Animal Rights – Human Responsibility
Animal Rights is a concept with no place in law. Legal rights are tied hand in hand with legal responsibility.
Can a dog understand a right to vote?
Can a cat understand the requirement of a license?
Can any animal comprehend killing another animal as murder? Raiding a garbage can as theft or vandalism?
Should an animal be prosecuted for its crimes? How would it offer a defense?
These are the legal implications of codifying animal rights into law. Justice is blind but so is law. When the question is asked, “Should animals have the same rights as people?” the unasked portion of the question is, “Should animals have the same responsibilities as people?” The answer to one is the answer to the other.
Humans are the only species to have codified law, the only species capable of choosing to follow law and choosing to break it. This is why I believe in Human Responsibilty, something finer and something attainable.
A movement for Human Responsibility, now that is something worth fighting for.
Copyright 2009 by Erica Saunders
All rights reserved
All rights reserved
Interesting.
Most “anti-animal rights” personas are (not too surprisingly) anti-humane as well. They protest the loudest when any kind of humane legislation against factory farming, product testing, fur trapping and ranching and anti-horse slaughtering and puppy mill legislation is being pushed forward. The response is unvarying, like a mantra.
I trust this is yet another weird incarnation of the irrepressable Patti Strand and her front group for AKC puppy mills, horse slaughter, factory farming the fur and vivisection industry.
The same idiotic arguments btw, were used to repress and retard progress on womens rights, the abolition of slavery and the repression of “souless” humans like Jews. When people can rationalize the “inferior” status of “non-humans”, almost any attocitiy is justifiable as can be well documented in human history.
Children, btw, cannot be held responsible or prosecuted to the full extent of the law. However, neither are they housed in squalor, cut up alive in laboratories or trapped in steel leg hold devices to either chew off their own feet or be clubbed to death after up to three days of unimaginable torment.
Good laws protecting animals benefit humanity just as a lack of compassionate, ethics and honesty as displayed by corporate shills such as the Center for Consumer Freedom and Patti Strand of the National Animal Interest Allance and the American Kennel Club, do not. Safe, clean farms which have no need for steriods and antibiotics due to filth and overcrowding, protect the food supply, the environment and small farming communities.
Responsible behavior towards animals includes kind, compassionate care of pets, wild life and farm animals. A vegetarian or vegan diet is ofcourse, the ultimate in compassion and respect for animals and is also beneficial to health and the environment.
Believe it or not, AR-HR.com is entirely unaffiliated with NAIA, AKC, CCF or any of the listed groups and industries.
Perhaps the greatest difference between us is that I support your right to live and believe as you choose, with those rights protected by law, though we disagree. Whereas I suspect that you do not extend similar support or courtesy.
Please. If this is the premise for your one person vendetta against the “Animal Rights Industry” as you refer to it, it is a pretty lame one “to say the least.”
Btw, what exactly does this “industry” produce? Furthermore, you claim to be “unaffliliated” with the pet and other animal commerce. I find this to be very singular, if not unprecedented, in media personas of your type. What exactly is your back ground in this matter. I believe this is a fair question, since you have taken it upon yourself to be a critic. What do you know about HSUS or PETA programs for example? Have you ever actually worked or been affiliated or even volunteered for an animal shelter or rescue in any capacity?
Your “right” to abuse and neglect animals, simply does not deserve or merit my “courtesty”, nor anyone else’s. Believe it or not, even beings who “cannot vote” or “understand the requirements of a license”, have a right not to be tortured and harrassed. What “crime” have institutionlized animals committed which condemns them to lives of almost constant pain, discomfort, fear, ill health and eventual violent death? Even death row prisoners get an hour of exercise a day outside thier cells.
I have to admit, you are certainly feeding the rage and giving your dog breeding public exactly what they want to hear. Recently, btw, the good “Dog Clubs” (puppy mill lobbyists) almost went into a frenzy at the new laws in Pennsylvania, requiring a full 20 minutes of exercise a day, for their kennel breeding stock.
Anyone who doesn’t buy in to a militant “animal rights” agenda is inherently an animal abuser?
Anyone who has a contrary opinion is affiliated with some “front group”. Don’t even get me started on *that* term…the go-to term aimed at discrediting any organization that doesn’t subscribe to an animal prohibition agenda. Classic.
What an incredible amount of hostility towards someone presenting her opinion (and lots of facts too). Guess it’s easy to figure out why some people assume it’s so easy for others to mistreat animals, when they can’t even afford a fellow human being some common decency and respect.
