Yes. It’s a wonder I have any time to post here.
But seriously, folks, like I said, I had just a bit of a problem with your statement; I’m not planning to pit you over it or anything. Although you’d like that, wouldn’t you? Get you back in the running against Giraffe. Or is it samclem who’s taken the lead?
Great letter, lobstermobster. And an excellent tone to take. Calm, and rational. I, too, doubt that it will have much weight by itself, but certainly nothing to label as an over-reaction.
As for ALF, my opinion is that any group that advocates the use of arson as a means of protest is a terrorist group, and one that’s only one accident away from being murderous terrorists.
As one who has reason to believe he had something to do with Best Buy modifying an ad because he thought an ad featuring the Butthole Surfers should not be advertised during the former “Family Hour,” it is surprising how much effect lone voice crying in the wilderness, even if it turns out to be more than ONE voice, can have, I suggest that letter should be addressed to the PRESIDENT of the company.
As I always say to the radical Vegans;
"Just how many animals live on the vast soybean plantations that feed you?
How many animals and insects are killed in the processing of your food?
If you think you can live guilt free, it’s only because you’re willfully ignorant of what it takes to maintain you."
Damn, that is a great line. Seriously.
I have a BIL in bio-science and he has had colleagues threatened and harassed at two universities. At one, IIRC, a radical protester got a job in admin so she could give out lab employee’s personal info. :rolleyes:
Seconded–that is a great line, and it is the primary reason why I’m not in PETA’s camp.
That said, lobstermobster, I’d encourage you to double-check each of the facts in your letter. PETA is a showboating attention whore of an organization, but they’ve got opponents who are every bit as unconcerned with the truth as PETA is. I’ve done extensive reading on PETA’s websites, and while I’ve seen comments that show skepticism toward the holier-than-thou attitude adopted by many “no-kill” shelters, I’ve never seen anything published by PETA that actively opposes no-kill. That wouldn’t make any sense–and PETA, for all its faults, tends to be consistent (to a fault).
Be very careful of getting information from any group associated with the Center for Consumer Freedom. That “group” is, IIRC, actually a single lobbyist who also runs a similar organization designed to discredit Mothers Against Drunk Driving. He engages in all kinds of dirty tricks, and he plays very fast and loose with the facts. The San Francisco Chronicle editorial suffers from an overreliance on this one lobbyist for its information.
It further reports in glaring terms about a case whose outcome I correctly predicted: the horrifying animal abusers at the center of the case were ultimately convicted only of littering for the improper disposal of carcasses. The reasons for this outcome are complex but wholly predictable and wholly appropriate.
Finally, I don’t know what significance it has, but it’s interesting to me that the editorialist’s husband is, according to the disclaimer at the end of the article, “a senior fellow on animal-rights issues at the Discovery Institute” (a creationist thinktank). I suspect she got information from a dude who is not entirely hinged.
PETA will never get a dime from me; I have disagreements with both their positions and their tactics. They are not, however, nearly as bad as some folks make them out.
Daniel
Frozen Fish Stick Welcome to the dope, and I hope you will stick around after your guest membership is up, you are our kind of people. The kind that when comes back brings cites (or pie).
JeffB is right that is a great comment coupled with your user name. 
VP Mary Beth Sweetland justifies her use of insulin by saying that she needs to stay alive to fight for animal rights.
PETA also financially subsidizes ALF members.
Check out this 15 minute video from Penn and Teller’s BULLSHIT. NSFW for language.
That was freakin’ beautiful, man. I knew PETA and ALF were out there, but I didn’t really know the extent of their dangerous, criminal insanity.
I think maybe the scariest part of that video is how PETA and ALF criminals are in schools, doctrinating kids to think that PETA and ALF are okay, and their methods are justified and reasonable. I support your letter even more now, lobster. There does need to be response to an extremist group like this becoming mainstream.
Thanks featherlou When I posted the letter I was really bracing myself for the hardcore animal rights people to come out of the woodwork. This is been very positive reinforcement for me because I have been criticized before for saying that I’m staunchly anti-PETA. “how can you be against an animals rights organization???”
My biggest concern right now is not just hating on PETA but how they are selling propaganda for this organization literally right beside Bart Simpson t-shirts. The celebrities, the stickers (OMG fishsticks!!!) its just so SNEAKY.
It didn’t take me long to figure out PETA was not a group I wanted to associate with. I was probably 11 when I heard about veal farming and told my mom not to buy those veal parmigiana TV dinners that I used to love (okay, so they probably weren’t actually veal). After that I read a lot about animal rights and the environment and I realized in my teens that PETA consisted of a bunch of whackos who give actual animal rights and environmental organizations a bad name.
