"Dave Hall" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 29 Apr 2004 13:34:20 GMT, "Doug Kanter"
wrote:

"Dave Hall" wrote in message
.. .


You made a blanket statement. Do you kill silverfish if you find them
in
your cellar? How about a mosquito biting your arm?



Doug, you're grasping at straws (Soon you'll have enough to build
another strawman) here. Is the amplification and the taking of
statements to the extreme and out of context your only means of
avoiding the core issue?

A life is a life, regardless of whether it's useful to you or not. If you
believe it's cruel to kill a dog, then you believe it's cruel to kill ANY
animal unless it threatens your life. You should not be killing bugs
because
they annoy you or cows because you love steak.

Then the obvious corollary to that logic then is if you can justify
killing bugs, then you should be ok with killing people, since they
are, after all just "Another life".

So how many people have you killed?

I choose not to kill people because for the most part, they can be dealt
with in other ways, usually via reasoning, intimidation, fear, or a
judiciously timed offer of a cold beer.


Do you believe that you have the right to kill a dog that strays on
your property, despite what the law may say to the contrary?

Honestly, Dave, even if the law didn't explicitly allow it, and a
specific
set of conditions*** were met, I'd do it anyway.

In other words, the law doesn't allow it. You're just a vigilante.

We are not going to settle the "is it legal" question. Drop it. Suffice it
to say that that with rare exceptions, the church committee approach to
getting things done is a lame way of doing things. Of course, for someone
who delegates so much responsibility to a deity, a committee is a natural
thing.


Want to know how I'd
justify it? I'd use YOUR rules: You kill mosquitoes without giving it a
second thought because they annoy you. I can kill a dog if it annoys me.
Unless you can tell me that you kill mosquitoes because you eat them,
like
beef, you can't wiggle out of this one.

Society assigns a greater value to pets than it does to bugs. Your
feeble justification is just that. Nobody has ever been taken to court
for killing bugs, but the same in not true for those who wantonly kill
another's pet.

I'm part of society. I do NOT place value on a pet that violates private
property. I think you'd be surprised at how many people feel the same way.
In NY, it's illegal for a hunter to use dogs to "run" deer. Some still do
it, though. Once those dogs are trained to do that, they do it even when the
owner's not with them. Guess what DEC game wardens sometimes do with those
dogs. BLAM....and walk away. Now those dogs are a feast for raccoons and a
bunch of other happy scavengers.

You really need to live a wider life, Dave. You spend too much time with TV.