>I suspect it comes from the fact that the dogs aren't thinking creatures and don't have the choice of calling the cops or a lawyer or leaving to go somewhere else. I know that many women feel they also don't have those choices, but in fact, they do.
>
>Wife beating is a despicable behaviour too, but there is still the sense that the dogs didn't choose the life they have, while humans did. Maybe it was a rotten choice and now they feel stuck but there was that initial choice that dogs simply don't have.
>
>It's similar to the fact, at least I think it's a fact, that the whipping of a slave who has no recourse to justice is seen as a more horrendous crime than the whipping of a free person who does have some sort of recourse.
>
>Hi, Alan,
>
>I understand where you're coming from - and these are complicated issues.
>
>I agree that animal abuse is a sick and cowardly crime.
>
>But on the issue of 'recourse' of those who are 'free', I have a different view. Many wives are physically abused by their husbands, but choose not to do anything because of their children. My mother-in-law was physically abused by her husband, but held it in for years because of her kids. Yes, you could argue that she made a "choice", but the alternatives were rough. So the idea of "freedom of choice" is more marginalized than we might realize.
>
>Even if a husband just hits a wife once, the wife is going to live in fear (perhaps forever) that her husband might someday snap and do something worse. My wife had to sit and watch her mother get hit, and to this day, any time I even raise my voice a notch, I can see the fear in her eyes.
>
>So I put men who beat their wives in the same general category as Vick. I'm not the spokesperson for women's organizations, but I know enough that once a woman has been physically beaten, it's a fear that may be there for a very long time.


But again, it was a choice that your mother-in-law MADE - and the fact that she could MAKE a choice is the difference.

But before you get the idea that I think spousal abuse is ok, it's not - and I tend to get Old Testament about it (eye for an eye, etc) - but for every spouse who stays "because of the children" another cycle gets started. Congrats to your wife, it sounds like she's managed to break the cycle for herself.

And as Old Testament as I can get about spousal abuse, it's nothing compared to what I'd like to do to Vicks. Personally, I'd like to treat him as 'dog-men' treat 'warm-ups' for their dogs: tie his hands behind his back and send him in against a couple of brawlers. Then, before you turn the other guys loose on him, you tell them that there's extra money for every bruise.

I think this should be standard 'punishment' for 'dog-men'.