More Evidence that Animal Liberationists are Anti-Human
I am convinced that the dark core of the animal liberation movement is anti-human. Not every believer suffers from this misanthropy, of course. Most just want to reduce animal suffering.
But the hard core or "base" of the movement are decidedly anti-human.
ITEM: After writing about PETA's non apology "apology" a bit ago, I heard via e-mail from many animal liberationists that eating meat "is too" morally equivalent to the Holocaust. I suggested to some that I am not the person to be angry with, but that they contact PETA and urge it to be honest and retract its non apology "apology" for making the comparison between the ovens at Auschwitz and the local butcher shop.
Now here's another story out of the UK, where animal liberation is most virulent and radical. It seems that a fellow with Parkinson's disease has his symptoms under significant control thanks to a surgical procedure involving implanting electrodes in the brain. Learning to do this surgery right, of course, required extensive animal testing. When the fellow tried to speak about his surgery he was shouted down by animal liberationists and told to go and die.
This deep misanthropy and utter moral confusion explains why some animal liberationists are growing increasingly violent and dangerous. And yet, when I write about animal rights terrorism, I hear from believers who are angry at my supposedly lumping their "peaceful" movement in with those who engage in violence. But when I urge them to condemn the vandalism and terrorist threats engaged in by their more radical colleagues, they usually won't do it. Indeed, PETA explicitly refuses to condemn the Animal Liberation Front.
This is an issue that is only going to get bigger as time passes. Someday, animal liberationists will kill a human being over animals. When that Rubicon is passed, Katy bar the door!
posted by Wesley J. Smith @ 8:13 AM
3 Comments
3 Comments:
Nobody I know would kill a person over animals. The late animal policy scholar Vicki Hearne noted that, in her experience, those who care for animals also care most deeply about people, having more insight into "the other". I think to be balanced on this issue, you might look into the abuses in the animal research arena: USDA failing to enforce the Animal Welfare Act, waste of animals etc. In this context is is possible to see how lab raids are tolerated. If you want to take a balanced look, that is. Or is the work of scientists too important to be regulated? I am not trying to be facetious; I am just curious about where you'll go with this.
I am glad you don't know anyone who would kill a human to protect animals, but that doesn't mean such a horrendous act is not coming closer to occurring. In the UK, for example, executives for an animal research facility were attacked, one with a baseball bat the other with a caustic chemical thrown in his face. Domestic companies are being vandalized and bombed,and workers personally intimidated. In the UK, animal rights activists threatened to assassinate prominent researchers if a fellow activist died during a prison hunger strike. (He was in jail for torching a department store because it sold fur.) A politician in the Netherlands was murdered by an animal rights fanatic, perhaps because he favored permitting mink farming (although the actual motive for the assassination remains unclear). I wish I could be as sanguine as you are.
Of course I believe that science should be regulated. And of course I believe humans have the moral obigation to treat animals humanely. I support the AWA.
I recall my London days in the mid 80s. I was training in psychotjerapy. There had been a scare about Animal liberationists poisoning Mars chocolate bars, specially eaten by children. I voiced my horror to a fellow student, a vegetarian woman sympathetic to animal rights: her reply: "It is about time someone did something about those poor animals exploited by food making companies..."
Post a Comment
<< Home