Thursday, April 28, 2005

Animal Rights Groups: What about us HUMANS?

Earlier today, I was at www.civilizeddebate.com reading posts and answering with a few of my own. In one of the threads, a friend of mine posted something about May 4 being "Respect for Chickens" day or some such. He even gave a link to the site of a group called United Poultry Concerns. So, being curious, I went there and looked it over.

The group advocates the freeing of chickens, turkeys and ducks from farms and being used for food in order that they may run free and not be eaten. They also have links to various other "animal rights" groups, including the famous *or infamous, depending on your point of view* PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals).

As I looked over this site, I got to thinking. I wondered why it was that these people showed SO MUCH concern for non-human animals that they forget that the primary goal of ANY species is to survive. This INCLUDES humans. Further, animals eat each other without compunction, but these "animal rights" folks don't have a problem with that.

I've come to the conclusion that many of these "animal rights" folks have a dislike, if not an out and out hatred, of their own kind. Don't get me wrong. I am in favor of treating animals in a humane manner. This concern of mine focuses mostly on dogs, cats, other domesticated pets, and even wild animals. I don't think people should just be going out and abusing animals, and thus, I'm rather ambivalent to sport hunters.

That said, I take a somewhat more speciesist view of the world. I don't worry too much about people killing animals that they plan to eat, or at least give to other humans to eat. It's part of our God-given right to eat other animals. In Genesis, after the Ark came to rest, God told Noah and his family, "Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you; even as the green herb have I given you all things." This was done because it was through Noah and the other humans in his family that animals survived the Flood. Thus, it stands to reason that eating animals is NOT a sin.

However, "animal rights" activists will reply, "It also says in the Bible that Man was originally made to eat plants and fruit and vegetables," and they would have a point if it weren't for the fact that God gave Noah, and through him humankind, the right of animophagy *not sure there is such a word, but if so, it would mean "eating of animals"*. No, the "animal rights" activists are off base there.

I could peacefully disagree with them if it weren't for the fact that so many of them put the lives of animals up as being more important than that of humans. I take the opposite view. If using animals in testing medicines for human use causes a few to die so that more humans might be saved from diseases, so be it. I prefer to save as many HUMANS from illnesses as possible. Besides that, I have a more selfish reason for being a speciesist: I LIKE eating bovines, pigs, sheep, fish, crustaceans *though there is Jewish law that forbids the eating of pigs, crustaceans, some kinds of fish and many other creatures*, birds, deer, elk, etc. They're TASTY and in moderate amounts GOOD for you.

On top of all that, I LIKE being HUMAN. It's a lot of fun, sometimes, and frankly, I'm not entirely sure the animals MIND, as a whole, that we are around. Someone from PETA once stated that the Earth would be better off if every human on the planet died. They compare farming and the eating of farm-raised animals to the Holocaust.

That is just plain sick. In no wise does the farming of animals for food compare to the wholesale slaughter of groups of humans based on religious and ethnic grounds. Farm animals, actually, have it rather good, on the whole. They don't have to forage for food, they don't have to worry much about predators, and some of them EVEN get to live to a ripe OLD age. Plus, they don't necessarily have to battle for mates. I wish I had it so good, particularly when it comes to finding a mate *or at least one for a while ;)*

Furthermore, in order to have "rights," a being must have the capacity at some point in its life for moral responsibility (NOTE: This statement CANNOT be used to advocate abortion "rights," as humans in the womb WILL develop moral responsibility during their life.). Animals kill for food without anyone trying to charge them with murder. They go around mating with any number of opposite-sex beings of their species, and don't have to worry about child support or raising the young *well, many species of animals have a male-female pairing to not only beget, but to raise young, as well*. Further, they don't have the capacity (dogs and cats and sea mammals are possible, even likely, exceptions) to make moral judgments, have moral standards nor responsibility. They are instinctual.

In closing, I just want to say that the so-called "animal rights" activists forget about the one species of animal they should be MOST concerned with seeing protected... their own. It's time they either came around to looking out for humans first, and then seeing to animal welfare, or take their own advice about reducing human populations.

1 Comments:

Blogger Jan said...

DS, I think you got it exactly right!

6:52 PM  

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