Animal rightsVeg ism FAQ
Animal Rights Vegetarianism Veganism Arguments
This website is meant to provide a one stop resource for those seeking information related to the scientific, historical, philosophical and spiritual arguments associated with the animal rights movement. It is intended for those seeking answers to the standard, tired attacks and questions one encounters, and also the more obscure, ludicrous attempts. If you want to win animal rights arguments, you will find your ammo here. Webmaster can attest, "never lost a debate using this website content." Additions (friendly or hostile) to the list are welcome. Please submit them to: askweebler@hotmail.com. Sorry if some emails went unanswered--the junkmail filter is mean.
(Last Update: November 24 2004) *** Added more evidence as to why humans are not caretakers of Nature. Wildlife Management section, question 4, response c. Added new argument in Religion Section 14, Question 1, response g on the subject of why "Satan meant us to eat meat."
The Animal Rights Q and A List This section sums up the most basic questions that animal activists are asked about the AR philosophy.
LEGEND:
Philosophical responses: general and specific(i.e. Utilitarian)
Religious responses: general and doctrine specific(i.e. Christian, Buddhist, etc.)
Scientific/Historical responses: general and specific with references
Humorous responses: cute and caustic
Questions-attacks/Responses have been divided into these sub-categories for easier use. It is recommended, however, to check multiple sections to find a particular variety of argument. For example, many of the same arguments used for Hunting can also be used for Fishing or for the Wildlife Management sections after a little rewording. Most topical arguments rely on a variation of the "human supremacy myth" as a foundation to their beliefs. These arguments can be found under Human Supremacy, but various aspects of this approach can be found in other sections as well. Some of the more generic arguments can be located under Misc.
5)EQUALITY
7)FISHING
8)FUR
10)HUNTING
11)MEAT EATING AND DAIRY CONSUMPTION
12)MISC.
14)RELIGION
17)TRAPPING
19)ZOOS
*
1: ANIMAL RIGHTS back
1)Question/attack: "If we give respect or rights to animals we will diminish our own rights and respect for humans."
Response: a) Sumer, one of the earliest and most powerful of the
ancient Mesopotamian city-states, managed its slaves the same way it managed its livestock. The Sumerians castrated
the males and put them to work like domesticated animals, and they put the females in work and breeding camps. The
Sumerian word for castrated slave boys--amar-kud--is the same word the Sumerians used for young castrated donkeys,
horses, and oxen."
--from Chapter 1
Charles Patterson's Eternal Treblinka: Our Treatment of Animals and the
Holocaust (http://www.powerfulbook.com/excerpts.html)
Response: b)"Although the purpose of the German killing centers was the extermination of human beings, they operated in the
larger context of society's exploitation and slaughter of animals, which to some extent they mirrored. The Germans did
not stop slaughtering animals when they took up slaughtering people. Auschwitz, which its commandant Rudolf Hoss called
"the largest human slaughterhouse that history had ever known," had its own slaughterhouse and butcher's shop. The
other death camps likewise kept their personnel well supplied with animal flesh. Sobibor had a cow shed, pigpen,
and henhouse, which were next to the entrance to the tube that took Jews to the gas chambers, while Treblinka had a
stable, pigpen, and henhouse located near the camp barracks of the Ukrainian auxiliaries.-from
Charles Patterson's Eternal Treblinka: Our Treatment of Animals and the
Holocaust Chapter 5 (http://www.powerfulbook.com/excerpts.html)
Response: c) So does that mean if whites give rights or respect to non whites (or vice versa) that it diminishes their own rights and respect? If men give rights or respect to women(or vice versa) that they diminish their own rights and respects? It would seem you want to preserve the rights of some to not respect the rights of others.
Response d)
Edgar
Kupfer-Koberwitz
postscript of the book "Radical Vegetarianism" by Mark Mathew Braunstein (1981
Panjandrum Books, Los Angeles, CA). The book is subtitled "A Dialectic
of Diet and Ethic" and is recommended to all vegetarians especially those
interested in natural hygiene. "
for us to fight and to overcome even the great cruelties. But we are still
sleeping, all of us, in habitudes and inherited attitudes. They are like a fat,
juicy sauce which helps us to swallow our own cruelties without tasting their
bitterness.I have not the intention to point out with my finger at this and
that, at
definite persons and definite situations. I think it is much more my duty to
stir up my own conscience in smaller matters, to try to understand other people
better, to get better and less selfish. Why should it be impossible then to act
accordingly with regard to more important issues? That is the point: I want to
grow up into a better world where a higher law grants more happiness, in a new
world where God's commandment reigns:
You Shall Love Each Other."
Edgar Kupfer-Koberwitz
2)Question/Attack: "When discussing animal rights, it is always important that you have balance--and show the other side of the issue."
Response: a) If someone can talk about Negro slave emancipation without allowing a KKK member to give the "other side" of the issue, if someone can talk about hunting Nazi war criminals without showing the "other side" of the issue, and if a news reports on a "breakthrough" in cancer research doesn't need to allow an animal rights activist to speak out on the perversion of altruism inherent in all animal research, then we don't have to do that either.
Response: b) Since the preponderance of arguments on the subject of animal rights is favorable to the cause, a true balance is impossible. It is like trying to find a balanced argument on the pros and cons of jumping off buildings without parachutes. One side is definitely stronger than the other.
Response: c) The other side of the issue is always discussed in animal issues! Since the arguments in favor of animal exploitation are so weak why would an animal rights activist not want to expose the stupidity and erroneous nature of the other side?
3)Question/attack:
response:
a) it appears you are in need of taking a logic class.
response: b) you support human rights? therefore you must
support the actions of John Brown, slavery abolitionist who killed pro-slavery
people.
response: c) Last I checked, it is the people who support wars against unarmed civilians who support blowing up buildings.
response: d) At least we don' t support beating and killing unarmed people. There are many many many cases of hunt supporters in the UK beating people with whips, running them over with cars and horses--whether they be AR activists, people just standing on their property, or reporters Hunt saboteur, Mike Hill, was killed on the 9th of February 1991 at a meet of the Cheshire Beagles. Towards the end of the day's hunting, with no kill under his belt, the huntsman boxed up his hounds in a small blue trailer being towed by an open-top pick-up truck. The kennel huntsman, ALLAN SUMMERSGILL, with another man, jumped into the pick-up and, on impulse, three sabs(hunt saboteurs) who were nearby, jumped onto the back of it to prevent them driving the pack to another location to continue hunting. Summersgill drove off at high speeds down winding country roads for 5 miles with the terrified sabs clinging onto the back. It is thought that Mike jumped from the pick-up as it slowed to take a bend. He failed to clear the truck properly, and was caught between the truck and the trailer, which crushed him. Mike died where he lay on the road. Despite the thud, and the screams of the other sabs, Summersgill continued driving for a further mile. The truck only came to a halt when one of the sabs smashed the rear window of the cab. The sab was hit with a whip as he tried to stop the truck. Once it had stopped one sab ran back to Mike's prone body while the other ran to a nearby house to call for an ambulance. Summersgill drove off. He later handed himself in at a police station. No charges were brought against him and in a travesty of justice, a verdict of 'Accidental Death' was brought at the inquest. Summersgill is still hunting hares. *** 1993: On the 3rd of April 1993, T(h)om Worby, a 15 year old saboteur attending his first foxhunt protest, was crushed under the wheels of the Cambridgeshire FH's hound van in an incident all too reminiscent of the killing of Mike Hill two years before. After a successful day's sabbing, the hunt had boxed up and sabs were making their way back to the meet down a narrow lane. As the hound van came up behind them, revving its engine, sabs scrambled for the roadside; however Tom's jacket became snagged in the vehicles wing mirror and he was dragged some distance before he managed to gain a foothold on the van's running board. Although he banged on the window the van kept going, and when Tom finally lost his grip, he fell onto the road and under the truck's wheels. His head was crushed by the rear wheels of the vehicle and he died shortly afterwards. No action was taken against the driver of the hound van, 53-year-old huntsman ALAN BALL. *****38-year-old KENNETH MANSBRIDGE, a supporter of the Hursley Hambledon Foxhunt, convicted of Unlawful Wounding on a Green Party researcher, who needed hospital treatment for serious head wounds after being kicked and beaten by a group of hunt followers 1991. MANSBRIDGE admitted kicking the victim in the groin and punching him to the ground. (On the same day, another protester was beaten around the head with a spade, and left needing 10 stitches and a 6 and a half months pregnant woman was hit on the head with half a brick, needing 4 stitches). MANSBRIDGE was sentenced to 140 hours community service and ordered to pay costs of £150. 1998: Supporter of the Dunston Harriers, PATRICK EVERETT managed to get the hunt banned from one village after he viciously attacked a party of 1 man, 2 women and four children who had stopped to watch the hunt pass by. He was fined £800. ***** (HSA News Feature 5th August 1999) Hunt Violence courtesy of http://www.huntsabs.org.uk/ *****"In June 1990, hunt supporter John Newberry-Street gained much valuable anti-saboteur publicity when a nail-bomb was found under his Land Rover. Further investigation revealed that he had planted the bomb himself and he later told police "I did it to discredit the animal rights saboteurs". He was jailed for nine months for his bomb hoax and asked for several other similar offences to be taken into account." ***** January 1994 Duke of Buccleuch's Foxhunt. An independent academic, commissioned by the Scottish Office to carry out research on saboteurs and hunting, was knocked to the ground and kicked in the face by the huntsman as he tried to film a fox being killed. The hunt refused to apologise and later attempted to excuse their employee's actions by saying they thought the man was a saboteur. ****"From now on, we're going to start hunting the saboteurs..."This is BFSS spokesman Nick Herbert's chilling announcement of the introduction of "stewards" to "deal with" saboteurs. ****Mr John Weavers, a member of the rural community hunts claim to represent, was quietly sitting at home one Saturday afternoon in 1990 when the Cury Foxhunt rampaged through his property. When he asked them to leave and complained at the damage caused he was headbutted by Geoffrey Thomas, master of the hunt, who then shunted one of Mr Weavers' cars into another. ******"one brave woman, a former hunt supporter of many years' standing, has decided to stand up and speak out against this culture of violence. Her name is Lynn Sawyer and she was at one time as committed to hunting as she is now repelled by it. She acted as a mole for the BFSS and found that saboteurs were not violent extremists motivated by class hatred, a tale she and every other hunt supporter had been force-fed for years. Instead, she found that saboteurs were on the whole deeply committed, sincere individuals who acted out of great and genuine concern for animals and that her own side were deliberately distorting the truth and provoking violence simply to suit their long-term political aims. Ironically, it was only the depth of her involvement in hunting that allowed her access to the inner echelons denied to most hunt supporters, where she encountered the brutality behind the respectable facade which was to make her question her support for bloodsports and ultimately turn her back on that world for ever. "For several reasons in 1990, I could no longer continue these activities and I then spent four years trying to ascertain what exactly my feelings were. I spent time with the Shire hunts (the Quorn, Cottesmore, and Belvoir Foxhounds) and revisited the Essex before deciding earlier this year that it was time to speak out in the hope of stemming the tide of grossly exaggerated anti-sab propaganda and the violence it has brought to the field.I went to great lengths to discuss the issue of hunt violence with the BFSS and other pro-hunting people [including John Hopkinson, Stephen Loveridge, Peter Smith and Nick Herbert of the BFSS and John Swift, director of the British Association for Shooting and Conservation (BASC)] before, and indeed for some time after, it became clear that I could not permeate their rather narrow-minded way of thinking or change or influence any of them without being patronised or being singled out as a trouble-maker." http://www.huntsabs.org.uk/
Response: e) So much for
anti-animal rights people caring about humans! "During the winter of 1994 terrified young calves were flown from Coventry to end their lives in Dutch veal-crates. A few people started protesting at the airport gates. Jill
Phipps was one. As a transporter came down the road to the gates she would run to it, banging on the door with her fists, shouting at the drivers to think about the suffering they caused.. The few police there would turn out and simply man-handle her and anyone else behaving similarly out of the way. Then came February 1st 1995. There were about 76 police there that day. There were about 32 demonstrators. That's over two police to every decent person
there. There were enough of them to surround the transporter and walk it through!! Jill and a few others eluded the police, most of whom were in a van at the back, and reached the transporter. Any good driver would have stopped until it was safe to continue, but Stephen Yates just drove on, regardless and uncaring. Jill was crushed and died on the way to hospital. Our mother, Nancy, was with her. The driver has never been charged, not even with "driving without due care & attention". AT THE INQUEST THE POLICE STATED THAT THEIR ACTIONS HAD BEEN PLANNED BY A SPECIALIST TACTICIAN, AND THAT THE DAY HAD BEEN VERY SUCCESSFUL...." Zab Phipps
(http://www.violenceinanimalrights.co.uk/Fatalities.html)
Response: f) Although we know that
hunters, not being the smartest of people, have been known to shoot each other in the
woods, here is just a few recent examples of hunters shooting and killing non-hunters. : Wis. woman walking dogs shot by hunter
Associated Press — Dec. 3, 2001 CHIPPEWA FALLS, Wis. — A woman walking her dogs was mistakenly shot and killed by a deer hunter. "He saw movement and mistook her for an animal and shot her," Tom Bokelman, a safety officer with the state Natural Resources Department. The 47-year-old woman was wearing a white cap and dark clothing when she was shot Saturday, Dec. 1. The hunter was using a muzzleloader, as part of a special muzzleloader deer season. Muzzleloaders are single-shot rifles in which the powder and shot are loaded through the end of the barrel
instead of the breech. The district attorney will decide whether to file charges.
