"Physically Ill"

Physically ill doesn't even begin to describe how ill I became after reading this, not even having watched the video. It's one of the SICKEST things I think I have heard in quite a while. I personally couldn't imagine ever doing this.
DO NOT CLICK IF YOU HAVE A WEAK STOMACH

The video and the commentary are tame compared to abuse charges I've heard of and/or seen in the past. They only show the kids pouring on the lighter fluid.

Despite the fact that such a lack of empathy is outright sickening and potentially criminal, how is this anything new?

I guess it's not really "new", but that is a horrible way to die. Being burned alive. And I'm not saying that it detracts from abuse betwen people at all, but doing that to an animal for "fun". It's very disturbing. And yes the video only shows them pouring the lighter fluid on but that doesn't negate what they did after that.

How would you go about solving the problem? A lot of kids are raised under the belief that humanity is superior to every other species and (other) animal abuse is more or less irrelevant.

Paradigm shift? Again, I just doubt it in this social climate. As much as this displays a blatant lack of respect for life, there's only so much someone can do.

Some people just don't learn.

There's at least one potential serial killer in that group. Such cruelty just baffles me. How can they find such things funny?

I hope those pricks get put in prison where they can find out what its like to suffer for a change.

I didn't see the video, but I gather it involves setting an animal on fire.

My take is based on what I've read about psychopaths (also known as sociopaths) over the years. A psychpath has no concience. Lying, stealing, breaking things and hurting people or animals is easy for them, since "how the victem feels" isn't a factor. As kids, they often set fires and torture animals. To them, it's a fun power trip to see someone/something squirm and suffer under their control. Nice guys. As adults, some divert their lack-of-concious "skill" to hurt, cheat and manipulate people. Others stick to more crude forms of amusing themselves, like serial killing.

Agreed. Though in my case, I try to teach the young'uns around me that Humanity is here as the stewards of the planet, and that it is a duty for "higher" life forms to care for the lower.
The kids seem to get the idea...if only they can retain it when they become adolescent terrors...

I totally agree with You there!!! Theres at least 1 probably more future serial killers there and I sure hope wherever this happened that the people nearby are aware of this too!! Whoever did this no matter what their age, should be fingerprinted and have DNA samples taken and put into the National database. It just might save a life. (i didnt have the stomach to click on the link to see this video, or WANT to see such cruelty). Something like this happened in Ma about a month ago by a group of Teens, and all i could think was they have a future serial killer in their town. I just hope and pray that this doesnt happen.

I don't want to seem unfriendly, but what do you think war is ?
Hundreds of young children have been half-blown to pieces recently by US explosives, then died slowly cooking bit by bit in burning houses which had fallen around them. Think of the agony, the incomprehension, the innocence. Just like these poor little animals. Do you think a video of one of their burnings would be allowed an outing, even as heavily censored as these? Can you see why not ?

When teenagers hear their country's pre-emptive aggression praised on tv - hear "insurgent" body-counts proudly proclaimed - are bathed in a macho culture of the manliness of killing others whose weaponry and logistic support is ludicrously inferior - hear the humanity and bravery of others degraded with childish hollywoodisms like "the bad guys" - when all this is happening daily......what do you expect ?

You either teach children respect for life, or you don't.

There is a serious difference between war and killing something for fun. War has nothing to do with the disrespect for life, though sadly some who have the power do not... War is sometimes necessary, and should never be thought of as a fun or good thing.

My opinion is, it's war and shit happens people die. You do your best to avoid killing or dying. You may be of the oppinion that the war in Iraq is not necessary, and I'll agree the war fought in Iraq was the wrong one. You may think the war in Iraq is presented to the public in the wrong way, and I agree. I can't denounce war as a concept, because there will always be those who you must oppose. I hate the people who started the whole thing and the media who plays on it for ratings. It seems to me your beef is with how things are presented, and you're right. The ones responsible for the actions of these children, and they are children even though it's stated they range in ages for 18 to 19, are the parents who never raised them at all.


What is on that tape is not war or anything like it at all. A more fitting term might be massacre.

One problem: Many people try to use one to justify the other. Some versions and discussions of the Bible are the greatest proponents of this view.

How would you combat this from a view standpoint? By simply disallowing this view of the world to be preached? Can't do that... it goes against freedom of speech and religion.

How does one spread the good of this argument without spreading some of the bad? Or is the lesser of two evils worth it?

