As if we need another example of our cultural descent…
Example 4, 572 is the case of Kevin Vicente, a four-year-old Phoenix boy who was recently mauled by a friend’s pit bull. According to reports, the boy- who was being cared for by a family friend- picked up a bone lying next to the dog, prompting the pit bull attack.
As a result, the family friend filed the petition to have the dog put down- and rightly so. Pit bulls have a reputation for being aggressive for a reason.
But a Facebook page which has garnered over 45k ‘likes,’ pleading support for… the dog!- may prevent the pit bull from being euthanized. This all started because the animal control and care center, which currently has the dog, wrote on the Facebook page that the dog was “going night night.”
Again, as it should.
Forty thousand likes may spare a violent dog despite what the dog did to a four-year-old boy.
The doctor who operated on Kevin said that the boy suffered a broken eye socket, broken jawbone and a broken cheekbone. The doctor was able to repair the broken bones and the muscles that allow Kevin to open and close his eyes. But, the doctor also said that Kevin would face reconstructive surgeries for years to come, including a reconstruction of the tear duct in his damaged eye- if his eye can tear.
And yet, there’s a chance that a judge could rule in favor of the pit bull.
John Schill represents the… dog… pro bono, for The Lexus Project- an organization that raises money to defend dogs considered for euthanasia. This organization has set up a trust for the dog, which has raised $5600.
Fundraising for four-year-old Kevin, the victim, has raised $6000.
The reason this episode perfectly reflects a culture in decline is revealed in the statements made by Schill. He says, “This is not Kevin versus Mickey. Having Mickey killed isn’t going to take away Kevin’s pain or injuries. The only thing this is going to do is kill a poor innocent dog.”
This is profoundly stupid, even for a lawyer.
First, Schill’s argument is a red herring. Euthanizing the dog has nothing to do with improving the pain or removing the injuries suffered by a defenseless four-year-old.
Further, who said it did?
But that’s not the issue. The issue is that euthanizing this pit bull has everything to do with preventing it from attacking and mauling someone else. Period.
Second, by definition, the dog isn’t innocent. It attacked and severely injured a little boy.
Moron.
Also notice the funds raised for both little Kevin and the pit bull- $6000 for Kevin, $5600 for the dog. Four hundred dollars is what differentiates the life of a four-year-old facing multiple reconstructive surgeries and an aggressive pit bull.
Four. Hundred. Dollars.
But this is exactly what happens in a society where people not only intentionally opt to raise dogs in lieu of having children but will treat these dogs as children. That’s a sure and sad sign that the line between the sacred and profane, the holy and unholy, has been removed- to our detriment.
In saner times, human life > than animal life, and the pit bull would’ve been killed already- no lawyers and no sympathy-based Facebook pages, no judge having to “decide” the dog’s fate. Keeping this dog alive is a threat to public safety and as such, public safety would (and should) have taken precedence over misplaced sympathy. This pit bull has tasted human blood and apart from a long process of behavior modification- which in-and-of-itself is no guarantee, precisely because it’s an animal- the likelihood of this happening again is almost assured.
But in a culture that no longer understands or acknowledges the sanctity of human life and sees little to no difference between human life and animal life, this is the logical conclusion of what happens. A Facebook page and a lawyer may facilitate this dog repeating this grisly scenario.
And because the line separating human life and animal life has been removed, our culture treats animals as if they have rights. Animals don’t have rights; they have protections. As stewards of the earth, people have an obligation to protect animals.
Until animals no longer deserve our protections. Morally and ethically, animal protections don’t come at the expense of human life. Again, in saner more religious and ethically relevant times, this didn’t have to be articulated; it was implicitly understood.
I think this points to another symptom of a morally confused culture. Superficial public displays of social virtue characterized by sanctimony. In our misguided, increasingly religion-less culture, it’s merely enough to feel good about doing something- anything- regardless of the outcome(s). Intentions and how one looks in front of others, are all that matters. These idiots are expressing sympathy for-and trying to save- a violent dog makes people feel good but inhibits them from experiencing sympathy for the actual victim. It also blinds them to the fact that they’re facilitating the recurrence of the dog mauling again in the future.
Yes, by sparing the dog’s life, these people are authorizing it to maul again, with the potential of that mauling being deadly. But it doesn’t matter. They feel good now.
It’s axiomatic that the dog should be killed. Again from a purely a-religious, commonsensical standpoint, this is an issue of public safety- preventing it from happening again.
Why? Because we’re created in the image of God which results in the intrinsic worth of human life and because we posses reason and free will- the former being a religious perspective, the alter being either a religious or a-religious perspective.
But as of right now, none of it may matter in this case. Culturally, it hasn’t mattered in a quite some time.