Animal Cruelty/Rights

this is a toughy.  I like animals...well...most animals.  I see a lot of stuff around the web.  that we should treat animal abusers like pedophiles and stuff like that.  and while it sounds like a good idea and people get fired up about it there is tiny aspect that is missing.  I'll get to that in a bit. 

Michael Vick, illegal puppy mills, hell even cops, pick your poison of who should get the severest consequences for there actions.  it gets me worked up too.  makes you ask questions like how can people who do these things to something living get off so easy.  that animal is a living thing and possibly part of a family.

Well the one thing that gets forgotten in our world of laws and rules....animals are property and not people.  let that sink in for a second.  you are probably looking at your own animal and saying "my pet is NOT property"  its probably more of a person than half the people that visit you. 

to do anything else would mess with the status quo.  If somehow pets were elevated from property then they would have to be given rights.  Now obviously the first response is they have a right to exist or right to not be tortured and all that.  of course, living things have the right to exist...im not so sure about spiders though....

So to state the obvious i'll say you cant murder property. 

I think about what might happen if we gave animals some more rights.  I think about some of the good it might do when I see dog fighting or cops shooting a dog because he is on a power trip and then nothing happens because he is a pig.  I think about some of the justice it might bring to some of the families that have had that animal for 5, 10, or even 15 years.

but then.....

I think about the other end of the spectrum.  the stupid side.  let your mind wander and think of the most ridiculous things someone might try and pull off.  perhaps a lawsuit because my non-service bull mastiff dog is a person now and should be able to accompany me into Olive Garden. 

What about something a bit more humane.  If its not property now when the vet says its time to put the dog down you cant.  the dog now has rights.  now you must continue to spend money to keep it alive.  this is the one aspect of an animal being property that I consider arguably the most valuable.  it allows me the owner to make the best and most informed and humane decision to spare my beloved animal more pain and suffering.  we aren't allowed to do this to people, even when that's what they want....and they have rights. 

you cant put a cat on the stand for a cross examination in an effort to have a fair trial for the accused either.

quite the conundrum....one with no real middle ground in between the sides

but at the end of the day the problem is people.

it always is....

Where luck comes from...

I saw an article or post or something somewhere.  Maybe I heard it on the radio.  I didn't think much of it at first until I thought about my life as it applied to this statement.

"when I work hard, my luck seems to be better"

most people consider winning the lottery or finding a $20 bill in their pants they forgot about, lucky.  It is, sort of.  but consider the above statement.  I'd have to say that as I truly evaluate it id have to say its true.  Maybe not entirely, but there are definitely many key moments I can attribute to it.

luck is defined as success or failure apparently brought by chance rather than through one's own actions.

but is that the end of it?  can we make our own luck?  or perhaps through hard work can we simply improve the chances of getting lucky?  or is it really luck at all?

lets look at the lottery.  is it really pure chance that a person wins?  for the most part yes.  but that person still had to make the choice to buy a ticket.  the purchasing of the ticket increased their chances of winning.  does that mean the created their own luck?  or at least a small amount?  how much more luck did they create by picking their own numbers or not picking their own numbers?

im not one to believe in pure random chance.  there are so many things going on in this world at the same time that at some point things are bound to intersect.  the law of 3s is fun one.  as this oddity I have witnessed many times for good or bad.  you know, the whole things happen in 3s, good or bad. 

I find that through hard work things don't feel like luck so much, even when they appear as random acts of chance.  that my actions have created or improved my chances to a point where I have manifested my own luck.  hard work is good for the mind, body, and soul.  it can make you feel like you have accomplished something and give you confidence. 

Confidence....

im sure there are plenty of psychologists out there that will tell you confidence or lack of it has a direct impact on successes and failures, and even impacts luck. 

there is always someone better or worse off than you.  and when the occasional person floats the comment when they decide to comment on my life by saying "you are lucky", my standard response tends to be "I work hard".

so the question remains.  can you make your own luck?