Breed-specific legislation is point blankly profiling for dogs. It is group-blaming for dogs. It is making all from whatever grouping guilty and then forcing each to prove their innocence afterwards. It is the rejection of treating dogs as individuals and the rejection of punishing individuals based on the crimes and/or actions of those individuals. Instead, breed-specific legislation lumps hundreds/thousands/millions of dogs together, based solely on how they appear to a subjective eye, and condemns them, then seeks to justify their prohibition based on that blanket condemnation.

What group of people are most often profiled in American society? That’s simple: African Americans.

So what, in this satirical and thought-provoking effort, am I going to do? I’m going to look at numerous Prop 2D news editorials from Aurora and neighboring city Denver (both where Pit Bulls are currently banned) and simply replace any word referencing “Pit Bull” with “black person.”

Most all people will understand this exercise, but I will disclaimer this post with this statement anyways: I am quite obviously not saying that dogs are people, but rather highlighting the prejudicial doctrine/ideology that’s being put into work by those seeking to scapegoat millions of individual dogs for things that they never did. The few with track records of calling for Pit Bull bans, their killing, their elimination, etc., they will loudly scream that dogs are not people and thus this point is null and void. Well, they either intellectually have an inability to grasp a basic point or just seek to make as much counter-noise as possible in an effort to distract from the fact that their reaction is the act of collective blaming. The only folks “offended” by such an exercise are those being called out for their ideology. Black people, above all others, are likely to understand this point the easiest.

Here’s a post-election editorial by the Denver Post Editorial Board:

Aurora right to keep Pit Bull black person ban

Aurora voters made a sensible decision when asked by the city whether they’d like to repeal a controversial Pit Bull black person ban.

They said no, by a 2-to-1 margin.

The breed race-specific ban is an issue of local control, and if voters want to continue the prohibition that was instituted in 2006, that should be their choice.

The number of bites shootings attributed to Pit Bulls black people has dropped significantly since the ban went into effect nearly a decade ago. Apparently voters didn’t want to mess with what seems to be working.

Here’s an op-ed from Dave Perry’s Aurora Sentinel, a few weeks prior to the vote:

No on Proposition 2D: Putting an end to Aurora’s dangerous Pit Bull black person charade

Of the 38 people who were killed in the United States by dogs people last year, two-thirds of those deaths involved Pit Bulls black people, which make up about 4% 12% of the U.S. dog human population. Get it?

Who in Aurora wants to live next to a Pit Bull black person?

Of course not. We don’t either. Your answer to that question tells you how you need to vote on the ill-advised city ballot question, Prop 2D, asking Aurora residents to rescind an 8-year-old ban on Pit Bulls black people.

Vote no.

Most Aurora residents were wrong when they thought this has long been a settled matter. The city council prohibited Pit Bulls black people in 2006 after a particularly unnerving spate of maulings shootings in and near Aurora. Denver, too, had banned the dogs blacks, and Aurora was quickly becoming a dumping gathering ground.

And here’s Dave Perry, writing for the Sentinel, back when the Proposition was being considered:

Aurora has already decided to ban Pit Bulls black people, no need to let pit bullies (insert your choice of derogatory name here) have an election

OK, Aurora. Who wants to live next to a Pit Bull black person?

I thought so. Me neither.

Not convinced that Aurora is very, very pleased with its ban on keeping Pit Bulls black people out of the city, Aurora council members are poised to ask voters whether they want to repeal the longstanding ban.

At first glance, you’ve got to ask yourself just how crazy and stupid such an idea is. I mean, really, will you vote “yes” to bring a flood of these dogs people back? Do you really believe in your heart of hearts that these dogs people aren’t any more of a problem than any other dog person?

I don’t buy it.

Public safety fraudster Jeff Borchardt was recently on Wisconsin public radio spreading his sensationalized misinformation about Pit Bulls as a guest on the Joy Cardin show.

