I wonder if Bryant knows or even cares about the pain and suffering his anti-Pit Bull legislation causes. Is this law just the price the public has to pay for his career ambitions? What does he think or feel when he hears about the distress that his law puts dog owners through? Anything? Or does he just snort, take another quick glance in the sideview for any approaching bicycle couriers who might be getting too close and then step on the gas to his shiny new job.
Do you think the Brampton animal control officers who grabbed Rambo and Brittany think they did a good thing? An ethical thing? Do they see themselves as playing the heroes in a war against evil, monster dogs? Or is taking innocent, beloved family pets just another day on the job for them? What could have possibly compelled them to do this if there were no complaints against these dogs? Let's say Rambo and Brittany are actually Pit Bulls. Why bother them? Why not just leave them be? They did nothing wrong. They have homes. They are loved. Why go out of their way to ruin all that?
Do the bureaucrats at Brampton animal control think they are doing a public service by not allowing the owners of Rambo and Brittany to visit their own dogs? Are they protecting us, the public, by not letting an independent vet check out Rambo and Brittany? Who are they protecting really? What are they protecting?
From the top to the bottom, Rambo and Brittany are being abused by the laws and the law keepers of this province and it's hard to figure out why. It's hard to understand the driving force behind all this unnecessary pain to both dogs and owners. I hesitate to say it's vindictiveness because I don't think there's even that much emotion or thought behind it.
Maybe it's just evil.
From The Banality of Evil:
The concept of the banality of evil came into prominence following the publication of Hannah Arendt's 1963 book Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil, which was based on the trial of Adolph Eichmann in Jerusalem. Arendt's thesis was that people who carry out unspeakable crimes, like Eichmann, a top administrator in the machinery of the Nazi death camps, may not be crazy fanatics at all, but rather ordinary individuals who simply accept the premises of their state and participate in any ongoing enterprise with the energy of good bureaucrats.
(H/t KC Dog Blog) From Brampton Guardian, Dogs refused medical visit:
The City of Brampton has refused to allow the Branco family’s veterinarian to check on the well-being of their dog being held by the city for close to a month.
“They don’t have a city vet (on staff),” Branco pointed out. “It’s probably a staffer that will, of course, say the dogs are fine.”
He said he is worried about the dogs’ health because they have been confined to cages for 23 1/2 hours a day every day since they were seized Jan. 13. With little to no human contact, and being isolated from their families, there is concern about how the dogs are coping.
From Saturday's protest:
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
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9 comments:
I read this somewhere and cannot recall where. The sick pathology of evil is an aberration of the ego and of the soul. It stikes fear and terror into people and renders them unable to take action to defend themselves and dominates them for no valid reason. Evil is sick in that it will inflict pain and suffering to experience the joy and thrill of being in total control. A healthy ego is joyous, self-sufficient, peaceful and it has the desire to help and serve others. It will not purposefully inflict pain and suffering but has a desire and a willingness to help others. So, yes I guess they are evil and their acts are evil. Perhaps also, they are just so simple-minded and lacking a moral compass that they do not have the guts to stand up and refuse to do evil. They are merely peons, soldiers in the army of non-thinking, non-feeling, all-encompassing stupidity.
".. but rather ordinary individuals who simply accept the premises of their state and participate in any ongoing enterprise with the energy of good bureaucrats."
That`s the part that scares me about all of this.
What Vet or Technician would inject those dogs with a fatal dose because it`s the law?
What about the ones that have already been killed?
Who killed them?
McGuinty doesn't give a rat's ass about anyone but Himself.
This is what appears on the brampton.ca website: "Animal Services helps pet owners care responsibly for their domestic pets and makes sure that animals enjoy healthy, safe and harmonious lives with the residents of Brampton." Really?? Are you kidding me? If that statement didn't seem utterly ridiculous in light of recent events, it would be hysterically funny. Enjoying a healthy, safe, harmonious life with their families was exactly what Brittany & Rambo were doing before you ripped them from their homes and threw them into cold, barren cages and now you're not even allowing their vet to visit them and report back to the families? That is cruel and evil.
I totally, absolutely, agree with you and KC DogBlog...there is nothing worse than those tightass bureaucrats who stand there and repeat the same mantra over & over..."It's the law...I'm just doing my job, blah, blah, blah", without even thinking about what they're actually doing.
