IN A TERRIBLE tragedy, a six-day search for a dog left aboard a crippled ship in the Pacific Ocean has been called off - the tragedy being that the rescue operation cost an astounding $50,000. This very Enronesque operation is the latest in a string of stories that show the incredible lengths to which society goes to save its animals. The issue is that animals are increasingly being treated far better than American citizens themselves are. The legal system harshly punishes animal abusers, while movies and television shows depict crimes against children with far greater regularity than they depict animals getting hurt, and society in general is focusing more on animal rights than human rights.
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The amount of time and money going into saving a single dog lost at sea is disturbing, but even more so is the way that society treats rapists, pedophiles and killers better than it treats animal abusers. Florida's "animal serial killer," Robert Pettyjohn, currently is serving 10 years in prison for killing a bull with a bow and arrow and now faces 15 years for his savage beating and mutilation of a pair of llamas. His crimes are horrid and depraved, but compare him to the pedophile priests who sexually abuse and psychologically cripple the young boys they are sworn to aid. Or the basketball coach facing one to two years for groping one of his young players. Or the man sentenced to 15 years for driving a truck loaded with propane into an abortion clinic. While lawyers can use legal terminology to justify these different punishments, it is necessary to reconsider the justice system when savage crimes against humans are punished with less severity than crimes against animals.
Even Congress has diverged somewhat from the concern of the human race and is focusing on bizarre and miniscule laws protecting animals. Last week the Senate approved the addition of the Puppy Protection Act to a new farm reform bill. Under the new provisions, all puppies require plenty of human contact before they are put up for sale. Forget all the people who claim the government is an inefficient waste of taxpayers' dollars. Congress is working for the people and enforcing the American right to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" - by ensuring that all puppies get some invaluable TLC before sale. Forget the 40 million or so Americans without full health insurance or the 5.7 percent of the population that is unemployed; our puppies need Congress' help.
Society has learned to accept crimes against people, yet will not stand for crimes against animals. A number of movies and television shows feature plot lines or critical scenes involving children being abused and killed yet stories involving animal abuse are far less pervasive. Every story about an animal in distress reaches the news, right down to the crazy cat lady being evicted from her apartment - precisely because she is not allowed to have forty cats in the apartment. Perhaps it is that crimes against humans occur with such regularity that most horrific crimes barely reach the news. But the double standard might suggest something about the public's acceptance of the reported act.
This is not a critical deconstruction of the entertainment industry nor an examination of the actual incidence of crimes against humans versus crimes against animals. It is a question about the valuation of life in society when people are more willing to see John Travolta's son murdered on a merry-go-round in "Face/Off" than it is to see Travolta's dog get killed. Many would argue that a child homicide provides a more interesting and emotional story to moviegoers than the evisceration of a cow. Movies are able to push envelopes with sex and violence because this is acceptable as fact, but the abuse of animals in movies remains taboo.
So rather than continuing along the middle road and protecting animals to such a degree, we should give them full citizenship. Farmers in Oregon are now buying expensive water beds to give cowsa more comfortable rest. As Arie Jongeneel, an Oregon farmer buying into the water bed craze says, "The cows liked it right away. They laid right down and were comfortable," ("Moooove Over: cows queue for water beds," CNN.com, April 8).
Why stop with water beds? Every animal should be given official status as a member of Earth. This works out great for all the people out there who feel that society misrepresents and unfairly treats them. There are so many people who feel that society holds them down, resents them and restricts their upward mobility. Now whenever they feel under-appreciated and oppressed, they can forego protest and martyrdom because now the human race has a new subsection of society it can oppress unjustly. Animals can serve as the new minority and society can ignore their rights and treat them like the inferior citizens that they are.
Animals are cute and fuzzy, and they make great ottomans as well. But the sensitivity given to animal rights should be applied to humans. Animals should be protected from torture and cruelty, but it is incongruous for society to accept cruelty toward humans more readily than toward animals simply because attacks on humans are more frequent. People have an inherent right to respect, and it should be afforded to all humans.
(Brad Cohen's column appears Thursdays in The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at bcohen@cavalierdaily.com.)
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