There are Idiots among us

[johnb]

http://www.peta.org/fp/faq.html#plants

PETA FAQ on "animal rights"


"It’s fine for you to believe in animal rights, but you shouldn’t tell other people what to do."

Now you are telling me what to do!

Everybody is entitled to their own opinions, but freedom of thought does not always imply freedom of action. You are free to believe whatever you want as long as you don’t hurt others. You may believe that animals should be killed, that black people should be enslaved, or that women should be beaten, but you don’t always have the right to put your beliefs into practice.

As for telling people what to do, society exists so that there will be rules governing people’s behavior. The very nature of reform movements is to tell others what to do—don’t use humans as slaves, don’t sexually harass women, etc.—and all movements initially encounter opposition from people who want to go on doing the criticized behavior.

[johnb]

PETA is placing animals - women - blacks on the same ethical plane and comparing the use of animals for medical testing, food production, and other scientific uses to chattel slavery and murder.

This is the political extremism. There is no way to reconcile that lunacy with reason. Furthermore, this type of extremism seeks to strip other human beings of their rights.

What of those of us that want our to ensure animal testing for medicines and other products tested to ensure safety?

What of those of us who reject the premise that animal life is sacrosanct and deserving of legal protection?

How about those of us that just want a steak for dinner?

One cannot "split the difference" between extremists/fanatics such as PETA and reasonable society. PETA is fit only to be ignored, unless they're being laughed at or incarcerated for breaking the law.

The status quo: animals for food, medical testing, product testing, etc..is not unreasonable. As such attempting to split the difference between the status quo and extreme positions such as those of PETA serves only to drag society towards extremism.

[Anonymous]

There is no way to reconcile that lunacy with reason.

Let me take a crack at just one of the many ways their position could be defended on logical grounds.

Black people shouldn't be enslaved because it hurts them, moreover their product (their labor) can be gained another way which does not inflict such suffering (doing the work oneself, or paying them)

Women shouldn't be beaten because it hurts them, moreover their product (I don't know, why do people beat women, for compliance?) can be gained another way which does not inflict such suffering (love, understanding, compromise, etc.)

Animals shouldn't be eaten because it hurts them, moreover their product (nutrition for humans) can be gained in another way which does not inflict such suffering (eating vegetables, or, using only animal products that do not lead to the death of the animal.)

And really, the very next question of that FAQ was essentially a response. It read, ""Animals don’t reason, don’t understand rights, and don’t always respect our rights, so why should we apply our ideas of morality to them?"
Because an animal’s inability to understand and adhere to our rules is as irrelevant as a child’s or a person with a developmental disability's inability to do so. Animals are not usually capable of choosing to change their behavior, but human beings have the intelligence to choose between behavior that hurts others and behavior that doesn’t."

I think it's difficult to really form a cogent logical position concerning how animals should be in a significantly different ethical plane than humans. When some of their members are fully 95% similiar to humans in biology, can feel pain, and can make choices I fail to recognize that they belong to a different moral sphere - as much as I fail to recognize that many people once, and still, thought blacks did too.

[johnb]

There is always a fanatic ready to step into the breach and argue the indefensible. :twisted:

This is childish "logic". It assumes human beings with black skin and dogs, for instance, are on the same ethical plane. The childishness of it appeals to some I suppose as it can easily be assimilated by simpletons. Making that type of appeal seems to be all the rage amongst extremists these days whether the cause is this so called homosexual marriage or "animal rights".

If we were to seriously consider this attempt to justify PETA's position we see it falls apart on numerous grounds.

1-*IF* one were to claim that killing animals for food is unethical on the part of human beings it will be necessary to demonstrate the difference between the bow hunter killing a deer and a wolf doing the same. The fact that humans have mastered the use of tools, the bow and arrow, does not alter the basic equation, both killed the deer for food. If the argument is going to be made that the wolf, basically, doesn't know any better be prepared to demonstrate why human beings should be bound to honor fabricated "rights" of creatures incapable of conceptualizing abstract concepts such as right and wrong or even "rights".

