Atheism
Politics
Memes
Mind
Matters
String
Interact
Feedback
Links
Debate
Home
Eating Horses
The BIG Problem
Animal Rights
Don't Eat Me!
GM Food
Church of Ultimate Naked Truth
Very often these same people will refuse to give to human charities saying that we should look after our own, charity begins at home and what the poor bleeders need is contraceptives not food.
People watch advertisements in which cats and dogs are treated cruelly and respond by giving money to buy dog food and to pay for people to look after unwanted former pets. Unwanted is the key word. The original owners didn't want them and the concerned people who long to look after them cannot afford to keep them. Nobody has the time and money for them. Apparently this means it is perfectly reasonable to make people feel guilty and tap them for cash. Giving money does little to stop animals being abused, the vast majority is used to pay wages and buy food so that the unwanted animals are kept alive. What is the point in that?
The message is clear. If you have a pet that you don't want the best thing to do is to take it somewhere far away and abandon it. It will be found and somebody else's money will be used to feed it.
People who live in cities and never come in to contact with animals as a business can very easily begin to treat them like children. It is not practical to treat animals in this way, it leaves you open to ongoing commitments that could be unsustainable. Once an animal is treated as a child it becomes illegitimate to consider costs. If Fluffy needs a heart-lung transplant then Daddy will have to stump up the cash. You wouldn't flinch if it was a child, accuses the vet's stare, now be reasonable and sign the cheque, I'll fill the amount in later.
Where do you draw the line? Earthworms on life-support machines?
The time has come to give some people a big collective slap across the face. They are animals, you cannot give them open-ended commitments. They breed. There will be more. There is a bottomless pit waiting for your pity and your money, step back from the edge, don't fall in, don't drag the next generation in with you.
When there is efficient death control to limit early death by disease
or starvation the population of any species that has evolved through
a period of severe struggle for survival will grow, like compound
interest. Unless there is some efficient limit on the numbers through
birth control or euthanasia the numbers will grow geometrically.
Death control is always going to be popular, whether it is feeding
abandoned puppy dogs or bloat-bellied African children, there will
always be a good reason to do it, making the case for it is simple,
facts are not required, sentiment is more than adequate to do the
job. But the balancing limits on numbers will always been seen as
cruel and heartless. Nobody will ever become popular by preaching
birth control or gassing kittens. But ignoring the problem will
not make it go away. If you make the commitment to feed every cat
and dog there will never be any shortage of stray dogs to keep you
in employment. Is that the real message behind these animal support
charities?
Give us your money or the kitten gets it.
