PETA rehash thread

Great Debates
101

I agree that I must prove that the circumstances warrant the action, but I don’t agree that I have to prove that contemporary law would agree with the justification. After all, we’re arguing under the premise that animal rights theories are correct.

So, in your view, in a system where thousands of innocent humans are being tortured and killed in slaughterhouses and research facilities with the consent of your government, you think the most moral course of action is to educate the public? Write a letter to a Senator?

What about the millions of lives lost while the public deliberates?

Do you think the public will suddenly stop animal research and consumption of meat if ALF writes some letters and puts up a billboard?

I sort of understand how this could be your view, but its pretty extreme. I think most people see that destruction of someone elses property is moral if the property is being used to commit unspeakably evil acts. We can debate where that line is, and surely the standard must be very very strict, but surely a line exists. And I think that if a line exists, it must surely be crossed by the contemporary system if animal rights theorists are right.

If anyone else is still reading this thread other than Daniel( :stuck_out_tongue: ), I’d like to hear if people support this view.

102

No matter. You have to deal with how it defines justifiable emergency actions, so the issue is dead either way?

Do you have some proof that burning down some building will produce better results?

Do you have proof that burning down some buildings will achieve their goals more effectively?

I guess you aren’t familiar with the law – which just happens to be those moral questions codified into real words and rules. They don’t happen to agree with you. Even if you think eating chickens is murder, you still aren’t entitled to do anything you want in response. And that principle is well-settled and has been for a looooong time.

So no, my view isn’t extremist unless you think the very foundations of decision-making in the legal system are extremist.

103

No, I don’t contend that burning things down is an effective approach to protecting animals. HOWEVER, if I did believe that killing animals were the moral equivalent of killing humans, I might see it as part of an effective strategy: by adding costs to the animal industry, I might decrease their profits to the point that it was no longer worthwhile for the industry to continue.

Didn’t someone in this thread earlier say that chinchilla breeders could no longer get insurance, due to the threat of animal rights crimes? Were I to accept the premise of animal rights, I would consider this to be a success.

Incidentally, unless your mental health is in a place that would give Jeffrey Dahmer the heebie-jeebies, you might wanna ixnay with the stupid comparisons to murderers. It doesn’t help your argument, and is the rhetorical equivalent of the Napoleon Complex.

Daniel

104

The animal rights people resort to violence when non-violent political measures have not been exhausted. This is a trait of terrorists and insurgents. The fact that nobody has been directly killed by one of their acts is not an issue*. They are in fact attacking society and its members.

The danger is if we do not take these people seriously now, we will all be sorry when a person inspired by their rhetoric and influenced by their support does kill, perhaps on a large scale.

*(I am reminded of Homer Simpson’s comment that nuclear power has never killed anyone. In this country. Yet.)

105

wolfman97:

No one is arguing that what ALF does isn’t illegal. We’re arguing about morality, which is independent of the law. You apparently believe that if something is illegal, it is necessarily immoral. Martin Luther King Jr. and the French Resistance disagree. I’ll leave it to anyone that is reading to determine which view makes more sense.

106

They are attacking society, yes; they are attacking the property of members of society, yes. They are not attacking members of society.

Of course it’s an issue that they’ve not directly killed anyone. It’s an issue even if we confine ourselves to a purely legal perspective on it. Rod Coronado, you may note, has not been charged with murder.

Once again, one needn’t condone their criminal, counterproductive, and risky behaviors in order to distinguish between them and what we normally refer to as terrorism. I don’t like ALF’s acts or Al Qaeda’s acts, but I’d take a million ALFers above a single Al Qaeda cell, or a single IRA cell, or a single KKK cell, or a single Posse Comitatus cell, or a single Shining Path cell, or a single Hamas cell, or a single Aryan Nation cell, or a single–get it?

Daniel

107

So then, animal rights people are not terrorists. In this country. Yet.

108

Indeed; this is an appellation that they share with knitters, Libertarians, and Yankees fans.

The difference between AR activists and the previous groups is that a disproportionate number of AR activists engage in property crimes, not that we have any evidence of a propensity among them to murder people.

Daniel

109

So then we are in perfect agreement. They are not terrorists. Yet. They are criminals. Now.

Perhaps this would indicate some sort of action by society to protect itself may be in order.

110

By “they,” you’re referring to the ones who have committed crimes, right? Perhaps the action indicated by society would be to prosecute those AR folks who have committed crimes, right? And allow them the full legal process to which they’re constitutionally entitled, including the services of a defense attorney, whose services may be paid for by other people?

