Imagine being bought and sold in stores. Consider being locked up behind bars for hours every day, and being beaten if you broke something in your owner's house. Or, even worse, imagine being disposed of if you're no longer wanted.
No, that's not a scene from a Georgia plantation in 1850. It's the reality of 60 million dogs and 70 million cats that are pets in the U.S.
In our society we have commodified pets; buying and selling them like cars or computers.
At a recent trip to a mall pet store, I saw that the dogs on sale came with two- to four-year health warranties like any other household good. Presumably, consumers see the warranty and realize they can always go back for a new dog if the old one craps out.
One of you, I'm sure, will write me a critical e-mail about this column claiming that pets are not entitled to any rights. You might say that only people have rights.
In responding to that hypothetical criticism, I would ask if any of you are black, Latino, female, homosexual, Japanese, Chinese, indigenous, Jewish or part of any other historically oppressed cultural group.
Throughout Western history, the argument that only certain human beings were fully "people" has been consistently used to abuse minorities.
If we rely on the fact that the majority view is that animals have no rights, we have to justify so many past abuses of human beings.
For example, in the U.S., the law of the land until 1865 was that black Americans were three-fifths of a person. Indigenous people were the subjects of political and religious debates about their personhood.
Today, with our pets, it is no different. Too many of us abuse and ignore our animals. We purchase them, we make them our property and we do to them whatever we want.
I'm not simply arguing that we need to expand laws that give more rights to animals. The shift we must make needs to be far more immediate than that.
We need to recognize that animals (especially dogs and cats) enter into social relationships with us. We have a responsibility to our animal companions to spend appropriate amounts of time with them and to ensure their well-being.
An animal that is left alone for hours every day, isn't given sufficient exercise or is kept locked up, is abused. Those pets often exhibit emotional damage and develop physical problems.
Much of the time, pet "owners" don't even realize they are abusing their pets. They simply ignore the fact that the product they bought is actually alive.
Yet if we substituted a child for an animal, nobody would allow that child to be left home alone or ignored. Even less acceptable would be kicking the kid or actively preventing him from getting exercise. Such people would be ostracized from society and prosecuted.
So next time you're out at a party and you figure that your dog will be just fine home alone for another night, realize what you are: You're a short step away from being a slaveholder and just a dash shy of being a child abuser.
Save your soul; have responsible relationships with your animals.
Alex Ginsburg is a religious studies senior enjoying the hypocrisy of his foie gras. He will respond with wit and class to mail sent to Alexander.Ginsburg@asu.edu.
