On the surface, the headline seems absurd. Even non-dog people would cringe at the slaughter of a puppy, even if it wasn’t as adorable as the ones used in internet images. I personally prefer cats but even I see a puppy and think, “Awww” most of the time. And even if I didn’t, what evil person would want to see a dead puppy?
Well, what if the puppy had a horrible disease that caused it massive pain and suffering. We as a society and most of the people in it would say that we should kill that puppy.
And what if a ferel dog is attacking everyone and everything in sight. Soon it will become a big dog with the same traits and there is no way to reliably curb this behavior. It is very unfortunate, but again, most everyone agrees that puppy should be put down… “Put down” - a nicer way of saying “dead puppy.”
My point with this is about how sick I am of people who seem to view the world in black and white terms. Too many of us on too many issues are very quick to make blanket statements and views and then dogmatically cling to them come hell or high water.
Even something that seems, in soundbite form, something we can all agree on - Dead puppies! We have to be unilaterally opposed to such a thing, right? - can be shown to have shades of gray which render the soundbite useless at best and wrong at worst.
So imagine then such nuanced things as race relations. Abortion. Politics. Religion.
There is gray area everywhere. There is middle ground everywhere. If you are not aware of this, if you are unable to realize that in some cases even the thing you might be most fervently against (dead puppies) you might have to grudgingly concede as the better alternative, then you have failed.
Too many people are like this. Too many people don’t think beyond the soundbite and their own life. Too many people don’t see the gray.
Don’t be like them. Some puppies must die. Let’s hear it for the dead puppies…