Where's our moral progress now?

As I sit here typing this week's blog, I'm seeing another commercial from The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, also known as the ASPCA. They have changed up the music to their commercials. I'm glad, because after seeing this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9gspElv1yvc I simply can't listen to Sarah McLachlan without tearing up. I couldn't even embed the video itself onto this blog, because seeing the sad cats and dogs still get to me. So the topic of this week's rant is, "WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE?!?" About a month or so ago, video of this woman surfaced on the interwebs: WTF? There's also a video out there of a girl throwing young puppies into a river. I absolutely refuse to post that one because it's completely disgusting and morally repugnant. And quite frankly, that girl does not need fame nor attention for that heinous action. And if you ever want to see the depravity of people who neglect their pets, just watch any episode of Animal Cops on Animal Planet. I say depravity because Ghandi once said, "The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way it treats its animals." If these people are indicative of our society, both old and young, I can see how we are heading towards doom in 2012. I say this to contrast the false moral doom that we are constantly innundated with. Every day some right wing nutjob layeth the smacketh down upon us because of something or other. Yes, Westboro Baptist Church, I'm talking about YOU. I don't think it's gay marriage destroying the moral fiber of America, it's the fact that we are so callous and cruel not just to our fellow human beings, but to the cute cuddliness of our animal brethren. Maybe I'm strange in that I actually feel more saddened by the ASPCA commercials than I do the Save the Starving Children in Africa commercials; but I do. I can't walk into a Humane Society or an Animal Shelter without feeling profound guilt and sadness that I am abandoning animals to a fate that I can't bear to think about. The thought that if those animals can't find home somewhere, they are "humanely" euthanized hurts my soul. I can't help but think, what if we did that to human children? I know, it's screwed up to think that, but if you can just keep your minds open for a few more paragraphs, I think my point would become clear. I am not advocating that we euthanize children. That's screwed up, even for me. But think about it. What would the response be if someone put a baby into a trash can for 15 hours? What would you do if you saw a someone throw babies into a river? What would the reaction be if we realized that orphanages euthanize the unadopted kids because they are overcrowded? There'd be moral outrage. The two concepts are similar, at least in my mind. Domesticated animals are essentially furry babies. They are helpless, they can't talk, and they rely on their human caretaker for everything. The only difference is that, well... they're animals and they never grow out of that stage. They're never going to learn to drive or move out of the house. Their livespans aren't nearly as long as a human's so it's not even a lifelong commitment on the human's part. But yet, cruelty to them is acceptable for far too many people. How can you hurt something as innocent as this little guy: But, someone has. Milo was adopted from a shelter by a family that I will not name. Suffice it to say, they were not kind to Milo. They adopted him and they hit him, locked him in a basement, and called him aggressive. I'm not sure how passive I'd be if I was hit and locked in a basement. At least they had the decency to try to give him away to someone else rather than throw him in a trash can or into a river or just out into the streets. As soon as I realized that was what was happening, I walked out of their house with Milo before they could even say goodbye. While a little dumb, he is an extremely sweet cat that has affection issues. Gee, I wonder why.... And he probably has a better life than some humans in this world, heck, he even has health insurance! Like Ghandi said, our moral progress is judged by the way we treat our animals. Why can't we treat animals better? I'm not even talking the big picture, Save the Whales and Endangered Double Breasted Boobie Bird or whatnot. I'm talking simply about the domesticated animals that we have kept for centuries. We can't even care for the animals we have bred to be helpless and cute. The dogs and cats that we have only share genetics with their wild counterparts. We made our pets the way they are and yet we cannot be morally righteous in the way we treat them. Pets are not disposable. They are not an inconvenience that we can just pawn off to someone else or be cruel to because they won't report you. Can you imagine our society, if we do the things we do to our domesticated pets to our own children on the same scale? I know some of you will say that these are just animals and they're overpopulated anyways. Yes, but so are humans. But you don't see us giving every child a hysterectomy or a vasectomy with their first vaccination. They are not little furry things for us to victimize because we think it's amusing or think it'd get us fame on YouTube. They are not accessories or status symbols. They are not pawns in a fight club for the rich. Domesticated animals are sentient and intelligent creatures whose only flaw in life is that they don't speak a human language to ask you, "WHAT'S YOUR DEAL?!?" So, where is our moral progress now? I'm not sure. I know where mine is. I know where it is for those people in those videos. Where's your's?