Most offensive of all is that during his 42 minutes on the air there was absolutely no mention of any of the reckless circumstances that are consistently shown to be involved in serious dog bites or fatal incidents. None. Not 1 mention. Not 1 mention of loose or roaming dogs as being a circumstance that could lead to a fatal incident. Not 1 mention of chained yard dogs as being a circumstance that could lead to a fatal incident. Not 1 mention of leaving young children alone with any dog as being a circumstance that could lead to a fatal incident. None. Not 1 mention. Not 1 mention or suggestion that people should contain their dogs and not let them run free. Not 1 mention or suggestion that people should socialize their dogs and not leave them chained or tethered to a constant location, playing the role of a moving alarm system. Not 1 mention or suggestion that parents/adults should always supervise their children around any dog, especially dogs that out-weigh the child. Not 1 mention. None.

This, while the just passed calender year of 2013 showed that 26 of the 32 dog bite-related human fatalities from that year involved at least 1 of these 3 circumstances, and many of the fatalities involved more than 1 in tandem. Further, the dogs involved are primarily being subjectively breed-identified by media mentions and over half of the reported incidents never even show the alleged dog in any fashion! 32 fatalities in a country that has between 75-80 million dogs and over 300 million people. 2014 has circumstantially shown much of the same. When you delve into incidents happening prior to 2013 you will also see much of the same. Circumstantial recklessness and/or an element of blatant irresponsibility usually leads to about 75% of all dog bite-related human fatalities. Not just for any specific year, but for every year.

Instead, all we heard from Jeff was “Pit Bull, Pit Bull, Pit Bull, BSL, Pit Bull, dog fighting, breed, Pit Bull, fighting dog, killers, Pit Bull, don’t get one, Pit Bull, fighting dog, Pit Bull, Pit Bull.”

The mere suggestion that Jeff Borchardt is a public safety advocate is one of the most ridiculous oxymorons that could dare be suggested. Unbelievable. Borchardt seems to have blood lust in his heart, thinking vengeance masked as public safety might give him some satisfaction. Well, desiring to kill, attempting to ban, and further ostracizing millions of innocent dogs and their owners will not fill the hole that the tragic loss of his son has created. One day he will wake up and realize that his grief is being used for an end.

At PETA headquarters, at the request of this reporter, Ms. Nachminovitch led the way to a cinder-block building in the back and then to a windowless room where the dogs and cats are killed. It looked like a well-maintained examination room in a doctor’s office. There was clean bedding on a countertop where the dogs and cats are placed for the intravenous shot from a certified euthanasia technician.

“It’s a humane exit from a world that’s treated them like garbage,” said Ms. Nachminovitch, a vegan who does not use animal products. “It’s very sad, but in these cases, it’s the best we can hope for.”

Death is not “the best” we can hope for. That is bullshit. Whatever happened to the notion that we actually help those “treated like garbage,” assisting them in ways that show them what not being “treated like garbage” actually looks and feels like? The exploitation defeatists that head PETA are breathtakingly wrong on this golden rule.

Simply take their backwards philosophy and apply it to a 12-year-old girl that’s been kidnapped and then repeatedly raped by someone that keeps her in their basement. Apply it to a 15-year-old boy that’s been sold into the sex trade. Apply it to a 24-year-old girl that’s been forced into doing prostitution after becoming homeless. Apply it to a 35-year-old guy that’s been tormented by a serious mental illness since graduating high school. Apply it to a 40-year-old housewife that’s endured a decade of domestic violence. Apply it to a 42-year-old man that’s been addicted to hard drugs ever since losing his entire family to a fatal car accident. You get the picture. Do we just kill them to rid them of their “suffering”? I think not.

PETA, on issues of shelter animal killing and Pit Bull extermination, are like the satirical people in the “Mercy Killers” skit from a 1978 episode of Saturday Night Live.

Isn’t it cute that when a city like Miami or Denver opts to double down on their Pit Bull bans, the celebratory narrative then coming from anti-dog websites like DogsBite and Animals24-7 is plush with phrases like “crushed,” “destroyed” and “overwhelming.” Says Pit Bull-hating Merritt Clifton about the 64.7% to 35.3% defeat of Aurora, Colorado’s Prop 2D: “Attempt to repeal Pit Bull ban crushed in Colorado.” Crushed. Crushed? It’s convenient though, that these kinds of descriptive phrases are only rolled out when the result is beneficial to a campaign supporting continued Pit Bull eradication.

