PETA recently tried suing Seaworld for its “enslavement” of whales, claiming that the amusement park had violated the animals’ 13th Amendment rights.
Here he turns the tables on them by presenting a complaint on behalf of the animals whose pictures they use in publicity materials without permission.
Also, the look on the PETA woman’s face when he starts talking about how orcas are the “field niggers” of the animal kingdom while dogs and cat are the “house niggers” is priceless.
I laughed so hard at that! I woke my better half up to watch it (he was still half asleep).
Then when he really woke up later, we watched it again
Wyatt took that woman to school.
One of the funniest bits on Jon Stewart I’ve seen in a long time.
<btw, I love the show, but that bit had me actually howling out loud>.
One of the best Daily Show bits ever. It had irony on top of irony.
That was an amazing piece by Cenac. Incredibly well crafted with a great payoff.
Man, that was old school Daily Show. Like, back when no one knew who they were, and would grant interviews thinking they were a legitimate news source. I’m surprised that PETA agreed to sit down with them. They had to know they were going to get shredded. On the other hand, I’m pretty sure if that woman turned her head just right, the wind blowing between her ears would make a sound not unlike blowing into a conch shell, so maybe it’s not so surprising after all.
Wyatt Cenac is my current favorite. Check out This one.
It was quite funny. But I dunno, I think the PETA lady had a good point. It’s not that animals in captivity are the same as human slaves, it’s that they’re both (possibly) wrong for the same reasons. The fact that an animal is different from us should not be the deciding factor in how we can treat it, the deciding factor should be its capacity for experiencing and suffering.
Humor is often conservative, in that it mocks new ideas and perspectives. I think that is the case here.
I guess that is why the Daily Show is such a conservative show.
Yep. His bit from 2010 about how the Mortgage Bankers Association skipped out on the mortgage for their own headquarters is my personal favorite.
How does Bill Maher justify being involved with this group? Has he commented on this lawsuit?
It was the old Orca spiritual that really got me… 
I cracked up when he started singing the whale spiritual.
hhhhnnnnnnNNNNNNNNGGGGGGnnnnngggghhhh…
Not exactly “Swing Low, Sweet Chariots”, but it’ll do.
Regards,
Shodan
PETA doesn’t have any new ideas or perspectives, though.
They start with ideas which have existed for ages without attracting much in the way of scorn, and then wrap them up in so many layers of self-righteousness, clownishness, and arrogance that contempt comes naturally.
Jainism includes the core ideas which PETA endorses in a supposedly secular way, but Jainism also places a high value on the cultivation of virtues such as honesty, humility, peacefulness, and compassion. If Jains reduced the range of their ideas to “It is wrong to inflict suffering on any sentient creature” and dedicated all of their energy to promoting this belief not through mere example but by drumming it out using the emotional and logical sophistication typical of middle-schoolers, then Jainism would be mocked and ridiculed like PETA is, instead of being generally well-respected for their extreme dedication to their beliefs and the way the put them into practice, even if people remain unpersuaded to follow suit.
I particularly liked the dancing the PETA person did when confronted that she owned a dog.
Are we really sure it’s not some form of surrealist performance art designed to separate the rubes from donations?
Honestly, that’s what Occam’s Razor leads me to believe.
I saw it and thought it was funny and all but I wonder how much of the interview actually happened the way they showed it? I always seems to me that there is a lot of editing done on these ‘interviews’. Sometimes you can even tell when they switch to the camera on the interviewers face that back of the head of the ‘interviewee’ is not the same person. It’s a little distracting and takes some of the fun out of it.
Brilliant piece. I also loved his interaction with the former Black Panther leader. Priceless.
Isn’t that just coverage? I thought they edit in reactions, just like the news.
I really like Bill Maher, but I will never agree with him on certain issues, including PETA and health.
After she tells him her dog’s name:
“Is that her real name or her slave name?”
I think the idea of human-level rights for higher order animals is quite new. At least in the sense that it is not very widely accepted, and many people outside of academia are not familiar with the arguments for it.
No, it’s an idea that has been hashed out in various forms for at least as long as we have recorded discourse on ethics and philosophy.
Commonsensical propositions have contributed to established thinking on animal welfare. The idea that human level rights ought to be afforded to all sentient creatures and not only us sapient types has never gained much traction because it doesn’t stand up well to the application of reason.