O friends, beat me, burn me, rape me, and kill me, because I’m going to rant about animal rights activists and the good Lord knows that since people who eat meat are wrong, I’m gonna get flamed big time. One of my friends, who is “deeply concerned” (and I quote) about me, sent me a link to http://www.peta.com, the website for the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. Apparently, she’s afraid that I’m going to have a heart attack because of the fact that I eat red meat. Granted, eating nothing but can be seriously detrimental to one’s health, but for Chrissakes I eat maybe one burger a month! Anyway, I was reading through the site, and I come across their FAQ board. The board has questions on it like, “What are animal rights?” and “What rights should animals have?”. The responses to these questions are ridiculous.
“a dog doesn’t have an interest in voting and therefore doesn’t have the right to vote, since that right would be as meaningless to a dog as it is to a child.”
“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.”
“It is impossible to live your life without causing some harm; we’ve all accidentally stepped on ants or breathed in gnats, but that doesn’t mean we should intentionally cause unnecessary harm. Just because you might accidentally hit someone with your car is no reason to run someone over on purpose.”
Anyone noticing a pattern here? These people are comparing human beings to animals. What does the interest in voting a dog has have to do with ANYTHING about children? The interests of a child have to do with society and it’s place in it. The interests of a dog are eating, sleeping, and licking it’s nuts. I know many “children” to whom the right to vote would mean a very great deal, but not a single dog who could give a flying fuck one way or the other. Yes, I am free to believe whatever I want as long as it doesn’t hurt others, but what connection to grilling a steak have to do with enslaving a fellow human being? Trying on leather shoes does NOT have the same significance as laying into my wife with a baseball bat, I’m sorry to say. And above all, hitting someone with my car on purpose is NOT the same as raising chickens for their meat! I don’t kill and eat chickens because it’s fun, I do it because I’m hungry! And believe me, if that poor baby lion you’re protecting from the big bad hunters who wish to protect their property got hungry and you were the only thing around, it wouldn’t hesitate to cruelly and unnecessarily kill and eat you.
Animals are not human. Yes, many animals are sentient. But can animals laugh, cry, or fall in love? No. They hurt and feel hunger and need sleep, but they don’t have emotion. Animals don’t solve problems using reasoning and intelligence, but instead rely solely on instinct. I have no problems with preventing things like hunting for sport, but if the only thing that could keep me warm was a nice mink coat, I’ll lay down my money and brave the chill winds in high style.
In the end, doesn’t it come down to survival of the fittest? I can keep cows to butcher and eat, so I will, because cow meat keeps me alive another day. I can go out and hunt for a beaver’s hide, because selling it will buy me some cow meat. And nothing’s going to prevent me from living. That’s how the dogs/pigs/rats/children live, isn’t it?
kept looking at me as if to say, “Where’s Fluffy?”