Tracy
If by “militant animal rights agenda” you mean humane treatment of animals, I think that you are the one who is stereotyping.
The issues I referred to (none of which appear on this blog) concern institutionalized abuse of animals. The “anti-animal rights” movement characterizes any moves or legislation aimed at factory farming, horse slaughter, product testing for anything from agrochemicals, viagra, tobacco and food additives like Splenda (for which approx 13,000 animals gave their lives), as “extremism”. Many of these products would not be on the market if not declared “safe” by animal testing. Deaths from side effects of pharmaceuticals are the third higest cause of death in the United States, after diet related illnesses (heart disease and cancer.)
Even if you can justify the brutilizing of animals with propanganda, which includes stereotypes and hyperbole designed to draw attention from the real issues, there are human dangers as well.
Furthermore, the groups I referred to are lobbyists for commercial animal industries, operating under tax free “charitable” status. They spend most of their time defaming and harrassing animal rights, health advocates, etc. CCF also advocates against labor, minimum wage, health care and alchohol limits. It recieved its initial start up money from Phillip Morris and is active in tobacco lobbying. Tobacco products are still widely testing on animals. In fact the largest importer of primates to the United States and the largest breeder of lab animal dogs in the world, is Covance Laboratories, formerly Hazelton Labs, a contracter for Phillip Morris. Hazelton claimed for years that tobacco was not hazardous to human health, because animals did not develope diseases, in spite of being hooked up 24/7 to smoke inhalation diseases.
Wow, I guess these qualify as “facts” too. However, my original question still stands. “Erica Saunders” recently appeared out of nowhere this year. This site provides no background or profile, other than the disclaimer. Furthermore, I have seen not so many “facts”, but easily deflated and sophomoric arguments and opinions.
If a simple request for some background information is “disrespectful” (as opposed to a one issue blog catering to dog breeders and other animal commerce which claims to have “no affiliation”), then I submit you are unrealistic and overly sensitive. HSUS has many wonderful programs which support shelters and shelter personnel and address pet overpopulation. They also address the 4 million dogs a year killed for fur and meat in Asia. Top personnel for HSUS and PETA for example, do not hide their backgrounds. Ingrid Newkirk for example, worked for years in shelters and animal control before starting PETA. She opened the first free spay/neuter clinic in Washington DC.
To insinuate that these people are “militant” because they advocate for abused animals, is not only disrespectful, but insane. No one who has worked for any time in a shelter or pound, would deny the value of animal advocacy and the need for better laws.
The facts are around 4 million dogs and cats ethuthanized per year. This is only companion animals. There is nothing in this ridiculous blog which circumvents these facts.
The problem Ginger with information it’s odviously biased. I don’t have the information exactly infront of me right now, but your quotes about PETA and HSUS being great stewards is ridiculous. PETA kills more animals a year than just about anyone. Also why does Erica Saunders have to give you her information? So you and your co-horts can berate her and her family. All she is doing is taking public information and adding common sense and logic to it. I would like to see your rebuttal to her arguements using logic and facts to which you call “sophmoric” Go ahead and try to argue away the fact that PETA kills animals. Or look into the facts about where the money donated to HSUS goes. These are the items that need to be brought into the public attention. I believe that we have a responsibility to take care of the animals which God has given us. But I do not believe as some HSUS supporters believe “that an ant should have every legal protection as my son”!
What are you talking about?
Who is “berating her and her family”?
I am still trying to figure out if she is a real person, and not just a cyperspace entity. Give me a break.
PETA “kills more animals than anyone?” I hope you are including Tyson Foods and Smithfield in this statement? What about Phillip Morris? Oh, we are talking about “euthanizing” animals destined for the gas chambers or shot gun?
Please. You’ve been reading too many CCF websites. Euthanizing unwanted animals due to overbreeding and lack of spay/neuter legislation in North Carolina (and everywhere in the U.S.), is a little different from breeding them in order to torment and kill them, as with say, Covance Laboratories. This lab has btw, been the subject of PETA investigations.
PETA is btw, not an “animal shelter”, but if they were, I would assume they would be harrassed and criticized as well. No matter how animal advocates attempt to deal with pet overpopulation, they are criticized. I loved “Erica’s” article musing on “what the difference was” between shelters and rescues and pet shops”.
PETA did not create this problem. They are also btw, trying to help farm animals, wild life, lab animals and other animals used in commerce. An estimated 2 million animals a year are taken by class-B dealers, are they better off? Taken from the street, from pounds and even from thier own yards to spend the rest of their lives in cages getting chemical poured down thier throats.
