Personally, I would go for the Old Testament version of justice in this case: douse the kid in petrol and set him alight and see how he likes it. Oh sure, put him out in time to let him go through skin grafts,etc .. wouldn't want to be merciful and just outright kill him or anything.
Well, the kid is definitely being punished only for his intent and not for his actual act of lighting the kitten on fire - scientific research is done on kittens that really can be far worse than burning the animal, only it's done for a good purpose.
Since his intent and maliciousness is being punished, i think this is something the kid can change. A jail sentence of 16 months (>1 year!) is too much for someone who can be reformed. 100 hours community service I think is fitting.
Since his intent and maliciousness is being punished, i think this is something the kid can change. A jail sentence of 16 months (>1 year!) is too much for someone who can be reformed. 100 hours community service I think is fitting.
It's reasonable like looking at a kid who spends all day making models out of carved pieces of wood, and reasoning that he will become a carpenter when he grows up. Or looking at a kid who spends his time making useful little programs, and reasoning that he will become a programmer when he grows up. It may not be accurate in all cases, but it is certainly a reasonable assumption.
I remember killing ants outside my house because they were coming inside my home. I'm not an ant killer today.
Did this kid burn kittens for a living or something? no.
Bad example, the old testament says that god granted man dominion over the beasts of the field, so 'an eye for an eye' certainly wouldn't apply.
On a completely different note, while I certainly don't condone torturing of animals, I think in this case there is a fairly serious bias due to cuteness. Would there have been the same tear jerking coverage and public outrage if he'd set a rat alright ? How about a snake ? A spider ? A nest of spiders ?
I didn't mention anything about burns - only the use of heroic measures.
Can you actually say anything to disagree, or are you just against what I said because I said it?
Are you suggesting we start legislating based on potentiality - what might happen?
If 'you' (and by you, I mean anyone) are willing to completely dissociate yourself from the suffering of another creature, or laugh it off, because that creature isn't human, then I don't want to know you or have anything to do with you.
I believe that rights are social constructs (i.e., they are man-made, not god-given), defended by law (force), and open to improvement. Animals have rights if we choose as a society to extend them rights. It's as simple as that. There are laws against animal cruelty in NSW, and so in fact, cats *do* have a limited set of rights in that state.
So what if it experiences basic emotional states? It has no consciousness, no sense of self, only basic responses.
I'm not dehumanizing the animal. It is not human. What humans intrinsically have (well apart from teh monkeys) is the ability to laugh, dream, attempt to control our future and consciousness.
I'm disturbed by the total vigilante mentality expressed by the forum. This kind of knee-jerk reactions and group thought is not only counterproductive to real, constructive, reasoned out thought, but is dangerous by the fact that it appeals to the irrational side of humanity, without real justification.
Nothing in my post did I say I enjoyed the suffering of the kitten, or that I whack off to watching squirrels get skinned alive. Not once did I claim what the kid did was a good thing, and neither did I say I supported him in his statements. But it borders on the edge of idiocy when people feel their little gooey hearts drop to their feet and start clamoring that the kid himself be burned alive and then kept alive in order to "punish" him. What would our world be like if we really did follow Hammurabi's code? While you may like the idea for "an eye for an eye" it is really not feasible, and so our state only attempts to limit it to preset conditions for punishment. Timothy McVeigh didn't have little bits of his body blown off at a time. Jeffrey Dahmer wasn't sodomized, lobotomized, had acid poured into his brain or eaten alive. They were all given a punishment based on their deeds.
Unfortunately, it is ridiculous when people attempt to equate something like a kitten to a human being. If we're going to punish people for killing kittens as much as we do people, where do we stop? Dogs? Squirrels? Rats? Mice? Insects? All these beings are capable of feeling pain, and I assure you, fear as well. All these things are living beings that struggle to survive, simply because that is what being alive is all about. All these things have a fundamental equal right to life, and all these things murder each other in the wild.
So before you start assuming that I must be some sadistic evil motherf*cker who would like nothing more to watch you die, since I obviously do not give two sh*ts about a kitten who happened to make it on the news, try pulling your head out of your @ss and thinking things through.
And whether you want to have anything to do with me or not is not my concern. This is an internet forum, and while you may be looking for some fufilling relationship online, I am most certainly not interested.
Taejin.