If any result is favorable to that concept then it’s something like this… “Citizens turn out,” or “population weighs in,” or “communities make it known,” etc. On the flipside, if the result is the exact opposite then their narrative morphs into something more like this… “Pit Bull lobbyists come out,” etc.

Always aiming to normalize themselves while villainizing anyone who opposes their desire to kill, eliminate and/or criminalize millions of dogs. Everyone with a Pit Bull or a dog mixed at any level with a Pit Bull-type becomes a “lobbyist.” That means millions of people. Everyone with a Pit Bull or a dog mixed at any level with a Pit Bull-type becomes a “dog fighting supporter.” So grotesquely offensive and void of even the slightest sliver of common sense or truth. And if you oppose breed discrimination in the form of mandatory sterilization laws, being pushed from a ban-mentality? Well, then you’re characterized as a “breeder” or a “lobbyist” for puppy mills or for breeders. Worse, the folks saying this will then attempt to blame you for the shelter deaths of Pit Bulls, and pose as saviors to the Pit Bulls, all while openly trying to kill/ban/eliminate them. This is 1984, indeed.

To follow up on this last paragraph… Do I think that everyone in Aurora who voted to keep this ban shares the vitriolic anti-Pit Bull mentality of say a Colleen Lynn or a Merritt Clifton? Of course not! Not even close. Not even remotely close. This is just another issue to most, one that they’ve been conditioned to view from a certain perspective, and without ever having any personal experience with a Pit Bull or being exposed to any alternative viewpoints. Does that make them bad? No! That makes them human. How many issues in the world is any random one of us well-informed on? How many issues in the world do I, or you, or he, or she actively seek to consistently follow? How many issues do we passively accept? Finally, how many issues go unacknowledged because there’s not enough time in our day? Ask yourself these questions. And as many would likely change their views with a little information and experience, some wouldn’t, and that’s totally fine, because this is America after all. The bottom line is that Aurora is filled with good folks, just as Denver and Miami are filled with good folks. They voted to not undo a wrong, a very complicated and multifaceted wrong. This happens. This is life. I’m not saying that I like it, but I’m not going to blame Aurora as a whole or else I’d be no better than Colleen Lynn or Merritt Clifton when they repetitively seek to blame my dog (and millions more) for something that 1 individual dog may do, either down the street or from 3,000 miles away, for example.

This is also why using Denver or Miami as a yardstick for the nation, and ignoring the 98+% of American cities and towns that DO NOT HAVE BSL, is a disingenuous exercise of the tallest order. See the below conversation as an example…

In respect to what I chided at the top of my article, I actually call Colleen and Merritt lobbyists within this pictured communication. That’s because they openly lobby for legislation that seeks to ban and kill dogs. Legislation doesn’t exist and then they push to create it. They desire legislation that, in a perfect world (to them), would disappear a quarter of the dog population (and based solely on how that massive group appears to a subjective eye). On the contrary, everyone in Aurora who cast a vote to keep the ban, they are not lobbyists, nor are the people in Aurora who wanted to lift the ban “Pit Bull lobbyists.” Neither is true. Most everyone are simply citizens taking a position on an issue. But it’s always a sweeping reaction when certain anti-dog individuals open their mouths against Pit Bulls, against their owners, against anyone who doesn’t totally agree with them. Speaking for myself and my opposing of BSL: I’m taking a reactionary stance against someone who wants to ban, kill, marginalize, criminalize, screw over my dogs and millions more that look in some way like them. That’s a reactionary position. I’m not initiating any overreaching legislation, I’m not initiating any legislation! I’m a good person. I’m responsible. I speak out against recklessness. I want to live in peace. My dogs have done nothing. Millions of dogs have done nothing.

