what does this have to do with anything? What point are you trying to make about what's being discussed here? We're talking about the ethical treatment and legal rights of animals, not some vague boring existentialist woe is me bull****.

The Batlord

As far as morality on a personal level goes, that's kind of all that it is. Does stealing make you feel like ****? Then don't steal. Does punching your mother in the face make you feel like an *******? Then don't punch your mother in the face. Does it make you feel good to work toward the betterment of society by living up to a moral code that you hope will rub off on the rest of the world and leave it a better place? Then do that. But, that doesn't particularly concern me, so I restrict myself to worrying about the moral questions that cause me actual worry, regardless of how my conclusions might affect the world if others were to adopt them.

TLDR: The Batlord is not a role model.

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DwnWthVwls

I f*cking hate how similar we think about things sometimes.

@sshole

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I don't got a god complex, you got a simple god...