When my wife Liz and I went for a walk along our local riverside trail after dinner one night this week, we passed a woman walking an adorable beagle. It eyed us with one of those happy faces that seem to be the default expression for dogs that are especially good-natured.
Moments later, we came upon four young men in their late teens or early 20s who were screaming slurred obscenities at one another while weaving back and forth and making bizarre, vaguely threatening, gestures that I assume they picked up from a favorite rap video. The remnants of a shattered bottle of Jack Daniels littered the trail where these guys were busily trying to outdo each other in the macho madness sweepstakes.
I’ve long believed that the lives of animals are as valuable as those of humans, that life is sacred whether the species involved has two legs or four, bare skin or fur. That belief was reinforced when I juxtaposed the beagle against the bozos.
That dog is a well-behaved animal that causes no harm and is an obvious source of joy to its beaming owner. It brings a smile to the faces of the people it encounters on its walks. The four yahoos, by contrast, presumably serve no purpose beyond keeping liquor stores in business, drug dealers employed and passersby on edge.
Can a reasonable person truly believe that the lives of those cretins have more intrinsic worth, a higher value, a greater significance, than that of the canine, simply based on species? It certainly is convenient for humans to draw such a conclusion about ourselves, but we aren't exactly detached and objective on the subject, now, are we?
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