Rush Limbaugh was all a twitter on Thursday morning - about the Michael Vick bizness. But he didn't seem upset at the Atlanta Falcon himself. The big guy was bemoaning the fact that Sports Illustrated has run a piece which is vehement in it's condemnation of Vick, for allegedly being part of a pitbull breeding and fighting ring, and for being involved in, or tacitly supporting the unspeakably cruel aftermath when 'loser' pitbulls were strangled, electrocuted, drowned, smashed against concrete - one witness says that Vick was consulted before one dog was wet down and electrocuted. Cheaper than humane euthanasia and far more fun for the spectators.
Rush whose moral rectitude is amusing in light of his own personal dramas, was, for the second time this week, outraged that other human beings are taking the abuse and decimation of animal life seriously. Rush, after all, is the guy who described with some amusement that he kept finding the bodies of birds scattered around his Florida monster home, birds which had flown right into the expansive windows because they reflected nothing but blue skies. Stupid bloody birds leaving blood all over his patio. Tsk.
A few days ago b-Rush-fire was outraged because a man in Gary, Indiana, has been charged with the crime of shooting kittens and cats to death because he thought they were a nuisance. The Gary city animal shelter, Rush declared, killed 4800 cats last year and this poor guy gets charged for just shooting a few.
Rush, who does understand the connection between prescription painkillers and addiction doesn't seem to get the point. That if people just fixed their pet animals instead of letting unwanted pups and kittens be born, our local shelters across Amerika wouldn't be killing millions of cats and dogs a year.
In the Michael Vick case, not only does Rush express bemusement that there is so much outrage, he decides to impart another of his astonishingly nutty conclusions. Why is it, he asks in that booming basso of his, why is it that people are outraged at Vick killing dogs and yet they did not express the same outrage about Chris Benoit killing his wife and child while doped up on steroids? (They did, Rush, but Benoit having strangled himself after his hideous crime removed the object of hate from our TV screens and mutes the outrage to one of utter sadness and mystification). The Benoit killings - as an aside - happened the same week that Berkeley resident and model husband and dad, Kevin Morrissey gunned down his own family before turning the gun on himself. Most people feel a sliver of empathy for a man who has so lost himself in despair. The same could be said of Benoit. Did he hate his family? Seemingly not.
What makes Michael Vick's alleged crimes so disturbing to so many is the sheer cruelty and lack of conscience.
So, according to Limbaugh - human life is so diminished that dogs matter more than people, and the reason - ladies and gentlmen - is that since 1973...(you got it - Roe v Wade)...we have 'slaughtered' so many innocent humans through abortion.
Does he actually believe this stuff, do you think? Or perhaps it's O'Reilly's pink pistol packing lesbian gangs that are to blame?
The truth is that the value of human life has been diminished by other humans throughout history - but not by the right of women to choose what happens to their own bodies free of interference from government or church. One of the ironies of Rush's statements is that he conveniently forgets that it was another megastar of the football world who really showed us the value of human life, by arranging to have his 7 month pregnant girlfriend shot in a drive by killing, while he, in the car ahead of hers, slowed down to facilitate the shooters got a good shot. The baby survived, and at 7 years old suffers from cerebral palsy.
Mind you, I think Vick may have inadvertently shown us how to fully enjoy a football game. At the end of the game, the public address announcer would ask the crowd to choose which method of torture they would like to see inflicted on the losers: electrocution, strangulation, drowning... or perhaps, we should simply let the dogs out....
Woof!
Posted by: Deborah | July 27, 2007 at 11:19 AM
so in other words its ok to kill the baby humans but a more serious offense to kill a dog or perhaps a cockroach
Posted by: fuckwad | July 27, 2007 at 12:22 PM
hey fuckwad
where do you see me making the connection that it's ok to kill baby humans? But perhaps you aren't noticing how many babies and children already born are being killed by their parents or other family members? Perhaps you haven't been paying attention to the sheer scale of infanticide in this country, or the 18 year old kids being blown up while on their first tour of duty in Iraq.
Have I said abortion is cool 'wad'? No, I haven't. I support birth control, big wadding
difference. Get a grip.
Posted by: Jill | July 27, 2007 at 03:53 PM
Jill, you should try to get this one published on the Op-Ed page of the NY Times!
Posted by: Deb in Minnesota | July 29, 2007 at 06:05 AM