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Another idiot causes the death...

Deserved to be mauled??? The gator didn't decide to maul anyone! They don't think that way. All it was is an animal reacting to prey. Period. When you choose to make poor decisions in your life, you pay the price. Part of the problem with today's society is that we make it everyone elses' fault but our own. People need to learn to accept the price of doing whatever it is. If you steal, you get arrested. That's the way society works. If you run naked on drugs into a gator pond where there's a hungry gator. Expect to get chewed! This guy now will be payed for by me, you and every other tax payer because I'm certain he doesn't have the means. He may never recover fully, or will just enough to steal more for drugs. It's sad, but that's the way it is. And yes, I've had family members or family friends who've had problems too. So it's not like I have no idea what your talking about.
 
MegF. said:
Deserved to be mauled??? The gator didn't decide to maul anyone! They don't think that way. All it was is an animal reacting to prey. Period.
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Who are you trying to convince here, Meg? I said that the alligator should not have been punished, but yes, the man was mauled, whatever you want to call it. But the "he ran in to the lake so therefore he should have been eaten and nobody should have done anything" way of thinking is, to me ridiculous. If I were to swim in a beach where there have been shark sightings, it's okay if I get eaten?

Who are we to judge the value of another human's life?
 
Actually yes. If you are too stupid to ignore the shark warnings you do indeed deserve to reap the benefits of the decision you made. In that case a possible loss of life or limb. You can't take away people's need to be responsible for their actions. It used to be survival of the fittest. Someone like that 100 years ago would have died off long before. Today we save them. I'm not judging the value of the life, you are. You are saying that a human, no matter how stupid is too valuable a thing to waste. You've judged the life of the person above everything else. Every living thing has value. Nothing is above something else. Only man is that arrogant.
 
I agree 100% with you, Meg. I have had family members addicted to drugs and I'm sorry I wasn't much sympathic with them either. They made the choice to do drugs. There is too much information out there to not know the dangers of making that decision. They chose to do them anyway.

The guy made the decision to go running nekked through a pond known to have alligators, so he made his choice. I'm sure there are plenty of reports in Florida about the dangers of going in the ponds with gators.

And if someone goes into the water with known shark sightings, they deserve what they get because they made a choice. There are plenty of news reports and movies about what happens when you go into waters where sharks are making their home. And humans taste yummy without ketchup.
 
On the thing about the beach I agree completely with Meg. It someone says, "There are sharks out there today." and you swim anyway you should do it realizing that there is a chance one of the sharks may mistake you for prey. And not expect the shark to be punished for your error.
The animals actually live in these places. Humans go hiking and swimming in the ocean because they think it's fun. For a shark or an alligator life isn't a vacation. They're hunting because they need to do so to live. When a human decides to enter their territory they need to do so understanding that something can happen to them. It's too bad that he was bitten, but oh well. Never would have happened if he had stayed in any one of the millions of areas humans have created for humans to be safe. Instead he decided he would rather swim in one of the few areas that aren't. Who's fault is that? :shrugs:
 
I had to open the link to an article, hoping to find the name of the "victim". Unfortunately, it wasn't my brother-in-law...who would fall into the catagory of an idiot on drugs &/or drunk on his behind...and has been known to live in Polk county (which, by the way, has a reputation of having more than it's share of not-so-bright people residing there). I am sorry another gator has been needlessly killed. I don't swim in lakes that could be home to gators...and I don't swim in the ocean either. I take enough risks driving on the highway and living in my home. Both of those places are far more dangerous...just look at the statistics...and I think I'm pushing my luck as it is!
 
I also have to agree with Meg. If he decided to swim where there are gators, crack or no crack, he's gonna get bitten.

