# PETA: Taking 'Too Far' Even Further **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 26, 2003, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/peta-taking-too-far-even-further/157663 "2003-02-26T16:38:58Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Moirai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/96bed5/32.png) [@Moirai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moirai)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2003, 6:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/peta-taking-too-far-even-further/157663/41 "2003-02-27T06:15:36Z")
I can’t remember when I’ve seen something more offensive than that. I’m serious- I am so angry, I don’t have the words. It doesn’t even deserve a debate. It is pathetic, irresponsible and insensitive. To compare Holocaust victims to fucking CATTLE?!? I will eat meat the rest of my life in protest. In fact, I may have osso buco this weekend purely out of spite. Fuck PETA. I have always tried to see past the hyperbole to what they were trying to say, but I have finally heard enough. ---
**Author:** ![Saen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d2c977/32.png) [@Saen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saen)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2003, 6:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/peta-taking-too-far-even-further/157663/42 "2003-02-27T06:23:52Z")
Yeah, no debate here. Seems the disgust is pretty much unanimous. Best Pit thread I have seen survive in GD. Wish they had a message board, but then again groups like that know better. ---
**Author:** ![kniz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/c37758/32.png) [@kniz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kniz)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2003, 6:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/peta-taking-too-far-even-further/157663/43 "2003-02-27T06:55:09Z")
The first animal rights demonstration was supposed to be a practical joke. It isn’t a joke anymore. ---
**Author:** ![SPOOFE](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c5a1d2/32.png) [@SPOOFE](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SPOOFE)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2003, 7:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/peta-taking-too-far-even-further/157663/44 "2003-02-27T07:16:09Z")
I don’t get it. Is PETA insinuating that McDonald’s puts Jew in their burgers? ---
**Author:** ![Gorsnak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gorsnak/32/7587_2.png) [@Gorsnak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gorsnak)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2003, 7:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/peta-taking-too-far-even-further/157663/45 "2003-02-27T07:36:10Z")
The most dramatic of the photos on the right side aren’t even of what they purport to be. The emaciated calf and the pile of pig carcasses aren’t the intended consequences of agriculture, they’re the consequences of things going wrong (famine and disease, respectively). The emaciated camp inmates and the stack of human corpses, on the other hand, _were_ the intended results. Of course, that misrepresentation is an offense that pales besides the grotesque inhumanity of the comparison in the first place, but that doesn’t mean I’ll give them a pass on it. Sad to say, though, this doesn’t lower my opinion of PETA one bit. ---
**Author:** ![JasonFin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/4af34b/32.png) [@JasonFin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JasonFin)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2003, 8:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/peta-taking-too-far-even-further/157663/46 "2003-02-27T08:05:16Z")
Well, for what it’s worth, I don’t find these advertisements very offensive. They’re certainly shocking, but I don’t think it’s appropriate to take offense. I think you need to take into account the worldview of the people who (presumably) designed these adds. They believe that human beings and animals are morally equivalent. From this perspective, Holocaust imagery could seem an appropriate way to point out what to them must seem massive hypocrisy: most people view the mass slaughter of humans as a monstrous evil, while we accept the mass slaughter of animals without complaint. It isn’t very different from messages commonly used by anti-abortion protesters. One group compares the killing of human beings to the killing of animals; the other group compares the killing of human beings to the killing of fetuses. In both cases, it’s best to take the message in the spirit in which it is intended. ---
**Author:** ![Dryga\_Yes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/838e76/32.png) [@Dryga\_Yes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dryga_Yes)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2003, 12:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/peta-taking-too-far-even-further/157663/47 "2003-02-27T12:40:18Z")
I’m not terribly offended either. If you accept that human suffering and animal suffering are equivalent (which they do), then that would indeed mean that the meat industry is just as bad as the holocaust. This doesn’t imply that the holocaust was something to take lightly, just that the meat industry is really _really_ awful. I don’t agree with them, but I can certainly see how they could think so. As a comparison, in most Christian dogma (I don’t know how this differs between denominations) all sins are considered equal before god, which’d mean that a serial child rapist would be just as much of a sinner as someone who steals a candy bar when he’s ten years old. Except if the serial child rapist accepts Jesus as his saviour before he dies, in which case he goes to heaven. But the kid doesn’t, because he’s \ a Hindu. And this is what God has decided in his infinite wisdom and kindness. Morally, I think both of these positions are ridicolous. But I won’t condemn Christians or PETA members as vile, disturbed nutjobs, which most other posters here have done. At least both belief systems are internally consistent. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Tristan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tristan/32/18058_2.png) [@Tristan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tristan)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2003, 12:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/peta-taking-too-far-even-further/157663/48 "2003-02-27T12:56:23Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by SPOOFE \* > \*\*I don’t get it. Is PETA insinuating that McDonald’s puts Jew in their burgers? \*\* [homer] Mmmm… Sacrilicous! [/homer] ---
