Character is how you treat people that are lower than you. In this case, animals count too. I am not a vegetarian; I love meat, and I have absolutely no problem with killing animals for said meat. On the other hand, I have a serious problem with people abusing animals. It's cowardly to hurt something that has no ability to defend itself. Now, just to provoke some thought, here's a question - say the guy happened to enjoy eating poodle. Would it be wrong if he bought a dog and humanely slaughtered it for the purpose of consumption? If not, what's the difference between a dog and a cow?
I said a Human life. Milliron hardly counts. And in the example, no. It's not ethical to kill the otters. The need for the otters to die is contrived bullshit - but I wouldn't have a problem with Milliron or the cops agreeing to torch the otters so they could get the homicidal mad man away from the human, and then putting captain evil choices in jail for animal cruelty. If on the other hand, the hypothetical was that by soaking a 1000 otters in gasoline and setting them on fire, we'll create a medical cure that will make Milliron not a douche, I'd be ok with that. I've eaten dog. And cat, guinea pig, rabbit, horse, snake, spider and I'm sure some other shit that some people keep as pets. I don't see anything wrong with it and I don't see any difference between one animal and another if they're raised as livestock. Eating your pets though? That's kind of fucked up. If you keep a cow as a pet, not as a stock animal raised for slaughter and eating, but as a family pet, and then one Tuesday after years of love and affection, you decide that Sausage the family pet pig is going to be bbq ribs tonight? That's fucked up. And not because I give a damn about the animal - but because it says something deeply disturbing about you that you can butcher and eat a pet. Although anyone who enjoys eating toy poodle has to have fucking issues already. 4lbs while it's alive? Those fucking things are basically all skin and bone. You'd probably get more meat from a quail and you wouldn't have to endure the shame of having owned a toy poodle.
[Off focus of topic, on focus of where it has went] I'm not sure I understand the line you are drawing here. Or, at least, I don't see it drawn quite as distinctly as you are making it seem. I'd want to suggest that killing animals for meat, especially at the "mass production" level we do in the western world (with necessary terrible living/raising/feeding conditions for the animals) could easily be construed as abuse. (I don't mean this to be relevant to scootah's excellent points about what killing pets/abusing pets etc. says about the person doing it.) I love meat as well, eat it pretty much everyday, but I try not to succumb to (what I take to be) the illusion, and the false moral absolution that comes with it, that what I'm doing doesn't suck for the animals. I do think it sucks for them, but I do it anyways because I love meat, and live with the guilt that comes with it.
I take this as more of a sign that those lighter penalties need to be increased, not that the penalties for animal cruelty need to be decreased. I'm ok with killing animals if you do so humanely, and for a good reason. I grew up a country girl and when my cat was run over and dying, I insisted on being there when my dad broke it's neck, clean and quick. Beating it to death? Go fuck yourself. Oh, and Michael Vick should be thrown to a pack of feral, starving dogs while wearing Lady Gaga's meat dress.
I'm not going to get deeply into the semi-retarded pro-choice/vegetarian argument above because it will rapidly deteriorate into a political argument. It is, however, fucking stupid. In RE: animal abuse, I have a really visceral, gut-level reaction to any kind of animal abuse and part of me is so wholly against it that I find abusers to be in that "unforgivable" territory along with pedophiles and rapists. I do think, though, that one of the reasons I lump them into that group is not necessarily the horribleness of their crime, but that I simply assume that someone capable of such an act must be seriously disturbed on a very fundamental level. I think part of your humanity must be missing if you can beat a dog to death, and I don't think it's something you can get back. It's not even really an issue of a "fair fight." It's that these animals are helpless, yes, but also that the abuse is so completely pointless and vicious. The goal is only the deliberate misery and sadness inflicted on a creature unable to defend itself or comprehend what's happening.
Pretty much my thoughts exactly. Heaven forbid someone ever abuse my dog, you would be reading about me on the front page of the next days paper.
I have a hard time with people that don't draw a line between humans and animals. My opinion is that we're all animals. Humans don't have a special divine characteristic, much less the power to upgrade certain animals to our level of non-animal superiority. I saw a bumper sticker today that said "Animals are just humans with more feet." Fine. What about cats, then squirrels, then birds, then butterflies, to crickets, to spiders, to fruit flies, to mites, to worms? If plants and mold show reactionary behavior, albeit slow, how do you quantify the difference between animals and other life forms? Should we stop killing mold with bleach because it's a life form? By this definition hooking a living worm followed by throwing it into water to be eaten alive by a fish, is torture. I don't think anyone has a problem with that. The only reason animal torture is illegal is it's a similar psychological state to criminal behavior. And because it probably pisses people off which spawns more violence. Not because 'animals are human too'. End of the day - you do what you have to for your own survival and wellness. We only appreciate dogs and cats because they serve us. We only harvest pigs and cows because they're tasty. When was the last time someone stood up for worms (technically animals), mosquitos, or other animals that don't help us. If we do help them, it's only because we think there's a remote chance some chemical they produce, or help another animal produce, may help us prevent cancer at some point. We're animals and we adapt to our environment to increase our well being and survival. And I have no problem with that, I just think it's stupid to try and justify our treatment of other things because we respect their humanity or their fair chance at a pursuit of happiness.
We're just animals like other animals, therefore we don't have the "power" to upgrade other animals to being non animals like us? What? It might not be that we care about animals' humanity and their pursuit of happiness (humanity? I thought humans were just animals?). As many people here have commented, we seem to have a clear and visceral reaction to animals being hurt. We don't like it; perhaps it's that empathy gene I always hear about.
Putting people behind bars in an incident such as this doesn't solve any problems. Sure it'll make you feel better because he killed a dog less than humanely, meanwhile this guy's family is suffering because he lost his temper once. Maybe the guy needs help or maybe he just flipped out for a second and over reacted, but if he does need psychological help putting him behind bars is going to give the opposite of the desired effect. But it's a fucking animal, not a person. It'd be one thing if he was torturing it or (assuming a not cat-sized dog was involved) involved in a dog fighting ring, or some kind of recurring maltreatment in which case yeah, lock the guy up for SOME time, maybe a year or two and get the person mental help. There is a bigger issue at stake for people who torture animals, namely them turning into serial killers who wear other people's skin with their wiener tucked back so they can feel like a woman, than exacting revenge for an animal. Again, animals don't deserve the cruel punishment, I just think people focus on the cuteness of animals too much.
My twin brother always got the worst of the shit in middle school, because he's always been more socially awkward than me. Of course, the slur of the time was to call kids gay, so my brother got called a fag all the time. My brother didn't really know how to stand up for himself, so I'd usually be the one to go over and tell whoever it was to shut the hell up. This one kid (his name was Nilesh, but we called him Eyelash, because we were in middle school and because fuck that kid) used to make a point of saying "faggot" whenever me or my brother was in earshot. We're walking down the aisle of the bus one day after school, and of course Chief Queef over here says, "Man that RCGTbro is so gay!" I had band last period of the day, so I was carrying my tenor sax in its hard-shell case. Looked like this, weighed a solid 40 lbs: Spoiler I shoved the thing spear-style into his face and held him against the window for about ten seconds or so, until my frontal lobes decided to reassert themselves. He threw a half-assed punch at my eye and we kept it moving. He must have been hurting a little bit, because he didn't give us any more shit. Luckily, once the hormones stopped raging my temper got a lot better, and I haven't seriously lost my shit since high school.