Thank you! I’ve been looking for that for over a year! I need to send that link to my girlfriend. She will soil herself with laughter.
Actually, I have known some top winning show dogs to sell for more than that. Also, be aware that a service dog, or a guide dog, costs about that much to train.
Do I need to point out the logical problem with citing these examples - that being that they don’t illustrate the many more times that Lib has ignored reasonable arguments? I should hope you could find at least as many instances of that in your posts, given that you are the most prolific poster on the boards (or is it number two?)
Sorry, I had to take a couple days off from here. Things got pretty heated and I got quite emotional. I know you all were laughing at my expense but I just popped in to apologize for getting so upset. Although I don’t believe I am the dumbest of people, it sure appeared that way! 
So I’m sorry for my emotional outbursts, but after the pile-on and being told every other post that something is wrong with ME (those in glass houses and all), my emotions got elavated pretty quickly.
When my dogs were killed when I was young, I always wanted to do something about it, but never could. It’s a touchy subject for me that brings back a lot of pain, I’m one of those people where I can’t watch a news story about animals being abused without leaving the room bawling. I once saw a documentary about cats and dogs being used for fur coats in another country and it wasn’t on for 3 minutes and I was a babbling mess. I have a very soft spot for animals, my own especially.
Maybe I’m a little too attached to my pets, and I fully recognize that. But until a miracle happens or one of you would like to donate $15,000 to me and my DH so we can adopt a child, there’s nothing else I can do except take really good care of my pets and love my nephews as much as I can (without my sister thinking I’m a stalker!).
Yeah, I’ve been dealt some pretty bad cards, and I don’t expect any of you to fix it or give me sympathy. But as an adult community where we are supposed to be understanding about one another’s differences, I came up against some pretty intolerant views. I know this is the pit and I shouldn’t expect a love gathering, but I also know this is the place where those with self-esteem issues come here to feel better about themselves by picking on others. THAT is what I think is wrong. You are doing yourself a disservice by tearing each other down for the sake of getting off on humiliating others.
If you all knew me, there’s not too many people I could take down. I’m not by any stretch a big person. My Marine DH has been trained to take people out with his bare hands. He’s not scared of anyone. I know he’s just as attached to our dogs and cat as I am and I wouldn’t put it past him to do harm on someone who has done harm on us. I don’t think either one of us could literally “kill” someone for killing my pets, but you better be damned sure I would sue their balls to the wall, probably more so than this old lady in the story. Now my DH on the other hand might give them a beating they’d never forget . . .
Yes, I love my pets (I DO have the “rat” dogs BTW, they are each 3lb chihuahuas, and I would appreciate if you did not call them rats). Maybe too much for some of you. I am this protective of ANY of my family and friends and would do anything to protect any of them. Call me crazy, but remember: you’re nothing more than a name on a message board, you’re a nobody.
And BTW, picking on me because I misspelled a word in the heat of a debate is really petty and childish. :rolleyes: So if you want to continue to tear me down because I want to love, protect, and “mother” my animals, feel free. But I want no more of that conversation. I’m not going to debate with you or change something that I feel deep down just because YOU don’t understand it. I don’t tell you how much you can love your family, have respect for me and my feelings for my family. Twist, nit-pick, or criticize this however much you want, you and those around you have to live with your asinine behavior, but I want no part of it.
I would also add that the last remaining individuals of severely-endangered species should be valued at least as much.
Cool!
You’re crazy!
Actually, the logical problem is your own. To conclude that I ought to have more admissions of error, you must first assume that I have been wrong more often. And since you yourself have already admitted that you don’t know squat about the things I discuss, you are hardly in a position to posit how often I must be wrong.
Add irony to the fallacy, and you are approaching surrealism. In this thread, for example, you’ve accused me of making false statements about the brain — statements which were actually made by two neurological researchers, and only related by me. Therefore, your demand that I admit my error while you continue to stew in your own error is laughable in its conception.
And now, when you’ve suggested that I should not fear to admit errors, and you’ve been shown forty instances — an average of ten times a month — in which I’ve done exactly that over the past four months alone, you’re still weebling and wobbling like a weasel trapped in a pinball machine. You won’t even admit that you’re wrong about implying that I don’t admit I’m wrong. Bizarre.
By the way, what’s your own statement/addmission ratio so that we may compare ourselves against your perfect standard?
I am not the first, nor will I be the last to take you up on your offer.
And the DH ruined baseball. I hope you’re proud of yourself.
Couldn’t he just submit a modal proof of the wrongness of Liberal?
d&r
Not to mention horses.
Anyone have a clue what the stud fee is for a winning horse? We’re not talking the value of the horse, here, we’re talking the value of his sperm. For one coupling. Smarty Jones’ stud fee is reported to be somewhere between $75,000-$150,000 a coupling.
I have heard of a couple of top winning show dogs who bring in about 12K per coupling, too.
That would work only if you can prove he is necessarily wrong in all possible worlds.
Given what my divorce costed me, my ex-wife gets about 12k per coupling as well.
enough already.
anyone else wanna join me in declaring that both Liberal & Excalibre have officially had the ‘last word’? That way it wouldn’t be necessary at least in this thread for either of them to continue to respond.
who’s with me?
Ok, I won’t call them rat dogs. But I will say that they look like a big dog stuck in a small dog’s body and the only thing that reached normal size were the eyes.
