Obama Hires Dog AttorneyFollow

Lawsuits are the other great American tradition, dontcha know. I learned that in political science class when we discussed our first major Supreme Court case, Marbury vs Madison. My professor (who in addition to being a PhD in polisci was also a Grammy award winning pianist, oddly enough) gleefully shouted, "And what do Americans do when someone pisses em off bad enough? THEY SUE!"

It's obvious that once the animal is deemed "humanely treated" it's all going to be thrown out. Who knows atm when this throwing out can occur, BUT, if it does happen at the court level - hopefully the prosecuting neighbor will have to pay legal fees for the defendant.

This, so long as it's implemented correctly, seems to be a very effective way to curb animal abuse. It saves money, time, and waste by relying on the fact that many people hate to see animals abused. You know, Virus, this isn't really big government, it's actually sort of Libertarian (relying on the individuals to use the law, not government agents)... I can't figure out why you hate it...

That electing Democrats lead to sueing worms for pooping in the grass or something equally ridiculous.

It's a slippery slope, dontcha know?

Chambliss is my senator *gag* and he can die in a thousand fires.

I suppose there's something to be said about complaining about the research cows here at UGA. They do weird things to them that could be construed as cruelty. For a long time, there was a steer with a large hole in his side with a rubber plug in it covering up his intestines so they wouldn't spill out. They were studying the digestion in rudiment stomachs. They never pulled the plug out when he was conscious, of course; he'd be knocked out before they started rummaging around in his guts. But if you weren't aware of the experiment and you drive down South Milledge (the ag experimental road here in town) and saw this cow with a freaking giant rubber plug in its side, you'd probably be tempted to call the EPA (which is actually a mile or two away from the farms, as the crow flies.)

So I suppose he's speaking up on behalf of the dairy farmers, or perhaps the chicken farmers, who could potentially be sued for caging chickens.

Edited, Jun 29th 2009 4:23pm by catwho

Yes

Who the fuck else is going to report it when you mistreat an animal? You certainly aren't going to call the police on yourself. The animal can't operate a phone. What would you rather have done to prevent the mistreatment of animals?

What I don't understand, is how this proposal is different from what we can already do.


Oh I see

Okay no, mistreatment cases don't belong in a civil court (which is what this seems to be enabling? correct me otherwise.) They belong in criminal court with the punishment as prison time.

***



Maybe they should be? Mistreating a food animal isn't any less heinous than mistreating a pet.

Edited, Jun 29th 2009 7:48pm by Pensive

I recant my earlier post to post this instead

Of course not; that's far too low. It should be a criminal action in 100% of cases.

Cat's aren't moral agents. You can't hold them responsible. You can, however, be responsible toward them; it's exactly like a human baby.



You are attempting to minimize harm by doing so given all available options, so no. It's certainly worse to let your dogs on the garden rabbits and let them mangle them and leave them for dead then shooting them with a paintball gun. Using a dog to fetch a rabbit and then shooting it in the brain is less cruel. Using just the paintball gun is even less cruel. Using a loud noise that scared the **** out of them would probably be even less cruel. I'd honestly prefer that you go with a loud noise, but I'll take whatever I can get and just thank the stars that you aren't using dogs.



I don't have any idea, either about how those work, nor about the capacity for a wasp to suffer.



Any cruelty at all... exactly as it is for humans.

Cruelty at the very least involves some sort of egregious harm, where it is not justified by any practical matter, or where there is a conscious attempt on your part to inflict pain rather than kill as painlessly as possible, or in cases of negligence where you should have known better, what the consequences of your actions would have been. Slapping your cat on the nose to discourage it from eating your chicken isn't cruel; holding its face to an electric range is.

I don't think that anyone is for that thought. There's no need to read insidious intentions into the few lines of what even you must admit is probably nothing more than well intentioned theory.

As long as the intentions don't vanish for some reason I don't see any reason why a judge would seriously entertain punishing you after an investigation, and I'm sure that you could probably entertain some recourse yourself, if you had your good reputation dragged through the local paper due to some conniving covetous neighbor.

Why would your neighbor have a grudge against you?

Silly people. Insects don't count as animals unless you are Buddhist. They don't even have a developed enough nervous system to detect pain; if you pull a leg off an ant, it won't even notice anything other than that it has trouble walking now.

So go on, kill all the bugs you want! (Except ladybugs, which are beneficial, and butterflies, which are pretty.)