Why "no kill" and 90% of what P.E.T.A says is bullshit

[Despanan]

Everyone talks about "Animal Rights" but forgets that with rights comes responsibility.

If you give animals the same rights as people then animals have to be just as responsible as a person.

So, are you going to throw a house-cat in jail for "murdering" a mouse? Are you going to lock up a horse for public defication?

I should hope not.

PETA members are not people who understand animals. Most of them have never lived, or worked with animals. They base their entire worldview on movies like Bambi for god's sake.

Say, for instance, you have a whole herd of horses, and only one small, but infinite pile of grain. Do you know that the strongest horse will let all the other horses around him starve or eat himself to death, before he will let even one other horse have a bite?

We, as humans would be horrified by such a prospect. After all, such behavior is "inhuman". Well no shit it's inhuman so are horses.

You cannot remove context and treat every different situation the same. Non-human animals deserve compassion, but they don't deserve the same rights as humans. This is one of the many things fanatical organizations like PETA will never understand.

[JCC]

Originally Posted by badteccy

I love animals, I don't eat meat (because it's gross, but I'll eat fish), and I won't wear animal products.

Uh... why?

Originally Posted by PortraitOfSanity

Theoretical situation:

If someone you loved were bitten by a raccoon thought to be infected with rabies, and the doctors asked you permission to cut off the raccoon's head to test for rabies, and that this was the only way to save your loved one, what would you respond?

If you answered no, you're a liar.

If you answered yes, you're a hypocrite.

That's not really my decision to make. If you were to ask me whether I'd accept that scenario, I'd like to think that I would accept medicine that already has animal products in it but reject whichever batshit-crazy law of nature has decided that killing this raccoon will save me. Whether I would actually do that, who knows, but my ethical standpoint would be that I would refuse.



Honestly, I'm not into animal rights that much. Animals can't participate in human society, doling out their rights to them is entirely ridiculous, I'd rather that we just decided to leave them alone, peaceful coexistence doesn't require MANDATE 3632: ANIMALS CAN PLACE BETS AT HUMAN BETTING SHOPS and a whole list of the things that animals can do too, the crimes that they can commit to each other etc., I just think that humans ought to dedicate themselves to reject causing suffering for personal gain, the idea of causing suffering makes me uneasy and I think that such a dedication would improve our relations with each other exponentially.

[Godslayer Jillian]

Originally Posted by Despanan

If you give animals the same rights as people then animals have to be just as responsible as a person.

I hate when people say this.

Can you point at me where exactly anyone said animals ought to have the exact same rights than humans?
Even some humans don't have the same rights than other humans. Children can't vote. You don't see anyone saying anything about that, and yet we understand that children ought to have basic self-evident rights.

[JCC]

Originally Posted by Godslayer Jillian

Children can't vote. You don't see anyone saying anything about that,

This is not actually true, Youth Activism is a thriving movement.

[Godslayer Jillian]

I mean children, not youth. Of course, an arbitrary line will be drawn somewhere when it comes to political rights, always. I get what you're saying, but no one believes a two year old has the same political rights than a grown up, and yet we know the child has many basic rights.
Nothing absurd there.

[Despanan]

Originally Posted by Jill

Can you point at me where exactly anyone said animals ought to have the exact same rights than humans?

Originally Posted by Pineapple_Juice

They're trying to dissuade people from thinking that humans are more important than animals by law.

That would seem to be the implication here, as for PETA's position, if I wanted to work myself into an anti-moron rage, I'm sure I could find something similar to that in their rhetoric. I'd rather not bother though.

Anyway, the thesis of my post was not that non-animals do not deserve rights, but more about the fact that many "animal rights" activists are quite ignorant of how to properly handle the animals that they want to save, and attempt to treat them as they would humans, or dogs, or kittens. Case in point, Horses.

[Godslayer Jillian]

Fair enough. But you can guess that these "animal rights activists" which I like that you put in quotation marks, are only a small minority compared to real animal rights activists. It's no different than PETA vegans and real vegans.

[Saya]

Don't forget also that PETA's ads advocate vegetarianism far more than veganism, and a lot of "victories" that they boast of (like the whole "Kentucky Fried Cruelty" thing where they stopped boycotting KFC Canada and even had the Lettuce Ladies help promote questionably vegetarian burger that KFC started selling) and euthanizing so many animals suggests that they are far more for animal welfare than actual animal rights. Actions speak louder than words, after all.