(http://espn.go.com/outdoors/hunting/news/2001/1203/1289389.html)*****Hunter's bullet possibly kills Penn. woman
Associated Press — Nov. 28, 2001 MILL RUN, Pa. — A 66-year-old woman was killed when a bullet apparently fired by a hunter went through a window, wall and a door in her home and struck her in the neck, authorities said. Meriel Renee Bowser was struck by the bullet in her bedroom Tuesday afternoon, Nov. 28, and died shortly afterward, according to police. "The odds of (a bullet) coming through the woods, not hitting a tree, going through all that material in the house and hitting a person is ... million-to-one odds," said Charles May of the Pennsylvania Game Commission. State police and Game Commission officials were investigating. A hunter was being questioned Tuesday and the hunter's rifle had been taken to determine whether the bullet that killed Bowser was fired from that gun. Authorities said the hunter, who was not identified, was at least 450 yards away from Bowser's home.
State law requires hunters to be at least 150 yards from a residence. Mill Run is in Fayette County in southwestern Pennsylvania.
(http://espn.go.com/outdoors/hunting/news/2001/1128/1286062.html)*****CONNECTICUT
Man Walking His Dog Killed By Hunter A Coventry man was charged with illegal hunting and manslaughter in late October after he shot and killed a Massachusetts man walking in the woods.
Coventry police responding to a report of gunshots found Ronald Eckert Jr., 33, of Hingham, Mass., wounded from gunfire. Eckert died at the scene despite resuscitation efforts.
Brian McMahon, Jr., 23, was charged with manslaughter, illegal discharge of a firearm, hunting without a license, illegal deer hunting, hunting on a Sunday, trespassing and failure to wear an orange vest. He was held on $250,000 bond.
Police say the two men did not know each other. Apparently McMahon mistook Eckert for a deer.
(http://www.gunsandgear.com/America%20Outdoors/Archives/man_killed_by_hunter.html)
******* I guess one can say that being able to go out and kill a four legged
animal is more important than protecting the lives of two legged ones: Shooters yesterday criticised the four-year sentence for manslaughter handed down to a deer hunter who accidentally shot a man out walking his dog.
The state executive officer of the Sporting Shooters' Association of Australia, David Barton, said the verdict was unfair and that Robert John Osip the court had made an example of him to send a message to other shooters and hunters.
Osip, 21, pleaded not guilty to the manslaughter of Gary Paterson, 20, at Warburton on February 19,
1999....
Osip and his friend, Brian Davey, were hunting for Sambar deer in the Warburton State Forest when the shooting occurred on McDonald Track, a forestry road. The two men were only 180 metres from the main road, Warburton-Woods Point Road.
Osip had claimed to see the neck and shoulders of a deer when he fired his gun but initially told police he saw a shape he believed was a deer.
Mr Paterson was walking his labrador-cross through a clearing in the bush. Osip fired one shot in the direction of the noise, hitting Mr Paterson in the shoulder and causing extensive damage to his lungs.
The two men heard someone cry out and ran to find Mr Paterson. They took him to Warburton hospital, where he later died.
Justice Coldrey said Osip had breached a shooting code warning shooters not to fire at movement, color, sound or shape or near residential property.
He said Osip fell far short of the standard of care a reasonable person would have exercised.
Justice Coldrey said he accepted Osip had seen a color in the foliage but "at no time" did he adequately identify his target as a deer......Lawyers for Osip said yesterday they would be appealing the sentence.
(http://www.theage.com.au/news/20000527/A20568-2000May26.html) ******Hunter's stray bullet hits man in pizzeria
NAZARETH, Pa. (AP) A man was shot in the neck while eating a slice of pizza when a bullet apparently fired by a deer hunter crashed through the window of a restaurant Saturday evening, police said.
The bullet entered Sal's Pizza and Restaurant on Route 512 at about 5 p.m. Saturday, ricocheted off the window frame, and struck John Calvert, 52, of Saylorsburg, officials said.
"When I heard the sound, I looked up and saw a man stand, grab his neck, take a step or two and collapse," said Carl Garrison, a delivery person at the restaurant, which is south of Wind Gap and nearly surrounded by fields and woods.
......Police searched the area and took a hunter into custody. Coopersmith said the hunter had a .30-caliber rifle and the slug will be examined to see if it matches the rifle.
"He was probably in the woods that sit on the other side of those fields and the deer crossed the field and he took the shot," Coopersmith said.
"Where he was, he was probably within his rights to be in the area, but you have to know what you are shooting at. You can't shoot toward roads and you can't shoot at buildings."....
Monday, December 3, 2001
(http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:oMCl5WUX5L8C:www.timesonline.com/news/capital/4650986.htm+man+shot+by+hunter&hl=en)****
Hunter's stray bullet kills Quebec man CHICOUTIMI, Que. (CP) -- A Quebec man is dead after being struck in the head by a stray bullet from the gun of a 13-year-old boy.
Marcel Savard, 69, of Jonquiere, Que. was hit Wednesday afternoon by a bullet from a .22-calibre hunting rifle fired by a teenager, who was small game hunting with a teenage friend.
The young hunters were not accompanied by an adult. Jonquiere municipal police said the shooter saw a figure in the distance and fired a single shot. The figure dropped immediately.
The teenager ran toward the victim immediately and was shocked to find Savard hunched over.
When the boy touched him Savard fell to the ground, revealing a stream of blood flowing from his head.
Shocked and panicking, the young boy ran home to his mother and alerted her. "I think I killed someone," he told the police after his mother had summoned them.
Laurent Bouchard, the interim Crown prosecutor, asked for an additional investigation Thursday to determine how a 13-year-old boy could get his hands on a loaded rifle.
The law regarding firearms strictly forbids possession and use of guns for people under 18 years of age, except in some very specific situations. However, even in those exceptions, the law requires a minor to be accompanied by an adult who legally owns the firearm. Shooting an unidentified figure near an urban environment contravenes standard hunting safety rules.
Charges could be laid against the teenager, and eventually against his parents depending on the results of the investigation.
The boy's identity is protected under the Young Offenders Act. In November, a Quebec man was shot and wounded outside his home near Lytton by an eight-year-old boy.
Police say the youngster sneaked out of his family's home with his dad's hunting rifle, crept through the woods and then shot the man, who was seriously wounded.
The boy, who police said is experienced with guns, cannot be charged because he is under 12 although his father may face weapons storage charges.(www.canoe.ca/CNEWSLaw0012/29_hunter-cp.html)*****Nigerian hunter kills man he mistook for a warthog
(April 04, 2000) An article on iol.co.za reports that a distraught hunter in Nigeria shot dead a farmer he mistook for a warthog. He has turned himself in to local authorities. The gunman was apparently on a hunting expedition at Igbo-Ata in Ekiti State in the south-western region of Nigeria when the incident took
(place.wildnetafrica.co.za/wildlifenews/2000/03/192.html) ****Bear eats hunter in Russian province
Reuters — Dec. 25, 2001 (espn.go.com/outdoors/general/news/2001/1225/1301050.html)
MOSCOW — A hungry bear ate a hunter in Russia's Jewish autonomous region in the country's far east, Interfax reported on Monday, Dec. 24.
The half-eaten remains of the local man, who had gone hunting the previous day, were discovered near the village of Landakoz, set in the region's bleak taiga.
It was not clear if the bear had killed the hunter or whether the man had died of cold before the scavenging animal found him, Interfax quoted local officials as saying.
Bears have been known to attack humans in the region before, but usually during the late summer or early autumn while searching for wild mushrooms and berries.******Trespassers allegedly assault landowner
After asking a group of Rhode Island men to leave his land, the Maine landowner was assaulted. The attack enrages local sportsmen and complicates access issues as posted land becomes the norm
By Glenn Adams Associated Press — Nov. 18, 2001 THORNDIKE, Maine — Along the edges of woods and fields in this rural Waldo County town, the bright orange and yellow signs are popping up everywhere: No hunting.
It wasn't always that way."We've never posted our land. It's all posted now, all 300 acres of it," said William Johnson, whose family has owned property in the area for four generations.
The new keep-off signs started showing up on trees and fenceposts across the rolling countryside after Johnson's brother, Richard, was assaulted after asking a group of hunters to leave his property in Jackson, a tiny town bordering Thorndike.