Okay, try thinking on a smaller level. Let's say you're a kid, and you get an allowance. If you do someting bad, your parents are going to say, "Well, you did this, so you don't deserve your allowance this week." It's basically the same principle. Yes, you're going to say that losing your allowance isn't the same as losing your life. That's right. It isn't. But allowance or life, it works the same way. Every action has a consequence, and swimming with gators isn't any different.
 
bill38112 said:
I like to think I am a difficult person to misunderstand, so I'll state this as concisely as I can. No animal's life is worth sacrificing a human life, any human life, no matter how unworthy you think that human life. There are few black and white things in life, but, ladies and gents, that's one of 'em.
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Have to say I disagree with this. There are many people I read about who, had I the choice, I'd chose to save my dog rather than them.

Examples include various criminals, including that arse in Texas who just got arrested for stealing people's pet dogs, taping their mouths shut, and then using them to bait and train pit bulls to fight. If I had to choose to run over him or a deer with my truck, I'd choose to save the deer.

Also agree with Meg, Susan and others who said that there are natural consequences to behaviors. If you chose to swim in a lake with gators, then you take the risk of getting mauled. To then go to that lake and kill the gator that did nothing more than act as Nature intended him to is the supreme height of human arrogance. Ditto for sharks.

As for the drugs, well, that was ultimately his choice too. I feel very little sympathy for people with addictions in this day and age, especially young people of my generation. They know the consequences, they know the costs, and if they chose to do it anyway, then they should accept the consequences without complaint. And we as a society need to start demanding that of people. Feeling sorry for people has gotten us to the point where criminals now have more rights than innocent people and animals.
 
chibitamalove said:
I also have to agree with Meg. If he decided to swim where there are gators, crack or no crack, he's gonna get bitten.

Okay, try thinking on a smaller level. Let's say you're a kid, and you get an allowance. If you do someting bad, your parents are going to say, "Well, you did this, so you don't deserve your allowance this week." It's basically the same principle. Yes, you're going to say that losing your allowance isn't the same as losing your life. That's right. It isn't. But allowance or life, it works the same way. Every action has a consequence, and swimming with gators isn't any different.
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Actually, that's where the whole problem started. They took away the allowance the kid whined and the parents gave in and gave it to him anyway. No accounting for the actions and they get rewarded when they act irresponsibly. Perfect!
 
Alligators Just Being Alligators

Remember that guy that was the director of Kanapaha Botanical Gardens in Gainesivlle, FL? He got his arm bit off by a long-term resident gator when he stepped on him in murky while cleaning the pond the gator lived in. The gator was defending his territory- and the bitten man pleaded for the gator's life, but even though there had never been another incident, the gator was killed. That shouldn't have been done.

Nanci
 
I rarely feel sympathy for people who are attacked by wild animals, and I think killing an animal for being an animal is a bit of shutting the barn door after the horses got out. It's not as if the gator was a chronic nuisance, it was a chance encounter where a stupid person happened to fall into the prey category. People feel the need to kill the "attacker" because it somehow makes them feel better, like they dealt out justice.

It makes me mad how people can feel anger towards an animal, as if it were a human. People say that an animal's life is less valuable than a human's, but somehow hold animals to the same standard of morality and treat it as a criminal?
 
Hey today I saw a show on the discovery channel about shark attacks. Ya that really doesn't have a point but it relates to this topic. The people went into the sharks habitat and suffered the consequences. I guess If you want to take the risk of getting hurt or killed then go right a head. Ohh ya we cant forget this guy was on crack, that might be why he went in there in the 1st place.
 
MegF. said:
Actually yes. If you are too stupid to ignore the shark warnings you do indeed deserve to reap the benefits of the decision you made. In that case a possible loss of life or limb. You can't take away people's need to be responsible for their actions. It used to be survival of the fittest. Someone like that 100 years ago would have died off long before. Today we save them. I'm not judging the value of the life, you are. You are saying that a human, no matter how stupid is too valuable a thing to waste. You've judged the life of the person above everything else. Every living thing has value. Nothing is above something else. Only man is that arrogant.
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You aren't listening to me here. I haven't valued the man above the gator. I have stated, twice now, that the gator should NOT have been killed. I feel sorry for the gator and it should not have been punished. The only point I have made is that the man did not deserve to be eaten. Can you explain to me how that suggests I value the life of the mans above that of the gators? :shrugs:

And yes, you are placing a value on the man's life. You state that he deserved to be snacked on. How is that not placing a value on him?