If your “they” refers to political activists who have committed no crime, then we’re not in agreement at all.

Daniel

111

We seem to be in agreement. Those who commit crimes ought to be punished. Those who encourage others to commit crimes ought to be watched, and condemned by the public.

(Please excuse me, I have to go to work now.)

112

I think we all agree on that, Paul. My argument is simply that in an intellectual environment like these boards, if you’re going to condemn them you need to do so on a rational basis: this requires that you refute animal rights theory, since under that theory of morality the actions of ALF are just (even if they are illegal).

That is, unless you believe that arson as a tactic can never be just. But I think the entailments of that belief are pretty damning.

113

Violence is morally defensible only when non-violent means have been exhausted. Even under that criteria, which has not been met in this case, violence is not always justifiable.

It would seem to me PETA et. al. has a case to be made. They simply seem to lack the ability to make it. Perhaps as a result of their frustration, or perhaps because of impatience, they have begun to use language that encourages violence. This will lead to a bad end for their cause.

I suppose Christian Militias may have had some sort of case to make. That being said, they screwed up their cause all to heck by producing Tim McV.

Changing policy legitimately requires time, hard work and even luck. Trying to short-circuit the process sometimes works, but is immoral and often backfires.

114

I’m not convinced that violence is only morally defensible when non-violent means have been exhausted for two reasons: first, it is impossible to define when a given means has been exhausted and second, sometimes solving the problem faster outweighs the harm of solving it more violently than necessary. The latter seems to especially be the case in the moral scenario where one action of arson would end the torture and killing of thousands. That said, I definitely see where you’re coming from. In a stable democracy, even great injustices ought to be dealt with within the system in order to preserve that very system which brings so much good. I just think there is a line that can be crossed.

But that argument is mostly tangential. I agree that PETA is not as persuasive as they could be, and that, more importantly, they are fundamentally wrong. I think we have the tendency to prefer to condemn tactics and not goals because it allows us to have an air of impartiality to the politics of the matter. I think this tendency is mistaken; we ought to condemn the goals of these groups more so than their tactics. The underlying ideology is the root cause, not the tactics.

That is one of the reasons why I’d like to see people debate animal rights when PETA topics arise. To do otherwise is not only disingenuous, but I think its counter-productive if your goal is minimize the bad that ALF and PETA cause.

115

Well, I have to call it as I see it. My major beef is not with the aims of AR people. All humane humans ought to be opposed to needless suffering, but with their tactics. Their arguments are weak, but have central core. Like a man who shouts to make a poor point sound stronger, they advocate violence to make their issue seem more vibrant and important than it is.

116

Animal rights seems like an either/or proposition to me. If you accept that animals deserve a right to life and liberty equal to that of humans, in my opinion, ALF is entirely justified; indeed, they may not be going far enough. If my fellow citizens were experiencing the sort of things we do to animals, I’d certainly join the underground resistance.
That’s not to say there isn’t a middle ground when it comes to animal welfare generally. I think we both occupy that middle ground. And I agree that no amount of animal welfare theory (as opposed to AR theory), IMHO, would justify arson in a democracy.

117

I realize that this thread has pretty much run its course, but I just watched the Penn and Teller’s Bullshit episode previously mentioned.

For the record: The people in the show that criticize the use of euthanasia on animals are not PETA people (Dr. Jerry Vlasak and Pamela Ferdin). They are members of the animal defense league, a different organization. But you shouldn’t be blamed for thinking that they do speak for PETA, since this is what Penn and Teller falsely imply.

Most of the show involves Penn and Teller pointing to PETA’s advocacy of animal rights and rhetorically rolling their eyes and just calling it crazy. There are three arguments offered against animal rights in the whole show. 1) Chickens are stupid (an argument any animal rights believer can easily rebut). 2) Meat is food (courtesy of Ted Nugent, an obviously brilliant debater). 3) Rights mean responsibilities, so if we liberate animals we have to expect them not to eat each other (so stupid that I’m surprised PETA responds to it in their FAQ). So also I will put Penn and Teller in the category of obfuscating, disingenuous debaters because they don’t deal with the real issue.

The best part was where they showed a video PETA had obtained of animal abuse and then dismissed it the abuse as already illegal, completely ignoring the fact that if PETA hadn’t obtained the video the practice would have continued.

Seriously, the only parts of this show that were remotely persuasive were PETA’s ties to ALF (which were actually done in a rather poor, circumstantial way) and the interview with the medical researcher who said that without animal tests there would be no medical progress (though I think he is clearly exaggerating).

p.s. Also for the record, Mary Beth Stewart is the user of insulin (according to the show), not Ingrid Newkirk.