Johnson, 58, was upset that the Rhode Island men had not asked permission to use his land and were in an area near homes with children,
said his brother. "Over the years, we've never had trouble with hunters," William Johnson said. "We all hunt."
Richard Johnson was still recovering from his injuries last week and declined to be interviewed, but his family confirmed the police account of the Nov. 7 incident.
Johnson blew the horn of a pickup truck belonging to the hunters, then propped a stick against it so it sounded continuously. There was a confrontation and one of the hunters knocked off Johnson's hat.
When Johnson bent over he was attacked. His face was pounded until it was black and blue, and his teeth were broken. He crawled into his house dazed and bleeding, and passed out. He was out of work until last Wednesday.
A hunter from Foster, R.I., Vincent DeCarlo, is free on bail pending a Dec. 18 hearing
in Belfast District Court on a charge of aggravated assault, police said. *********
4)Question/attack:
"If animals have rights, then they must be able to have the same rights as
us, such as
Response: a) Sure--and if we can do that then fine. But if we are unable to give rights to all lifeforms--it doesnt mean we should just give up and not give rights to any. If we say that--then one could decide they only care about people within their own race/religion/gender/age group/economic status. Some people already do it anyway....
Response: b) Okay but you
can be the one to go around to every plant, animal and bacteria on the planet
and ensure they got their voter's guide.
5)Question/attack: "Only humans can form moral contracts with other humans—since we cannot make social/moral contracts with other species, we should not care about how we treat them."
Response:
a)
Why does a moral contract have to be reciprocal? We make special
arrangements for infants, and humans that are mentally challenged—without
requiring that they “return the favor.” Why should other species be treated
to a different standard?
Response
b) We can and do
have social and moral contracts with other species. We know that if an animal,
its offspring, or its territory is threatened, or it is hungry, we can expect it
to react accordingly. That is a social contract.
6)Question/attack:
"What about grizzly bears? They
eat other species, shouldn't we do something to stop that?"
Response: a) that defies the whole meaning of animal rights. humans do not need to hold a paternalism over the actions of other
animals.
Response: b) if there were over 6 billion grizzly bears who didn't need the fish to survive, then maybe they would need to decide what
to do about it, but that isn' t any of our business as humans.
Response: c) oh yeah--and while you' re at it--better stop spiders from eating flies and flies from eating smaller bugs and bacteria from eating other
bacteria..get back to me when you figure out how to police them--until then we better stick to what we can do--policing ourselves.
Response: d) other species do things to survive...they may do things we don’t feel are consistent with our ethics--but we have ethics
to control our behavior--other species are able to function without the types of ethical systems we propose. They don't have the
option to not kill if they wish to survive. But they don't go around killing other species for oil, money, religion etc... when they
do--they can deal with their ethical conduct--until then--humans are the species we have to worry about.
Response: e) this argument tries to say that if some group
is exempt from the same moral conduct that is expected of humans--then they
should be excluded from any rights to protection or respect. By this logic
children, the mentally retarded and comatose people do not deserve rights to
protection since they cannot reason and formulate ethical positions like adult
humans can.
7)Question/attack: "Frogs don't care about morality when they eats flies, so if I am equal to them, shouldnt I be able to do the same and do as I want?"
Response: a) since
you want to be regarded as being able to do everything a frog can, or
cannot do, then I guess you will be indifferent to human suffering--after all, a
frog would be. So since a frog cant help a drowning human, you wouldnt either.
After all, you want to have the same moral equality and responsibility as a
frog.
8)Question/attack: Animal activists drive on roads that caused animals to lose their lives and live in homes that have caused animals to lose their lives."
Response: a) No one is perfect. Alot of humans were killed through wars to build one's country--whether you live in Europe or North America or Asia. No one tells a human rights activist he must rocket himself to a desert island in order to be against human exploitation--therefore the same is true for animal activists.
Response: b) Thousands of people are killed by automobiles each year. If you are in favor of human rights--do you refrain from driving?
9)Question/attack: "You may think you avoid all unnecessary suffering, but how many animals died in the fields to grow your plants for food?"
Response: a) Don't know--but it is a lot less than the number that were killed in the fields to grow the food used to feed the cattle you eat.
Response: b) That's an ad hominem attack. Instead of addressing the issue you are attacking me for any faults I may have. It is a separate issue but you cite it to divert attention from your own wrongdoing.
Response: c) There are ways to provide food without causing as much harm to other life---eating meat is far more destructive.
Response: d) So what are you saying? We should eat raw minerals? You start. Here's a rock--bite it.
Response: e) Oh I see--so since we cannot avoid all suffering we should just let people eat meat, hunt, fish, use animals in rodeos, research etc. But why stop there? Why not let people kill each other, enslave other humans, abuse children. They are doing it anyway and since suffering cannot be avoided completely why bother to try at all? RIGHT?
10)Question/Attack(FOLLOW UP): From TIME magazine
(week of July 8, 2002) An argument championed by Steven Davis, professor of animal science at Oregon State
University, points "to the number of field animals inadvertently killed during crop production and harvest. One study showed that
simply mowing an alfalfa field caused a 50% reduction in the gray-tailed vole population. Mortality rates increase with each pass
of the tractor to plow, plant and harvest. Rabbits, mice and pheasants, he says, are the indiscriminate "collateral damage" of
row crops and the grain industry...By contrast, grazing (not grain-fed) ruminants such as cattle
produce food and require fewer entries into the fields with tractors and other equipment.
Applying (and upending) Regan's least-harm theory, Davis proposes a ruminant-pasture model of food production, which would replace poultry and pork production with beef, lamb and dairy products. According to his calculations, such a model would result in the deaths of 300 million fewer animals annually (counting both field animals and cattle) than would a completely vegan model.
"By Richard Corliss, Reported by Melissa August and Matthew Cooper/Washington, David Bjerklie and Lisa McLaughlin/New York, Wendy Cole/Chicago and Jeffrey Ressner/ Los Angeles
Response: a) From Time article: "When asked about Davis' arguments, (Tom) Regan, however, still sees a distinction: "The real question is whether to support production systems whose very reason for existence is to kill animals. Meat eaters do. Ethical vegetarians do not."
Response: b) The questionable moral reasoning of Steven Davis's argument can be described as thus: Imagine you are driving along and you come to a forked road. One way is covered in darkness, the other has some children playing in the center of it. By Davis' logic, it is better to drive through and deliberately kill the children instead of taking the other route where you may end up killing more that you cant see--OR getting out and walking to check if the route is clear (after all, who says crop harvesting MUST be done by only one type of tractor-- the most destructive?).
Response: c) What about the effects of grazing on wildlife populations? The killing of natural predators to keep cattle and sheep from being killed? What about the pollution to rivers from grazing? How many aquatic organisms will be killed because of grazing? What about the trampling of insects by cattle and sheep? Has Davis calculated their deaths or do they not count? This argument to replace all crops with meat and dairy grazing leaves a lot of questions.
Response: d) A completely vegan model would require one to ask: Who says crop harvesting must be done in the same way as it is currently? Davis is not making any effort to calculate alternative methods for harvesting or growing crops. What about greenhouses? What about switching to crops that cause less damage? What about harvesting machinery that is less intrusive? That is what a true vegan perspective would ask. As a meat eater who profits from the animal industry, Davis is not able to comprehend what a completely vegan model would be.
Response: e) Baby steps. Eliminate meat and dairy production, and then switch to lower yield, less harmful agricultural practices.
Response: f) But by Davis' argument, a lot of meat eating humans would be currently guilty of causing DOUBLE harm. They eat crops (since very few are true carnivores), and they eat meat that was raised on grain that killed animals in fields. Vegetarians only eat crops. Veganism still comes out as more desirable morally.
Response: g) Studies of all but invisible animal populations in fields can be skewed for anyone's agenda. Let's use basic hard facts: you raise animals for meat, you are directly killing animals. You raise plants for food, you may indirectly kill animals. Most sensible people would say that it is better to avoid direct killing, than engage in it out of fear of causing indirect killing. (See response b)
Response: h) (from http://courses.ats.rochester.edu/nobis/papers/leastharm.htm (submission to the Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics, January 2003 Gaverick Matheny, Duke University)...."Davis does not succeed in showing this is preferable to vegetarianism. First, Davis makes a mathematical error in using total rather than per capita estimates of animals killed; second, he focuses on the number of animals killed in ruminant and crop production systems and ignores important considerations about the welfare of animals under both systems; and third, he does not consider the number of animals who are prevented from existing under the two systems. After correcting for these errors, Davis’s argument makes a strong case for, rather than against, adopting a vegetarian diet.".... First, Davis makes an error in calculating how many animals would be killed to feed a vegan-vegetarian population. He explains: "There are 120 million ha of cropland harvested in the USA each year. If all of that land was used to produce crops to support a vegan diet, and if 15 animals of the field are killed per ha per year, then 15 x 120 million = 1800 million or 1.8 billion animals would be killed annually to produce a vegan diet for the USA (p. 5). Davis estimates that only 7.5 animals of the field per hectare die in ruminant-pasture. If we were to convert half of the 120 million hectares of U.S. cropland to ruminant-pasture and half to growing vegetables, Davis claims we could feed the U.S. population on a diet of ruminant meat and crops and kill only 1.35 billion animals annually in the process. Thus, Davis concludes his omnivorous proposal would save the lives of 450 million animals each year (p. 6-7). Davis mistakenly assumes the two systems—crops only and crops with ruminant-pasture—using the same total amount of land, would feed identical numbers of people (i.e., the U.S. population). In fact, crop and ruminant systems produce different amounts of food per hectare -- the two systems would feed different numbers of people. To properly compare the harm caused by the two systems, we ought to calculate how many animals are killed in feeding equal populations—or the number of animals killed per consumer. .....Davis suggests the number of wild animals killed per hectare in crop production (15) is twice that killed in ruminant-pasture (7.5). If this is true, then as long as crop production uses less than half as many hectares as ruminant-pasture to deliver the same amount of food, a vegetarian will kill fewer animals than an omnivore. In fact, crop production uses less than half as many hectares as grass-fed dairy and one-tenth as many hectares as grass-fed beef to deliver the same amount of protein. In one year, 1,000 kilograms of protein can be produced on as few as 1.0 hectares planted with soy and corn, 2.6 hectares used as pasture for grass-fed dairy cows, or 10 hectares used as pasture for grass-fed beef cattle (Vandehaar 1998; UNFAO 1996). As such, to obtain the 20 kilograms of protein per year recommended for adults, a vegan-vegetarian would kill 0.3 wild animals annually, a lacto-vegetarian would kill 0.39 wild animals, while a Davis-style omnivore would kill 1.5 wild animals. Thus, correcting Davis’s math, we see that a vegan-vegetarian population would kill the fewest number of wild animals, followed closely by a lacto-vegetarian population. However, suppose this were not the case and that, in fact, fewer animals would be killed under Davis’s omnivorism. Would it follow that Davis’s plan causes the least harm? Not necessarily. Early in the paper, Davis shifts from discussing the harm done to animals under different agricultural systems to the number of animals killed. This shift is not explained by Davis and is not justified by the most common moral views, all of which recognize harms other than death. "........."Although Davis does not show omnivorism is preferable to vegetarianism, he should be commended for emphasizing the importance of farmed animal welfare as a moral issue, now emerging as one of the most significant of the day. Predictably, his argument has been cited as a justification for traditional omnivorism (Corliss 2002), a misreading Davis did not intend and one that any faithful reading of his paper should prevent. The type of ruminant production Davis proposes is a world apart from the omnivorism prevalent in the United States."