[Mealla]

When I saw the title of this thread, I immediately thought of the episode of Penn & Teller's Bullshit about Peta.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0exLa6saV9o

[JCC]

Penn & Teller suck.

[PortraitOfSanity]

Why? I like Penn & Teller.

[JCC]

For every rare good argument that they present, a lot of it is fucking terrible. Their 9/11 truth video (I don't really care either way about 9/11 truthers) was particularly terrible, they didn't actually make any sort of counter-argument, they just went "You would tell these people whose families died that this was the work of the government? YOU HEARTLESS FUCKS!" and acted as if they'd won. Their sources are fucked up too, take that PETA video, the first thing that they do is use footage of the Animal Defence League, an organisation that's completely separate to PETA, and keep saying that it's PETA. The people in the footage even make it clear that they're not PETA. Penn & Teller's 'rebukes' of anything are laughable.

[PortraitOfSanity]

Dude, they interview the ADL people (and they identify them as ADL) as a counter to PETA from within the animal rights movement, to show that the opinion of PETA is laughed at even by organizations with the same stated goals.

Yea, some of their arguments are a little thin. But you do have to keep in mind it's a show geared towards entertainment more than documentary.

[JCC]

No, they use the footage for criticism later on.

I mean, watching this is ridiculous. Seriously, their arguments go something like:

"We believe in Animal Liberation"
"OHMYFUCKINGGODTELLERDIDYOUHEARTHAT WHAT CRAZYBUTTFUCKING WORLD DO THEY LIVE IN?! THEY DON'T WANT ANIMAL CIRCUSES! ISN'T THIS FUCKING CRAZY?!"

If you're going to disagree, FUCKING DISAGREE, don't just go "wow I can't believe my ears, isn't this a great retort?"

[PortraitOfSanity]

Oh for fuck's sake. They have a legitimate count vs counter-point format. They present PETA/ALF's arguments and then show you how it's all wrong. They go through violent tactics, the fact that liberating animals would be much worse for them and how PETA actually doesn't give a shit about what they say they are about.

[PortraitOfSanity]

The nutcases they show from the ALF even have the balls to compare themselves to MLK. How full of shit can you get.

[JCC]

Originally Posted by PortraitOfSanity

Oh for fuck's sake. They have a legitimate count vs counter-point format. They present PETA/ALF's arguments and then show you how it's all wrong. They go through violent tactics, the fact that liberating animals would be much worse for them and how PETA actually doesn't give a shit about what they say they are about.

They don't make counter 'points'. There were no 'points' in that program, there were statements, except for idiotic points like 'herr derr if you free animals they have to go to prison' when there's never been a single animal rights activist that has ever mentioned making animals a part of human civilization since the foremost ethic of animal liberationism is leaving them the fuck alone. Not only do Penn & Teller never really make a valid argument, they misinterpret other people's arguments and mislead viewers. Seriously, how much of that video took this format:

[Clip]
Penn: HOLY FUCKING SHIT THAT'S CRAZY AS BALLS, HERE'S TED NUGENT OR SOME OTHER FAT GUY TALKING ABOUT HOW IT'S CRAZY AS BALLS BECAUSE THEY JUST DON'T LIKE IT
Ted Nugent or some other fat guy: Yeah I think what they just said is crazy as balls and the reason why is because animals are kinda shitty.

What a great point-counterpoint setup their show has. It's seriously the same with every single one of their episodes.

[PortraitOfSanity]

Originally Posted by JCC

They don't make counter 'points'. There were no 'points' in that program, there were statements, except for idiotic points like 'herr derr if you free animals they have to go to prison' when there's never been a single animal rights activist that has ever mentioned making animals a part of human civilization since the foremost ethic of animal liberationism is leaving them the fuck alone. .

That's exactly the point. PETA promotes "total animal liberation" without care or thought to how that would actually turn out. What exactly would we do with the billions of farm animals, pets, even zoo animals?

It's pretty annoying that you won't even discuss the actual content of the video and instead resort to "OMFG PENN AND TELLAR SAY WTF THIS IS CRAP BALLS FUCKING RETARDED AND FAT PEOPLE EAT MEAT AND SHIT". That's like talking philosophy with a third grader.

