Animal Abuse, Sociopathy, Michael Vick and Treatment of Animals As a Mirror of Ourselves: part II.

Part II. We can learn a lot about sociopaths by researching animal abuse. The DSM (diagnostic and statistical manual) for psychiatrists (through the childhood diagnosis of Conduct Disorder), indicates that animal abuse by children is a predictor of adult antisocial personality disorder.
How does the core personality trait of the sociopath--selfishness--relate to such behaviors as animal abuse, and further, to such behaviors as human abuse, a sense of "owning" one's mate and children, which leads to such behaviors as rape, physical abuse, psychological abuse, neglect, and abandonment?

The Michael Vick & Co. Bad Newz Kennels Case drew more attention to animal abuse - at least on the web - than any event recorded by internet sites to date. To catch up, read Part I: go Here.

There are a couple points from the Part I post  i want to get to but first i want to try to outline for myself a structure of normal, wise, compassionate choices.

First:   Consider the concept of    Life.

Living Bears

I am not saying I am against all hunting; and I do not say it is always "wrong" to kill an animal. But in order to make some points later on, i think it is important to start with basics and work toward an understanding of dominance and power. So, without getting all ahead of things, i just want to keep it simple with simple thoughts. No judgeyness, just ponder.

Dead bear (head only)

ByTheWay, You can go HERE to buy dead bear heads, mounted.

Now, tell me,

why, list the reasons please, would you want to do that?

1.

2.

3.

Living Bears

Live bears

Live Wildcat

Dead Wild Cat

Felix and Samson, Living Elephants

You can buy a dead elephant's foot HERE.

Once Alive Cougar's head.

Indulge me on this one; here are some of my favorite quotes regarding our treatment of animals as a reflection of ourselves: (then i will get back to the point.)
But these quotes will shoot arrows of truth and provocation succinctly into your brain. Better to read them than me...

We have enslaved the rest of the animal creation, and have treated our distant cousins in fur and feathers so badly that beyond doubt, if they were able to formulate a religion, they would depict the Devil in human form. ~William Ralph Inge, Outspoken Essays, 1922 Mahatma Gandhi: "The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated"? Lisa: "Do we have any food that wasn't brutally slaughtered?" Homer: "Well, I think the veal died of loneliness." ~Matt Groening, The Simpsons Ask the experimenters why they experiment on animals, and the answer is: "Because the animals are like us." Ask the experimenters why it is morally okay to experiment on animals, and the answer is: "Because the animals are not like us." Animal experimentation rests on a logical contradiction. ~Charles R. Magel From beasts we scorn as soulless, In forest, field and den, The cry goes up to witness The soullessness of men. ~M. Frida Hartley The question is not, "Can they reason?" nor, "Can they talk?" but rather, "Can they suffer?" ~Jeremy Bentham Think occasionally of the suffering of which you spare yourself the sight. ~Albert Schweitzer I care not much for a man's religion whose dog and cat are not the better for it. ~Abraham Lincoln

People are more violently opposed to fur than leather because it's safer to harass rich women than motorcycle gangs. ~Author Unknown Personally, I would not give a fig for any man's religion whose horse, cat and dog do not feel its benefits. Life in any form is our perpetual responsibility. ~S. Parkes Cadman - Ever occur to you why some of us can be this much concerned with animals suffering? Because government is not. Why not? Animals don't vote. ~Paul Harvey Support your right to arm bears. ~Cleveland Amory Why should man expect his prayer for mercy to be heard by What is above him when he shows no mercy to what is under him? ~Pierre Troubetzkoy Cockfighting was illegal in Oklahoma until 1963, when a judge ruled that chickens are not animals and therefore unprotected by anticruelty laws. ~U.S. News & World Report, 6 December Animals give me more pleasure through the viewfinder of a camera than they ever did in the crosshairs of a gunsight. And after I've finished "shooting," my unharmed victims are still around for others to enjoy. I have developed a deep respect for animals. I consider them fellow living creatures with certain rights that should not be violated any more than those of humans. ~Jimmy Stewart If we cut up beasts simply because they cannot prevent us and because we are backing our own side in the struggle for existence, it is only logical to cut up imbeciles, criminals, enemies, or capitalists for the same reasons. ~C.S. Lewis People are more violently opposed to fur than leather because it's safer to harass rich women than motorcycle gangs. ~Author Unknown

When I was twelve, I went hunting with my father and we shot a bird. He was laying there and something struck me. Why do we call this fun to kill this creature [who] was as happy as I was when I woke up this morning. ~Marv Levy The woods were made for the hunters of dreams, The brooks for the fishers of song;To the hunters who hunt for the gunless game The streams and the woods belong. ~Sam Walter Foss Animals can communicate quite well. And they do. And generally speaking, they are ignored. ~Alice Walker In an earlier stage of our development most human groups held to a tribal ethic. Members of the tribe were protected, but people of other tribes could be robbed or killed as one pleased. Gradually the circle of protection expanded, but as recently as 150 years ago we did not include blacks. So African human beings could be captured, shipped to America and sold. In Australia white settlers regarded Aborigines as a pest and hunted them down, much as kangaroos are hunted down today. Just as we have progressed beyond the blatantly racist ethic of the era of slavery and colonialism, so we must now progress beyond the speciesist ethic of the era of factory farming, of the use of animals as mere research tools, of whaling, seal hunting, kangaroo slaughter and the destruction of wilderness. We must take the final step in expanding the circle of ethics. ~Pete Whether hunting is right or wrong, a spiritual experience, or an outlet for the killer instinct, one thing it is not is a sport. Sport is when individuals or teams compete against each other under equal circumstances to determine who is better at a given game or endeavor. Hunting will be a sport when deer, elk, bears, and ducks are... given 12-gauge shotguns. ~R. Lerner, Heaven is by favor; if it were by merit your dog would go in and you would stay out. Of all the creatures ever made [man] is the most detestable.