2-*IF* one were to claim that killing animals for medical research is unethical on the part of human beings one would have to assume that those who believe animals and humans are on the same "moral sphere" reject the benefits/use of medical procedures and medicines which have been discovered or otherwise perfected through the use of animal testing. To do otherwise would be, using their analogy, akin to benefiting from slave labor.

3-*IF* one is going to claim that killing animals is analguous to killing humans that person should be prepared to start drawing lines. Which animals? Dogs? Ants? Cattle? Snakes? Only animals that foolish/simpleminded people think look cute? Isn't it odd that bunnys and puppies are the animals used in the "animal rights" posters? Why not slugs and leeches?

4-*IF* one is going to claim that killing animals is wrong, is this an indictment on evolution? The human species evolved eating meat as the prime component of it's diet. I know the animal "rights" whackjobs will start pointing to our flat molars claiming human beings were supposedly vegetarians but that is nonsense. Prior to refrigeration and motor transport fruits and vegetables were available ONLY during that time they were actually in season. The Eskimo's demonstrate a lifestyle/diet which still revolves around an almost exlusive reliance on meat. Is evolution now going to be politically incorrect?

5-*IF* one is going to claim that the realization of animals having "rights" is one that has -evolved- or is otherwise becoming possible because of some betterment in human ethics on the subject one should be prepared to discuss how to implement these "rights" in the natural world. A buck caught by wolves with it's throat being crushed by one wolf while two others rip it's entrails out is hardly compenstated by the knowledge that "At least it wasn't a human hunter shooting an arrow into my heart".

The more savage death is the one nature understands. There is no right or wrong in predation, it's not a matter of ethics.

[Wuptdo]

People
Eating
Tasty
Animals

This is the PETA I know. Not to take away from Johns & "Guest" respective views - but I prefer humor!

Wuptdo B-)

[Anonymous]

John, your points can be defeated easily on all counts.

1- No need to distinguish. We're talking about humans regulating human behavior. We don't animals who jaywalk across streets not at lights, and we shouldn't concern ourselves with their dietary preferences either. The primary point is that wolves need to eat meat, humans do not. And what does it matter that the animals cannot conceive of the "fabricated" (as fabricated, say, as your right to liberty?) rights we have? When has that ever been a requirment... that we receive a stamp of approval from another species for a rule that we want to place on ourselves?

2- One might not need go that far. One might consider it lamentable, in a way, that we have the current level of technology that we do now, that came from animal research, and insist only that we not do more. You also do not consider that it might be because human society has reached a certain level of technological and medical advance via animal research that that might be a reason to begin to reject the use of animals itself. Where testing might have been acceptable before, now more and more yields smaller gains, and might be becoming superfluous and overly destructive. Granted, it's an arbitrary thing, but that doesn't matter, it's an argument offered in support of a main thesis, and if it tends to lend support than it's fine.

3- You fail to state why one should need to do this. Naturally animals are killed inadvertently all the time, this wont change. Isn't it enough to say that we shouldn't willfully kill any, including the most "base." I believe this is the position of animal rights groups anyway. It would be possible to make distinctions though, if this were required. One such thing could be made on the basis of a nervous system developed enough to feel pain. This could be determined by the concensus of the scientific community.

4- Again, you fail to consider that killing animals might not always have been wrong. Humans did evolve through eating meat, which means at one point, we, or a shared cousin, in all likelyhood didn't. Science is clear that we no longer need to to support our biological lives. Brain function does not depend on animals for food. And stop with the red herring, you can't force the animal rights side into accepting your bad argument and then claim that they're anti-evolution... or that it's somehow politically incorrect to eat meat.

5- Again, we're talking about humans. These rights might need to be implemented with respect to the "natural world" only insofar as humans too populate it. I have no idea what you mean when you write "hardly compensated by the knowledge that..." It is, more than compensated. Wolves are not humans, humans need only concern themselves with the reasons that human act and for what needs. No one should have any interest in somehow enforcing these human conventions of the rest of the animal kingdom - doing so, in fact, violates the principle that we're holding for ourselves anyway, i.e., respecting the lives of other animals and not causing undue suffering.

