Ick

Here's a truly horrifying glimpse of the Winger Worldview.

Over there on WorldNetDaily, Ilana Mercer tells us why it's not a crime for Michael Vick to torture and slaughter his dogs.

They're his dogs, that's why.

Apparently if you own something, you have the right to do whatever you want to with it.

Dog fighting, which has been outlawed in all 50 states, is certainly uncivilized and cruel (although not everything that is immoral ought to be illegal). But even more uncivilized than Vick's alleged dog fighting violations has been the zeal among media pack animals to convict him. Vick is not a thief, a murderer or a rapist. Neither has he defrauded anyone. He is a gifted athlete – and an obviously aggressive young man, who may have channeled his abundant aggression into a blood sport, as men have done throughout time.

Well, you know, this is an interesting argument.

If you're a gifted athlete, you can do what you want?

If you don't rape or defraud anyone, it's okay to torture animals?

If men have done something throughout time, it's cool to keep on doing it?

(People think this way?)

Mercer continues:

Animal-rights activists share a humanity-hating agenda with environmentalists. The first would like ultimately to see the State proceed against anyone who slaughters, markets, experiments on, or even eats and wears animals; the latter wish to subordinate man to nature through codified law.

Human beings ought to care for and be kind to animals, but a civilized society is one that never threatens a man's liberty because of the callousness with which he has treated the livestock he owns. Members of a society in which peace and liberty are valued above all would have settled for boycotting Vick's games and merchandize. They might have urged the NFL to discipline, even fire, him. But they would not have called for his incarceration.

Now what now?

Environmentalist and animal-rights activists hate humanity? Say what?

We should never incarcerate folk for doing bad things to the livestock they own? Really? So if, say, a fella in Oklahoma sets his dog on fire in his front yard (as one did not too long ago, in a domestic dispute with his soon-to-be-ex-wife) we should just -- what? Say, well, shit, it's his dog, he can do what he wants with it?

Mercer should (a) reconsider her position. Animals are not sofas. They are not trucks. They feel and suffer, and this is why we don't think people should be allowed to mistreat them. As a society, this is what we have decided and this is what our laws say.

Also (b) someone who will set a dog on fire will probably do bad and evil things to humans as well. Someone who thinks it's nifty to torture and slaughter dogs the way Vick does probably doesn't think much of humans, either. Someone -- like, oh, Mercer -- who thinks animals can be shifted into the category of sofas, may just have no trouble shifting say, Muslims, may we speculate, into the category of sofas as well?

Another reason why we don't slide down certain slopes in actual civilized societies.

I'm just saying.