11)Question/attack: "More animals are killed for a vegetarian diet than by hunters. Therefore, hunting is more compassionate than vegetarianism."
Response: a) Ideally, animals that may be killed in fields etc to grow food for vegetarians are killed unintentionally. Hunters kill intentionally. Thus vegetarianism is more compassionate, since it seeks to eliminate unnecessary suffering and killing, not encourage it.
Response: b) And yet growing your own vegetarian food in a garden would be more compassionate than hunting.
Response: c) It is impossible to gauge how many animals are killed in fields. The answer is not to advocate hunting, but to find the best way to avoid killing animals to grow food.
Response: d) By that logic, someone may decide that resorting to cannibalism would be more compassionate than hunting. Why prey on other species for your survival when you can prey on your own?
Response: e) if everyone went and hunted for food, it would kill alot more animals than in fields that grow food for vegetarians
12)Question/attack: Your values deem animals to be right-holders whereas others deem them to be resource, it is the former and not the latter that has the ethical obligation to stop killing them.
Response:
a)by that logic, if someone doesnt believe that others are rights-holders, they dont have any obligation to stop those acts that violate
them. So a racist can go and lynch blacks because he doesnt value them as
equals. A child abuser can do likewise.
You havent proven why all humans should regard all humans as rights-holders, and you need to in order to defend human
rights while you attack animal rights.
Response: b) You demand moral perfection from animal activists, and you say that humans have rights, and yet you pay taxes and live in a country that has exploited and killed humans in the past and to the present. So by your own
logic you must divest yourself from all acts that contribute to the violation of human
rights, even if it is impossible to be morally perfect.
13)Question/attack: "What if you were attacked by a bear? Would you let the bear kill you? If you wouldn't-and you kill the bear--then you can't be for animal rights."
Response: a) If i enter known bear territory than it is up to me to know better. But assuming it was unavoidable, defending yourself is a matter of self interest. If you commit an act in self interest it does not mean you are against the rights of others.
Response: b) If a civil/human rights activist is attacked by a thief--and he defends himself, does that mean he is against civil/human rights?
Response: c) I live in a civilization where I can go to the grocery store and buy soy dogs, veggie burgers, soy milk, rice, beans, bagels, vegan cream cheese, organic fruits and vegetables, etc.. There is no reason why I would ever be in a situation where a wild bear would attack me.
14)Question/attack: "other species are not bound by the same rules
as humans("lions eat gazelles so why should we respect either the gazelles
or the lions?") and are not capable of reciprocal morality("we are
supposed to respect them but they don’t respect us")..
Response: a) But some of the mentally retarded, mentally deranged, or children are not conscious of the meaning of rights and yet they are given them without conditions. We don’t expect reciprocal morality from them, so why from non human animals? Lions and other predators need to eat meat to survive. Humans don’t. Furthermore, lions and other large predators base their aggression on survival interests. If they don’t feel threatened or aren't defending territory or aren't hungry--they don’t attack. In that sense--there is an "ethical conduct" to how other species behave, and unlike some humans, they don't make promises they have no intention of keeping
15)Question/attack: "if it is ok for the lion to hunt it should be ok for me to hunt. The lion hunts in his own way. So does the snake, spider, eagle, etc...also the HUMAN hunts in their own way. It is not impossible for humans to fly of spend long periods of time under water...IN THEIR OWN WAY."
Response: a) If it is okay for you to say that you should be able to hunt if a lion does, someone else can say, using your argument, that they should be able to deal with breeding and offspring just like a lion. Male lions and grizzlies have been known to kill the offspring of rival males. Humans should be able to also--by your logic. You cant attack someone else for using the same reasoning you employ.
Response: b) Humans are not naturally equipped like a lion or wolf for hunting. They are born for it. If humans were born for it, all humans would be doing it. Yet they aren't.
16)Question/attack: "I can't see the difference between me eating a deer (racism by your definition) and a lion eating a deer. You apply distinctly human standards to a trans-species hypothesis."
Response: a) A lion is biologically adapted to eat animals. No tools, no trickery. Claws, jaws, teeth, (needle-barbed) tongue. Humans dont have the equipment for it. You can say we have the brain to create tools etc..but that means we also have the brain to get food from other sources besides meat. And it is not applying distinctly human standards to other species YOUR argument does. You want lions to follow human definitions of morality, or to abandon any responsibility towards non humans if they cannot. Lions dont have the system of ethical reasoning that humans use. Essentially you are wondering why a blind man cant read road signs, or why a man with no arms cant catch a football.
Response: b) The main difference is that humans have systems of ethics that say one should try to be fair and as just as possible to others. Under that belief, humans have to justify discriminating against others (human or not). Other species do not, as far as we can tell, employ systems of ethics that change over time.
Response: c) Lions need to eat meat. Humans do not. Since eating meat involves discrimination, violence, and killing, humans cannot justify it if they say it is wrong to kill unfairly or unjustly (especially if, at the same time, they emphasize it is wrong to do the same to humans). In order to justify it, they first have to show how human supremacy and the standards of value used to defend it, are fundamentally different in principle from the arguments used to defend racial, gender, religious or any other human-centered discriminatory ethical policy. In other words, show how human supremacy is based upon absolute objective, universally-sanctioned standards of value. If they cannot, then it would be hypocritical for a human supremacist to criticize a racial/religious/gender/wealth supremacist for acting upon a belief that is no more or less subjective, biased, arbitrary and non-absolute than that of the human supremacist.
2: ANIMAL RESEARCH back
1)Question/attack: "If we stopped testing on animals the products would be unsafe for humans."
Response: a) Even with animal testing the products are not always safe for humans. In fact, there are drugs and treatments tested on animals that have proven unsafe for humans(i.e. Thalidomide).
Response: b) Human testing is essential for human drugs etc. You can take the animal out of medical research but not the human--if you doubt that, then lets see you volunteer to test a drug that had only been tested on non human animals?
Response: c) Animals used in experiments become so stressed that their blood chemistry changes, invalidating the science.
Response: d) Animal research can also lead to the transmission of diseases--even the creation of new ones. From the Lancet, 2004: "At the time of writing this review there have been two re-emergent cases of SARS, both from laboratory infections. One case in Singapore22 and the other in Taiwan.23 WHO must continue its efforts to promote scientific responsibility for both SARS and influenza viruses. Laboratory regulations globally are inconsistent. We now live in a global village, so universal guidelines need to be adopted. The situation with H2N2 influenza is a case in point. Although H2N2 influenza has not circulated in human beings since 1968 and everyone under the age of 36 years is susceptible, the H2N2 virus is widely distributed in laboratories and is still used in some laboratories. The re-emergence of H1N1 influenza, in 1977, that continues to circulate in human beings is another unresolved case. This H1N1 virus remained genetically conserved for 27 years.24 The most likely explanation is that the virus came from a frozen source and a laboratory seems the most probable culprit. Thus SARS CoV and many influenza viruses (eg, H2N2, H5N1, and H7N7 from human beings) must be restricted to Biosafety level 3+ laboratories."
2)Question/attack:
"If
your child was ill, would you sacrifice the life of a rat, or cat, or dog,
or chimp etc (in medical research) to
save it?"
Response:
a) This hypothetical argument is intended as a catch 22. If the activist chooses
the life of their child over that of a rat---then they are endorsing the principle
behind vivisection whether they admit it or not. If it would be okay for an
animal rights activist to use an animal to save their own child, then how could
he or she object to the animal research industry? If they say no, then they
are deemed as not loving their child and are a terrible parent.
Response: b) If
your child was sick, would you sacrifice the life of your neighbor's child in
medical research to save it? If you say no, does that mean you don't love your child as much as you may claim to, especially
since you know that the chances for a treatment are greatly increased by using
humans--and wouldn't you want only the best for your child?
Response: c) If it is wrong for me to exploit my neighbor's child in order to aid my own, then it would be wrong for me to do the same if my neighbor happened to have four legs instead of two. Exploiting others in violation of consistent ethical beliefs is wrong.
3)Question/attack: "If we weren't using animals in research we wouldn't be able to find cures for diseases and cancers./Animal research is necessary if we hope to cure diseases and help sick children."
Response: a) Saying animal research is necessary in order to cure human diseases makes as much sense as saying that one needs to conduct research on humans in order to cure rat diseases (there would almost seem to be a Neo-Darwinian myth at work, that by testing on so called "simpler" animals one can move up the "Evolutionary ladder" until you reach the complexity of human beings). You can remove the animal from medical research but you still need humans in research. If you wanted to cure leukemia in cats--working on dogs would not help much.
Response: b) if that's the case why haven't we cured the common cold? Humans have been experimenting on animals non stop for at least 150 years and yet we are still plagued by diseases. new ones surface and old ones become drug resistant. So much for success through animal research.
Response: c) Animals used in experiments become so stressed that their blood chemistry changes, invalidating the science.
Response: d) The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine maintains a list of non-profit medical research organizations that do not test on animals, yet do perform important and groundbreaking work - the list can be found at http://www.humaneseal.org/approved.html
Response: e) From http://news.independent.co.uk/world/science_medical/story.jsp?story=471139 December 8, 2003 "A senior executive with Britain's biggest drugs company has admitted that most prescription medicines do not work on most people who take them. Allen Roses, worldwide vice-president of genetics at GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), said fewer than half of the patients prescribed some of the most expensive drugs actually derived any benefit from them. It is an open secret within the drugs industry that most of its products are ineffective in most patients but this is the first time that such a senior drugs boss has gone public." .....Dr Roses, an academic geneticist from Duke University in North Carolina, spoke at a recent scientific meeting in London where he cited figures on how well different classes of drugs work in real patients. Drugs for Alzheimer's disease work in fewer than one in three patients, whereas those for cancer are only effective in a quarter of patients. Drugs for migraines, for osteoporosis, and arthritis work in about half the patients, Dr Roses said. Most drugs work in fewer than one in two patients mainly because the recipients carry genes that interfere in some way with the medicine, he said. "The vast majority of drugs - more than 90 per cent - only work in 30 or 50 per cent of the people," Dr Roses said. "I wouldn't say that most drugs don't work. I would say that most drugs work in 30 to 50 per cent of people. Drugs out there on the market work, but they don't work in everybody." RESPONSE Rates: Therapeutic area: drug efficacy rate in per cent Alzheimer's: 30 ***Analgesics (Cox-2): 80 ****Asthma: 60 ***Cardiac Arrythmias: 60 ***Depression (SSRI): 62 ***Diabetes: 57 ***Hepatits C (HCV): 47 ***Incontinence: 40 ***Migraine (acute): 52 ***Migraine (prophylaxis)50 ***Oncology(cancer): 25 ***Rheumatoid arthritis50 ***Schizophrenia: 60 *******CONCLUSION: if drug effectiveness among humans is so erratic and unreliable it means that the differences physically between humans and non humans would be far more extreme--and thus animal research is as unreliable as animal activists and responsible physicians have said for decades..
