All Animals Are Created Equal, Except Rats, I Guess...

A Baltimore City Police officer shot and killed someone's pet on New Years Day. His name was Kincaid, and his owner was Stacy Fields. This is a tragedy, and because it is a tragedy, somebody made a Facebook page for it.^[1]

I'm glad there is a Facebook page for it, honestly. It's good that the story is getting out. However, the dog's owner is diluting her point and pushing people away by taking on other, only vaguely-related issues. Recently, she posted about "KG Dog Fighting", a brilliantly satirical Android app/a disgusting Android app.^[2] The post was about how to go about getting said app banned.^[3]

So, on a page that most notably states that her property rights were violated, she was interested in finding any way at all, including using the law/government, to ban an app - blatantly violating the author's First Amendment rights.

That didn't make a whole lot of sense to me, so I mentioned that maybe she should stick to the whole issue of getting justice for her deceased pet. Several other people mentioned this as well. She basically told us all to go fuck ourselves and get off of her page if we weren't in love with censorship. I stayed because I felt it was an obviously emotional statement from her and the loss of her dog might've made her act a little bit "off". Everything went back to normal and we had more posts about her dog and police killing other dogs - the kind of stuff you'd expect to see on the page.

And then there was tonight: A photo and post from another group, stating that IT IS ABSOLUTELY HORRIBLE TO PUT PETS ON CRAIGSLIST! Why is it? Because apparently some people get dogs and cats and feed them to giant snakes. The picture was a fake, as several people pointed out, and most rehomed pets on Craigslist are better off in the end. I'm not sure what you'd do with your pet if you couldn't rehome it via CL - give it to a shelter that might put it down!?

Several people posted, stating that snakes are horrible pets and they would kill a snake if they saw one - this was obviously a strange stance on a page where everybody was up in arms about the needless killing of an animal - especially since Kincaid was a pitbull, a breed that is often hated upon itself. The weird thing, though, was that the moderator seemed okay with these posts. ("All snakes should be destroyed." was a kicker for me! But nothing beats, "They won't escape the wrath of God. That's what helps me sleep at night." - right, because if there is a deity that created everything, he'll get mad at you for helping to feed one of his creations. THAT MAKES SENSE!)

And still others posted that the only thing a snake should eat is a rat or mouse, which prompted me to ask why a rat or mouse from the pet store are any less important than a cat or a dog or any other animal that people would keep as a pet. It's always seemed odd to me that people place any more or less emphasis on any certain type of pets. Some people keep chickens as pets, others pigs... I eat both of those. The ones raised for food are food, though. Pet stores sell rats as pets, not necessarily as food, so why would you be okay with someone feeding them to anything over a cat or a dog? I would chock it up to good old-fashioned rat hate, I guess... It's not too shocking at this point. But what was shocking is that my simple question got me banned from the page - and then this woman and other members of the page continued to insult me for my question, when I couldn't respond.^[4]

This is just another case of Facebook Activism - which is literally the worst form of activism, because it always deviates from the original intent and anybody that has issues with the deviation is derided.

No loss for me in the end, but I often wonder how such people can exists - thinking one pet is more important than any other, and then not even being able to explain it when questioned, and instead simply silence the person asking the question.

In the end, it seems like a page for people who hate intelligent discussion and only want to play follow the leader, without any actual critical thinking, and a place where you can fawn over and love a deceased dog from a breed that is hated and feared by many, but if you bring up an animal of another species that is also hated and feared, well, fuck you... GET THE FUCK OUT.

Well, it's the Internet, what can you expect?


UPDATE: After writing this blog there was considerable criticism of both the original post being fake and the comments from some about other animals - the post was deleted from the Facebook page.

 

1. What ISN'T there a Facebook page for these days?

2. I don't have an Android phone, so I'm not sure which it is - I've read reviews that go either way.

3. Even though Google stated over a year ago that the game does not violate their rules and that they would never remove it, no matter how many people reported it, and then said, "This is our final word on this issue", these people were encouraging each other to report it. FAIL.

4. My actual quote, word for word: "Can any of you stating that snakes should eat rats tell me why rats, or any other rodent one can purchase at the pet store, any more or less important than a cat or a dog? And why are some of you talking about killing innocent animals?"