"There is no right or wrong in predation." Human on human too, then, I suppose? And, finally, I think you also used some scare tactics in your first full paragraph. You wrote, "It assumes human beings with black skin and dogs, for instance, are on the same ethical plane. " By trying to lump the views of animal rights activists with those that equate blacks and dogs you're attempting to color our impression from the start. It would be enough, and accurate, to say that it assumes humans, of all races, religions, and whatever other silly distincion we give to ourselves, and animals are on the same ethical plane. You continue to mantain that this shouldn't be so, but, in lieu of offering any principled reasons why this must be, you've elected to further list requirements of the other side's argument and have raised the bar for them.

Try again, if you like.

[Anonymous]

Those were both mine, if case anyone didn't yet know.

Mark

[johnb]

The primary point is that wolves need to eat meat, humans do not.

That is not quite accurate. Wolves need red meat as much as your dog does. If confined and fed non meat based products the wolves would eat that. *IF* animal life is so precious, where do the animal rights lunatics intend to draw the line and agree that "protecting' animal life is not necessary beyond this point? You all cannot use the 'natural' argument, human beings evolved to eat and eating meat. The fact that we remove the hunting portion from the equation really doesn't change much at all. Well Mark, why prevent humans from killing a deer when wolves do it all the time? The same "sin" has been committed.

And what does it matter that the animals cannot conceive of the "fabricated" (as fabricated, say, as your right to liberty?) rights we have?

Because rights are acknowledged, understood, and exercised by human beings alone. An individual deer, for instance, is not a member of a species with the capacity to understand abstract concepts such as freedom and altruism and quite probably lacks an identifiable sense of self-awareness.

When has that ever been a requirment... that we receive a stamp of approval from another species for a rule that we want to place on ourselves?

Moot point, we're at the top of the food chain my friend, we needn't seek permission from the bovines for our actions.

...and insist only that we not do more.

And if the rest of us insist on finding that cure for cancer and demand researchers be allowed to continue using animals as research subjects we'll all be better off in the long run. There is no reason to cease using animal subjects for medical, general scientific, or consumer product testing/research. The advantages in the past have been immeasureable in terms of life saving and knowledge. What the animal "rights" fascists are insisting is their 'right' to cripple AIDS research, cancer research, and a medical research in the future. It goes back to the insistance on the part of these individuals that human life is of no more value than canine or bovine life.

Isn't it enough to say that we shouldn't willfully kill any, including the most "base."

That's actually an intolerable demand. Frankly, I will have my steaks. I will wear leather shoes and leather belts, and I will trap and kill rodents as they appear around my property.

One such thing could be made on the basis of a nervous system developed enough to feel pain.

Why? On what basis would the animal rights fascists have for segregating life along those lines? Who drew that ethical line and where did they get the authority to draw it?

Some time ago Mark, I came to the conclusion that most vegetarians are full of $h!t. They aren't worried about "animals", they're worried about cute animals. They all object to the killing of bunnies and baby lambs. Some object to killing chickens and other poultry and eating eggs. A few object to killing fish. I have yet to meet one that wouldn't smack a mosquito or take a pair of tweezers to a tic attached to their body.

Science is clear that we no longer need to to support our biological lives.

Science makes sexual intercourse unnecessary too Mark. Every baby created could be created in a petri dish just as well as it could through intercourse.

The fact that we have the ability to create and employ an unatural diet, one without animal protein as it's prime component, does not make it ethically superior to man's natural diet. Like much in the way of dietary fads, science will later find out that what is actually best of human health is a diet that humans evolved to eat. Nature typically works like that.

And stop with the red herring, you can't force the animal rights side into accepting your bad argument and then claim that they're anti-evolution...

Mark, a diet based on animal proteins is what human beings evolved to eat. Your allies, the animal "rights" fascists, are attempting to overthrown nature via politics. That typically doesn't work. They are attempting to make ethical arguments against a natural occurance. It is as riduclous as preaching against the sin of plate tectonics. The fact that we have moved the killing of animals from the jungle, the savannah, or the plains into modern slaughterhouses is immaterial.

No one should have any interest in somehow enforcing these human conventions of the rest of the animal kingdom...