Domesticated cats have been bred by humans for the express purpose of companionship, and therefore they exhibit the most human characteristics of any other species of cat. Not only this, but all mammals exhibit these characteristics to one degree or another. It's all about varying degrees of sentience. Earlier in this thread I used the term "semi-sentient" to describe domesticated cats. They remember specific people, can remember their own names, and can develop relatively intricate strategies and learn tricks, which requires substantive memory (a defining aspect of character) and reasoning skills.
Of course, they aren't as sophisticated in any of these aspects as humans are, but they still possess many of the things that we use to define humanity. Compare this to, for example, reptiles or insects, which do not exhibit most of these characteristics, both emotional and logical.
Also, in response to your last (long) post, let's just make something clear: cats are semi-sentient. They aren't completely aware, but are to a degree. I agree that punishments for animal (mammal) abusers should be less severe than those for perpetrators of crimes against humans, but I do think that there should be some punishment. You don't seem to agree, based on your previous posts in this thread.
I have to agree... I mean 5-10 years in prison for animal cruelty is just too extreme. I mean we give that sentence to murderers, come on.
I would say huge fines (depending on nature of act), community service, and being forced to take a rehabilitation class.
"So what if a 1 week old human baby experiences basic emotional states? It has no consciousness, no sense of self, only basic responses."
A human baby possesses none of the qualities you list. A newborn human baby is incapable of laughing, dreaming (dreaming in the sense of fantasizing about future possibilities), attempting to control it's future, etc. Therefore according to your logic, the torture of a human baby is nothing to be overly concerned about. A baby doesn't have a consciousness, so it's no matter if it is in pain.
This is about the capacity to empathize when you see another living thing experiencing pain. If you see another organism (whether a human, or a cat) experiencing pain and terror, and you *feel* nothing at all, then congratulations, you have one of the key indicators of sociopathy/ psychopathy, i.e., the inability to empathize with others.
The law cares jack sh*t about the kitten. Researchers torture kittens in ways you can't even imagine (like giving them cancer...), and we find this acceptable because it serves a good purpose.
The law only cares about the intent and purpose the kid had in mind. It could have been a cat, dog, bird - the law is just there to punish the kid for his maliciousness.
And for someone whose maliciousness can be reformed (its a goddamn kid), there's no reason to put him in jail for over a year. In fact, community service might help him a lot more than jail
Animals != humans. Otherwise we would have called them humans. They do not have the same abilities to learn as human babies. Animals exhibit habitual learning. Babies can exhibit both habitual learning and non habitual learning.
This garbage about how seeing another organism in pain and feeling nothing at all makes you a psychopath - according to your logic, if a kid kill an ant he's a psychopath. I would venture to say that under your logic, most kids on planet earth would be defined as psychopaths. Kids behavior and thinking can be molded. Adult behavior and thinking can to a much lesser extent be molded.
This cat killer is a kid still, and he is therefore not a psychopath because he can be reformed.
The difference between an ant and a cat in relation to psychopathy is that a cat exhibits characteristics similar to a human, and therefore a human should be able to empathize with it. An ant does not exhibit these characteristics. The lack of empathy is what defines psychopathy.
Oh I get it. Since a cat is like a human, we should empathize with it more than an ant.
But wait - we do horrible things to cats. We use them in animal research, doing much worse things than we do to ants. So since we taxpayers are funding this research, we're all psychopaths. :roll:
I assumed the posters were joking when they called for the death or torture of the perpetrator.
The man was not charged for killing an animal. He was charged for acts of animal cruelty. It is not illegal to euthanize a pet cat or dog. However it is illegal to subject a cat or dog to extreme forms of torture or abuse.
I don't necessarily think juvenile detention would be the best sentence. Probably some kind of court-mandated therapy would be more appropriate.
I intended my comments more generally, i.e., I would tend to avoid people who appear to have a gross deficit in their capacity to empathize.
Obviously we aren't condoning animal cruelty, and I WISH that we didnt have to use cats to help cure diseases, but that's reality and if I had to choose one human life or all the cats in existence the human life is worth more to me, regardless of who it is.
Seriously man, I know people who want life sentences for animal cruelty,... that is just insane to me.
If you don't feel empathy toward animals in pain then yeah you got some issues, and you should get those issues solved. I don't want to be friends with someone that tortures animals, because that person has issues, but lets try to keep things in perspective here.
I believe humans have intrinsic value that depends on nothing else except being human, so I may have a different perspective of the value of human life than you.
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