To that point, to support collective blame and punishment onto groups of anything that have committed no crime, that’s an incredibly wrong misappropriation of power. How do you condone a Minority Report-styled world where individuals are going to be judged and then convicted based on how they might look or what list that they might be on? That’s what tyranny is. I’d much rather individuals be dealt with based upon crimes that they’ve actually committed. Once again, this is America after all.

Circling back the the beginning, and the notion that numbers are somehow showing us that a concept is being “crushed.” With millions of Pit Bulls in the United States, and millions more that may be lumped into that certain category (depending on who is doing the categorizing, and for what end), one concept that is being absolutely “crushed” by reality is that (by whatever metric or calculation that you use) 99.99999% of these dogs have not killed or attacked anyone. This goes very conveniently ignored by the few eugenic exploitation artists that foam from their mouths at the thought of a Pit Bull mass genocide, but it’s a fact nonetheless.

Click here to purchase Scout’s book on Amazon!

00:29 Michael Bryant’s BSL
03:22 The process of adopting Scout
04:28 Enforcement in Ontario
06:46 What happens to the dogs that end up in shelters?
07:47 Scout’s book, “Stuff on Scout’s Head”
10:04 The response to the book
11:08 Are Ontario politicians aware of Scout?
12:49 Getting rid of the ban
13:45 Movement to repeal the ban
14:35 The Buehrle’s move to Toronto
14:58 Take the initiative to show your dog in a positive light
16:59 What does that have to do with my dog?
19:27 Scout’s Great Dane sister
20:09 Traveling to NYC to be on the Rachael Ray show
24:27 What happens if police stop you on the street?/Housing restrictions
26:22 Outreach from the UK and Australia
26:51 StuffOnScoutsHead.com, stuffonscoutshead.tumblr.com

Speaking to a conference room full of people in Sweden, engineer Nell Watson sought to ring the alarm on the ever-expansive use of artificial intelligence in the future world. She and others believe that droids, once developed to a certain level, could eventually come to kill human beings out of both malice and kindness.

Teaching machines to be kind is not enough, as robots could decide that the greatest compassion to humans as a race is to get rid of everyone to end suffering.

Yikes. That sounds like a national security issue and not a path that any rational person would ever want to go down. In regards to dogs, this concept mirrors the PETA mantra of killing dogs (primarily Pit Bulls) before they ever find themselves in a situation where there’s a chance of being abused by someone, thus “saving them from abuse.” Even though most all dogs won’t ever be abused. But that doesn’t matter to a group like PETA, who will lobby for legislation ensuring these deaths anyways. They will then say that they did it out of the kindness of their hearts. Death is so loving, right? Wrong.

My Google Hangout ID is swayloveorg@gmail, ADD ME, LET ME KNOW CRAVEN. While you’re at it, try to prompt Jeff Borchardt into doing the same thing. All I’ve heard is silence, as I’ve put myself out there 100% and you guys continue to yap through text but evade any medium that would require an actual human interaction. I’m also sorry that our video of Clifton has upset so many people, but at least he had the courage to stand there and dialogue with people. I did send him the debate proposal that he wanted and I haven’t heard anything about it. William Johnson has put my request off until potentially 2016, due to a pending lawsuit that he states he is involved in. So honestly, the only trends that I’m seeing is that I’m putting myself out there repeatedly, and that no one is actually willing to step up and have any kind of a public conversation on the issues. Also, Colleen Lynn, consider this another public challenge to fire up your webcam. If your information is so amazing, if it’s so honest and genuine, then why would everyone run from the opportunity to make a fool out of me? And further, if you think that I’m some kind of a loose cannon or something then wouldn’t that make you want to take me up on my offer even faster? You could show how unintelligent and unhinged I am, right?