4)Question/attack: "If vivisection and dissection are banned, how about those who wanted to be a veterinarian? How or what can they refer to? I know you probably would say: "There are electronic programs which allows those students to watch what is inside the animal's body... like computers, videos..." But then those who did these are probably cruel, right? Why how come they know the illustration of the animal's body inside? They also did open up the animal's body, right?"
Response: a)It is basically impossible to avoid any and all exploitation of other humans and other species(or products derived from that exploitation--i.e. for humans we are talking about paying taxes to fund wars, living on land which may have been the scene of someone's murder in order to seize it, reckless medical experiments by companies that injured volunteer patients etc,), and those computer- video illustration programs are the perfect example. The argument can be made that since the research had already been done, we might as well use
it(as was the case with the Nazi research). One could say that it would be immoral not to use it because then the animals would have suffered and died in vain. (there are however, some vegans who would disagree with this, and others would argue that using the research may encourage more experimentation).
Response: b) it is said that countries like India have had animal hospitals for decades if not centuries(under the religion of the Jains) and have not had to resort to vivisection to treat members of other
species (source: the Vegetable Passion).
Response: c)You can not cause harm to one, in the hope of helping another, and call it true altruism or compassion. Would you help a homeless man by kicking someone else out of their house, and call that a compassionate solution? The line of Medical progress should stop at the point when it is proposed that other lives should be sacrificed --especially against their will--to foster that "progress." Human patients may volunteer for dangerous medical research, other species do not. In other words, two wrongs do not make a right.
Response: d) The issue of veterinary medicine is not relevant from a strict vegan philosophy which argues that humans should not have members of other species domesticated, and thus, we should not presume to be "stewards" of their well-being. Thus, veterinary research would not be an issue.
5)Question/attack: "Would you accept a medical treatment that had been tested on animals if you got sick?"
Response:
a)
This attack is flawed because it implies that if an animal activist would
use a medical treatment that had been tested on animals then the activist is
guilty of hypocrisy: contradicting his/her argument, and must either refuse
any future medical treatment, or abandon the animal rights cause. The activist
is pressured to be a moral perfectionist before endorsing animal rights---and
since perfection is not possible--then it alleged the animal rights agenda is
a false one.
Response:
b)This argument
reveals how vivisectors attempt to make the recipient of their works feel guilty
because he/she benefited from their research. It perverts the altruism of the
medical profession by tainting the recipient with the tag of a conspirator!
Response:
c) If this "moral perfection first" approach is applied fairly and
equally to human-related issues-it has the following consequences for the animal
research proponent: Any patient who benefits from a procedure that was based
upon the human experiments of the Nazis, effectively endorses those atrocities
committed, and cannot declare otherwise (In 1989 concentration camp survivors
attempted to get Nazi research destroyed--but were rebuked by the medical establishment
which argued the research could be employed for the greater good).
Response: d) It is well documented
that corporations past and present have been known to profit from the
exploitation of others--including humans. From USAToday, Feb 21, 2002: "There is considerable evidence that proud names in finance, banking, insurance, transportation, manufacturing, publishing and other industries are linked to slavery. Many of those same companies are today among the most aggressive at hiring and promoting African-Americans, marketing to black consumers and giving to black causes.
So far, the reparations legal team has publicly identified five companies it says have slave ties: insurers Aetna, New York Life and AIG and financial giants J.P. Morgan Chase Manhattan Bank and FleetBoston Financial Group.
Independently, USA TODAY has found documentation tying several others to slavery:* Investment banks Brown Bros. Harriman and Lehman Bros.* Railroads Norfolk Southern, CSX, Union Pacific and Canadian National.* Textile maker WestPoint Stevens.
* Newspaper publishers Knight Ridder, Tribune, Media General, Advance Publications, E.W. Scripps and Gannett, parent and publisher of USA TODAY.
....Lloyd's of London, the giant insurance marketplace, could become a target because member brokerages are believed to have insured ships that brought slaves from Africa to the USA and cotton from the South to mills in New England and Britain.
The original benefactors of many of the country's top universities -- Harvard, Yale, Brown, Princeton and the University of Virginia, among them -- were wealthy slave owners. Lawyers on the reparations team say universities also will be sued."
Response: e) A better question would be if you would
accept a drug treatment that was tested on unsuspecting humans who may well have
been tortured and killed for it "By the end of July a US district court will decide
whether drug giant Pfizer should stand trial in the United States for presiding over a coercive, botched 1996 experiment on Nigerian children with meningitis.
In a class-action suit filed last August, thirty Nigerian families say the company violated the Nuremberg Code by forcing an unapproved, risky experiment on unwitting subjects who suffered brain damage, loss of hearing, paralysis and death as a
result.......Globalizing clinical research solves the pharmaceutical paradox that while the average American brings home more than ten prescriptions a year, just one in 350 is willing to play guinea pig for new drug testing. An abundance of poor, undertreated and doctor-trusting patients in Eastern Europe, Latin America and Southeast Asia renders the quick, positive results corporate sponsors need to get new drugs approved fast. According to one review, a whopping 99 percent of controlled trials published in China bestowed positive results upon the treatment under investigation.....Even if Americans were willing to participate in trials, they take so many medications that they make poor lab rats anyway, clinical researchers say. To prove a new drug safe and effective, "you want patients with no other disease states and no other treatments. Then you can say relatively clearly that
whatever happens to those patients is from the drug," says MDS Pharma's Simon Yaxley, whose company sells what industry PR folks call "patient recruitment solutions" in Eastern Europe, South Africa, Latin America and China. In developing countries, many people, because they are poor and don't have access to clinicians and hospitals, aren't taking any medicines for their illnesses...Conveniently, many of the FDA's ponderous regulations stop at the border.
For example, the FDA's requirement that companies prove that their experimental drugs are safe on animals before starting tests on humans doesn't apply for tests conducted outside the United States.
And experiments on Americans must undergo painstaking, lengthy reviews by government-regulated "institutional review boards" (IRBs). But "if you go to some countries and say you want the IRB to review this, they say, 'What is an IRB?'" comments Dennis DeRosia, chair of the Association of Clinical Research Professionals. The FDA simply requires that foreign trials conform to the World Medical Association's Declaration of Helsinki, a series of ethical recommendations that critics call rudimentary, nonbinding and ambiguous. Scientists routinely ignore Helsinki directives to publish negative results and make study designs public, and they liken Helsinki-required ethics committees in developing countries to rubber stamps. "No ethical questions are raised at all," one investigator admitted to the National Bioethics Advisory Commission
(NBAC).....What results is one set of acceptable risks for patients at home and quite another for patients abroad, a double standard that has left hundreds of preventable deaths in its wake. Most notoriously, in the mid- and late 1990s, the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control funded and defended studies in which Western scientists withheld treatment from HIV-infected pregnant women in developing countries, even though they knew antiretroviral drugs would reduce the rate of HIV infection in their infants by two-thirds. Hundreds of infants "needlessly contracted HIV infection" while Western doctors presided over their care, according to an incendiary New England Journal of Medicine paper by Public Citizen's Dr. Peter Lurie and Dr. Sidney Wolfe.."
Published in the July 1, 2002 issue of The Nation. Globalizing Clinical Research:
Big Pharma Tries Out First World Drugs on Unsuspecting Third World Patients by Sonia Shaw.
Response f) taken from: http://www.micahbooks.com/readingroom/Nazisandanimalresearch.html "In 1987, the Supreme Court heard a case in which a U.S. soldier sued the government for having used him as a test case for LSD experiments, without his knowledge (Stanley vs. The United States). The court voted 5 to 4 against the victim. For a recent review of experiments conducted on human beings in the U.S., without their informed consent, see Clouds of Secrecy: The Army's Germ Warfare Tests over Populated Areas, by Leonard A. Cole, Subjected to Science, by Susan Lederer, Johns Hopkins Press (This books studies experimentation on human beings between the two world wars); and Stranger at The Bedside by David J. Rothman, which studies this problem in the period after the Second World War. There are many more books on this subject. Many of them can be found on the Internet, under "Human Experimentation," or at Amazon.com, under the same heading."
6)Question/attack: "Animal research is justified because of the benefits (to human
health, happiness, knowledge, progress, science, companion animals, wildlife,
etc)."
Response:
a) Its basic
problem is that it is stating the INTENT of the Animal research, not a moral
/ethical DEFENSE of it.
Response: b) A thief steals because of the benefits to him or others. A rapist rapes because of the benefits. If the rapist defended his act by pointing out that others could benefit by taking items from the unconscious victim's house, would that justify the rape? If one accepts "benefits" as a justification for animal research, and applies it fairly and equally to human relationships, then it allows anyone to commit an act on the basis of the perceived benefits to the perpetrator or others--whether the victim is human or not.
7)Question/attack:
"vivisection
is justified because humans can subdue and control other creatures for whatever
purpose we wish."
Response:
a) This argument would attempt to suggest that humans are following the
"law of Nature." The act of vivisection is seen as being no different
than a lion chasing down a gazelle. The question poser may even concede that if an
alien race were to do the same thing to humans it would be justifiable.
Response: b) Even
if a concession
is made for extraterrestrial exploitation, one does not need to go
so far out to discover the unwelcome consequences of such a philosophical
position. By "might means right"
Response c) There is nothing in that defense that would keep one from applying "might makes right" to a situation where a stronger human preys on a weaker one. You would have to prove human supremacy to justify a distinction or exemption for humans. Since no supremacy exists, you cannot defend this argument. It would lead to social chaos if applied fairly.
8)Question/attack: "Bioengineering may seem like mad scientist work, but its just another form of evolution."
Response: a) Bioengineering IS mad scientist work, or as I prefer to say "moron scientist" work, because they claim to be improving things, yet they always create new problems (Thalidomide, DDTs, Industrial pollution etc). There is a fundamental logic flaw in this sort of thinking. Humans cannot even create a society free from war—and yet they think they can improve Nature. An imperfect creature creating perfection? That's a pipe dream.
9)Question/Attack: "Mice, birds and rats get eaten by pythons--certainly that is just as bad as what goes on in a laboratory--or even worse."
