I haven’t been following the Michael Vick dog fighting story all that much, partly because it’s one of those miserable stories that I just don’t want to get very emotionally involved in.  There are tons of those going across my news ticker every day and after I’ve read the latest from President Dispshit’s Excellent Iraq Adventure, and More Anti-Gay Crap From The Haters, I’ve usually had enough news for one day.  And partly, it’s because I’ve become inured to news articles about pro athletes behaving badly.  I should be willing to summon up more outrage but I can’t.  The standards of conduct in professional sports have been going into the gutter for decades now.

But this, from over at Daily KOS…really gave me pause…

Arianna’s ‘progressive’ celebrity pals have recently posted a slew of editorials defending the electrocution, hanging, gang rape, drowning, starvation, and systematic torture of dogs. Their reasoning? Well, through the lens of their sophistical primitivism, they seem to think it’s just plain irrational to feel anything for ‘lesser mammals’. Some have even gone so far to suggest that Vick’s crimes are some sort of appropriate karmic balance to the silliness of people putting sweaters on their dogs.

If you’re like me, you probably find it hard to believe that these views are being seriously considered among our ‘allies’ in the so-called ‘Progressive Blogosphere’, but check it out for yourself:

Lawrence O’ Donnell’s "What’s Wrong with Killing Dogs?"
Earl Ofari Hutchison’s "America’s Wildly Overblown Vick Hysteria"
Peggy Drexler’s "There’s a Fury in Canine Nation"

Huh?  Is Lawrence O’ Donnell seriously asking what’s wrong with what Michael Vick did?  Because if he is I hope the rest of his family is keeping an eye on him.  My understanding is that torturing animals is a Really Bad Sign that there’s something deeply, profoundly, sociopathically wrong inside a person’s head.  It’s something you really need to pay attention to.

I acknowledge the vegan’s retort that if you’re willing to kill animals and eat them you might as well be willing to torture them too.  I don’t find those things to be on the same psychological plane.  If I’m cruel to animals because I eat meat, then it’s a cruel world that can have my body back after I’m dead to nourish itself.  That’s in my will.  But I don’t think our flesh and blood life is essentially cruel.  It just Is.

I won’t argue that modern factory farming isn’t an abomination, let alone cruel.  I won’t argue that a lot of people who call themselves sportsmen just enjoy killing something for the sake of killing it, without a moment’s pause to reflect on how they’re just as much a part of the circle of life on earth as their food.  A human who is thoughtlessly cruel to animals has no brakes and needs to learn a thing or two about sympathy.  But a human who makes a sport out of watching animals suffer, whether they actually die or not, is dangerous.  If O’Donnell can’t figure out what the fuss is over electrocuting, hanging, drowning, starving, and sexually abusing small animals and calling that a sport, I recommend he give the matter some quality thought time, before he turns his back on the wrong person.

Oh…and before he looses his own conscience.  Over at KOS, Stroszek makes clear what the problem here is…

So yes, O’Donnell is right in his point that there is no ‘natural law’ that protects dogs, just as much as there is no natural law that protects humans. What drives people to react with disgust and horror at any immoral act is simply COMPASSION, which, sadly, seems to be more exception than ‘law’ in a society that, in just a few short years, has produced Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Prison, "Shock & Awe", and yes, Michael Vick.

We’re swimming in a cesspool of Might Makes Right here, and you need to understand that there’s no bottom to it.  We need to take a longer, closer look at where all the excuses our culture makes now for the prerogative of power are leading us.  The Greed Is Good, Power Is It’s Own Reason credo of the last couple decades has made us indifferent to cruelty.  It’s just part of the background noise in George Bush’s America.  We start viewing sadism as a normal part of our environment too, and I don’t think there is a road back from there.