Just so we’re all clear, bacteria are not animals. You need to speak to PETM.
Daniel
I would accept very very few organizations self-serving claims, PETA or not PETA.
And, that effect in your cite is mild- the improvements- if they are improvements at all- are minor. The chickens were’nt being treated inhumanely in the 1st place, and they’ll end up fried in any case. I don’t see any big change. What I do see from that article is PETA using blackmail to force a company into rather dubious gains. And- after a deal was cut- then continuing with their blackmail despite the deal.
Left Hand of Dorkness- again, your cite shows extremely dubious gains. I don’t see anything which is a ral improvment. Again, a major chain blackmailed into making a few minor and rather dubious “improvements”.
The chickens were being treated badly, and the improvements were hardly minor.
To quote:
Stimulation devices, humane killing, less pain in the sorting process, and more space. If that doesn’t meet your standard for significant change, what would?
I don’t think blackmail was the word you were looking for – PETA didn’t get any money out of the deal. If you mean that they pressured KFC and will continue doing so, you are correct. However, they did agree to suspend the campaign for 60 days and not picket the annual shareholder meeting.
You don’t see any real gains because you don’t see a problem in the first place; this suggests to me that either you’re hostile toward the concept of animal welfare in the first place, or else you’ve not bothered to look into the conditions against which PETA was fighting. In either case, your opinion on the subject is thereby less relevant to the thread. I submit that:
- If you’re familiar with the conditions against which PETA was agitating; and
- If you believe that we have a moral obligation to minimize the suffering of the animals we eat; and
- If you’re not irrevocably convinced that PETA is evil, and don’t want to be confused with facts; then
- You’ll conclude that PETA’s work in these areas was positive.
As for “blackmail”: are you familiar with the word boycott? If so, is there a reason why the word “blackmail” (which describes the illegal process of threatening to reveal someone’s secrets unless they pay you money) is remotely appropriate to this situation, when the word “boycott” (which describes the often legal process of organizing consumers to refuse to purchase a business’s products until that business makes change in its practices) is not?
Daniel
The Penn and Teller show included tapes and interviews with PETA protestors doing just that.
Let’s set the question of the numbers aside for a moment and just note that 1500 dead dogs each year is a lot of dead dogs. But how do you reconcile their killing ANY of them with their stated philosophy? (Let alone a steady flow of 1,500 or so per year).
The Penn and Teller show included interviews with PETA people who were in the streets carrying signs doing just that. They also included an interview with the guy who heads up the Los Angeles animal shelters describing how the PETA people had come to his house and vandalized his car, etc., etc.
Now there is a good argument for an organization claiming to protect animals. “If I hadn’t killed him, someone else would have.” That’s my justification for eating steak, BTW.
If they are taking advantage of it while seeking to deny the same thing to others then certainly. That seems pretty much like the dictionary definition of hypocrisy to me.
Only if they advocate continuing it.
Probably, because that means that someone probably broke the law and the medicine never made it to the market.
What was there that was medically useful that came out of the Tuskegee experiments? Did they result in any new treatments that someone should morally avoid?
More to the point, she wants to stop research that might provide others the same benefit she got.
“theoretically” would have opposed??? My, my. They are funding arsonists to burn down the labs. I think that is more than “theoretically”, and it is a bit more than just a mild objection. Yeah, that is clearly hypocrisy with a capital “H”.
If that is one of their top leaders, then yes, it does make PETA hypocritical – not to even mention the killing of dogs.
This suggests to me you’re discussing a subject you’ve not bothered to educate yourself on, which is frankly quite frustrating. I’ll avoid the temptation to link you to google, where it took me five seconds to pull up information explaining this reconciliation. Here’s a link to get you started.
Given the link above, I am skeptical that you’re representing this show accurately, or that Penn and Teller (not famous for their calm, dispassionate, fair-minded look at the facts) were representing the protests accurately. Nevertheless, if you can provide me with links to news stories in which PETA’s protesting of specific locations is specifically discussed, I’ll be happy to evaluate them.
PETA does enough really stupid shit that folks can legitimately criticize them for; it’s bizarre and counterproductive to criticize them for stupid shit that they don’t do.
Daniel
The definitions that I find on the web say that “higher” bacteria are certainly animals. They move on their own, etc.
Where are you getting your definitions from? Higher bacteria are animals in the same way that lower mammals are sandstone formations. It’s complete and utter nonsense; all bacteria are monera, a kingdom separate from animals. Really, you need to be doing some better researching, and this time I ain’t gonna help you out. You need to learn a lot about taxonomy.