Bingo. And there you have it. Killing a deer is only a "sin" in the animal "rights" religion if done by a human being. Can you not see the animal "rights" hypocrisy? Human are somehow bound to honor the "rights' of, say, a deer, when neither the deer nor the wolf can conceptualize "rights" themselves. ...and so it goes, the wolf lunges, bites, and cracks the bucks windpipe. 'Goes well with ketchup'.

"There is no right or wrong in predation." Human on human too, then, I suppose?

Are you incapable of understanding? Remember as I stated earlier, we're at the top of the food chain. Predation, like other things flows DOWN. :)

And, finally, I think you also used some scare tactics in your first full paragraph. You wrote, "It assumes human beings with black skin and dogs, for instance, are on the same ethical plane. " By trying to lump the views of animal rights activists with those that equate blacks and dogs you're attempting to color our impression from the start.

Right, much like the animal "rights" fascists try to equate themselves with freedom fighters and their opponents with slave owners. Can you not see the hypocrisy or are you that blinded by this leftwing rot?

[Cathy]

"The urge to save humanity is almost always only a false face for the urge to rule it"
H.L. Mencken

Is anyone surprised that this contribution to this subject came from Mark??
I'm just disappointed that Mark has jumped subjects without at least one more response to the other. I was really expecting him to respond again to the subject of "natural rights" vs how much liberty we humans should be allowed to have.

I am not surprised that Mark has bought into this extreme animal rights position. He seems to have taken up the banner for every group that has adopted a cause based on self loathing. "Humans are evil_everything else on earth is pure and good. If only the humans weren't here corrupting things, we'd have paradise" Paradise for whom, Mark.

Once the Earth Liberation Front, the Wildlands Project, PETA, the Invasive Species Act, and Sustainable Growth succeed in their goals here in the US, will he be happy? I doubt it.
It won't be enough that all human beings (except the wealthy) will be concentrated into "urban centers" under the watchful eye of our government, taxed and supplied with the basic needs, in exchange for good behavior. Meanwhile vast areas of the US are returned to wildlands "protected" from any human ever setting foot into these Biosphere Reserves and Heritage Areas. The animals will be untouchable, and the land will be cleansed of all non-native species that we horrid humans have had the 'poor judgement' to import and export to areas outside of what someone determines was their natural habitat.
The buffaloe will roam, but will the Native Americans return to their original status here? Or will it be determined that they migrated here from somewhere else and were only corrupting the purity of the wild long before the evil Europeans got here? No doubt.
But the Ted Turner's of the world will rest easy that their generous donation to the UN has bought them the assurance that the 'common rabble' will be brought to bay and will never encroach upon the country estates.
Perhaps some of these extreme "nature lovers" will one day have the opportunity to experience the natural rights of man in a state of nature when someone drops them into the middle of one of the wildland areas, teeming with wildlife, _butt naked and defenseless. Nothing but tooth and nail to try to get by on.

"Give me a Break!" (you really should read that book someday, Mark)

Cathy
(Here is PETA harrassing the BoyScouts over fishing badges: http://www.nofishing.net/proactiv.html )

"The policy of the American government is to leave its citizens free, neither restraining them nor aiding them in their pursuits"
Thomas Jefferson

[Brent]

(Here is PETA harrassing the BoyScouts over fishing badges: http://www.nofishing.net/proactiv.html )


I am pleased to see that PETA is "helping" the Boy Scouts determine what to teach. Apparently, according to PETA, catching, cleaning and cooking a fish causes boys to grow up to be psychotic mass murderers. I've experienced many a boy complete fishing merit badge, and I've seen a lot of these boys grow up. It appeared to me that they were growing up to be serious college students, productive citizens and community leaders. Boy, do I have egg on my face, now that I realize they're actually psychotic mass murderers! All because they caught a fish at Scout camp. Thankfully, a lot of boys never join the Boy Scouts -- I just hope that the ones who sit home and watch violent TV and play violent video games will be able to save us from the fishing Scouts.

Maybe the merit badge that the Boy Scouts ought to be changing is First Aid Merit badge, to wit:

1. Check for breathing. If no sign of breathing:
A. Check for PETA membership card. If no membership card, perform CPR as normal.
B. If PETA membership card found, do not perform normal CPR. Instead, check around the area for an animal (any animal, it doesn't matter) and ask that animal to perform CPR on the PETA nutjob.

