Is it proper to restrain the rights of individuals for the greater good of the society?
- Yes
- No
- Sterilize ALL violent convicts
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Of Cats and Men
Learned a lot while helping my wife reach-out to a cat she called Spanky.
Spanky is a cat that has been showing up at our sliding glass door for over a year now.
We thought that Spanky’s owners were down the street and left him out occasionally.
We were wrong. Spanky was a now feral cat living quite independently.
…and Spanky was a female.
We learned that when she showed-up with four of the cutest kittens you could ever see.
We first felt overjoyed and then rather responsible.
Four new mouths to feed in a suburban area that didn’t look too kindly to cats.
OK, here is where it starts to get weird.
I had recently learned that the human population on earth has gone from 1 billion individuals to over 7 billion in just the last two hundred years.
Clearly we are in the midst of a human population explosion of immense proportions.
I can only guess that scientific advances in agriculture have stead off, for now, massive famine and death.
And now I relate that information to the five cats we now have dependent upon us for every meal.
We did the responsible thing and captured each cat and had them fixed at the local Animal Protective League.
There I learned something else. Over thirty cats a day were being brought to that shelter to be neutered or spayed in their Capture/Neuter/Return program.
Then, add the through-the-door cats, dogs, and other animals that are dropped-off because of all various reasons.
The stench, the volume, the task of caring for those animals that needed help, needed some comfort, or doctor’s care to continue living a mostly desperate life was overcoming for me.
The technicians and volunteers at those facilities throughout the world are truly angels doing god’s work.
And it is thankless and it is never ending.
Driving to that facility, through a not so vibrant part of town, I noticed many people. People on the streets. Children and children having children.
And I couldn’t help but relate those individuals, those humans, to the cat we cared for and to the animals that we just experienced at the pet shelter.
The shelter, the desperate people, the desperate animals, really don’t receive enough attention. Really aren’t seen unless you are part of that system.
Back home, one of the kittens disappeared and the rest lived inside our home. Each in their own cage. Our own cat, a shelter cat we picked-up about a year previous, the now fifth cat, had free range.
After about a month of constant care, we determined that Spanky, the mother, was totally feral. My wife loved her the most but we had to return her to her rightful home. Outside.
Then their was the tiniest cat, the all gray cat. After much anguish and despair we recognized that she too was unfortunately, irretrievably feral. I felt bad. This cat spent about five days on it’s own before we were able to capture it. We had the mother, Spanky, living in with us already. I know that these five days coded the poor kitten. It had to depend upon itself and no one else for it’s survival.
Once a cat becomes feral, there is really no return to be fully domesticated. Perhaps after a few years of hard work, maybe.
And so for Spanky and her smallest baby the die was cast.
We feed them to this day.
We have the remaining two other kittens living in with us. One is on the border of being feral and is unapproachable, the other is completely domesticated and has a great personality. He will approach you and want for attention and petting.
Our cat Katie is an all black cat. Probably about 7 or eight years old. She puts up with her two new bedfellows but I would guess that she is not too happy. They bug her.
Our home isn’t meant for three cats to live comfortably with us but there is no shelter that has room at the moment. And we have grown attached to them.
Have we as humanity placed too much emphasis upon life at all costs?
Would it be wise to consider restricting reproductive rights?
I think of Steinbeck’s classic, Of Mice and Men and the message that I took from it when I was a young man.
By initially feeding a cat I inadvertently caused more of a problem. More pain in this world. For the life of a feral cat is not an easy one.
Philosophically, is it proper to restrain the rights of individuals for the greater good of the society?
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) but at the same time, do we have the right and freedom to do something like that unless the convict okays it? And if we DO do it, where does it end? What will it be next that we give ourselves permission to do - for society’s sake? Sounds like ordering up a Nazi kind of way of life.
This actually did make me laugh out loud.
