If anything, societies and cultures are improving by the barbarities and injustices now defined as cruel that would have been okay only fifty years ago.

The one thing I do wonder about with kids is the amount of time spent away from RL while they are hooked in front of TV or monitors or video games. This was years ago and it may have since been challenged, but there was a theory linking anti-social crime to being anti-social (say as a child). They compared the US and South Africa since the introduction of television and found the same spike in crime rates. It was not violent TV that was the actual problem, it was the not socializing with others and the real world; creating a lack of empathy and social bonding. It was something I listened to on PBS I believe and again it was years ago so I doubt it would be googleable. Just putting it out as a thought of what might be more wrong with many kids today.

As for your comment about the owner and the rescuers knowing who the boys are–that puzzles me. What the article says is, “Hardy said he would like to pursue criminal prosecution if he can find out who took his dog.” And the two women didn’t know the boys; they just saw two boys treating a dog badly, and stepped up and took the dog. They didn’t even know at that point that the dog was stolen.

If the boys can be identified and caught, they can be prosecuted for theft, regardless of whether or not the animal cruelty laws are tough enough. The problem will be identifying three anonymous kids.

There have been sociopaths throughout the entire history of the human race. Until the last couple of decades, you would normally only hear about the ones who were local to you, and not the ones three thousand miles away. If the exact same thing had happened forty years ago when I was a kid, it would have been a local scandal; people three thousand miles away would never have heard of it. And that fact drastically impacts how much of this we think is going on. The crime rate has actually declined substantially over the last thirty years, and we’re much safer overall than we used to be–but because of sensationaistic, “if it bleeds, it leads” coverage of crime news, people think the crime rate is skyrocketing, they’re in danger every time they step outside their doors, and the moral state of the country is going to h*!! in a handbasket.

The brutal truth is that, 30-40 years, ago, a lot more people would have thought, “It’s just a dog” and thought the story was unworthy of hitting even the local news.

Ordinarily I’d scream, “YES! YES! YES!”

But then I saw the news last night. True, one sociopath involved, but the two sisters and vet……angels of mercy. Check out the links. I asked itchmo to run the video, but I haven’t seen it yet on this site. So take a look at the related articles. This actually happened in Van Nuys CA on Oct 1st. It’s hit all the news stations and the Los Angeles Task Force is working the case. [We don’t take kindly to ANY animal abuse in this state.]

Check out the “Images” for photos.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21141914/

http://cbs2.com/topstories/loc.....32901.html

So, somewhere, there are parents that do care. Not enough, though.

I would have called the cops. Where are these kids parents? Bunch of punks! Send them to juvie!

Regardless, they clearly thought of him as just an object, not a living being. They didn’t even think of him as a pet that someone else might love, or they’d likely have tried to get money from the owner.

My guess would be that when they stole him, they did have some lame-brained idea that he was valuable and could be sold for some good amount of cash (or traded for drugs), and when they realized they couldn’t, they weren’t even bright enough to figure out that his owner might pay to get him back, and that’s when they started treating him like a bean bag toy.

But what I find is interesting, is that two kids steal and abuse a little dog; two women are brave enough to confront the kids and get the dog back and take him to a vet; the vet contacts the owner; the owner would like justice done but is far more concerned about his dog’s safety than about vengence–but in all this, it’s those two kids that everyone leaps on as revealing the True Moral State of America. Sorry, but the good people count too.