PETA

[russotto]

Originally Posted by Lady Sidhe

Murder in the first degree is not only premeditated--you planned it, even if only five seconds before but is also murder committed while in the act of committing another felony, such as armed robbery, kidnapping, rape, etc.

In PA, felony murder is 2nd degree. Weird quirk of state law. Premeditated murder is first degree, other murder is third. Then there's voluntary and involuntary manslaughter.

[Lady Sidhe]

Originally Posted by russotto

In PA, felony murder is 2nd degree. Weird quirk of state law. Premeditated murder is first degree, other murder is third. Then there's voluntary and involuntary manslaughter.

Yeah, I didn't differentiate between voluntary and involuntary manslaughter, sorry about that.

In La., first degree is premed and while in the course of committing another felony--it has to have certain aggravating factors. Other states have different tweaks on it, I'm sure.

My point was merely that we cannot hold a non-human animal who is not considered a part of our society, nor has rights within our society, to the laws of our society, just as we would not condone murder by a human even if he WAS living in the woods and only came down once a year for groceries. He is a human, part of the human society with it's attendant laws and mores that are applicable only to humans. Whether or not he's living like an animal doesn't change the fact that the laws apply to him.

There are standards for human behavior because we need them. Animals don't need them. I don't think that animals are as inherently vicious as humans can be. I'm not downing the human race; I'm just saying that humans don't seem to have the instinctual built-in safeguards to their behavior, by which they preserve their groups, like animals do, and thus we need rules and laws to control our behavior lest we destroy our society.

We can't apply our rules to them, any more than their rules can be applied to us. Different species, different worlds, different rules for what is acceptable.


Sidhe

[xoxoxoBruce]

You are anthropomorphizing the animal if you embue it with a human emotion such as malice.

Bwahahahahahahahahahahahaha, that's something that I could never be accused of.
OK, so we're in agreement that both people and animals sometimes kill for reasons we don't fully understand. But, the English language has divided these acts into different names, of which the majority apply to only humans.
That makes sense, as were are much more concerned about people killing and try to define it more precisely.