I’m with you.
I am starting to suspect that Libertaria…Oops I mean Liberal thinks he gets paid by the word…
Their eyes aren’t THAT bad. The little boy’s “man junk” seemed to get normal size too. We always say it’s one of the 3 pounds of his weight.
Just one example: the results of one auction for racehorses. These aren’t stakes winners, either – they’re two-year-olds in training, auctioned in March and with little or no racing record, only their pedigree and conformation to support the bids.
Here’s a link to a story about the stud fee for Holy Bull, sire of Giacomo, this year’s Kentucky Derby winner. It speaks of his fee as having been dropped in 2003 from $25,000 to a “modest” $15,000. No doubt it will be going up again, unless Giacomo does abysmally for the rest of the season.
Smarty Jones’s sire saw his stud fee double, the article notes, to $100,000 after Smarty Jones’s terrific season.
Note: This is the stud fee only. Doesn’t cover the cost of buying the mare, keeping her, providing vet care, raising the foal to raceable age, training it, and so forth. For a more detailed look at the economics of owning a Thoroughbred racehorse, check this out.
Look, you stated more than once that your furbabies are equivalent - equal in value - to fleshbabies. (And no, the word “furbaby” will never stop being funny. 
Snakescatlady deserves a place in history for that.) Obviously I have nothing against loving a pet - it’s just my position that a cat is not capable of reciprocating affection with the depth that a person is. It doesn’t mean that I don’t love my cats, just that I recognize that this love is not the same as the bond between two humans. I get the impression that you agree with that too - it’s easy to get stuck defending a position you took in hyperbole when piled on. Really, none of us think it’s sick to love and cherish your pets.
It’s awful to see an animal be abused. I agree completely. I would doubt the humanity of anyone who didn’t feel that way.
It’s the bit about avenging their deaths that was creepy.
The problem is how you came off - none of us was much inspired towards sympathy, because frankly you sounded shrill and insane at some points. I can see now that it was the heat of the moment, and that you’re not normally some crazed activist who looks down on PETA for being too soft. But you have to understand that we do have a number of shrill, angry kooks who hang out here and go nuts whenever their personal causes are brought up. I, at least, took you for one of those. I don’t tend to have a lot of sympathy for those people, and I’m not always very nice to them. I shouldn’t have grouped you with them.
I don’t think that’s fair at all. The place exists to blow off steam on things that PISS US OFF. Personally (though it appears to be a trait shared by many people) crazed, drooling activists offering up big scoops of condemnation piss me off. I see now that you aren’t one of them, but you did a really good impression during some of those posts. Those people get a very frosty reception here most of the time (though it never stops them. A lot of them seem to thrive on it.) This is not because we have low self-esteem. Some of us are just not particularly gentle souls.
And again, I don’t think many people would fault you for leaping to the defense of a pet who was being attacked by a criminal. I sure wouldn’t. But the original argument was over whether a pet’s life has the same value as a human life - Airman Doors framed it that way in the OP. In an abstract sense, it doesn’t. Personalizing it by claiming that someone is sneaking into your house to knife your gerbil is inaccurate, because it raises separate issues of self-defense, and how one might respond to a home invasion. It’s one thing to blow away a deranged killer in your house; it’s another thing to drop the baby so you can grab Fluffy on your way out of a burning building. When you frame the issue as one of defense against a home-invader, then of course it’s reasonable to use whatever force is necessary to stop them. But a lot of us were thinking in terms of rescuing Fido from a fire or something like that. And if you’d skip the baby to save the chinchilla, most people wouldn’t be sympathetic. Obviously you wouldn’t do that, but that really is how you were coming across to me.
I think it’s mighty unfair for you to characterize us that way. A lot of the people arguing against you in this thread - me included, of course - love, protect, and mother our pets. But you stated you’d kill to avenge your pets - I see now that you didn’t really mean that. But that’s what the argument was. Like I said, it’s surprisingly easy to find yourself arguing for a point of view you don’t really hold during an argument, and not even realize that you’re defending something you don’t believe in. But while you perceived us as arguing over whether it’s okay to love your pets, the actual argument mostly centered upon whether it’s right to kill for them. I’m sorry I didn’t do a better job of figuring out what you meant - I shouldn’t have lumped you in with the real crazies that hang out here. And I should have recognized that people say crazy things sometimes that they don’t really mean. Please don’t think we’re all coldhearted people who’d be fine drowning our pets when we move, because we’re not (Crafter_Man excepted, if I remember correctly). In exchange, I understand that you wouldn’t hunt down and murder someone in cold blood if they killed your pet.
And incidentally, I think the award was in no way too high. Anyone who doesn’t bother to keep their vicious pet chained up, and then doesn’t even show up in court to defend himself, deserves no better.
I no longer think you’re unbalanced - you sound like a good pet-owner, which is a very good thing in my opinion. I’m sorry for claiming you’re crazy. At least where I’m concerned, I don’t think our real views are actually all that much different. (Also, sorry. I notice that I’ve been spelling your name wrong for the whole thread.)
Lib, I keep trying to tell you that I’m not interested in having this discussion here. Please start a pit thread on me if you wish to continue your blathering. Since you enjoy attacking me so much, have the courtesy to do so in a thread devoted to it - after all, we’re permitted to do so here. You might as well take the opportunity to do it right.