[JCC]

Animal liberationism doesn't entail opening all gates all at the same time and wallowing in the bedlam, it's a gradual process to restore things to the way that they were before artificial selection that created dairy cows that are pretty fucking useless for anything other than dairy, broiler chickens that keel over and die within a few months etc. and the massive amount of animals that have been bred for exploitative purposes. It's a long-term process that has never entailed 'let them all go right now into this habitat', that would be as absurd as it sounds, and the reason that it sounds absurd is because that's what Penn & Teller want, to make it sound like bullshit without actually addressing what the actual philosophy is.

It's pretty annoying that you don't understand the philosophy AND LIKE PENN & TELLER then accuse me of reductio ad absurdum.

[PortraitOfSanity]

I'm not accusing you of anything.... I'm talking about this:

Originally Posted by JCC

"OHMYFUCKINGGODTELLERDIDYOUHEARTHAT WHAT CRAZYBUTTFUCKING WORLD DO THEY LIVE IN?! THEY DON'T WANT ANIMAL CIRCUSES! ISN'T THIS FUCKING CRAZY?!"

Originally Posted by JCC

Penn: HOLY FUCKING SHIT THAT'S CRAZY AS BALLS, HERE'S TED NUGENT OR SOME OTHER FAT GUY TALKING ABOUT HOW IT'S CRAZY AS BALLS BECAUSE THEY JUST DON'T LIKE IT
Ted Nugent or some other fat guy: Yeah I think what they just said is crazy as balls and the reason why is because animals are kinda shitty.

But back to the point at hand. How exactly would we go back to "the way that they were before artifical selection..... (etc)"? There's no plausible way to have animals happy and free and such in today's world. For better or for worse, there's not even enough habitat to support the current wild animal populations, how do you think increasing that population would actually result? That's the thing with the whole "total liberation" argument. It sounds nice and warm and fuzzy when you hear it, but if you actually weigh the consequences, it's not even plausible as a humane solution. Unless PETA's advocating killing almost all of the domesticated animals in the world, which simply makes them even more hypocritical.

[Apathy's_Child]

Originally Posted by PortraitOfSanity

Unless PETA's advocating killing almost all of the domesticated animals in the world, which simply makes them even more hypocritical.

I don't know much about the specific goals of animal rights organizations, but I'd imagine it's more about phasing out inhumane methods of animal-rearing than executing them to avoid cruelty.

[PortraitOfSanity]

Originally Posted by Apathy's_Child

I don't know much about the specific goals of animal rights organizations, but I'd imagine it's more about phasing out inhumane methods of animal-rearing than executing them to avoid cruelty.

There are plenty of animal rights groups with practical goals like you stated. The usual ones are imposing more control in slaughterhouses and animal farms, increasing punishments for animal cruelty violations and laws restricting medical experimentation on animals. Those are all good things that can be accomplished, and have an obvious benefit to animals and to society. But PETA just has these Utopian wishes about animals being able to prance around and be free and happy. I've talked to a good number of hardcore PETA members, and I can't get any sort of practical plan out of them. They just want it to be their way, but don't stop to think how we can get there, or even if their way would actually work.

I think it was Despanen who said this, and I completely agree. These are people who want to recreate the world in Bambi.

[Saya]

Originally Posted by PortraitOfSanity

I'm not accusing you of anything.... I'm talking about this:





But back to the point at hand. How exactly would we go back to "the way that they were before artifical selection..... (etc)"? There's no plausible way to have animals happy and free and such in today's world. For better or for worse, there's not even enough habitat to support the current wild animal populations, how do you think increasing that population would actually result? That's the thing with the whole "total liberation" argument. It sounds nice and warm and fuzzy when you hear it, but if you actually weigh the consequences, it's not even plausible as a humane solution. Unless PETA's advocating killing almost all of the domesticated animals in the world, which simply makes them even more hypocritical.

I was sure I replied to this but it seems when the boards were down it got lost, makes me a sad Saya

Anyway, not speaking for PeTA obviously but abolitionists in general are of the mind that if the world were to realize that animals are not property and go vegan, it won't happen overnight, it would be a gradual change, therefore as the demand of animal products drops, so we would stop breeding them at ridiculous rates, therefore the livestock population would drop. Remember, we don't let cows and pigs have sex, we artificially inseminate them, so we have complete control over their numbers. If demand goes down, they won't breed as many, so you can see how this will work gradually. Now, if your super hypothetical and super unrealistic situation comes to pass that all of a sudden we all went vegan, and you say we'd kill the ecosystems with all those extra cows, well, consider this. The meat, dairy and egg industry is disastrous to the environment already.