Response: a) Pythons need to eat birds, mice and rats to survive. It an instinctual drive. For humans, experimenting on non human animals is certainly not an instinctual need.
Response: b) Humans do not need to torture rats, mice and birds in the vain hope of curing human diseases--they need to experiment on humans if they are SERIOUS about seeking cures.
Response: c) This argument tries to defend one form of cruelty by pointing to another unrelated one. Since humans get killed and mangled by cars, a mugger could argue, then why complain about a thief beating someone in the street? Not a logical argument. All Pythons need to eat, humans do not need to torture rats, mice and birds in laboratories.
10)Question/attack: "If you could save countless human lives by xenotransplantation (genetically engineering non-human animals to harvest their
organs for humans), isn't that for the greater good? I mean, people eat those species every day anyway."
Response: a) Since eating meat is unnecessary--exploiting them for animal research and genetic engineering is compounding one injustice with another. It is like saying "well, since we are planning to kill this guy--there is nothing wrong with us torturing and robbing him first.
11) Question/Attack: "Didnt the Nazis ban animal research?"
Response: a) from http://www.micahbooks.com/readingroom/Nazisandanimalresearch.html 'On April 24, 1989, Drs. Daniel Johnson and Frederick Goodwin from the National Institutes of Health, argued on the McNeil-Lehrer television program that "The only people in modern society that have not used animals for research were the Nazis." They further contended that because the Nazis passed an anti-vivisection bill in 1933, they were led to experiment on human beings, and that there is therefore a relationship between animal rights and a loss of human rights. None of this is true.The "anti-vivisection law," which the Nazis purported to pass, like Hitler's vegetarianism, is filled with contradictions. A study of the law the Nazis passed shows that this law had enough loopholes in it to assure the continuation of animal research; consequently, an enormous amount of animal experimentation continued to be carried out by Nazi doctors. The Lancet, the prestigious British medical journal, reviewed the Nazis law and warned anti-vivisectionists not to celebrate because the Nazis law was no different, in effect, from the British law that had been passed in 1875, which restricted some animal research, but hardly eliminated it. Furthermore, a law passed by the Weimar government in 1931 required that all experiments on human beings be first conducted on animals. Such a requirement exists in the United States as in many countries that practice animal research. In other words, animal research is often a legal justification for experimentation on humans, as it functioned in Nazi Germany. The 1931 law in Germany was never abrogated. Nazis doctors dutifully submitted written statements when they requested "human material" for experiments which carried the legal notification that such experiments had been first conducted on animals. The first request for "test persons" was made by Dr. Sigmund Rascher to Himmler on May 15, 1941, "for two or three professional criminals" for "High-Altitude Research." It states that human beings were needed "because these experiments cannot be conducted with monkeys, as has been tried...."***Robert Proctor's book, The Nazi War on Cancer (Princeton University Press, 1999), records Nazi animal experimentation, which should leave no one in doubt about where Nazi doctors and scientists stood on this issue. These animal experiments were often embedded in the continuum of animal research that had been ongoing for decades. By the 1920s the Germans had developed strains of mice that were "more or less receptive to the uptake of cancer tissue transplants....SS chief Heinrich Himmler was apparently intrigued by the prospect of breeding a race of cancer-prone rats; in a 1939 meeting with Sigmund Rascher, the notorious Dachau hypothermia experimenter, the SS Reichsführer proposed breeding such a race of rodents.... (p. 63) "by the end of the 1920s, there was a sizable scientific literature on radiation carcinogensis, including a large body of work based on animal experiments." (p. 83) By the mid 1930s the Nazis had formidable laboratory evidence of some the causes of cancer based on animal experiments: "Experiments were...performed that finally produced--for the first time anywhere--lung cancers in animals raised in the mines." By 1938, Nazi scientists could produce lung cancer in 25% of the mice raised in mine shafts. "This was the first conclusive animal experimental evidence that breathing air in the mines could cause lung cancer." (p.99). The Nazis conducted their "war on cancer" with animals as their weapon of choice. Indeed, in 1943, at the height of a world war, the Nazi government developed plans for a "'tumor farm' to raise animals for use in experiments." (p. 261). As Proctor states, animal experiments were vital to the ideological stance of Nazisim: "Animal experimental evidence was extrapolatedto humans, bolstered by the ideological push to see all aspects of human behavior--including purported racial differences--as rooted in "blood," race, or genes." (p. 63)***
Response: b) Saying that we shouldn't be opposed to animal testing because the Nazis were opposed to animal testing is akin to saying, 'Nazis wore shoes. Therefore, none of us should wear shoes - or we'll be like the Nazis.'
12)Question/Attack: "Traditional Asian medicine isn't as cruel as western medicine--and who are you to condemn them for using animal parts in healing?"
3: BULLFIGHTS back
1)Question/attack: "Bullfights are good because they give the meat of the bull to the poor."
Response: a) Then why were matadors protesting that they couldnt SELL the meat after the
Mad Cow/foot and mouth disease crisis?
Response: b) Citing a positive benefit of an act does not cancel out the
negative. Bullfights are cruel. To say they are good because they give the meat
to the poor would be like justifying a murder/robbery by saying the bandits gave
some of the spoils to the needy. Al Capone opened the first soup kitchens in
Chicago--using the proceeds of crime, does this mean that loan sharking and
murder used to finance that charity were good?
Response: c) if bullfighters do it for the charity, then they should be growing veggies to give to the poor.
4: COMPANION ANIMALS back
1)Question/Attack: "What about pets? Certainly there is nothing wrong with that."/"having animal companions teaches people to care for animals."
Response: a) How would you feel if you were born and taken away from your mother against your will (or how would you feel if you were the mother and your offspring was taken away from you by force--just to be given to some human who may treat your child horribly?) and had your genitals cut off? The pet industry is a form of slavery. Except under the best circumstances, a pet is a prisoner of human society. A human decides where it goes, what it does, what it eats, how it lives and how it dies.
Response: b) When humans can take care of their own offspring properly, then maybe you could make some argument for it--but until then, and until humans can stop the pet euthanasia problem and animal abuse issue you haven't much of a leg to stand on.
Response: c) It is debatable whether having companion animals makes one treat animals with more compassion and respect or makes humans take them for granted. We know that people abuse cats and dogs, and dump them in parks or shelters when they get tired of them. If only one human did this--it would still be worse than if pets were not bred at all.
Response: d) One can argue that we should take care of unwanted animals that are dumped in shelters as opposed to euthanizing them. But whatever the case, we should not allow the commercial breeding of animals to be sold in stores. All should come from shelters.
2) Question/attack: "don't you think you would be cruel to a dog if you didn't feed it
meat?
Surely that's what it would eat if you left it alone to fend for itself?"
Response: a) Yes, a dog would most probably eat meat if it chose it's own meals. Can't deny
that. But it is the cruelty issue which I would focus on with your question. If the cruelty issue is
truly of concern, then what about all the other animals that will be kept in poor conditions, and made to suffer to be canned and fed to
the dog? Perhaps, if it is cruel to not feed a dog meat (something i don't actually agree with), then while keeping animals,
some kind of cruelty may be unavoidable. Which is why I believe we need to reconsider our position with Companion Animals (see
http://www.fruitnut.net/html/Articles/Pets.htm for article on companion animals)
3) Question/attack: "Does a vet
have the right to neuter your dog?"
Response: a) no, since animals shouldnt be kept as pets. As a form of slavery, what right does a human have to dictate the biological health of other species? Especially when we dont force humans to have sterilization to keep human population numbers down.
Response: b) Although keeping members of other species as "companions" is ethically problematic, the issue is, by neutering the animal, it helps to prevent the enslavement and suffering of more animals.
response:
c) A better question is: does a breeder have a right to breed dogs? The answer
is no. Cut the problem at the source and the neutering issue is rendered moot.
5: EQUALITY back
1)Question/attack:
"One
cannot say that humans and non humans are equal and also say that humans and non
humans are not bound by the same rules and code of moral conduct.
If humans have to respect the rights of deer then so should lions."
Response:
a) This
is assumed to be a fallacy in Definition: Conflicting Conditions--that they
cannot be equal and unequal at the same time.
Response:
b) We say a man with arms and a man without arms are equal in worth, but we
don’t say because they have different abilities that the one with arms
deserves more "rights" than the other.
By the logic of this attack, in order for all humans to be granted equal
rights and respect, they would have to possess the same attributes (mentally,
physically etc).
6: FACTORY FARMS back
1)Question/attack: " Factory farms are less cruel than how animals are treated in the wild."
Response: a) The point is not whether the factory farm is less cruel than the wild but whether one needs to have factory farms in the first place and clearly we dont since vegetarianism is a sound practical dietary lifestyle.
Response: b) I dont think anyone sane would agree that spending your entire life in a dirty cell without sunlight or the companionship of others or freedom of movement is more desirable—if you think that then maybe you can ask to move into one.
Response:
c) A
British author recently challenged people to spend a week in a typical factory
farm egg laying facility. None could stand it for more 12 hours).
7: FISHING back
1)Question/attack: "Fish don't have nerves in their mouths or feelings in their lips."
Response: a) The hook still causes damage to the fish's body. It can lead to infection (if the fish is being thrown back in the water).
Response: b) Slave traders said the same thing about negro slaves--they don't feel pain like we do. You can't prove it as a 100 percent certainty that they don't feel discomfort/pain and science may not have figured out how to measure it. Better to be safe than sorry.
Response: c) Yeah but they sure look uncomfortable when they are being dragged from the water. So are they trying to dance when they are flipping around on a hook?
Response: d) So if someone doesn't feel pain we should do what they want to them? Good because there are some comatose people at the hospital that would look mighty good preserved over my fireplace mantle.
Response e) Fish have nerve
endings near the skin which are very similar to those of humans and other mammals.
We all have receptor cells (called
nociceptors) near the skin, which are stimulated by events severe enough to
cause damage to body tissues. The lips and mouth of fish are
particularly well supplied with nerve endings.
--Fish produce the same pain-transmitting chemicals as humans. There are two
main chemicals involved. When a nerve ending is damaged, a
substance called bradykinin is released. This causes the nerve cell to fire,
sending an electrical impulse along the nerve. When bradykinin is
released near the skin, a second chemical, called substance P, is released near
the spinal cord.
--Both substances are known to be involved in transmitting pain. For example,
if bradykinin is injected in humans, it causes intense pain, even if a
local anaesthetic is used. Both bradykinin and substance P are found in mammals,
birds, frogs and fish.
--Fish produce the same pain-blocking substances as humans. When in severe pain,
humans and other vertebrates (animals with backbones)
produce pain-killing chemicals called endorphins. These endorphins block pain
by stopping the release of substance P.