There is no shortage of shelters in North Carolina or rescues. They are all overcrowded and overburdened. The shelter in my area puts down 3,000 animals a year, thanks to overbreeding and people simply leaving their dogs on chains to vegetate and become impregnated by any passing dog.
PETA has spent over 300,000 dollars on shelter in NC in the last few years and provided services which include cleaning, adoption services and humane ethanasia by injection. Ofcourse, no doubt you would rather see these animals suffocated alive in chambers, vomiting and banging their heads against walls or preferably, never to hear about it at all.
Oh, an estimated 93 animals a year are saved by simply going vegetarian.
As I said, this is a one issue blog catering to breeders and animal abuse “extremists”. It certainly does not speak for the majority, who do support humane laws including spay/neuter, anti-puppy mill legislation and laws that support humane treatment of farm animals. 74% of the citizens of the U.S. would like to abolish steel leg hold traps, for example, which have been banned in most other western countries.
Are you a member of HSUS btw? What do you know about PETA programs? As I stated before, HSUS has many wonderful programs. They support shelter personnel, hold seminars and publish a magazine just for shelter workers. PETA also provides spay /neuter services for free to local areas.
However, I know from experience that actual facts and data, mean nothing to those profiting from animal misery.
Oh, and your last (ridiculous statement) is so typical of the black and white, cartoonish propaganda so popular with corporate shills and their gullible followers. Lets just forget about the cows dismembered alive in Tyson Factory farms and the filthy, polluting hell holes run by Smithfield (whose factories singlehandedly destroyed the ecosystem in the Chesapeake Bay and surrounding rivers with hog wastes) and worry about the “ant having more rights than my son!”
Oh please, give it a rest. When people start making jokes about human roadkill and refer to children’s advocates as “militant extremists”, then we can talk.
Hey, btw, I didn’t mean to incite the lynch mob. I didn’t realize that requesting some information on the background of a person who seems to spend the better part of their day pointing the finger, spreading rumors and disinformation and inciting hatred, was so completely out of bounds and “disrespectful”. I won’t waste anymore of your (or my time). For all I know after all, I am simply communicating with more of Patti Strand’s sock puppets.
Amazing, almost all of this material could be lifted verbatim from NAIA websites. Perhaps poor Ms. Strand has actually become so immersed in her new cyber identity, she actually believes she is not a breeder, lobbyist and long time board member of the AKC, which made about 26 million off puppy mill registries in 2006.
She certainly has every reason to write under an assumed name. I guess the big givaway was how a person with apparently no other identity or location, could be “harrassed and berated”.
Ginger,
Although I am somewhat flattered that you continue to think I might actually be Patti Strand, I am not and AR-HR.com is not affiliated with NAIA. (though I don’t have anything against NAIA) I hope that Ms. Strand is not upset that you think I am her.
Consider that you have left at least a half dozen monologues on this site in 24 hours, and I have had the courtesy to allow them to be public.
I have no need give up the limited privacy that I have to someone who has no reason to have it other than to satisfy irritated curiosity. I merely write about issues that I and the AR-HR.com community find thought-provoking. Certainly I ask more questions that I have answers.
I am curious whether you are more annoyed that I have ‘come out of nowhere’ yet been able to communicate my thoughts effectively or that you have difficulty countering my research with documentation of your own? I find it dificult to determine. Certainly I have offered the HSUS the opportunity in writing to demonstrate where I have made factual errors so that I may correct them. They have not done so, despite extensive review of the articles on the website.
Regardless of the differences in our positions, thank you for reading AR-HR.com and contributing to the dialogue
Erica Saunders
AR-HR.com Founder
Ms. Saunders,
No flattering intended I assure you. I am sure that you “don’t have anything against the NAIA”, you sound just like them. The difference? They are lobbyist and actively involved in animal breeding and commerce. Like you, they offer plenty of critism, but no solutions, certainly like you, they take no responsibity for the animal breeding industry and their complaints about AR groups are mainly due to humane legislation, guidelines and programs.
I have offered numerous questions myself as to your background, which you continue to defer. Really, privacy? You seem to be a able to dish it out, but you obviously have no idea what you are talking about. You have not “countered” a single assertion, and like so many other conservative pundits and corporate shills, the bottom line is always money and profit hiding under the guise of a “concern for huminity” and the ridiculous “animal vs. humans” tired old drivel.
You have nothing new to add. There will always be a market for your kind of advertising.
Night Patti
Ginger must be Sarah, the new media person at HSUS. They must be the same person because I’ve never seen the two of them in the same room at the same time. Also, neither has a last name.
Proof positive. Yes.
