yup

Would you marry a sheep? Would you, since there is no difference in the value of an animal or a human, would you put animals on trial for crimes, as you would a human? Would you allow dogs to vote for president? What if it voted Republican?

wow… i mean… WOW! that is the stupidest rebuttal i’ve ever heard… sounds like something Rick Santorum would say. i think this conversation is over now.

Thanks to Mike K for giving his very well thought out and eloquent “2 cents”.

The problem I have with the dismissal of PETA’s arguments and methods by some posters here is that they fail to realize the breadth of the division that lays between accepting the tenets of the Animal Rights movement and the status quo in this country. Without going into too many details, Philosophers like Pete Singer strongly believe that that the distinction between human and other animals is as arbitrary as the lines between whites and other races, or men and women. That is, (and Singer is explicitly states this,) Speciesism is literally on par with Racism or Sexism.

You can accept this stance or deny it. The argument has been going on for well over a century. The thing is, IF you do come to accept the notion of Speciesism, the whole world suddenly goes topsy turvy. If the moral status of animals is acknowledged (that is, they are seen as having equal, though different, rights as humans), then, in the words of J.M. Coetzee’s fictional character, Elizabeth Costello, the status quo is “an enterprise of degradation, cruelty, and killing which rivals anything that the Third Reich was capable of.” If you don’t think animals have rights, this is a horrendous statement. But if you have made that ethical leap, then it becomes a statement of fact, an obvious one at that.

It’s not easy to inhabit the gray area between the two points of view. No, strike that, it is easy, but only through willful ignorance. Once you begin to actively think about the morality of the situation (and that’s the stage I’m at), it’s nearly impossible to straddle the fence. Because the fundamental argument is whether the line between “human” and “animal” is arbitrary. I can respect those who have thought about the issue and decided that, in the words of Dave, “[there exists] a qualitative difference between a human and an animal conciousness.” But I don’t waste my time arguing with people who choose not to even think about the question and instead apout as baseless of a rebuttal as “that’s just the way it is.” Actually it just occurred to me that that’s a lyric from a Sting song, later redone by Tupac (Changes). If you know what Tupac was singing about, you know why the irony is making me grin right now.

This is what happens when I post a comment at work: I start out writing a little blurb and an hour and a half later I have to force myself to stop writing.

Sheer absurdity.

Yes, I do believe that a human life is intrinsically more valuable than an animals. For example, given the choice between saving a human or a dog from, say a burning wreck, I would choose the human. Can you honestly say that you would have agonize over the choice, or would you have to flip a coin? Or would you choose the dog over the human, without hesitation?

Would you marry a sheep? Would you, since there is no difference in the value of an animal or a human, would you put animals on trial for crimes, as you would a human? Would you allow dogs to vote for president? What if it voted Republican?

The fact is that there are differences between humans and animals. Do animals deserve to suffer needlessly? No. I think harming animals for fun is wrong. Do I think that animal suffering should be minimized? Yes. Do I think that the industrial meat industry is reprehensible? Yes.

But, in this argument PETA are the pro-lifers who can’t see the difference between a stem-cell and a human.

which of those answers applies to you, and which one applies to PeTA?

it is my opinion that the more enlightened a culture becomes, the less suffering it causes to it’s people, it’s resources, and it’s environment (and by resources and environment, i mean to include the animals).

anyway… it all boils down to a difference in core beliefs. you believe that humans are intrinsically more valuable than animals. i do not. There’s no way i, or PeTA, can convince you otherwise. It’s like trying to convince a pro-life activist that using stem cells is not murder- you are asking someone to change the core of their beliefs and that is very dificult to do.

Chris, the American, suggested that the boys at least kill the lizard so that it wouldn’t suffer further. The Costa Ricans’ response was, “no, we don’t do that.” They simply did not concern themselves at all with the lizard’s grotesque suffering. They didn’t care at all.

But, blacks are and always have been, in fact, human. They are the same species as all other humans. They have speech and intellects and song. It always was a lie to say that they weren’t. Cows ARE NOT human. One can say they are as much as they want, but they aren’t.

i agree… and i think that the message of the PeTA campaign is clear and easy to interpret UNLESS you pick on certain aspects of it individually.

I suppose if you’re a middle-class urban dwelling white dude, you might think that it would take an intentional effort to be offended by it. But, not everybody is going to see it that way, especially the historically oppressed minorities depicted in the campaign.

But, when you are talking graphic art as part of a campaign – it needs to be easily interpreted, hard to misinterpret, clear, and unambiguous, or it is bad.

i agree… and i think that the message of the PeTA campaign is clear and easy to interpret UNLESS you pick on certain aspects of it individually.

not to keep beating a dead horse, but i have one more thing to pick on with Dave:

TomN – your point regarding Huckleberry Finn is tangental at best.

i don’t see how it is tangential- Huck Finn was written with the intent of calling attention to the unpopular idea that Blacks are People, too. It was controversial in it’s time, and continues to be controversial today. At the time, it was often banned in the South because it offended the people who did not agree that Black people were People. Those Southerners who enjoy a good lynching, disagreed with the concept of humanizing black people. Some people today disagree with the use of the “n-word” in the book. So, people that disagree with the use of that word are unable to see the greater context of the book.

As I see it- this PeTA campaign is attempting the same message about animals (although not as eloquently as Mr. Twain’s great work). This campagin was created with the intent of calling attention to the unpopular idea that Animals suffer, too . That is a controversial viewpoint because people like to eat meat and go to the circus. People who enjoy a good cheese-burger disagree with the concept of humanizing animals. And people who are easily offended, with a gut reaction to the imagery of the PeTA campaign, are unable to see the greater context of the campaign.

I understand you disagree with that “animals are people” concept, and I’m not trying to compare meat-eaters to lynch mobs or slave-owners (though ask me about the corporate meat industry and i might make the comparison). I’m simply trying to compare the PeTA campaign controversey to the controverseys over the book Huck Finn.