A Matter of perspective

Background reading:

http://www.cnn.com/2012/07/11/world/europe/nireland-dog-death-sentence/index.html?hpt=wo_bn6

http://world.time.com/2012/07/11/getting-away-with-murder-why-pakistans-fanatic-right-acts-with-impunity/

http://world.time.com/2012/07/11/yemen-suicide-bomber-attacks-police-cadets/

http://news.yahoo.com/mali-seek-icc-probe-rebel-crimes-north-132152653.html

http://news.yahoo.com/masked-gunmen-kill-9-police-pakistan-city-lahore-043305206.html

http://news.yahoo.com/dozens-burned-nigeria-petrol-tanker-blaze-111541832.html

http://thecnnfreedomproject.blogs.cnn.com/2012/06/26/fbi-nationwide-child-prostitution-sweep-leads-to-104-arrests-79-children-rescued/

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-18829052

It is interesting the things that spur emotions in people. Sometimes, it makes one shake their head in amazement … or amusement, I am not sure.

For example, my step-daughter, who truly is a wonderful young woman who holds passionate beliefs (even if her step-father thinks some of them are more than a bit out there, if you understand the reference). She works as the manager of a pet supply/pet store and as one would expect is passionate about animals and their treatment, or lack thereof, or mistreatment, as the case may be.

Recently, on her Facebook page, she took up the case of a dog in Belfast, Northern Ireland, UK, that was a pitbull-lab mix and, since owning pitbulls happens to be illegal in Belfast, was slated to be put down. After several years of legal wrangling, the dog was put to death recently and there now is an effort to punish the dog catcher person for obeying the law.

Couple points here: One, my stepdaughter is Canadian and this was happening in Northern Ireland. I mean, if you don’t like a law, then move to the place and change it. (But that is an entirely different argument). Second, it is a dog, however loveable, or not, but still a dog.

In a world where hundreds (if not thousands) of people are dying every day (the sample of news stories above taken from roughly one 24-hour period), to me, there would seem to be a much larger issue to take up. It is, however, a matter of perspective.

But then I am struck by something Josef Stalin was alleged to have said:

One death is a tragedy; thousands (or was it millions) are just statistics.

And yet, where is the passion? Where is the anger? Where is the action? Nowhere.

Why is that? Why is it that we can get all that worked up over the deliberate death of one dog, when there are so many deliberate deaths of human beings every day? To me that is more than a tragedy, it is an obscenity.

I understand that in war people die, that is why Robert E. Lee’s observation always seems so appropriate:

It is well that war is so terrible; otherwise we should grow too fond of it.

(If you don’t know who Bobbie Lee was, please look him up, he was a great American)

There are times for war, just as there are times for peace, but in every conflict/war/battle every death is a tragedy. We see far too much tragedy these days. Part of that is a product of the telecommunications revolution that allows us to be aware of events happening all around the planet within seconds of it happening, but even then it seems that there is a lot of violence being done to relatively innocent people every day that far outweighs the fate of a simple dog. I am not really criticizing my stepdaughter, just pointing out that that it is a matter of perspective … a matter of what is important.