Originally posted by RE: Blaxican
6 puppies being thrown into a river really doesn't mean anything in the grand scheme of things. It's not like dogs are so rare that any fatalities threatens their population on the Earth. So, I don't really understand why people make a big deal about things like this. Sure, if I was walking down the street and saw some punk kids messing with a stray or something, I might tell them to **** off, or I might call the police, but I'm not going to go home afterwards and start crying manly tears or silently wish for all of the punk kids to be killed. "omg that girl should have her legs chopped off and thrown into a river! Ha!" Why? Did she really do anything of paramount importance?Knee jerking of any kind is a pet peeve to me.
What I don't understand is the love with highly endangered species based on some "grander scheme". Because lets face it, whether there are 10 white tigers or none, makes no difference at all. It seems to me people think something really bad will happen when the last of a species dies, that's obviously not the case though.
If you like endangered species for some artistic diversity, fair enough. Which is not to say that we shouldn't try to preserve wildlife, though I don't think severely endangered species make the difference.
As for importance, if we are going into the "i only care if someone close to me dies" area, then we are awfully close of denying "importance" as a whole, aren't we? Why is anything important then? There are reasons why we condemn animal cruelty, in relation to human society, as well as in some, perhaps fictional, higher moral sense.