Daniel
Well, I admit that I am no expert on bacteria, but whether the definitions I found are correct or not, that is really a comparatively small side issue. The thread is about PETA and their apparent hypocrisy.
Right, but the evidence for their hypocrisy keeps falling through; this is just another example. If insulin is derived from bacteria these days, then it is not hypocritical to use insulin unless bacteria are animals. Bacteria are not animals.
Same thing with shelters. If PETA condones euthanasia at shelters, then it is not hypocritical for them to practice euthanasia at their shelter. Folks are doing a terrible job producing evidence that they’ve protested euthanasia at other shelters in relevantly similar circumstances (if they protest carbon monoxide euthanasia, naturally, that’s a whole nother game).
When your argument is built on a lot of tiny untrue facts, the whole edifice collapses.
Daniel
You’ve managed to parse my argument into enough little sections that you missed the bigger picture. You’re arguing that if she’s taking advantage of something going on now that she opposes then she is hypocritical. No one is disagreeing. I’m saying she doesn’t benefit from contemporary animal research. And she doesn’t seek to deny synthetic insulin to anyone.
Again, you can make the argument that synthetic insulin could not have been invented but for animal research, but you’re going to have to back that up with some good citations. Believe it or not, the people that oppose medical research on animals are not all whackos.
Also, about the bacteria. Even if some taxonomies put “higher-order” bacteria in the animal kingdom, it doesn’t really mean anything. PETA isn’t necessarily defending rights for the biological kingdom of animals, though I imagine there might be some arguments over the humane treatment of sea sponges, etc. Rather, they are defending rights for those animals that have a central nervous system, which bacteria certainly do not.
She seeks to deny others the same benefits of animal research that she got.
Did I make that argument? I don’t think I did. Do you know any good way of deriving such medicines without doing animal testing? (If you were going to say “computer testing” then that would be a mistake.)
OK, I get it. It should be “People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals With a Central Nervous System” PETAWCNS. That is, cockroaches and bacteria would not qualify, but grasshoppers would. Is that the idea?
Now you’re just willfully ignoring my point.
Yes, that is the idea. You weren’t aware that animal rights stem from their ability to feel pain and suffering?
No, I just think that anyone who got benefits from past animal research and now seeks to deny potential benefits to others in the future is a hypocrite, regardless of the timing of when the research happened.
So are they doing anything to protect the feelings of grasshoppers and other similar insects? Maybe they are campaigning against spreading the farms with insecticide or something that I missed?
I thought that it stemmed from mental defectives with bizarre fetishes for animals and a self-loathing of mankind. I have never seen any defence of the insanity of the notion of animal rights that has changed my mind yet.
I went to a Super Wal-Mart yesterday. There had to be a couple of herds of cattle worth of meat being sold. I bet that the number of folks who gave any thought to the ‘pain and suffering’ of the cattle that provided that meat was miniscule. I also bet that the precentage of people that would give a rat’s ass about the ‘pain and suffering’ of the cattle would remain miniscule even if they knew all about the castration, ear marking, ear tagging, de-horning, hot shot use, indigestion, cramped feed lots and trailers, and the air driven bolt to the brain before being bled out that every cow providing their 4th of July feast endured.
She benefits from past animal research in the same way that you benefit from past use of slavery. She doesn’t currently use animal-research-made products, and she doesn’t prevent anyone else from taking advantage of synthetic insulin. If that’s hypocritical, it is of a very minor variety.
What is your argument here? If they aren’t doing every conceivable thing to protect even the animals least like us then they aren’t good? Obviously they choose to help those animals that they think are most uncontroversially deserving of more kindness.
If you’re trying to get a rise out of me by making unwarranted claims about people that believe in animal rights, you are failing – not least of all because I don’t believe in animal rights. If you’re actually trying to make an argument, you’re failing even more badly.
I would like to hear your philosophical critique of animal rights, but I sadly suspect that you don’t have one.
Yes, and it is the obvious calm, dispassion, fairness, and scholarship you bring to the discussion that makes your input so valuable. Whatever would we do without your copious cites, evidence, and chains of logic?
Argumentum ad populum. Next?
(Just in case anyone thought I was avoiding his posts because of their devastating clarity or persuasiveness; I’ll try to limit future responses to posts with a shred of substance, and ignore bald statements of opinion wholly unsupported by evidence).
Daniel