"A kilogram of beef is responsible for more greenhouse gas emissions and other pollution than driving for 3 hours while leaving all the lights on back home."
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg19526134.500

"Meat production is a major cause of water pollution. For example, livestock produce large amounts of manure which contaminate rivers and groundwater. (Simon Donner, a scientist at the University of British Columbia has calculated that the world’s livestock produce 308 million kilograms of manure – the weight of the Empire State Building – every two hours.)

Livestock manure contains nitrogen, phosphorus and other nutrients that run off into streams, damaging wetlands and fragile coastal ecosystems. High levels of nitrates in drinking water are associated with blue baby syndrome, a condition which reduces babies’ ability to carry sufficient oxygen in the blood."

http://www.vancouverhumanesociety.bc...at/environment

"Forest is not only cleared for cattle grazing but also to make way for soy planatations. Around 90% of the world’s soy is fed to animals and it is now widely recognised that feeding the 73 million cows of the Amazon, and all the others animals raised for meat in the world, is the biggest driver of deforestation. On top of this, 75% of Brazil’s greenhouse gas emissions are caused by burning to clear new or overgrown pasture for cattle. The contribution to climate change this creates is further exasperated by the the methane that the cows produce."

http://ethicaleating.org.uk/2008/06/...deforestation/

Really anyone who supports the meat industry has no right to accuse vegans for having evil plans for the environment. We might not have a detailed plan laid out just incase everyone decides all at the same time to go vegan, but where's your plan to sustain your diet and all the animals you need?

There are plenty of animal rights groups with practical goals like you stated. The usual ones are imposing more control in slaughterhouses and animal farms, increasing punishments for animal cruelty violations and laws restricting medical experimentation on animals. Those are all good things that can be accomplished, and have an obvious benefit to animals and to society. But PETA just has these Utopian wishes about animals being able to prance around and be free and happy. I've talked to a good number of hardcore PETA members, and I can't get any sort of practical plan out of them. They just want it to be their way, but don't stop to think how we can get there, or even if their way would actually work.}

Whats the good if the cow has a name and has good living conditions if it is still enslaved and exploited, from birth when it is seperated from his mother, to death as a veal cow? What good is it for a dairy cow to be named Bessie and patted on the head everyday when all her babies are taken away, her boys to become veal and her daughters to replace her when she is too old to give milk, and the farmer decides to kill her to make hamburgers? What good is it to an egg laying hen when in a year when she can't produce as many eggs, she gets electrocuted? What good is it for a beef cow to get fattened up and slaughtered when she is only two years old? Exploitation is exploitation, slavery is slavery and slaughter is slaughter. For any animal rights group to promote welfarism is hypocrisy, as it does not recognize an animal's inherent worth but just says "They are still property, just treat them better." You might enslave someone and treat them nicely, but its still wrong to enslave other people, and as animals are alike to us in some very important ways, in those ways they should be recognized and attributed self worth. Bob Torres (one of the authors of Vegan Freak) wrote a lovely piece about this before:

"To begin with, despite the question as posed, I don’t think animals should have the same rights as humans in all cases. Granting the dogs I live with a right to free speech or the right to vote is pointless (insert your own joke here about the election and re-election of George W. Bush). Instead, I’m advocating for something that is much more simple. In the respects that animals are like us—most notably, in their ability to feel pain, have subjective experiences, and value their own continued existence—animals should have rights similar to the rights we have. In the broadest terms, this would mean that we’d have to stop eating and wearing them, experimenting on them, and bringing them into existence for our own ends.

Anyone who lives with a cat or a dog knows that animals not only have personalities, but that they also have memories, fears, wants, and desires. The dogs and cat that I live with seek out comfort, avoid pain, and desire companionship, and it is clear to me that they suffer as acutely as I do (if not more acutely) when they are hurt, or sick, or scared. Moreover, having spent time around animals ultimately destined for slaughter, I also know that pigs and cows and chickens are also capable of these same pleasures and pains, and what appears to be a subjective awareness of their surroundings, yet for reasons that no one can really justify, we snuggle up with one set of animals called “pets,” while we eat another set of animals called “livestock.”

