Animal Cruelty and Fuckwits

I don’t as a general rule read PDF – I have a low tolerance for idiocy. While I’m happy enough reading swearblogging, I expect it to have some degree of wit or a reasoned point being made behind it. Simply declaring that anyone who disagrees with the author is a cunt and should be killed is not an erudite argument. If it is some attempt at irony or satire, it fails dismally, lacking as it does, sharp observation and humour. Although, I suppose anyone accusing him of wit would be half right.

Generally, therefore, I ignore him. However, this story has been picked up by our hero and warrents comment:

Two drunken men who filmed each other kicking an injured seagull to death in a seaside town have both been jailed for four months.

Paul Cheetham, 21, from Wythenshawe, Manchester and Jamie Griffiths, 20, from Meliden, Denbighshire, used mobile phones to capture the attack in Rhyl.

My reaction to this behaviour is disgust. These two are the dregs of society. Gaoling them for four months at least gets them off the streets for a short period.

PDF thinks that the court was too harsh:

If you think that sending someone to jail for killing a fucking seagull is a proportionate and sensible decision, then you’re a stupid cunt.

Well, there’s a reasoned, clearly thought through and logical point well made. If you disagree with our latter-day Alf Garnett, you are a cunt. It’s one thing to do as the Devil’s Kitchen does and lambast politicians in rich sweariness because of their totalitarian polices, but to simply label anyone who thinks that locking up people for violent behaviour for four months might just be appropriate as cunts is pure laziness. However, it gets better. PDF would socialise with these nasty little hoodlums:

This blog salutes seagull kickers Paul Cheetham and Jamie Griffiths; should either of you happen to find this post, I’ll happily buy you a pint when you get out – just leave a comment. Hell, I’ll even make it two pints, as long as your first act is to replicate the kicking-to-death action on chairman of the bench and despicable bastard Ken Allitt.

Nice, very nice. Of course, it doesn’t appear to have crossed PDF’s limited horizon that thugs who kick a seagull to death are likely to be the type of people who will move onto bigger prey when they finish their apprenticeship. They are thugs; brutal hooligans. They deserve censure. One might argue about the sentencing and its absurdity, but to want to socialise with them? And Ken Allit’s grevous offence in the eyes of PDF? Oh, that’s right, he pointed out the truth:

Court chairman Ken Allitt told the defendants: “You seemed to take great delight in kicking and stamping on the bird. You were enjoying it.”

Still, ignorance abounds:

(for the avoidance of doubt, this blog’s position on animal cruelty is roughly the same as its position on table cruelty: i.e. only somebody certifiably insane could believe that such a thing existed. Actually, that’s not quite fair – the reason gullible idiots think animal cruelty is a real thing is because animals look a bit like people, so out of fairness I’ll compare it to mannequin cruelty…)

Apparently I am a certifiably insane gullible idiot now – although, given the lack of credibility of the source, I don’t suppose I’ll lose any sleep over it. Sentient beings – unlike tables or mannikins – feel pain. This is because they have nervous systems and pain receptors – unlike tables or mannikins. Deliberately causing them pain is cruelty. This is not a matter of opinion, it is a matter of fact. My Collins dictionary defines cruel(ty) and it is perfectly clear that these two miscreants were, indeed, guilty of such (they even provided the evidence for the prosecution, so dimwitted are they).

cruel adj. 1. causing or inflicting pain without pity. 2. causing pain or suffering. -vb. (lr.) -‘cruelly adv. -‘cruelness n. -‘cruelty n.

This is not a matter of opinion because animals look a bit like people (what is he on, for God’s sake?). It is because they deliberately inflicted unwarranted suffering for nothing more than their own perverted pleasure. They are scum and deserve to be treated as such.

Still, if PDF wishes to buy these bastards a pint, then that’s his business – by your friends shall you be known. This is the idiot who once described my writing as akin to that of Richard Littlejohn. Looking at the deranged drivel that pours forth from the cesspit of his blog, I can only presume that PDF had been partaking of a few of those pints already and was gazing in an inebriated state at his own reflection in the mirror at the time. Frankly, Littlejohn is the epitome of reason and logic compared.

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Update: I note in the comments that PDF makes a partial retraction:

Hmm. I’ll accept that under Thomson & Gale’s definition it’s possible (and obviously I was playing things up for troll value – I agree that someone who enjoys inflicting things that resemble suffering is probably a total bastard).

Still, my view is that consciousness is required for suffering, and that while it’s likely that some cetaceans and apes have properties that could coherently be described as consciousness, seagulls certainly don’t.

Firstly, it is not possible; it is a matter of fact. Sentient beings have nervous systems and therefore experience pain. Causing pain without bloody good reason constitutes cruelty. And, yes, a seagull does have consciousness. Birds communicate – this is evidence of consciousness. PDF on the other hand displays a remarkable lack of it. Troll efect or not, this was a vile piece by a vile person.