Like you, I would love to know what was going through the mind of the waste of space who actually turned these dogs in. Did he/she think they would gain brownie points with their supervisor? Did he/she think Dalton McGuinty would personally congratulate them for "upholding the laws of the province?" What could possibly be gained by doing what he/she did? This person (and I'm being generous) and the rest of Bramptom Animal Services who are backing them up are truly scary. Heartless robots who don't care about animals or people or the devastation & heartbreak they're bringing to both...that's all they are...buy hey, as long as they're doing their job, right?
If I ever held a job that turned me into such a soulless bastard, I would want someone to stick a needle in my arm and just put me out of my misery.
Fred,
Reading between the lines, it sounds like the owners aren't even allowed to go visit the dogs. Is that correct? Maybe this has been posted in previous entries and I missed it somehow. This whole situation is so upsetting. My heart just breaks for the owners - I cannot imagine the devastation they are feeling right now.
That wasn't a quote from "The Banality of Evil" Fred. That was the interpretation or summary, and a wholly simplified one at that. Why the inflammatory rhetoric, why the comparison with the Nazis? A good cause does not permit making comparisons such as that, co-opting it simply trivializes the BSL cause and makes the cause appear to be that of a bunch of wingnuts.
Further, a more fruitful comparison with respect to following orders, having others do the thinking for you, with respect to dogs/animals, would be the Humane Society. The THS was anti-BSL, but the supervisors and vets and other employees there did not really believe in it, they were simply out to preserve their high-paid/low-work jobs.
Anon, you are wrong about the quote. It is from "The Banality of Evil" - written by E.S. Herman, taken from his book Triumph of the Market. If you follow the link, you will see what I mean.
The point of Herman's book, as well as some (in)famous psychological tests into the matter, is that often people within a bureaucracy (corporate, government or otherwise), somehow become so immersed in the carrying out of the orders of that bureaucracy (to advance their careers, due to structural pressures within the organization, just because that's the way it's always been done, etc.) that they lose sense of the implications of what it is they are actually doing. That is part of the sense of what I get from the phrase, "the banality of evil". Evil isn't always the bloody gaping mouthed monster. Often times it's just you and me and whoever else going about our business, not caring what the end results are. Whether that end result is people eating unhealthy foods or dead dogs or genocide, the end results may be vastly different, but the non-thinking, self-dehumanizing bureaucracy required to get there is much the same.
So am I comparing the BAS to Nazis? Only in the sense that the Nazis were human and we are all human and this is what we do. The phrase "banality of evil" originally comes from a book about Nazis. Herman, though, uses the phrase in the context of genocide and also slavery, racism, weapons manufacturers, slaughterhouses, the Animal Damage Control Agency (starting to sound familiar?), etc. Evil isn't just about Nazis.
Was the post inflammatory? I'd say it's a lot less inflammatory than the "authorities" busting into your house with no warrant, taking your dogs and threatening to kill them. Still, your point is taken about appearing to be a wingnut. Sometimes wingnuts get put into the psych ward and pumped full of drugs, sometimes wingnuts win the day. I'll let you know how it goes.
I understand the concept, but I don't like the free rein it gives to people to behave badly and then not be held accountable, when what they are doing is both against the law and immoral.
Here's something to think about:
The Police and OSPCA come with a search warrant granted after many people lost their jobs, impoverished themeselves, spoke up, overcame their fear and gave testimony to Kate Hammer and the Globe and Mail. Thousands of animals had already died painful, agonizing deaths. Supervisors and managers order you to hide animals and records, obstruct justice, aid and abet in animal cruelty and suffering. What do you do?
Michael Lambden refused to do it, went to the Globe and made an article about it forcing the Police and OSPCA to investigate, and quit his job in protest.
One always has a choice, and people are not always holding guns to others heads ordering them to do nasty things. Being fired as a THS vet for euthanizing an animal in agony with no chance of recovery, is never a good enough reason to do what you are told. And continuing this inaction several hundred more times is criminal.
What vets can do is simply refuse to euthanize non-aggressive pitbulls. Seeing as how THS had been there for 17 years, 11 years, 2 years and 8 months, and continued to add this veneer of legitimacy to the THS, I don't see how vets will take any moral stand towards pitbulls. On the other hand, what we are not hearing about are the ethical vets who worked at the THS for a very short while, and would not stand for it, and got fired. So there is some hope.
I agree with most of what you wrote but I don't think the "banality of evil" concept gives people free rein. If anything, I think it tells us that an immoral end result can originate from the deeds of any of us and we must be diligent, watchful in ourselves and others, to keep it in check.
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