Lisa Lange from PETA, upon being approached by myself in the hallway of the Pasadena City Council on Monday night, denied that PETA supports Pit Bull bans or any other form of breed/type regulation outside of spay and neuter. She denied that Ingrid Newkirk promotes/encourages/recommends/lobbies for actual shelter policies of not adopting Pit Bulls out to the public. She told me more than once that I was to blame for Pit Bulls being killed. She told me that since I didn’t support BSL-MSN and MSN that I actually supported dogs being chained and abused. She repeated numerous times that Pit Bulls are “the most abused dog in dogdom,” as if to justify their positions, but while not admitting or acknowledging them publicly. She actually told me that I kill dogs, calling me by name and pointing in an animated fashion at my camera. Her PETA affiliated supporters were chiming in but, to be honest, I was tuning them out. Lange then began to walk away and I followed her, asking how she could wear the shirt that she was wearing (this shirt) while at the same time working for an organization that supports any and every form of breed-discriminatory legislation. She told me again that my “shit” gets Pit Bulls killed and that “I should be ashamed of myself.” As they were at the end of the hall and about to turn the corner Lange yelled back at me “have fun with your little YouTube video.” Condescend much? Lol. I said that I would, and asked her if she liked my last one. Still scattering away, she said that she “doesn’t watch my stupid videos.” At this point their group is about 50 feet ahead of me. I shouted that I didn’t really care if she watched them, but that other people do, which is the point. And all of this was on video, until it wasn’t. Apparently when I unplugged my recording camera from the charger to roll out into the hallway it stopped recording, so then when I went to stop the recording it actually started to record. That’s when I knew that my video was fucked. It’s a damn shame, because the fraud that is Lisa Lange was hitting me with doublespeak like it was nobody’s business, and while wearing a t-shirt with a Pit Bull’s face on it! High comedy if it wasn’t so incredibly depressing, sad and terrifying.

Coincidentally I had just watched Lisa speak 3 days prior at the 2014 Animal Rights National Conference in Los Angeles, where I was attending in order to try and get a word in with anti-Pit Bull “statistician” Merritt Clifton. Lange started off the Friday festivities giving a speech about Sea World and their cruel and inhumane practice of containing orcas and dolphins in tiny tanks for entertainment. I clapped through most of her speech, as I obviously support the efforts to end the captivity of these incredible creatures, just as I support PETA in their attempts to end cruel practices like vivisection and factory farming, among other things. Many affiliated persons risk their lives to gather footage of these heinous things, and they also confront different folks and (at times) pull all kinds of extreme stunts in order to garner attention for the different issues. All that aside, Lange wrapped up her speech on Friday saying 2 things that I found pertinent to my attempt at exposing PETA’s utter hypocrisy on the related Pit Bull topics…

1) “The key here as activists is that we just have to look for every possible opportunity where it exists, and even if you think it doesn’t exist, it does exist. You just have to sit and have a think and go out and do what you can.” And 2) “Realize that our theme is to never be silent. No matter where you are, what you’re doing, what you see. Say something, because if you don’t no one will.”

Now kick around both of those quotes for a second. Isn’t that what I’m doing? Yet, it seems that they only respect these things when it’s regarding something that they approve of. On the other hand, if they don’t agree with you then having those concepts actually play out is frowned upon, and in my case, mocked by the very same lady that spoke those words to a conference room full of people 3 days prior to our run-in at City Hall.

Some of the rhetoric coming out of the Israel/Palestine conflict is so disparaging and reminds me of how hateful individual people can talk so terribly about entire groups. It’s a poisoning of the well.

I’m specifically talking about a Facebook post that was made by Israeli politician Ayelet Shaked on 6/30 of this year, 1 day prior to the kidnapping and subsequent murder of a Palestinian boy named Muhammad Abu Khudair. It’s claimed that his death was a random revenge killing that came in response to the murder of 3 Israeli teenagers. Within this post by Shaked, which cites an article by Benjamin Netanyahu’s former advisor Uri Elitzur, she promotes the idea of eviscerating the Palestinian people in a move of mass genocide. This post declares that “the entire Palestinian people is the enemy,” that “in wars the enemy is usually an entire people, including its elderly and its women, its cities and its villages, its property and its infrastructure,” and refers to Palestinian children as “little snakes,” while attempting to justify the universal destruction of their homes, or else “more little snakes will be raised there.” Terrible sentiments to be sure.