In my opinion, yes, a human life is too valuable to waste regardless. I'm against the death penalty because I believe every person has rights. That doesn't mean I think humans are more important than anything else, so don't place words in my mouth. Stupid or not, that is the way I feel.
 
I understand that you didn't feel that the gator should have been killed. However, I don't have a problem with someone dying if they are too stupid to live. I think there are an awful lot of people out there who shouldn't be alive and it wouldn't bother me one bit if a whole slew of gators or sharks took them out. To me it is survival of the fittest. If I decided to walk in front of a bus because I was too stupid to heed the red light, then you know what, too bad for me. Stupidity should not be rewarded. Heaven forbid that guy should go out and breed more like him! I think we'll probably just have to agree that it was sad that the gator died, and agree to dissagree on the other half of the subject. I respect the fact that you don't want anyone to die and that you feel that everyone has value to someone. I don't feel the same way.
 
So if you run in grizzly territory, or mountain bike alone in cougar country, or hop in a lake in Florida, or swim at dusk in turbid water on the Florida coast, or stick your hand into a burrow you can't see into, and you get chomped- maybe you don't "deserve" to have that happen, but you took the risk knowing something like that was possible.

Some activities have known risks that you can minimize- take cave diving for instance. Plenty of untrained divers die in caves because they don't know, aren't following the rules. It's rare for a trained cave diver to die. Let's say your thing you like to do is swim in the ocean. To minimize your risk- don't swim at dusk and dawn, don't swim in turbid water, don't swim near the fishermen- same thing, you follow the "rules" of safety, except you have an added element of animal unpredictibility. If you choose to ignore common sense- then you ought to accept the responsibility for your actions.

Nanci
 
Plissken said:
The only point I have made is that the man did not deserve to be eaten. Can you explain to me how that suggests I value the life of the mans above that of the gators? :shrugs:

And yes, you are placing a value on the man's life. You state that he deserved to be snacked on. How is that not placing a value on him?
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I don't think Meg is suggesting we run out and round up all the "stupid" people and toss them into the gator filled waters of the Everglades. I think (and Meg, correct me if I am wrong) that she is saying that she has no pity for this man as the situation he found himself in was created by his own poor decisions and stupidity, which began the day he decided to take his first hit of drugs, and ended when he decided, under the influence of drugs, to go swimming in a gator filled pond. The only individual in this situation worth feeling sorry for is the gator who lost his life most likely for doing NOTHING at all, and at best for just doing what boy gators do- defending their turf against interlopers and capturing prey to keep themselves alive. That is certainly not a crime worthy of death.

Plissken said:
In my opinion, yes, a human life is too valuable to waste regardless. I'm against the death penalty because I believe every person has rights. That doesn't mean I think humans are more important than anything else, so don't place words in my mouth. Stupid or not, that is the way I feel.
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If you are saying that in a situation where the police officers approach and see a man being eaten by a gator in the wild, you would rather see the gator killed in order to see the man saved, then you ARE valuing human life above another being. And there's nothing wrong with that- I would say the same thing, in most cases. However, in this particular instance, the man was saved without initial harm to the gator, and they went back LATER and killed an animal at random in an act of vengeance for one person's stupidity. That is totally, undeniably wrong, and supremely arrogant on our part.

I am not even going to touch the death penalty. Unless you've lost a loved-one to murder, you've no right to comment on whether it is right or wrong, IMHO, and so I don't get into it.
 
You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to MegF. again.


Dayum.. Regards.. Tim of T and J
 
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