118

Yes, I am willing to admit that PETA has become a shorthand name for all AR people. Still it is somehow accurate too.

PETA is (as I said) the popular front for the AR movement. Although some particular Fool who does something foolish he most probably is not a card-carrying member of PETA. Still he is supported emotionally and even financially by PETA.

(To make an emotional and broad-brushed comparison, imagine if I could prove no member of the NAMBLA has even been convicted of sexually assaulting a child. They make arguments that it is OK. They get on TV and encourage others, but they do not do it themselves. Same idea here.)

So PETA can spout all it wants. It can provide legal defense money to terrorists. It can tell people that arsonists are doing God’s work. And with their next breath they can say that PETA is not involved in violence. Which is true. And not, really.

I make the comparison again of the Militia Movement. Their activity did not directly cause Oklahoma City. But on the other hand we all know it provided the rhetoric needed to encourage a bunch of head jobs. Same thing here, and perhaps the same result.

When somebody goes off and kills a few hundred people to save some sort of ferret there will be a massive backlash against the AR movement.

119

Back in the 70’s or 80’s the March of Dimes funded a research grant to a scientist who sewed a kitten’s eyes shut to discover the effects of complete blindness.

Right away, let me state that I disapprove of sewing a kitten’s eye shut. The March of Dimes disapproves as well. However, there are a couple of points:

[ul]
[li] This was not done at the March of Dimes but by a scientist who was funded by the MoD. I can’t say for sure if the people who approved the grant knew of what was going on. But the grant approvals are done by volunteers, not employees. An employee sits on the grant committee, but they have little say in the final decision.[/li][li] It cannot be said that the experiment was worthless, as immoral as it was. This neither excuses nor justifies it, but that fact has to be laid out there as well. This experiment taught us a great deal about blindness in infants.[/li][li] PETA harps on the same thing to this day, though the March of Dimes has publicly admitted to it, apologized, and since has enacted new & better rules on their research grants.[/li][li] PETA firmly believes we should not even be experimenting on *any * sort of creature…from bacteria to dogs. They claim we should use computer models, but no computer model has been developed yet that can imitate real life perfectly.[/li][li] On their anti-March of Dimes website, www.marchofcrimes.com, they make no distinction about when the incidents occured, whether or not MoD has done anything to rectify it, or even a link to the March of Dimes website.[/li][li] They have an ad campaign entitled “Real Heroes Save **Both ** Their Lives”, with a pic of a child and a dog. This is in response to the March of Dimes campaign entitled “Don’t think you’re a hero? She does” accompanied by a picture of a tiny wrinkled little premature baby in an isolette. They make the very insulting indication that someone’s child is worth no more or less than someone’s dog. I know this is a hot-button issue on these boards. I’m not speaking to people who only have animals and consider their animals their children. That’s their choice. I’m asking, really - if you have a child & a dog, which is more important to you? And if by experimenting on an animal, we could eradicate, say Down’s Syndrome, then where does that leave us if we refuse to experiment? Isn’t not doing also immoral? [/li][/ul]
I believe that’s more than I’ve ever said in one post in GD! PETA’s techniques are under-handed and they do not hesitate to cloud or omit the truth when necesary. In the end, an animal’s is significantly less important to me than having every baby be born healthy, and if we need to experiment on an animal to achieve this goal, so be it.
This doesn’t mean, however, that I don’t agree that it should be done as humanely as possible under the circumstances! However, PETA’s stances & attitudes alienate even potential allies. I don’t believe they are honest, and they have done nothing to prove they are.

Stories like this, although not PETA, only serve to make me feel many - not all - animal rights groups don’t think through the consequences of their actions. PETA has never done anything that indicates to me that they do so.

Take a look at the March of Dimes. 150,000 babies are born with birth defects in the United States, one of the most developed countries in the world. That’s 1 in 28. 1 in 8 are born premature, which can lead to lifelong complications.

I see organizations like the March of Dimes trying to help us all live better lives. I see organizations like PETA trying to stunt that help without actually doing anything. They talk big, and do grand gestures like telling college kids to drink beer instead of milk, but I think they’re only a detriment to our society.

Phew!

120

One just has to look at what PETA or the HSUS peddles to see that they’re batshit insane. Of course if you are already batshit insane or extremely weak minded, which is a requirement for any nutcase that believes in or supports PETA or HSUS, this might not be too obvious.