You know, one of the disturbing images of the nineties, for me, was watching a news program showing the Clinton family watching, amongst other things, a Roadrunner cartoon. Now putting aside the campy retro feel of the whole affair and the hope they might instead be watching Masterpiece Theater or something, what happens in your average Roadrunner cartoon? I'll tell you what happens: A coyote, in search of a square meal in a harsh, desert environment gets blown up, thrown off cliffs, and, yes, hit by anvils and other heavy objects.
This coyote, basically an anthropomorphic dog, man's best friend, was brutalized in every way imaginable for the sick entertainment of our first family.
Though I don't recall which episode it was, here is a sampling of the sort of depravity we're talking about for those who were lucky enough not to be exposed to the backwards cartoons of the mid to late twentieth century:
Obviously, modern popular culture tends to focus on nurturing hungry canines, rather than delighting in their frustration and suffering. While there are plenty of series today dealing with important issues of rescuing stray animals, helping abused and abandoned pets, and providing top notch medical care to them, I don't see many in which they are hit by trains, shot with cannons, or somehow disemboweled by defective consumer merchandise for the amusement of ignorant, slack-jawed viewers. And I thought this was a sign of progress, until I realized the Clintons had actually enjoyed this sort of trash, endorsed it you might say, themselves.
Some might think that the violent injury (and probably the eventual death) of cartoon animals is just humor, common throughout our culture and that indeed many movies and television programs that are agreed both by the enlightened and the depraved to be very funny use this so-called "slap stick" approach. Well, maybe so, but I've never seen them and if I have I've certainly never laughed at them, because violence toward animals is wrong. It is never funny.
You may think this is fun and games and that most people can separate serious issues of animal cruelty from such "dark comedy," but when I think of a world in which professional athletes run dog fighting rings as an off-season hobby and thousands of animals are euthanized every year like so many weighted companion cubes, I wonder what kind of example is being set -- by our parents, by our communties, and most of all by our leaders.
It makes me shudder to think a Democrat could countenance such depravity.