(from an article titled "Fish Feel Pain" from the November to January issue
of "Animals Today" magazine
(Australia)). http://members.iinet.net.au/~rabbit/fish.htm
Response f) "Fish constitute the greatest source of confused thinking and inconsistency on earth at the moment with respect to pain. You will get people very excited about dolphins because they are mammals, and about horses and dogs, if they are not treated properly. At the same time you will have fishing competitions on the River Murray at which thousands of people snare fish with hooks and allow them to asphyxiate on the banks, which is a fairly uncomfortable and miserable death". (The Advertiser, Professor Bill Runciman, professor of anaesthesia and intensive care at Adelaide University, Australia) http://members.iinet.net.au/~rabbit/fish.htm
Response g) "I undertook a ... search on pain felt by fish. I discovered that not only do fish feel the same pain as cats and dogs and humans but they are also highly intelligent. On the beach the other day I saw several fishermen with their dogs. I wanted to explain to them that the fish they were hooking felt the same anguish as would their dogs caught in the same way. Likewise when I went to New Foundland to talk to the fishermen who clubbed the baby Harp seals to death, I noticed that they too had companion dogs and cats and canaries. The most common form of cruelty in the world is fishing and why? Because most people have no idea how sensitive and intelligent fish are". (Richard Jones, Member of the New South Wales Legislative Council). http://members.iinet.net.au/~rabbit/fish.htm
Response: h) British scientists say fish do feel pain http://www.msnbc.com/news/907199.asp?cp1=1#BODY LONDON, April 30 2003 — Anglers take note — British scientists say that after years of debate, they now have proof that fish feel pain. Animal activists are on the warpath after a study released on Wednesday showed how rainbow trout react to discomfort. They condemned fishing as cruel and demanded an end to the sport — but anglers themselves dismissed the study.THE RESEARCH FOUND that fish have receptors in their heads and that subjecting them to noxious substances causes “adverse behavioral and physiological changes.” “This fulfils the criteria for animal pain,” said Dr. Lynne Sneddon, who headed the research, published Wednesday by the Royal Society, Britain’s national academy of science. Bee venom or acetic acid was injected into the lips of some of the trout, while control groups of fish were injected with saline solution or merely handled. The trout injected with venom or acid began to show “rocking” motion — similar to that seen in stressed higher vertebrates — and those injected with acetic acid began rubbing their lips in the gravel of their tank.“These do not appear to be reflex responses,” Sneddon said. The affected fish also took three times longer to resume feeding activity, compared with those in the control groups. The team from the Roslin Institute and the University of Edinburgh found the fish had polymodal nociceptors — receptors that respond to tissue-damaging stimuli — on their heads. It is the first time these receptors have been found in fish. They have similar properties to those found in amphibians, birds and mammals including humans. Animal activists said the findings showed that fishing was cruel."
2)Question/attack: "But wasn't Christ a fisherman?"
Response: a) he was a carpenter by trade. He referred to himself as a fisher of men.
Response: b)Fish was a well known mythical symbol among early christians. The greek word for fish (Ichthys) was used as an acronym
whose initials in greek stood for "Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior." Given how the early christians employed the term, there is therefore
good historical evidence for the argument thay all of the "fish stories" that managed to get into gospels were intended to be taken
symbolically rather than literally.
8: FUR back
See Misc. and Wildlife management. Other arguments under Hunting.
9: HUMAN SUPREMACY back
1)Question/attack: "But they are just animals."
Response: a) So? And you are just a human.
Response: b) At one time it was common to say: "just a woman," "just a child," "just a black," "just a pagan," "just a Christian," "just a slave," etc etc etc.
Response: c) Um--we are animals too-although considering the dismal record of human behavior I am sure most species would rather be a remote relative.
Response: d) what does that make you? Vegetable or mineral?
2)Question/attack: "Humans can exploit animals because we are superior to animals.
The reason we are superior is because we possess the capacity to reason."
(variations: "When bears and ants can compose symphonies and fly airplanes, then I'll
believe they have rights.\Humans
have brains that can make computers and do math and build tall skyscrapers,
therefore we have evolved beyond other species and are superior
Response:
a)not all humans
possess reason as defined here (children,
response:
b) Human rights, like animal rights, are arbitrary, subjective, and
non-absolute. They are both
Response: c) Since human reason originates in the brain, and the brain decays, why then is reason, a transitory aspect of human existence, so important?
response: d)Why would reason/building skyscrapers/airplanes/computers etc make humans superior in value as a species to other species that are incapable of doing such acts? What makes skyscrapers so great and important? Buildings fall down, planes crash, computers break. Since all are subjective and transitory--where is the superiority? Humans only think they are superior to justify their exploitation.
response: e) Not all humans--most in fact, do not compose symphonies or build skyscrapers. Does that mean those people are inferior to the humans that do? BTW--when was the last time you built a skyscraper?
response: f)It is because I have the ability to reason that I am able to understand why compassion is better than cruelty, peace is better than violence, and kindness is better than meanness; and thus I choose to live accordingly.
Response:
a) how do you prove humans have a soul and others don't? And
4)Question/attack:
"Humans can exploit animals because we are superior to animals.
The reason we are superior is because God tells us we are
superior."
Response:
a) How do you prove that? And even if some deity in the sky said we were superior--why
Response:
b)The greatest problem
with spiritual humanism is the lack of certainty inherent in the belief. One can
doubt the existence and nature of the deity, doubt the uniqueness and importance
of the qualities cited as making one worthy of special treatment, and doubt
human possession of them (and doubt the claim that other life forms do not
possess them).
Response:
c) claiming that humans
are superior according to a spiritual form of humanism is neither concrete nor
conclusive. One is free to believe anything--and by this ideology one could
modify the human superiority argument to assert with equal weight that some
humans are superior to other HUMANS according to the dictates of their
particular deity. The dispute is endless.
Response: d)
Response:
a) Secular humanism
can also be challenged by doubt. One can question the importance of free will,
reason, or the evolutionary law being cited as fact.
Response:
b)
Response: c) Then there is the issue that humans are worth more according to some natural law. The ludicrousness of this belief can be easily exposed by simple observation. If a volcano erupts--does the lava flow destroy all in its path--but conveniently spare human life since it is a universal fact that they are special and not to be harmed? If a human is adrift in the ocean, and approached by a shark--do the jaws of the predatory fish lock up in paralyses when it attempts to bite the man? If the claim that "human life is superior to other life forms" was an absolute, universal fact and truth in nature--then how does one explain that humans appear to be subject to the same violence and mortality that applies to other life? One can't, because humans are not superior according to any criteria that are cited to prove it--all examples are arbitrary, subjective and non-absolute.
Response:
d)
6)Question/attack: "Even if I agreed that some things done to animals are cruel and wrong, we have to put human problems first."
Response: a) Why? Can we not deal with all problems concurrently? If you are suggesting some victims of abuse are more important than others, do you also draw a distinction between say, victims of spousal abuse and victims of racial violence or child abuse? Which is a more pressing concern? Do the losers go on the backburner?
Response: b) The suffering of members of others species due to deliberate and preventable human action is as important as the human equivalent forms of abuse or exploitation. One should strive to solve these problems when we can where we can without worrying that it follows some arbitrary step by step procedure.
Response: c) That's a cop out. You just don't want to face up to responsibility.
7)Question/attack: "Humans are unique. We are a unique species."
Response: a) All species are unique in the world, but let us say that humans possess some quality that makes them "uniquely unique." You still haven't shown why that uniqueness makes them superior as a species to all other life, and deserve preferential treatment. A failure to prove human supremacy as an objective fact kills your argument, because as it stands you are simply talking as a Christian bigot or white supremacist would talk(i.e. "christians/whites are special—we deserve special treatment over non christians/whites."). What you need to do is show how the human supremacy belief is categorically different from any other form of discrimination. Which is practically impossible.
Response: b) Yes, humans are unique. They can be arrogant. They can take pleasure from the suffering of others to the point where they erect structures such as bull rings and coliseums to watch one subject torture and kill another. Not all the aspects of human uniqueness are positive.
8)Question/attack:
Make the case that discrimination is innately wrong. Or cease trying to forge
the link between racism and "speciesism". Your entire argument there rests on
discrimination being wrong in and of itself.
Response: a)you are trying to say that I say discrimination is wrong....and I cant prove it is. You are right---the problem is, people who are against racism, sexism, religious extremism etc also think discrimination is wrong, so unless you think they should be free to do what they want to other humans--this defense isnt very sensible.
Response:
b) nope--but it would be nice for your false attack if it were eh? Many people(those
who oppose racism, sexism etc) would say that discrimination based upon unfair,
biased, and subjective standards of value is wrong. The problem for you is--you
want to say that racism is wrong, while speciesism is not--except that all the
criteria you use to defend speciesism is also unfair, biased and subjective.
That's what the entire argument rests upon: your belief that some discrimination
is good, others are bad--without being able to prove this.
Sure--you can say that arguments that suggest discrimination is wrong is also
subjective. The problem is--refuting that not only buries an anti-specieism
argument, but it also buries anti-racist, anti-sexist, anti-religious extremist
etc etc arguments. Humans pay the price too. So feel free to say that you think
everyone should be able to discriminate against everyone else--not all humans
would like that--but racists would.
Response c)-it doesnt. It rests on what people like YOU
believe. YOU believe that discrimination based on biased, subjective criteria
is wrong. That includes race, gender, and species (though you would deny the
last---but cant prove your case). For you to get out of the jam--you have to
show how speciesism is somehow different than racism in a fundamental way--i.e.
make it objective or absolute. You havent done that (because you cant). In the
big scheme of things--of course one cant prove that discrimination is wrong...since
all issues are subjective--they can be doubted...the problem for you is, either
you prove that speciesism is somehow different in principle and design from
all other forms of discrimination(which is impossible), or you would have to
say that people should be free to discriminate against other humans (based on
race, gender, religion as well as species). BUT YOU DONT say that--because you
want to have your cake--and eat it too. But you cant.
So the only other choice is to say we should try to be as fair and as compassionate
to others as possible, and lose this desire to discriminate according to biased,
subjective criteria. This would help human relations with humans and non humans
alike. Its also more consistent ethically than your view. So,
in terms of logical reasoning, either you say anyone can do whatever they want
to anyone else(human or not) or you expand your circle of compassion and fairness
to include non humans).
9
Response a) (http://www.familyworship.org.uk/kidszone/skippy.htm) A kangaroo named Lulu has been hailed a hero for saving an unconscious Australian farmer in Canberra by alerting the man's wife and leading her to where he lay trapped under a fallen tree branch. Hobby farmer Leonard Richards was checking for storm damage on his property at Tanjil South, 150 km (93 miles) east of Melbourne, on Sunday morning when he was hit by a falling branch. In a story reminiscent of the long-running Australian children's television series Skippy, in which a pet kangaroo rescued people in distress in the Australian bush, the kangaroo began barking until Richards' wife came to investigate. She found her husband lying unconscious under a tree about 200 metres (650 feet) from the house, guarded by the grey kangaroo. Lulu was hand-reared by the Richards family, who rescued her from her mother's pouch and fed her on bottles after her mother was killed by a car about four years ago."Dad was totally out of it and Lulu was sitting by him in the bush making this really unusual yapping noise until Mum got there," Richards' 19-year-old son Luke told Reuters. "It was so lucky. Dad could have been there for hours if it wasn't for her," he said. Richards was taken to hospital with suspected head injuries but allowed home on Sunday night. Animal welfare group the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA) called for Lulu to be nominated for its annual national bravery award.