This sort of thing is just almost too terrible to think of. I can't understand how anyone could do something like this. I generally do a spate of praying/something to the animal/child/person in question, and hope that helps. That it knows someone loves and appreciates it. Things like this, attacks on helpless creatures, it just knots me up inside. The poor, poor thing. Such a sweet creature. As far as I know, animals never do this sort of thing to each other.

coco

coco
You must know they tear each other to bits with fangs, eat each other slowly while still half alive, lose interest and wander off leaving the half-eaten one to drag away to a lingering death, possibly in frightful agony. No fire of course, but doubtless they would if they could. No evil intentions of course, but cats do seem to have something like "fun" with mice.

Is your post meant to be humor ? I seem to be imagining a facetious tone. Just my cynicism I suppose......

Cats, yes! That is an exception. I was saying most animals don't torture for the thrill of torturing. But my kitty-cat, hmmm - yes, when he was young, he did enjoy torturing the occasional smaller animal, before dragging them home half-alive as a dinner suggestion.

Aside from cats, though (and I love cats), I can't think of any other animal that does much in the way of "torturing." What they do is kill things for food. And maybe cats, too, for all their "playing" with their prey, are just doing their built-in food thing.

I doubt though even cats could do something like what was on that video. (Which I didn't watch either.) Makes me wonder, though, about the similarities.

coco

I take that back. There are some dogs, too, who kill things they have no intention of eating. (Usually not as torturously, though, as cats like to do it.)

P.S. No, no humor. I feel like the original poster did - sick inside when I hear of things like this, particularly with smaller creatures or children.

What do you feel, coco, about my war parallel ?

Disregarding what you feel about the justification of this war in Iraq, do you feel similarly sick inside at the sufferings and slow but violent deaths of so many innocent children there ? And at the grief and impotent anger of their surviving parents?

Or can "sick inside", so strong for sweet little animals, be switched off for human children by political over-ride? So many seem able to do this. Leaves me non-plussed. You ?

War, I think, is different, because presumably and ideally it is done in self-defense.

And naturally one has the same sort of reaction to suffering children anywhere.

Intent, though, is the clincher. When someone purposely sets out to cause prolonged suffering to a helpless creature, or purposely sets out to annihilate a race of people, I think that's in a worse category.

coco

At the end of the day, while social conditioning proves to mean a lot, you still can't directly alter the mind of a thinking person.

So the best we can do here is punish these kinds of people.

As for the ideas, it's interesting how the "war" and "self-defense" card are played. In my opinion, some people merge the two ideas by thinking going out and harming another individual or organism is "self-defense." Many tend to believe it, and in rare instances it may be true.

Think of it this way. Ask yourselves, "Do these kids have a lot of self-esteem?" Probably not. This is likely them building on a (sickened) sense of self-preservation.

Nature, as it were, can be a cruel display. We're not above that yet as a species, so this is par for the course.

Strange reply. What has "presumably and ideally" go to do with it? If all war was genuinely in self-defence there would never have been one. Presumed by whom ? What relevance has "ideally" to a discussion of what is ?

Presumably and ideally no teenagers would ever burn little animals alive, and we wouldn't be having this discussion. But they do, and we are.

So, no. Your "because" is faulty. In many respects war is NOT different. And no different at all for the burning children.

If the teenagers had burned the animal for a purpose - maybe to terrorise an old person living alone so that they could more easily steal his savings - that would have been a little different, but would it have been more reassuring about what was inside their heads? Given this different main motivation, its likely that enjoyment would have been in there too as a secondary manifestation.

Or that those reluctant about this first burning, but participating obediently in the theft, might discover a taste for future burnings which they might not have expected.

So it can be with war.

I have never inflicted death on another, and I suspect it's best I never do, even apart from morality. I don't know what evolution may have designed into me as my animal response to such killing, and I don't want to find out. Maybe in 10% of us its a desperate, excited, addicting enthusiasm. Maybe the leader of this little gang had already discovered this, and was helping his team members along the road. Maybe our leaders are unwittingly doing something similar. And our military training in general. We need some killers, but by God we need to keep them in check, and use them more wisely and justly than at present.

The recruiting serjeant would probably love these lads as "grunts". What is it they are taught to chant ? Or if they are cowardly, and prefer defenseless victims, maybe they would do better as guards for Abu Ghraib or Guantanomo?

Why am I bothering to say all this? I want us to acknowledge the inconsistency, and maybe even hypocrisy behind our "oh poor little animal, I'd never support anything like that" responses. If we all looked at things more honestly and directly, unjust wars would be much more difficult for our governments. We would only tolerate them for real self-defence. We would move closer to Coco's admirable ideal.

