Dear Source,
My name is MC Rice. I have written many letters to the V.I. Daily News about animal abuse and neglect and many on the subject of dogfighting. I love to see that I am not the only one who hates all that crap. I was sad and yet happy when the government found that yard on St. Croix. There are many private ones on St. Thomas.
It is important to really try to rearrange the mentality in regard to animals both in the Virgin Islands and on the mainland. I wrote a letter last year to the President of the United States and got a half ass response from the U.S. Agriculture Department.
A lot of what Stridiron said is true, about how if laws are tighter, the whole dog-fighting thing will only go more underground. (Gee! I wonder how he knows about it.) And as I have been saying, Guns, drugs and dogs. Those men have guns and will not hesitate to use them. There will need to be enforcements made by practically being "big brother" what with enforcing licenses by inspections, and getting a real hold on spaying or neutering, all the way up to monitoring what animals come and go to the islands.
Some states have counties that regulate the actual breed of the animal and some have it where if a dog is even a quarter pit bull it is banned. Good to know that some of the senators are against dogfighting. In my opinion, whoever is not against it is for it, because they are. You would be horrified to know who is involved with that. They should be scared a thou. Attending a dogfight is a felony, as well as training and fighting. So in just going to a dogfight — it is supposed to be against the law.
As I have been saying, it is the teaching of the young people that needs to begin, to get it into the heads of the very young to not only be kind but to stop their own people from being rude and unkind and abusive. In other words, try to clean up whoever is already an adult, but to train and instill love in the new adults to be so that they actually hate it and will not accept it from each other.
Most especially from boys. Really, the only one who can stop a nine-year-old West Indian boy from doing something is another nine-year-old West Indian boy. I mean, a gang of girls could get on it but I am not sure it would work. If there was a gang of seven "MC's," then, yes. I'll go in myself. But I would probably take some blows or a bullet. Then what could I do from there?
I say, along with the dog-fighting cleanup, all other things should be cleaned up as well. Cock fighting? Please, cut me some slack, and I'll go to the racetrack and shut it down. Why, the tracks are too too hard in the Virgin Islands, maybe not as bad on St. Croix. Then they must deal with any animal they don't "want" anymore. You bring one in, you send one out first.
The whole "agriculture" thing thing. Cows? For beef production? Bull****! Those are fronts for "farmers" to get tax breaks. What kills me is the animal doesn't even have to be on the land to be given the break. So I can have one cow and get a break as a farmer for my private estate with the mansion on it, because I have a starving cow over in Estate Carlton. There is no need for cow production on any of the U.S. Virgin Islands.
So I have all my issues at hand if anyone wants to know my opinion and how to fix it all. Just ask.
Keep up the good writing, please. Don't stop now. Let's get this cleaned up so I can go back home.
M. C. Rice
Bradenton, Fla.
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