Monday, October 20, 2014

Some disturbing parallels

I'm writing a paper on secession for a US History class.  Part of that assignment is to present a chosen state's Ordinance of Secession (OoS)  http://www.lsjunction.com/docs/secesson.htm
My group was assigned TX, and I must pinpoint the states stated reasoning for it.  Many of these illogical assertions parallel the victim bullying, victim blaming, wrong recusing, and fact denying assertions of the pro pit bull movement.

First, it claims the union is denying a person's state-constitution rights; it is a Texan's right to own slaves!  So, too, it is with pit bull fanatics  who rally against BSL; it is a RIGHT to own a fighting breed dog no matter the cost; however, reasonable people understand this is not so.  

It should not be so.  Why?  Because we have a long standing precedent of regulating animal ownership for the collective safety of the communities we live in.  A person cannot own apex predator animals in the community at large; you cannot bring a bear or a tiger into highly populated area for the undeniable threat they pose to the surrounding people.

In many places, other animals are restricted from city/town propers for the same reason.  For example, in some areas, you must obtain a permit to bring a horse into town.  These animals are irrefutably less vicious* than pit bulls.  However, their biology makes them powerful and skittish.  Pit bull biology makes the dogs powerful, bold, unstable, and devastatingly destructive when they go off.
*note; there are equestrian related deaths, however these are the result of a rider without a helmet falling from the horse and sustaining fatal head injuries.  The horse does not attack a person, or consciously seek to harm them.

A person cannot import exotics into certain areas because they are highly problematic as an invasive species--they threaten the ecosystems around them, indirectly so to humans.  It is not so as pit bulls. You'd be hard pressed to make a week without an occurrence of a pitbulls breaking off lead/containment to attack members of the community.

Another portion of the ordinance classify the few fatal skirmishes between law enforcement protecting freed slaves as "murders". It is truly sad when anyone or thing dies as a result of violence, but classifications of homicide are issued according to context (self-defense, unforeseeable accidents, and acting under military orders are not classified as murder, for example).

Even when a person's child or animal is mercilessly attacked and they have no choice but to kill the dog to end the attack(1), even when a police officer is charged full-on by a pit bull--even when said pitbull had just commenced an attack on another person or animal, even when police fire upon a pitbull because the pit bulls own family is being mauled relentlessly and BEG him to do it.... (2)  Pit bull fanatics cry foul, make a martyr of the aggressor, label the officer a murder, hold protests against him, and demand his termination. (3)  Acting as a public servant to fulfill their sworn duty to protect and serve, or to save yourself or your loved ones from a vicious attacker hell-bent on killing is not murder.

Secessionists cried natural law and that slavery is a divine institution sanctified by The Creator.  We all know this is not so.  Scientific evidence--fact--proves to us that differences among the races are arbitrary At best.  It's plain physiology.  

The scientific physiology of a pit bull is riddled with dangerous biological markers. (4)  If you've ever heard someone call a pit bull a "ticking time bomb", this is why; Pitbulls are endowed with brain structures that are exaggeratedly different; their impulse control is greatly diminished, Their brain rewards idiopathic (unprovoked, suddenly without warning, and extreme in severity and duration) aggression with a powerful cocktail of opioids and dopamine.  It physically rewards violence.  Their blood clotting factor is supreme above all canids  to keep them "in the fight" for as long as possible.  

The observable precedent of behavior (which we all acknowledge as being able to be discerned as innate through observation in collies herding, labs retrieving, etc.) that plays out on a daily basis is that these dogs  Are spontaneously violent, their attacks incredibly implacable, and that they are not target specific.  

They will maul people--any person, including family, not solely aggressors or abusers), animals of every kind, and even vehicles when they are in the zone.  Science proves pit bulls are a significantly elevated risk to life and limb just as it proves that, among human races, no one race is smarter, stronger, or cleaner than another.

The OoS states the union was on a power trip and sought to destroy southern institutions.
Fanatics howl that SABSL proponents are seeking to--for no reason imaginable--to destroy dog ownership and that other breeds are ominously next.  This is a wholly unsubstantiated claim designed to recast those championing a safe society for all as hate filled extremists who relish in "destruction" for destruction's sake... And wholly ignores the fact that even pit bulls themselves benefit from regulation. In areas where even mild BSL is present, the rate of severe bite injuries and fatalities plummet dramatically, leaving less "negative press" for the breed, in addition to plummeting dog-fighting, dog-abuse,  crammed-to-the-gills (and therefore compromised standards of care) shelters, and pit bull euthanasia rates. (5)

In the OoS, there is also an assertion that abolition fractured and divided people, and while this is true, that does not make abolition wrong.  Disagreement is not grounds for ignoring an issue.  Anything but.

The South issued that the north was acting vicious economically, seeking to destroy southern industry to somehow (the regions largely traded wholly different products--manufacturing, fishing, timber, textiles, etc.  In the north, sprawling plantations and cash crops in the south) fill their own pockets.  Basically, it's all about money.  Pit bull fanatics claim victims are just frauds seeking to solicit charity moneys for personal gain, and even proclaim that dogsbite.org pays large sums of money to people to "make up stories".  This ignores the fact that behind every attack is a victim with very real, crippling, lifelong, or fatal injuries.

These injuries are evidenced by witnesses and medical treatment, and they are not "easy" ones--missing eyes, ears, noses (6), scalps (7), limbs (8), permanent nerve damage (9), loss of function (10), brain damage (11), etc..  Many of these People have medical bills that exponentially soar above the alleged "bribe", additionally, singular bribes would be grossly ineffective in "converts".  

A much more effective and profitable endeavor—taking a page from the pitbull advocacy play book) would be to generate propaganda films and "documentaries" (another parallel--the early 1900s saw the production of race based "documentaries" espousing the alleged inferiority Of non-whites (12), peppered with gross amounts of junk "science" to support it.) and aggressively and Consistently make media fluff plays.

When Kevin Vicente had his face partially torn off, his family set up a fund that received a measly 5K for months, while a "save Mickey"--the dog that mauled him--campaign received tens of thousands of dollars and support in a few weeks. (13) This is not uncommon... It is substantially more lucrative to generate money through a pro pit bull scam than a victim plea.

Man stabs pit bull in defense of tiny Westie 
Family begs cop to shoot pit bull 
Pit bull protesters want police officer fired 
4 Pitbull physiology 
Successful BSL 
Mauled faces--eyes, ears, noses
Scalped pit bull victims
Pit bull victim amputees
Nerve damaged pit bull victims
10 Disabled pit bull victims
11 Brain damaged pit bull victims
12 Racist Propaganda films (and other media)
13 Kevin Vicente and Mickey the pit bull