Just to be clear, I’m not implying that Shaked is ultimately to blame for any awful action that was committed by someone else. But the promoting of open genocide and hatred needs acknowledged, and surely adds to whatever energy that’s out there that’s incrementally moving some of us backwards. How this may play out in the public domain, especially when there’s further “support” for the hateful ideas (this particular comment was “liked” over 5,000 times at the time of me writing this), tends to then lead to the misrepresentation by some of pitting 1 group against the other, sweeping everyone up in a bitter and false feud of having to represent a side. This is a continuous perpetuation of divisiveness. Promoting that idea. Leading to that end.

In reality, we are all people, and also individuals in our own right. The horrendous actions of select Palestinian individuals do not represent the entire population of Palestine. They simply represent the person(s) who committed the act. To the same point, the horrendous actions of select Israeli individuals do not represent the entire population of Israel. They simply represent the person(s) who committed the act! Further, those horrendous actions do not represent every person who practices a specific religion, or any other conceptual separator. In a rush to blame, or react, people should not promote these evil ideas of collectively punishing entire groups for the actions of specific people. That is tyranny and the brazen incitement of hatred. It emboldens the draconian ideas of death and destruction. It pushes others to enter a primal state of me vs. you, and at whatever cost, and by using whatever means. As a matter of fact, collective punishment for the acts of a few is a war crime according to the protocols and treaties that came out of the Geneva Conventions of 1949. Having this mentality, in any realm, leads to the worst possible ends. This is not what life is all about. 12 million people live amongst these 2 countries. 12 million people.

To relate my thoughts to Pit Bulls: In reality, dogs are all dogs, and also individuals in their own right. Except there’s a certain faction of folks out there who exist only to push collective blame, vilify breeds/types/groups, and promote extermination by any means possible. These are not the same concepts? You explain to me how.

People should try to love each other. We are all that we have. Don’t let evil elements who deal in darkness affect your individual heart and your state of mind. Let’s love the Israeli people and the Palestinian people. Let’s not add to the divisive fervor, turning our backs on the uninvolved (innocent) from both sides in the process. To paraphrase Dr. Martin Luther King, hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.

If we woke up tomorrow to the news that a “Pit Bull” killed a person in Pasadena would that then immediately make Councilman Steve Madison a prophet?

Would it justify the hundreds of thousands of days that have literally went by without a Pasadena death being linked to a dog or a dog bite (actual proof and reality) then being wiped from the history books?

Would this singular incident then justify all of the rhetoric used by Mr. Madison over the span of the last 2 years (much of which has entered the realm of referring to them as “killing machines, extremely dangerous, inherently dangerous, rocket launchers, fully automatic machine guns and time bombs”) in order to sweepingly indict millions of dogs simply by the way that they look?

Would Steve Madison bother to check the circumstances surrounding the incident, instead of using the “breed” of the offending dog as his talking point and focus?

Would this happening immediately serve to render all of my many points made to counter his bigotry null and void?

Would this incident mean that every other Pit Bull in Pasadena should be viewed as guilty of the same thing?

The answers are 6 very obvious NO’s. But if Councilman Steve Madison were taking this same quiz he would probably offer up a YES for every question instead.

We’ve already saw glimmers of this type of arrogant, grandstanding behavior when Madison gleefully flaunted and exploited the police shooting of 3 loose dogs (identified by them as being Pit Bulls) days after the January City Council meeting. The dogs were alleged to have bitten a man who was walking his bicycle in the wee hours of the morning. Conveniently, Madison payed no attention to the fact that the dogs were out and running loose, amongst other questionable things. Prior to this we’d heard him say on numerous occasions that “it’s only a matter of time” before (insert here) happens in Pasadena. This is the behavior of a fearmonger hellbent on exploiting the sensationalism linked with this topic, and at the expense of flat out ignoring the depth of the issue…

What’s so surprising to me is that Councilman Madison almost relishes an attack, so that he can then proclaim himself “right” in the press and have a specific body to be able to stand upon while continuing to push for his desired agenda. This is shameful behavior from any elected official and his blatant disengagement from reality (and ignoring of public safety) should be far more concerning to residents than any dog.

Please consider coming out to the next Pasadena City Council meeting where this issue will be on the agenda, happening on July 14th.