PETA reminds me a lot of Scientology, get some impressionable but stupid big name celebrities to endorse you and you can suck in even more impressionable but stupid people. If celebrities would stop endorsing PETA it might go a long way to removing some of their influence. Unfortunately I don’t think there are too many that will speak out against them because they are probably afraid of what they would do … so, it’s actually a lot like Scientology.
Indeed they do prefer shelters that euthanize over ones that don’t; if you disagree with their reasons, I’d be interested in hearing why. That’s not what was claimed, however: the claim was that they oppose no-kill shelters. That’s very different from saying that no-kill shelters are “less than ideal.”
And Penn and Teller are, IMO, a highly unreliable source on anything. They’re entertainers, but they have very little patience with objectivity or accuracy, in my experience.
Daniel
Ok, how about this, also from the PETA website.
It would be more instructive for us if you would attack their arguments rather than their characters.
What does it mean to have “little patience with objectivity or accuracy?” Can you provide any examples? Specifically, from the source cited?
FWIW, I suspect that they would be an extremely reliable source on the art of illusion. Does that fall under the category of “anything?”
Hee hee hee… like that twit Pamela Anderson. She is a PETA spokeswhore who is often photographed wearing her favorite Ugg boots. At least, she USED to be…
When she was recently asked about why she was wearing sheepskins, she was stunned and horrified. Apparently, Dr. Dipshit didn’t know they were animal skins- she thought they were just animals “shaved humanely.” The article I read inferred that she also wasn’t exactly sure that they came from sheep.
:rolleyes: until it hurts…
Do you believe that there any any unsubstantiated claims in the OPs letter? If so, which do you find questionable?
You haven’t read all that extensively, I guess, because their own website page, that I cited in post #55, clearly opposes “no-kill” shelters.
This may well be, but I don’t understand why this comment is here. There was no mention of either the Center for Consumer Freedom or the SF Chronicle prior to your post.
Oops, I take that back, I see the link to a SF Chronicle article. Aside from the judgemental tone, which I find rather offensive myself, do you question the claims about them euthanizing animals? Do you say that they did not kill all the animals in the van, or simply dispute the claim that it was done inhumanely?
Again, I don’t understand. Are you saying they were only convicted of this minor crime because they didn’t kill the animals, or because their method of killing didn’t constitute “abuse”?
You are certainly entitled to your opinion. My opinion about PETA has changed from bad to worse with this thread. I had no idea they euthanized animals they “rescued”, or that they oppose no-kill shelters.
They seem to be agressively applying Patrick Henry’s maxim, “Give me liberty or give me death!” to animals. Better they be dead than caged, maybe even if the cage is a normal home in a suburban neighborhood.
While I agree with you that P & T are entertainers, it is had to argue with what they say, when they back it up with quotes and video clips of Ms. Newkirk.
No, not especially.
My experience with arguing with you on such points is that you focus on minutiae and tangents such as these to the extent that such argument proves unproductive. If that’s something that equates to a victory for you, have it with my blessing.
Yes: for example, there’s the claim that PETA opposes no-kill shelters. The word “opposes” is nebulous, of course, but when PETA opposes something, generally they boycott it, launch ludicrous protests against it, get plasticky models to go naked in full-page ads against it, compare it to the Holocaust, etc. PETA has simply said that so-called “no-kill” shelters are less than ideal–a position that is wholly reasonable, a position that’s shared by many mainstream animal welfare groups like HSUS and AH.
The idea that Newkirk has “confessed” to euthanasia is phrased so bizarrely that it almost counts as an inaccuracy. If you live in a metropolitan area, someone near you is euthanizing animals, or else you’re overrun by rabid dogs. There is no other alternative. That person who performs the euthanasia may hate animals, or they may love animals. One of the oddities of modern animal welfare is that the euthanasia of animals today is often performed by animal lovers, simply because the animal lovers recognize that if they’re not doing the job, the animals will be euthanized by someone who treats them horrendously in their final moments.
[qute]Do you say that they did not kill all the animals in the van, or simply dispute the claim that it was done inhumanely?
[/quote]
I dispute the claim that it was done inhumanely to the degree necessary to qualify as felony animal abuse under North Carolina law. Prior to the case’s resolution, I based that dispute on my experience working with an animal control department. After the case’s resolution, I based it on the jury’s verdict. FWIW, I think the guys performing the euthanasia were total tweakers and assholes. I believe PETA fired them. If PETA did not, they’re tweakers and assholes in this regard as well (in addition to being tweakers and assholes in such matters as comparing meat-eating to the Holocaust).
This is a totally inaccurate summary of PETA’s position. It’s not necessary to like PETA in order to understand where they’re coming from, and what irritates me is when PETA opponents make them out to be even worse than they already are.
Daniel