Of the entire brood, he is the only one... that possesses malice. He is the only creature that inflicts pain for sport, knowing it to be pain. ~Mark Twain Evolutionary biology is now uttering and seeking those forces that link us with all those that have being. If we can discover the meaning in the trilling of a frog, perhaps we may understand why it is for us not merely noise but a song of poetry and emotion. ~Adrian Forsyth, A Natural History of Sex, 1986 Vivisection is a social evil because if it advances human knowledge, it does so at the expense of human character. ~George Bernard Shaw I am not interested to know whether vivisection produces results that are profitable to the human race or doesn't.... The pain which it inflicts upon unconsenting animals is the basis of my enmity toward it, and it is to me sufficient justification of the enmity without looking further. ~Mark Twain  www.k-state.edu/womenscenter/  The basis of all animal rights should be the Golden Rule: we should treat them as we would wish them to treat us, were any other species in our dominant position. ~Christine Stevens If a group of beings from another planet were to land on Earth - beings who considered themselves as superior to you as you feel yourself to be to other animals - would you concede them the rights over you that you assume over other animals? Attributed to George Bernard Shaw When a man wants to murder a tiger he calls it sport; when the tiger wants to murder him he calls it ferocity. ~George Bernard Shaw The animal shall not be measured by man. In a world older and more complete than ours, they move finished and complete, gifted with extension of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear. They are not brethren; they are not underlings; they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendor and travail of the earth. ~Henry Beston, The Outermost House I had bought two male chimps from a primate colony in Holland. They lived next to each other in separate cages for several months before I used one as a [heart] donor. When we put him to sleep in his cage in preparation for the operation, he chattered and cried incessantly. We attached no significance to this, but it must have made a great impression on his companion, for when we removed the body to the operating room, the other chimp wept bitterly and was inconsolable for days. The incident made a deep impression on me. I vowed never again to experiment with such sensitive creatures. ~Dr. Christian Barnard, surgeon

I think animal testing is a terrible idea; they get all nervous and give the wrong answers. ~Author Unknown Teaching a child not to step on a caterpillar is as valuable to the child as it is to the caterpillar. ~Bradley Millar A Robin Redbreast in a cage Puts all Heaven in a Rage. ~William Blake, Auguries of Innocence http://www.k-state.edu/womenscenter/  The human spirit is not dead. It lives on in secret.... It has come to believe that compassion, in which all ethics must take root, can only attain its full breadth and depth if it embraces all living creatures and does not limit itself to mankind. ~Albert Schweitzer, Novel Peace Prize address, "The Problem of Peace in the World Today"   People must have renounced, it seems to me, all natural intelligence to dare to advance that animals are but animated machines.... It appears to me, besides, that [such people] can never have observed with attention the character of animals, not to have distinguished among them the different voices of need, of suffering, of joy, of pain, of love, of anger, and of all their affections. It would be very strange that they should express so well what they could not feel. ~Voltaire, Traité sur la tolerance   Non-violence leads to the highest ethics, which is the goal of all evolution. Until we stop harming all other living beings, we are still savages. ~Thomas A. Edison Very little of the great cruelty shown by men can really be attributed to cruel instinct. Most of it comes from thoughtlessness or inherited habit. The roots of cruelty, therefore, are not so much strong as widespread. But the time must come when inhumanity protected by custom and thoughtlessness will succumb before humanity championed by thought. Let us work that this time may come. ~Albert Schweitzer   Because the heart beats under a covering of hair, of fur, feathers, or wings, it is, for that reason, to be of no account? ~Jean Paul Richter

Though boys throw stones at frogs in sport, the frogs do not die in sport, but in earnest. Plutarch I abhor vivisection with my whole soul. All the scientific discoveries stained with innocent blood I count as of no consequence. ~Mahatma Gandhi The squirrel that you kill in jest, dies in earnest. ~Henry David Thoreau I ask people why they have deer heads on their walls. They always say because it's such a beautiful animal. There you go. I think my mother is attractive, but I have photographs of her. ~Ellen DeGeneres The fascination of shooting as a sport depends almost wholly on whether you are at the right or wrong end of a gun. ~P.G. Wodehouse    If you love animals called pets, why do you eat animals called dinner? ~As seen on a t-shirt.   As often as Herman had witnessed the slaughter of animals and fish, he always had the same thought: in their behaviour toward creatures, all men were Nazis. The smugness with which man could do with other species as he pleased exemplified the most extreme racist theories, the principle that might is right. ~Isaac Bashevis Singer

To a man whose mind is free there is something even more intolerable in the sufferings of animals than in the sufferings of man. For with the latter it is at least admitted that suffering is evil and that the man who causes it is a criminal. But thousands of animals are uselessly butchered every day without a shadow of remorse. If any man were to refer to it, he would be thought ridiculous. And that is the unpardonable crime. ~Romain Rolland, Nobel Prize 1915       When it comes to having a central nervous system, and the ability to feel pain, hunger, and thirst, a rat is a pig is a dog is a boy. ~Ingrid Newkirk

Ok I got well- distracted and will return in Part III

until then here: Dis for U.

Gotta keep yer chin up.

Part III

Part IV