Ahh, I think I need to come to the defense of my buddy a little although he would probably tell me not to do so. I tried to stay out of this discussion this AM, but now I'll chime in. As much as I love my great big dog and 2 cats, my choice would be an easy one, to save the stranger.
A person is more important than an animal even if they are anonymous. What if the choice was between a stranger and a rat?? How about a squirrel, a pig, a chicken, a goat, a koala bear, a dingo, etc? Is that an easier decision? Shouldn't be...
A pet (namely a dog) is probably the most loyal friend you will ever have. They do become family members, and we do grieve when they die. But when they do die, what happens to them? We bury them six feet under if we are nice, and their body and bones then decay. A pet is an animal. A pet has no soul. There is no where for them to go after they die.
A stranger, on the other hand has a soul. Now, this stranger could be a callous, self serving, immoral individual, or he could be a humble, courteous, upright citizen. In either case, you don't know him. What difference does that make? He has a soul and he is sentient. Therefore, he is the one to save from drowning in my opinion.
I have known of Nick Douglas for around 3 years now, and we have communicated back and forth with email and the msn messenger for quite a while. When he posed that question this morning, and I read it, I had a response written out, but I did not submit it. The reason was, I thought Nick would have saved his pet! I didn't want to "shoot down" my buddy on a public forum, rather I was going to talk to him personally and discuss it there. Anyway, while I agree with Nick on this, we have disagreed on MANY other things in the past, and I think we have had a lot of good discussion. I can't speak for him, but I think that's what he was trying to do here. When you are a person like that who is gifted with words and who likes to think, you want discussion, you want to hear other viewpoints from folks who disagree with you, you want debate, you want to try to understand how and why a person may disagree with you, and you are not afraid to voice your views even if they are not the popular view.
I have left religion and God out of this discussion until this sentence on purpose as I did not want somebody who might be reading it to label me a "Bible-beatin' redneck" and pass over my views. I do agree that there is a huge moral decline in our country. Somebody up above mentioned "whose morals are we talking about," or something on those lines. I would propose that you either HAVE morals or you do NOT have morals. There are not varying degrees of morals or 5,000 different sets of morals. You have them, or you don't. That is another discussion Nick and I have had in the past...
I'll leave you with a few quote's from folks whose views speak for themselves. I think they all apply to this discussion and to the degree of which some folks don't have any regard for human life. The second quote is VERY similar to this discussion topic.
Ingrid Newkirk, the founder of PETA "A rat is a pig is a dog is a boy." (Washingtonian Magazine, Aug, 1986)
"on a radio talk show in Miami, a spokesperson for PeTA was asked a question. If a baby and a dog were in a boat, and the boat capsized, which would she save first? 'I don't know. . .it might depend if it's my baby or my dog, or my baby and someone else's dog. . . ." (FFAWC White Paper)
In Fort Lauderdale, on WFTL, talk show host Pat Hurley asked Don Agony, a spokesperson for the Animal Rights Foundation of Florida [ARFF] the following question, "I am a terrorist. I have a pig under one arm and a baby under the other. I AM going to kill one of them. Which one do I kill?" Don Agony would NOT [or could not for fear of embarrassment] answer the question.
Edit is to add a few quotes.
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It's far better to be LUCKY than good.
[This message has been edited by SixFive (edited 07-31-2001).]