Ginger
Talk about misrepresentation – NAIA (the organization) is NOT “actively involved in animal breeding and commerence”. Nor are they “lobbyists”. NAIA is an organization dedicated to promoting Animal Welfare and fighting Animal Rights Extremist organizations. The organization membership is a veried cross-section of people & organizations devoted to animal welfare whether it is the breeding of dogs, cats, etc., the Pet Product industry, farmers, ranchers,and others. I am so tired of ARistas (the minority of the population) trying to tell everyone else how to live. The constitution guarentees all citizens the right to Life, Liberty & The Persuit Of Happiness. I have owned dogs & cats most of my life (I’m 66) and to the best of my knowledge none of my animals have been mistreated. Also, for almost 30 years I have owned, bred, trained & shown dogs. None of which has harmed any dogs. And don’t knock showing dogs (cats, rabbits, etc) until you have visited many shows.
It appears confusion about precisely what animal rights is informs the discussion, partly because the essay that launched it displays lack of clarity. See if the definition of “animal rights” on the Animal Rights page of http://www.RPAforAll.org doesn’t help.
Animal rights is a radical movement, but that doesn’t mean it is a militant one. It is in too early a stage for militancy to help rather than prove counterproductive.
A basic-rights movement, the animal-rights movement recognizes that no one without basic autonomy and ecology rights has meaningful protection against tyranny — in the nonhuman animals’ case, tyranny of humans over the other species; in the case of humans, tyranny of government, other institutions, and the plutocracy and other more-powerful over the less-powerful.
Rights are not established through improved shopping choices or abolitionism. Rights lead to abolitionist efforts. As when the anti-slavery Abolitionism movement arose in recognition that rights otherwise established for equal application to all humans excluded those legally classed as property of others.
I hope that helps to clarify. Basically, only promoting rights promotes rights when those in need of them have none at all. Basic rights must be conferred before others can give meaningful protection.
I’m glad to discuss, but would prefer that readers explore the http://www.RPAforAll.org first as I’ve already put years of effort into clarifying these matters in writing, following over a decade (now two decades) of full-time animal-advocacy work with national organizations, little of which could effectively promote basic rights of nonhumans.
Best wishes,
David Cantor
Founder & Director
Responsible Policies for Animals, Inc.
David,
Thank you for your measured response to clarify the definition of Animal Rights from the abolitionist perspective. Although we obviously differ in our philosophical views, I always appreciate civil dialogue from all directions.
There is much confusion in the public over the true meaning of Animal Rights. Much of this appears, to my outside perspective, to be due to the myriad approaches being used by assorted members of the Animal Rights movement from the violent to the peaceful, and from the straight-forward to those depending on the confusion of the public to advance their agendas. Your willingness to clarify the position of your organization is refreshing.
Thank you
Erica Saunders
Founder
Animal Rights or Human Responsibility
Erica,
Thank you. You’re right about much of the confusion coming from association of the term “animal rights” with animal organizations that do not promote rights using a rights strategy. It’s very difficult to get that genie back in the bottle. “Animal rights” seems to have some cachet that animal advocates not promoting rights are unwilling to deny themselves. It’s as if I were advocating for a less-unsafe human food supply, had a special liking of the term “human rights,” and insisted on calling my work part of a human-rights movement.
One can say, Well, don’t people have a right to safe food? Well, if the Supreme Court has ruled that certain Constitutional Rights or previous rights decisions necessite a ruling that people have a right to safe food, or if Congress legislates a right to safe food — as compared with merely regulating the food supply for safety, then yes, people have a right to safe food. Otherwise, people who genuinely promote human rights — hour after hour, year after year articulating the argument and refining strategies to establish in constitutions and laws basic human rights where they are not already established might reasonably take umbrage at “human rights” being applied to a food-safety organization. Just call it food safetey. Why doesn’t that suffice? All that is good is not rights-related.
Interesting that you focus on responsibility. I named the organization I founded Responsible Policies for Animals after concluding that basic autonomy and ecology rights of nonhuman animals were the only conceivable responsible policy — current policy, developed over thousands of years and promoting only institutional interests and some human interests but not all interests inherent in humans’ animal nature — are the only possible overarching responsible policy. Putting everyone in everything in nature to human use, the express human trajectory for the past half-millennium or so, is not responsible, I don’t think. Evidence: disruption of the biosphere, species going extinct at 100-1,000 times the “background rate,” ever-increasing use of animals for food by naturally herbivorous humans and all of the disease and ecodestruction that entails, and infinitely more.
Best,
David Cantor