Anyone seen the latest PETA-Kids campaign?
WTF does animal dissections have to do with kids bringing guns to school? How would stopping animal dissections at Columbine High School stopped that tragic incident and prevented students there from dying in the spray of bullets?
I’ve never respected PETA, but they have stooped to a new all time low.
I’m all for anti-cruelty measures but PETA is off their rocker and have been for a long time.
It’s as if year after year they need to keep coming up with worse and worse things to shock the public into joining (and donating) to their cause. Somewhere along the line they just went off the deep end and kept going.
At this point I’m kinda numb to anything they do and ignore most of their shenanigans. If anything they are merely entertainment for me since they are usually good for a laugh. Money I donate on animal issues now go exclusively to the Anticruelty Society and neighborhood animal shelters…especially no kill shelters.
I don’t know why anyone gets upset and PETA these days. I expect them to put out shocking ads and it really doesn’t surprise me these days. PETA wants people to be shocked and talk about the ads to everyone they know. I tend to ignore them. I don’t know how PETA expects their little ads to change anyone’s mind. I suspect they just believe that it is ok to spread the good word any way possible.
Marc
Dragwyr said:
Did they say anything about guns? Does the only manifestation of violence in school involve guns? I am wholly in favor of dissecting animals in schools, but it’s nonsense to believe that killing a living being, for whatever reason, is not “doing violence” on it. In PETA’s view, it’s the same as killing kids, by whatever means. I don’t agree with them. But I don’t think this ad is any more outrageous than any of their others. Less so, maybe.
[hijack, sort of]
A friend of mine in the SCA had to dissect a cat her senior year in high school. She made sure to pick one with a nice, brown coat so that she could use it as trim on the collar of a houppelande she was making.
She was kinda creepy.
This was before PETA came around.
[/hijack]
Only kinda creepy? Would she look for road-kill if she wanted a coon-skin cap?
I’d rate that as full-blown wacky.
No they didn’t, but when they start out a commercial saying, “Do you want to stop school violence?” what is the first thing you think of? I think of the Columbine incident. I think of my kids and their safety in school. I DON’T think of animal dissection. As a parent I’m more concerned about the safety of my kids rather than whether or not “Fluffy” had to suffer so my kid can learn about anatomy.
What is bothering me is not that they’re being fanatically stupid, but that they are being fanatically stupid and showing it on TV.
Euthanasia?
And I’m pretty sure those kids aren’t the ones doing the actual killing of the specimens. They’re rather removed from that and probably don’t give it much thought. I know I didn’t.
I think for things like cats and pigs they arrive already dead. However, I had friends who described having to euthanise a frog before they dissected it. Hardly the stuff future psychos are made out of but there you have it. Maybe the Ether got everybody a little stoned so they were mellow…I dunno.
I dunno, UncleBeer. Euthanasia is still killing, however you want to couch it in merciful terms. You’re still depriving an animal of life, whether or not you think it is the right thing for them. I suspect the animal doesn’t want to be dead. I guess I’d still call euthanasia violence.
I understand that the kids aren’t doing the killing in most cases. But they did say “school violence,” not necessarily “violence done by children.”
Dragwyr, they can’t be blamed that you immediately associate school violence with guns, can they? And even if they can, they achieved their purpose, which was to make you look at “school violence” in a way you didn’t previously. I think it’s pretty effective.
And you’re statement that “I’m more concerned about the safety of my kids rather than whether or not “Fluffy” had to suffer so my kid can learn about anatomy” is kind of their point. They believe you should be just as concerned about Fluffy as you should be for your kid. Or least as copncerned as you would be for someone else’s kid.
Once again, it’s time for my favorite PETA quote.
In the October 2000 issue of Reason magazine, Ingrid Newkirk (national director of PETA) is quoted as saying:
I’ve always wanted to ask Ingrid how many Jews equal one chicken, but I’m afraid she’d answer…
It bugs me when PETA (or anyone else with an agenda) targets kids. Kids haven’t had the chance to develop their BS detectors. It’s dirty pool to hit them with emotional appeals and other logical fallacies.
My sister was a vegetarian for a while, and she had some PETA stuff that said, “Show this to kids!” It was this bullshit comic strip about how a mouse gets stuck on one of those sticky-paper things you put out to kill mice, and he thinks, “Oh, no! Now I can’t bring food back to my son and daughter!” The Mama mouse and baby mice all come and cry because Papa mouse is stuck in a trap. “Kids, tell your parents not to use cruel traps!”
Can’t convince people through logical debate? Then rope them in when they’re young, ignorant and emotionally immature using ridiculously anthropomorphised cartoon mice!
There is just one quote that is needed to explain PETA:
Har, har, har—rodeo clowns shore is funnee—NOT! They’re crazy, evil maniacs set free in rodeo rings to use their evil powers to trick people into laughing.
– PETA Kids web site
Rodeo clowns. The threat to our civilization.
I belong to the Anti-vivisection League, but then I don’t like my auntie very much.
In all seriousness, you can’t live in the rural Midwest and take PETA very seriously. The equating of human life and the life of cows, pigs, cats, dogs, sheep and God knows what else (bugs?) is simply irrational. The one thing they do accomplish is giving people with nothing else to be concerned about a reason to froth at the mouth.