**Author:** ![candida](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f14d63/32.png) [@candida](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/candida)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2003, 12:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/peta-taking-too-far-even-further/157663/49 "2003-02-27T12:58:54Z")
In a cyberworld crammed with rabid Jew-haters, holocaust deniers, ‘Protocols’ purveyors . . . . this is a _serious_ problem? This is a problem _at all_? Oysh! ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2003, 1:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/peta-taking-too-far-even-further/157663/50 "2003-02-27T13:20:45Z")
> [@](#): > > As a comparison, in most Christian dogma (I don’t know how this differs between denominations) all sins are considered equal before god, which’d mean that a serial child rapist would be just as much of a sinner as someone who steals a candy bar when he’s ten years old. Except if the serial child rapist accepts Jesus as his saviour before he dies, in which case he goes to heaven. But the kid doesn’t, because he’s \ a Hindu. And this is what God has decided in his infinite wisdom and kindness. Gee. Yet another person who completely misunderstands nearly every Christian perspective. Like I’m shocked to fin that on this board. ---
**Author:** ![irishgirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/8edcca/32.png) [@irishgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/irishgirl)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2003, 1:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/peta-taking-too-far-even-further/157663/51 "2003-02-27T13:32:53Z")
Look PETA. i eat meat. i like it. In moderation it’s good for me. No, i don’t like to see animals mistreated. No, i don’t approve of intensive farming. I buy free range eggs, Freedom Food, and i know that irish cattle and sheep at least are allowed out into fields. I know farmers and they put the welfare of their animals at the top of their priority list. We used to go and feed the calves that the farmer near us was raising for meat. They had a much happier life than any child in Auschwitz had. Food, shelter, room to run around, medical attention that didn’t involve Josef Mengele, i’d say the cows were better off. ---
**Author:** ![hawthorne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/c89c15/32.png) [@hawthorne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hawthorne)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2003, 1:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/peta-taking-too-far-even-further/157663/52 "2003-02-27T13:35:02Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by kniz \* > The first animal rights demonstration was supposed to be a practical joke. Could you expand on this please? > [@](#): > > _candida_ > In a cyberworld crammed with rabid Jew-haters, holocaust deniers, ‘Protocols’ purveyors . . . . this is a serious problem? This is a problem at all? Well, yes. These people are supposed to be promoting something laudible: the ethical treatment of animals. You expect a little better behaviour than that of insane hatemongers. ---
**Author:** ![candida](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f14d63/32.png) [@candida](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/candida)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2003, 1:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/peta-taking-too-far-even-further/157663/53 "2003-02-27T13:37:36Z")
Erm? Oh, I didn’t realize that PETA were advocating the elimination of people in the same way as in the Endlösung, so that’s what you’re all making the fuss about. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2003, 2:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/peta-taking-too-far-even-further/157663/54 "2003-02-27T14:08:11Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Guinastasia \* > \*\*Um, **Shodan** , the Hitler was a veggie thing is an Urban Legend. From what I understand, he had to stay away from eating a lot of meat because he suffered from _giggle_ flatulence. > > Hehehehehe… \*\* William Shirer’s biography of Hitler claims that he became a vegetarian after the suicide of his half-niece, with whom he had some kind of sexual/romantic relationship. Snopes says that “Hitler’s diet was primarily vegetarian thoughout the latter part of his life”, and agrees with you that it was for gastric reasons. [But it is not exactly an urban legend.](http://www.snopes.com/glurge/twoquest.htm) My point was that implying that vegetarianism will end the moral equivalent of the Holocaust for animals is stupid, in light of the fact that the ultimate author of the real Holocaust was primarily vegetarian. As was Charlie Manson. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2003, 2:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/peta-taking-too-far-even-further/157663/55 "2003-02-27T14:14:42Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by kniz \* > \*\*The first animal rights demonstration was supposed to be a practical joke. It isn’t a joke anymore. \*\* Are you talking about the essay, “The Vindication of the Rights of Brutes”? You’re right that it was a satire, but the interesting thing is that it was a satire of a serious essay, “The Vindication of the Rights of Women.” The author was suggesting that the two ideas were equally ridiculous. Generally, I think PETA achieves their aims with their campaigns: they draw in trendy folks to vegetarianism, and they gain a lot of publicity, and they piss off old fogies and therefore make themselves attractive (in a Marilyn Manson sort of way) to teenagers. This time, though, I think they’ve horribly miscalculated, and I think that kneejerk reactions like **EJsGirl** – > [@](#): > > I will eat meat the rest of my life in protest are likely outcomes. Man, I hate it when assholes have the same political beliefs as I do. PETA’s not just shooting themselves in the foot: they’re shooting me in the foot as well. Daniel ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2003, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/peta-taking-too-far-even-further/157663/56 "2003-02-27T14:22:28Z")
