Notes on Animals, Animal Treatment, and the Supreme Court

Pitbulls and Parolees, a show on Animal Planet, features people and dogs that need second chances. When I watch this show, it makes me cry. I cry because it highlights the way that society throws people and animals away because of social constructions that deem some good and others bad.

Supreme Court decision, United States v. Stevens, dealt with the distribution of media that depicts Violence against Animals, specifically, dog fighting videos. They claim that they did it to protect hunting videos? Bleh! All that they have illustrated is the bias of the US justice system. Micheal Vick, who committed a heinous crime was sentenced to two years (not enough time) and this guy gets to distribute dog fighting videos across state lines to the general public. What! So selling videos about dogfighting is okay, but actually fighting dogs, now that is illegal. Where am I, bizzarro world? Doesn't the Supreme Court understand that by allowing the distribution of the image of dogs fighting, that they are encouraging people to fight dogs!!! Not only that they are encouraging people to make videos of this heinous act. Is animal abuse is only a problem when black men do it, specifically black men with money?



Of course animal abuse is a national problem that is heinous when anyone does it. But is it only a big news story when it is someone that the dominant society wants to take-down a peg? Where was the outrage about the recent Supreme Court decision?

The Huffington Post explains the US v. Stevens decision as such:

This brings us, though, to a second basic principle of First Amendment doctrine: even though speech was produced by an unlawful act, the speech itself may not be restricted for that reason. In effect, the law separates the underlying illegality from the resulting speech. Thus, a person who makes a movie with a stolen camera can be punished for the theft, but the government cannot suppress the movie; a person who illegally wiretaps a telephone call in order to catch a congressman taking a bribe can be punished for the unlawful wiretap, but a newspaper that publishes the story or a television station that broadcasts the tape cannot be punished for doing so; and Daniel Ellsberg could be punished for stealing Pentagon Papers from the Defense Department, but the New York Times and the Washington Post could not constitutionally be prohibited from publishing them.

Basically, The Supreme Court is allowing the visuality of the crime, supposedly to stop the crime of animal fighting. But really they are just allowing people that make money off of other people's crimes to continue their business as usual. What a crock.

The moral of this story is do not support these videos. Adopt an animal because we, humans, have over-populated the planet with cats and dogs, so it is our moral obligation to co-habitate with them and make sure that they have good lives. And landlords that do not allow cats and dogs (under 5 per home) are committing an act of discrimination that encourages the growing number of abandoned animals in shelters.

Furthermore, we need national public service annoucements about proper animal care because it would create a culture where animal co-habitators and non-animal co-habitators would be educated about proper care would do more community policing of animal abusers.

If you want to help or do some advocacy on behalf of animals check out The Humane Society, they are not racist and sexist like PETA.