:P :P :P :P :P

[Cathy]

B. If PETA membership card found, do not perform normal CPR. Instead, check around the area for an animal (any animal, it doesn't matter) and ask that animal to perform CPR on the PETA nutjob.

Brent_ I LOVE IT!
It would be the only sensible thing to do.

[Mark]

Well Mark, why prevent humans from killing a deer when wolves do it all the time? The same "sin" has been committed.

You can't honestly believe that can you? Do we really blame a bear for killing a human that is harrassing its cubs? No. Do we blame humans for the killing a human? Yes. Why? Because humans have a wonderfully useful brain, are capable of understanding the strictly human concepts of right and wrong and, simply, should know better. A wolf can do whatever it pleases so far as I'm concerned. Animals should be free from unneccessary predation by organisms that, for all intents and purposes, have the ability to know, understand, and empathize with pain response. It's really that simple.

Because rights are acknowledged, understood, and exercised by human beings alone. An individual deer, for instance, is not a member of a species with the capacity to understand abstract concepts such as freedom and altruism and quite probably lacks an identifiable sense of self-awareness.

Wait, didn't you just answer your own question why it's different when a wolf kills a dear and when a human does? The wolf doesn't understand, the rights don't apply. The human's do, so they do. That's not what's at issue here, is it?

Moot point, we're at the top of the food chain my friend, we needn't seek permission from the bovines for our actions.

Quite right. We're also intellectually superior to every known organism on the planet. And, if our intellect can direct us towards a diet that is as, if not more, nutritious, more healthful, cheaper, a more efficient use of resources/energy and inflicts less pain on living viable animals, we should deny it because... because...?

And if the rest of us insist on finding that cure for cancer and demand researchers be allowed to continue using animals as research subjects we'll all be better off in the long run. There is no reason to cease using animal subjects for medical, general scientific, or consumer product testing/research. The advantages in the past have been immeasureable in terms of life saving and knowledge. What the animal "rights" fascists are insisting is their 'right' to cripple AIDS research, cancer research, and a medical research in the future.

I'll forgive for the moment that the overwhelming majority of cancer research being done at present focuses on lifestyle choices such a smoking and, yes, eating red meat. Fried meat is laced with known carinogens, eating it is as perplexing to me as smoking. This exposes two things - first, that research is increasingly, if not already mostly, being done on human tissues with respect to cancer mechanism specifically but also, secondly, that the very thing you're defending has been shown to play a part in the need for research in the first place.

But, more importantly, remember what I was responding to in the first place. In your inital post you wrote that animal rights activists would be compelled to "reject the benefits/use of medical..." I offered that that statement was false, that if we took the view that the use of animal was increasingly unjust, for a variety of reasons, then it would be sufficient to say that the current level of technological advance is sufficient and that the gains obtained through animal research are likely outweighed by the costs.

It goes back to the insistance on the part of these individuals that human life is of no more value than canine or bovine life.

You've still failed to offer a single positive argument why this is not the case. Simply dismissing it in your mind and with your word doesn't actually make it cease to exist.


That's actually an intolerable demand. Frankly, I will have my steaks. I will wear leather shoes and leather belts, and I will trap and kill rodents as they appear around my property.

I will have my ice cream. Yeah, that carries as much weight as your statement. I was talking about life and death and you're concerned with fashion.


Why? On what basis would the animal rights fascists have for segregating life along those lines? Who drew that ethical line and where did they get the authority to draw it?

Did you miss the part where I took great pains to write that I believed that no distinction need be made at all and that, in fact, I thought doing so was not at all part of the consideration.

This again shows your contempt for intellectual honesty, or at least selective reading. You initially wrote the following: "IF* one is going to claim that killing animals is analguous to killing humans that person should be prepared to start drawing lines. Which animals?" To which I replied, "You fail to state why one should need to do this. Naturally animals are killed inadvertently all the time, this wont change. Isn't it enough to say that we shouldn't willfully kill any, including the most "base." I believe this is the position of animal rights groups anyway. It would be possible to make distinctions though, if this were required. One such thing could be made on the basis of a nervous system developed enough to feel pain. This could be determined by the concensus of the scientific community."