That's basically it. A scurrying animal triggers a predation response in a cat. A feral cat, or a domestic cat who's been trained by its parents to hunt, will make a quick kill and probably eat the prey immediately. But most domestic cats are well-fed and have never learned to hunt efficiently. They will pounce, as dictated by their instincts (and reinforced by the way people play with cats), but they don't have the hunger or training to make a quick kill. So they just let it go, the prey scurries away, the instinct is triggered again, and the cycle repeats. It's not cruelty so much as incompetence.

People who torture animals have other issues, such as sociopathy or sadism, that translate without much effort into killing people. They're also probably not much affected by environmental factors such as war and peace. All their pathology requires is a helpless victim and an opportunity. Lacking effective treatments, the best thing to do with these people is to isolate them from any possible victims or opportunities. A clinical setting is ideal, but a prison cell will serve.

No, I didn't watch the video. I can't afford to be throwing things at work.

"That's basically it. A scurrying animal triggers a predation response in a cat. A feral cat, or a domestic cat who's been trained by its parents to hunt, will make a quick kill and probably eat the prey immediately. But most domestic cats are well-fed and have never learned to hunt efficiently. They will pounce, as dictated by their instincts (and reinforced by the way people play with cats), but they don't have the hunger or training to make a quick kill. So they just let it go, the prey scurries away, the instinct is triggered again, and the cycle repeats."

Thanks, Arcadia. That does make sense.

coco

Things like this make me so angry. I say turn about if fair play. Let's douse these teens with lighter fluid and I'll be more than happy to light them. Let's see how they enjoy it!

I went ballistic at a party one time, when I was in my late teens, after a girl that lived there came out of her bedroom holding a kitten, crying hysterically.

it turns out someone had poured glue all over the cats nose and mouth, to see if they could suffocate it. At first we thought it was burned horribly, but managed to peel off some of the glue and realized what had happened. I went into a rage and stormed into the bedroom where this group of guys were hanging out (some of them, including a cousin of mine, were very likely suspect), and where the glue was, and started yelling. I spent the next 15 minutes screaming at them, with the support of one other party go'er, a friend of mine. None would admit to doing it, but my cousin made the mistake of joking about it and got the main part of my rage in return. What sick assholes. Why would anyone take pleasure in causing other living things to suffer in agony??? And do they realize that a fair amount of serial killers and violent abusers started out that way?

And war, David ? Would you ever go ballistic about hundreds of little children slowly dying in the rubble made by your government's bombers ? With much worse than glue on their little faces (if they have any left) ?

Or does politics and expediency override these otherwise almost uncontrollable feelings, or do you reserve them only for kittens?

I'm not trying to be nasty - I really want to understand how people can simultaneously be vehemently empathic in the easy close-to-home situations, but turn their faces away when its more difficult or inconvenient or geographically distant, even when people they democratically elected are responsible.

This really matters, because the future safety of the whole world is in the hands of the American voter, and his ability or inability to empathise with non-American humans, and with deaths or suffering which do not occur at a party he attends.

I do it too, of course. I don't send all my money to the starving millions, but I don't support making their lives worse, or shorter, by bombing them.

I get angry about it every single day of my life. Ever see the movie "Rosewood"? Or the rowanda genocide movie, I think called something like, "A Day in April"?

I despise the actions of many goverments, my own country's very much included, as well as the despicable way some of us treat one another. And any form of child abuse makes me enraged. I almost lost a job one time, when I was in my mid-teens, for running up to a lady who had carried a stick into my place of employment just so she could hit her kids with it, and yanking it out of her hand, and asking her how would she like to be hit with it.



Nope..but the kitten gluers were in front of me and I had the power to act upon them, and did so. As much as I would like to, it's a bit hard for me to control whole governments or societies, but I'm working on it.



I'm not sure where in my post I gave you the idea that I wasn't passionate about all injustices and cruelty. This post was about a specific issue, animal torture and cruelty, and so that's what I addressed.

*hugs David*
Thanks, you give me hope.
I'm glad you have a vote (if you do).

I obviously mistook you for a different kind of person, an example or two having been recently seen hereabouts. I apologise.

I'll have to seek elsewhere for an explanation of these paradoxical belief-systems which have more concern for nearby kittens than for distant children.

Anybody?

Problem I see is that people whom turned their heads to rape, torture and murder before the war, now suddenly 'care'. Why? My guess is politics. Maybe its just more media exposure now?