When it comes down to it, the case for animal rights is really a case for adopting a thorough moral and ethical stance in favor of treating like cases alike. My own outlook has been shaped by the ethical theory of Gary L. Francione, who argues that though animals and humans are clearly different, they are alike in the sense that they both suffer, and are both sentient. For this reason, Francione argues, animals should receive equal moral consideration. Most importantly, this would mean extending to animals inherent value, or really bringing them into the moral community by recognizing that certain aspects of their personhood cannot be “sold away” or sacrificed for the benefit of another. Put most simply, because animals are like us in some relevant regards, they should be treated like we would be treated in those instances.

The tired objections that animals do not deserve rights because they lack rationality, or language, or human levels of intelligence, or whatever arbitrary characteristics anthropocentric philosophers decide are important are so self-serving as to be almost comical. The obvious problem with using qualities like these to exclude animals from moral consideration is that we can almost always find humans who also lack those qualities. A great many humans lack what we’d consider to be “normal” rational faculties, yet no one seriously suggests that the mentally disabled be enslaved, or that they should be used for food or medical experiments. Similarly, you may be smarter or more eloquent or stronger than I am, yet none of those attributes gives you the right to make me your property. Why? Because in the relevant regard that both you and I share in not being the chattel of another, no arbitrary criteria—not intelligence, rationality, language, eye color, skin color, gender, etc.—can be used to violate this basic right that guarantees our inherent value. Those of us who are for animal rights (and not simply for animal welfare) wish to make “species” another irrelevant criterion for deciding who does and does not get the basic rights accorded to members of our moral community... "

http://blog.veganfreak.com/

It is of little benefit to animals to still be enslaved and exploited when they "are treated nicer", Bessie has no say if she doesn't want her udders attached to the milking machine, Billy still gets his throat slit,, #37 still gets seperated from his mother with his umbilical still attached so he can make a nice piece of veal, the lab rat still doesn't get a say in whether or not he gets cancer. You can make it as "humane" as you want but it doesn't make it "nice" or change the fact that an animal has to be born into exploitation and is doomed to die just because you want a hamburger.

[Delkaetre]

Questions. And please, please, do not snap or snarl as some vegans have done, I genuinely do not know what people want to do in these cases.

What do we do about pets? If we are not to keep them in a form of slavery, does that mean we are not to keep pets? Not to train them to respond to our commands? I know you 'train' children to use the bathroom and not smash the furniture, but a dog would be trained and kept in that state all of its life. No more pets? No more domesticated animals? What do you do with the existing ones?

What do we do about, say, cats? They've been positively deadly everywhere they've been introduced. How can you limit their numbers without culling them? What about spaying them, is that regarded as unethical?

If an animal is injured, do you take it in and give it medical care? People don't do that for a lot of humans, particularly those lacking in insurance, so what of animals in such cases?

How do you keep rats and mice out of houses? Traps? Poison? Humane traps are not very effective, as a pest can usually get back in very easily. All it takes is leaving your door open for five minutes.

How do you deal with pest animals eating the crops you're trying to grow to feed yourselves? What do you do if the crops are damaged by deer or rodents? When it's down to your food or theirs?

What of zoos? In many cases, they're all that stand between rare animals and extinction. Under what circumstances can you keep animals in captivity? What can you do about the ones unable to fend for themselves in the wild? How do you rescue falling populations of indigenous species when an imported species is becoming dominant (see the Red/Grey/Black squirrel problem, or, again, cats)?

[PortraitOfSanity]

Originally Posted by Saya

I was sure I replied to this but it seems when the boards were down it got lost, makes me a sad Saya

Anyway, not speaking for PeTA obviously but abolitionists in general are of the mind that if the world were to realize that animals etc, etc, blah blah, blah.

It's amazing that you wrote so much, and said nothing at all.

Your entire post is rhetoric, and the same rhetoric that's been repeated over, and over and beaten to death. I know what the animal liberation groups' talking points are. Believe me, I know, they're written on signs outside my work at least once a week, I can't possibly NOT know them. Don't assume I'm ignorant of your supposed morals.

The goals you subscribe to are unrealistic, and there is no rational way to even think that animals will be liberated to the extent that you describe. Instead, the only solution is to improve the situation of animals as best as we realistically can.

Some day I hope that your kind comes around and realizes that throwing tomatoes at people in fur coats and picketing KFC accomplishes nothing at all.