On a different note, I hope we all recognize that Hitler’s vegetarianism is stupefyingly irrelevant, just as irrelevant as Stalin’s meat-eating, or Vlad the Impaler’s hat-wearing. For a little bit more information about “A Vindication of the Rights of Brutes,” you can skim [this article](http://www.newint.org/issue215/sex.htm). A relevant passage: > [@](#): > > When Mary Wollstonecraft wrote her Vindication of the Rights of Women, one male writer tried to reduce her arguments to sheer absurdity with the anonymous publication in 1792 of a satirical volume entitled, A Vindication of the Rights of Brutes.2 In characterizing women as lower animals, and themselves as the apex of creation, men justify the oppression, exploitation, domination and torture of women and other animals alike. > > Recognizing that animals, like women, were excluded from the ‘rights of man’, many first-wave feminists advocated animal welfare reform. Amongst the feminist vegetarians and anti-vivisectionists who drew parallels between the oppression of women and animals were such leading figures as Mary Wollstonecraft, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Susan B Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, and Lucy Stone. Women were the primary activists of the nineteenth century anti-vivisection movement.3 > > This lends a horrible irony to the fact that some recent Animal Rights campaigns, while recognising and seeking to eradicate speciesism - the exploitation by humans of other species - continue to recycle sexism. One poster, showing a woman wearing a fur coat dripping with blood, proclaims, ‘It takes 10 dumb animals to make it; one dumb animal to wear it’. Another read simply, ‘Rich bitch! Poor bitch’. I was unable to find a copy of the essay online, in a couple of minutes of searching. However, I did find [an essay by Peter Singer on the topic](http://www.webster.edu/~corbetre/philosophy/animals/singer-text.html); if you’ve taken the time to be outraged by PETA tweakerosity, you might want to take the time to see what a reasoned defense of animal rights looks like. Daniel ---
**Author:** ![sdimbert](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sdimbert/32/20204_2.png) [@sdimbert](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sdimbert)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2003, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/peta-taking-too-far-even-further/157663/57 "2003-02-27T15:34:31Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by John Mace \* > \*\*No one connects this to the letter sent to Arafat by PETA asking him to stop using “suicide donkeys”? It was disgusting. > > Here’s a link (there are many out there): > > [http://www.seafood.com/news/current/88298.html](http://www.seafood.com/news/current/88298.html) \*\* OP’er here. I brought the two issues up together in the Jewish Current Events class I teach. The pattern (and I believe there is one) of absurd moral equivalence resulting from myopia is disturbing. ---
**Author:** ![Dryga\_Yes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/838e76/32.png) [@Dryga\_Yes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dryga_Yes)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2003, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/peta-taking-too-far-even-further/157663/58 "2003-02-27T16:04:09Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by smiling bandit \* > \*\*Gee. Yet another person who completely misunderstands nearly every Christian perspective. Like I’m shocked to fin that on this board. \*\* Oh, thanks for clearing up my misconceptions then! 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2003, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/peta-taking-too-far-even-further/157663/59 "2003-02-27T16:24:35Z")
Whatever happened to having actresses and supermodels pose naked? Now that was an ad campaign that sold. ---
**Author:** ![hawthorne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/c89c15/32.png) [@hawthorne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hawthorne)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2003, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/peta-taking-too-far-even-further/157663/60 "2003-02-27T16:24:54Z")
Good point Dryga\_Yes. > [@](#): > > _sdimbert_ > The pattern (and I believe there is one) of absurd moral equivalence resulting from myopia is disturbing. Well, I have to disagree. If I _really_ thought the two were morally equivalent, I’d surely be taking MUCH more extreme steps than releasing an advertising campaign. In those circumstances, surely I would take just about ANY step to stop the practices. By “any step”, I mean up to and including huge piles of bodies. I don’t think that they really think the two are morally equivalent. I just think they’re willing to piss on any grave to make their point - not make it effectively, it’s enough to register that it’s been made. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/peta-taking-too-far-even-further/157663.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/peta-taking-too-far-even-further/157663.md?page=4)