You were attempting to trap me. You first suggest that it was necessary to draw lines. I replied that I saw no reason for doing so, but entertained youf flight of fancy and suggested one method anyway... hoping that I'd do so all along so you could pull out the dreaded "but what gives you the right to decide" bs. If you John, or anyone else reading this, ever wonders why I choose to respond to John in the manner that I do it is because I absolutely despise this type of underhanded faux debating. I will not let unsupportedm, lazy assumptions and assertions slide and John provides plenty for me to call him on. If that type of entrapment wasn't enough, the dishonesty continues as you pretend that somewhat arbitrary decisions aren't made that regulate your life all the time. Deciding what level of cyrpto is acceptable in the water supply is based on as much science and arbitrary decision as would the decision to ban the killing of animals based on evidence of developed central nervous system.

And don't hide behind ultra-right coservative libertarianism either. A libertarian doesn't actually object to the practice, or the regulation, only to who's doing it. If the state does it, it's objectional. But if somewhow "free markets," or businesses, or individuals could devise the same scheme (say, for example, the all corporations stopped raising, packaging and selling meat, or more plausibly, products tested on animals) rending the same de facto effect, there'd be no problem.


Some time ago Mark, I came to the conclusion that most vegetarians are full of $h!t. They aren't worried about "animals", they're worried about cute animals. They all object to the killing of bunnies and baby lambs. Some object to killing chickens and other poultry and eating eggs. A few object to killing fish. I have yet to meet one that wouldn't smack a mosquito or take a pair of tweezers to a tic attached to their body.

Then you are ignorant of vegetarians then, many of whom become so without any thought to the welfare of animals, but only out of acknowledgment and respect for the dangers of eating animal products and the benefits of not doing so. Or, vegetarians may be motivated solely by ecological concerns, say, runoff and pollution from factory farms, or clear cutting for farmland, or the inefficent use of grains for cattle feed. The point is, one need not care at all about animals to be a vegetarian, though in practice most are motivated by some combination of concerns about animal welfare, personal well being and ecological sensitivity.

And, to be very precise about it, mosquitoes and ticks are doing physical harm, or have increased potential to cause physical harm, to your body. No one would seriously object if a human had to kill a wolf that was a part of a pack that was attacking her. You'd prefer they didn't, but they might have to. You'd prefer they didn't kill the mosquito, and I try not to but rather shoo them away, but you might inadvertently do so at times. Also, I don't know about the nervous system development of those creatures in question - not that it matters, as this particular question is so tertiary to the central issue as to not that much fine parsing.


The fact that we have the ability to create and employ an unatural diet, one without animal protein as it's prime component, does not make it ethically superior to man's natural diet.

You're right, it's not the fact that we can create such a diet that makes it ethically superior, it's that it doesn't kill anything. You seem to keep conveniently ignoring that.

Like much in the way of dietary fads, science will later find out that what is actually best of human health is a diet that humans evolved to eat. Nature typically works like that.

So true. You must then be uniformed about the vast amount of research detailing the benefits of vegetarianism, the detriments of high fat, high cholesterol diets to realize that the debate about "later" actually started decades ago, and the science is pretty much in by now.

Killing a deer is only a "sin" in the animal "rights" religion if done by a human being. Can you not see the animal "rights" hypocrisy? Human are somehow bound to honor the "rights' of, say, a deer, when neither the deer nor the wolf can conceptualize "rights" themselves.

John, John, John. We've been over this. The relationship of right doesn't cease to exsist between two parties if one of them is capable of understanding it and the other is not. A being does not need to be able to conceptualize "rights" to nevertheless have something like them assigned to them, and be protected. A one month old child has less of a concept of right than a deer, but you'd protect it with your life, as you did with your own two children.

Like I've said, you're free to keep eating meat if you like. I'm not militant about vegetarianism at all. I think eating meat is stupid, just like I think smoking is stupid. I think it's worse than smoking though, as the production of store bough meat is terrible for the animals involved and harmful to the environment. What I'm responding to is your claim that the position of animal rights activists have no logical grounds. I invite other readers of this forum to decide whether or not I've shown that they can indeed have some, their agreement with them notwithstanding.