Righteousness FAIL

This week's drama in our community involved a story that was fueled by astonishingly obscene self-righteous puffery. The quickness with which people embraced the sanctimonious high ground was beyond believing. This is about the animal abuse turned suicide of Gary Bassett.

It really is a question of scale, I guess. Innocent kitten abused. Mentally ill Viet Nam era military vet unable to get the care needed to keep him functioning near normal. Out-raged animal lovers expressing their indignant brand of compassion calling for sick military veteran to die and rot in hell. Abused kitten story captures the front page of the daily newspaper for three or four days straight. Public comments from law enforcement officials that felony indictments are being prepared. Community compassion results in generous outpouring of cash to make sure the cat gets taken care of. Cat dies in spite of heroic pet life flight to Seattle [?] for the best pet care money can buy.

Veteran kills himself as police seek to serve arrest warrant.



I hate animal abuse as much or more than the next person--it is stupid and cruel. Usually animal abusers are small-minded, insensitive people. Sometimes civil or criminal consequences can get their attention and change their behavior. Occasionally, like Gary Bassett, they can also be ravaged by demons or pain that twist life rhythms so grotesquely that cruelty fails to register as anything at all.

If the abuse is a symptom of something wrong on a deeper level, though, bringing a hammer to fix a screw that's loose will usually end in disaster. It is important, then, before the shallow chivalry of animal rights condemnation kicks in, to discern what is going on. Taking half a dozen reflective breaths and asking oneself, "Now why would anyone abuse a cat he had rescued from a shelter and loved as a pet for a year or so?" That seems to be an important step before publicly saying about the person "you should die and rot in hell." Otherwise, one can end up winning the Jackass of the Week Award.

Looking back, at what point could anyone have done anything differently, said things differently, changed an attitude, yearned harder for forgiveness and compassion, reached out a helping hand, suspected that it wasn’t just the victimized kitten who needed help?

Don’t look at me—I was a bewildered bystander who didn’t do anything. Now I am imagining this guy’s last hour and feeling what it must have been like to see the vast tunnel of his life's possibilities shrink to the pinprick of suicide.

Something went terribly wrong in this deal.