Response b)The Dog Who Rescues Cats: The True Story of Ginny Philip Gonzalez had lost all interest in living after an industrial accident left him disabled. A friend suggested he adopt a dog.Reluctantly he went to the shelter, where Ginny, a badly abused one-year-old pup,quickly won him over. Philip realized immediately that Ginny was no ordinary dog--she had an amazing sixth sense that enabled her to find and rescue stray and ailing cats.There's Madame,who is completely deaf; Revlon, who has only one eye;Betty Boop,who has no hind feet;and Topsy, a paralyzed kitten whom Ginny found abandoned in an empty building. Ginny and Philip have now rescued and found homes for over 200 cats, and they have over 60 "outdoor cats" whom they visit and feed twice daily. Even more than extraordinary, Ginny's angelicmission has given Philip a sense of purpose and a new lease on life. You will never forget the true adventures of Ginny, the dog who rescues cats.
Pot-bellied pig saves owner's life by lying in front of a car
Saturday, October 10, 1998 ....Jo Ann Altsman attributes her Vietnamese Pot
Belly Pig, Lu Lu with saving her life last month. (Annie O'Neill, Post-Gazette)
OK, it was almost like that. Except that JO Ann Altsman of Beaver Falls didn't
twist her ankle, but had a heart attack. And it wasn't in the wilderness but
in the bedroom of her vacation trailer on Presque Isle. And the pet that ran
-- er, waddled -- for help was a Vietnamese pot-bellied pig named LuLu. When
you think about it, LuLu's real-life feat the morning of Aug. 4 was much more
amazing than any of Lassie's fictional rescues because she can't bark. That
didn't matter. Smart pig that she is, Lulu did the next best thing. She laid
down in front of a car on the road outside the trailer and then led a disbelieving
motorist to Altsman, whose ordeal lasted 45 minutes. Had 15 more minutes elapsed,
doctors told her, she likely would have died. "Pigs are very, very smart,"
Altsman, 57, said yesterday. She is recuperating from heart surgery she underwent
Sept. 15. "They're a lot smarter than dogs." ....Enter Lulu "She
looked at my head. She made sounds like she was crying," said Altsman,
who then imitated the sound -- quite indescribable -- of a crying Vietnamese
potbellied pig. "You know, they cry big fat tears," she noted. But
the porker pulled herself together, and headed outside through the doggy/piggy
door and into the fenced-in yard. Never before had Lulu left the confines of
the yard -- except for a leash walk -- but this was no ordinary day. She somehow
pushed open the gate and walked into the road. There, Lulu gave new meaning
to the phrase "hogging the road." Witnesses later told Altsman that
Lulu waited until a car approached and then walked onto the road and laid down
in front of it. Several times she returned to Altsman only to leave again and
try to get help. One man stopped but later said he was so unsure of what the
creature on the road was that he was afraid to get out. "She's not very
attractive," Altsman allowed. But another motorist stopped for the prone
pig and got out. Lulu knew just what to do. She led the man to the house and
the rescue. "I heard a man hollering through the door, 'Lady, your pig's
in distress,"' Altsman said. "I said, 'I'm in distress, too. Please
call an ambulance." The man, whose name Altsman never learned, did just
that and medics quickly arrived. But when the pig tried to get into the ambulance
with Altsman, medics gently let Lulu know she had done enough for one day. Later,
it was discovered that Lulu had cut her rather pronounced stomach on the obviously
too-small doggy/piggy door. "My husband keeps enlarging it but she keeps
enlarging, too," Altsman said of Lulu, who turned 1 on July 4. Lulu was
purchased in Edinboro in August 1997 by Jack Altsman as a 40th-birthday present
for the couple's daughter, Jackie, of Fombell, Beaver County. Jackie, however,
went on a five-day whale-watching trip to New England and asked her parents
to baby-sit Lulu. Jackie really didn't want the pig, Altsman said. "She
came back on Aug. 18 and kept putting off (picking up Lulu), saying, 'Next weekend,
next weekend.' You know how kids are." The Altsmans became attached to
the porcine house pet, even as it exploded from 4 pounds to 150. And counting.
And how did Altsman thank Lulu? "She got a jelly doughnut," said Altsman.
She then made a sloshing type noise that Lulu apparently makes when she devours
pastry. Edited.
By Michael A. Fuoco, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
http://www.post-gazette.com/regionstate/19981010pig2.asp
10: HUNTING back
1)Question/attack: "If we weren't hunting deer they would overpopulate and start dying horrible deaths because of the lack of food"
Response: a) If there is lack of food the animal population will not grow as much. If there is less food there are going to be less animals.
response:
b) humans have overpopulated many areas of the earth which has resulted in lack
of food and poor living conditions, yet
we do not hunt and execute them.
response:
c) In recent years, deer populations have increased to numbers unsupportable
by wildlife habitat alone. Many researchers believe that this increase results
from continued human incursion into deer habitat, and the mismanagement of deer
populations by forest and wildlife authorities who see hunting as the primary
means of population control. Wildlife and land management agencies purport
to effectively limit deer populations to numbers sustainable by their natural
habitat. In reality, the policies of such agencies exacerbate deer overpopulation,
serving only to provide a population large enough to suit sport hunters. The
overpopulation of deer stems not only from the specific mismanagement of deer
populations, but from the mismanagement of our forestlands and natural areas.
Currently, there are approximately eight does for every buck in the wild. Laws
restrict the number of does that hunters may kill. Deer do not have monogamous
mating relationships, and bucks will often mate with more than one
female. As a result, the ratio of does to bucks sets the stage for a population
explosion. Allowing hunters to kill more does, however, does not resolve population
problems. In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the open hunting
of does left fawns without mothers, and removed too many females from the breeding
population. Sport hunting decimated deer populations in many states. As a result,
states passed laws restricting the hunting of does. These policies have contributed
to the overpopulation of deer. (http://www.idausa.org/facts/deercontrol.html)
response: d) Hunting does remove some animals from the population, but it does not keep deer populations at a continually reduced level. Immediately after a hunt, the remaining animals flourish because less competition for food exists, allowing the remaining animals to live healthier lives, and resulting in a higher reproductive rate. Left alone by humans, the ratio of does to bucks would be approximately equal. In Defense of Animals believes that sport hunting is not only an ineffective wildlife management tool, but a cruel and unnecessary practice. Sport hunting should be banned, allowing deer populations to regulate themselves naturally. (http://www.idausa.org/facts/deercontrol.html)
response: e) This comes from the New Jersey Dept.
of Fish and Wildlife website (http://www.state.nj.us/dep/fgw/ Note Commentary
provided by BD.) New Jersey offers sportsmen and women more than 500,000
acres of state-owned public open space providing a diversity of habitats from
hardwood ridges and rolling hills to pine forests and salt marsh. (note:****If
this is PUBLIC land, why are hunters allowed to kill on this land? I'm not a
hunter and strongly disagree with hunting. If it's public land,
may I hike on it? And, if so, is there a risk of me being shot by a hunter?)
This total includes more than 276,000 acres in 118 Wildlife Management
Areas, specifically managed to enhance wildlife populations and provide for
wildlife-oriented recreation. (note 2****Ah, I see. So, you're not REALLY
trying to control wildlife populations, you're trying to ENHANCE them. Does
this not go against what hunters and the NJ Dept. of Fish and Wildlife profess?
You're not trying to keep wildlife down to 'controllable' numbers, you're trying
to increase numbers to ensure your revenue from hunters. Typical lies coming
from anti-nature zealots. ) New Jersey offers more than a hundred days of
deer hunting, including seasons for bow, shotgun and muzzleloading rifle. Multiple
bag limits are the rule in most zones. The 2001-02 deer harvest was 68,669.
In addition, some of the best waterfowl hunting on the East coast is found in
the Garden State. Snow geese, brant, black duck, mallard, bufflehead and a variety
of other waterfowl species provide extensive hunting opportunities, especially
on the coastal marshes. The Rockport Pheasant Farm produces 55,000 pheasants
annually for release on selected wildlife management areas. (note 3*****Huh?
What! The Rockport Pheasant Farm PRODUCES? But why? If there is truly an 'overabundance'
of animals (that need 'harvesting') why purposely BREED animals to be killed.
I also heard that New York imports pheasants for hunting. Illogical, to say
the least!) The wild turkey, reestablished in the late 1970s, continues
to increase throughout the state with the population now estimated at 18,000
- 20,000 with an annual harvest of more than 2,000.
(note 4: ****(note 4: Can someone explain to me why the wild turkey needed to
be reestablished? My guess is that they were hunted to such low numbers that
they had to be bred and imported from other areas. AGAIN, illogical! Please,
the next time you spout "conservation," "manageable numbers" or "over population,"
read you own text, FIRST!)
Response: f) Oh yeah--humans really know how to manage wildlife. Case study:
"A well-meant but misguided decision by conservationists is driving a central
Asian antelope to the brink of extinction, a report claims today. Poachers
who were encouraged to hunt the saiga, an antelope of the steppes of Russia
and Kazakhstan, to ease the pressure on rhino in Africa and Asia, have brought
about a catastrophic 97 per cent fall in the animal's numbers in a decade, according
to this week's New Scientist magazine." "The decline from more than
a million to fewer than 30,000 is through to be the most sudden and severe population
crash of a large mammal. The saiga has been hunted, says the report
by Fred Pearce, a science writer, because in the early 1990s the World Wide
Fund for Nature (WWF) and other conservation groups actively promoted the saiga
horn as an alternative to the horn of endangered rhinos, which is used
as an ingredient in traditional Chinese medicine....."The plains used to
be black with these antelopes, but now you can go out there and not see any
at all," says Dr Abigail Entwistle, director of the Eurasia programme of the
conservation charity Fauna and Flora International. "This is the most sudden
change in fortune for a large mammal species recorded in recent times."...According
to the report, WWF began a campaign in 1991 in Hong Kong to publicise saiga
horn as an alternative to rhino horn, which when ground up is widely used in
traditional Chinese medicine as a remedy. Rhinoceros populations in Africa and
Asia have also been devastated by poachers hunting them for their horns."...According
to Eleanor Milner-Gulland, of Imperial College London, the leading Western expert
on the saiga, there is no known case in biology where the sex ratio has gone
so wrong that fecundity has disappeared in this way. Dr Milner-Gulland says
that between 1993 and 1998, saiga numbers across central Asia almost halved,
to around 600,000. Then, with most of the males gone, the population crash began
in earnest, with numbers halving each year since, until last year's census recorded
just 30,000 individuals....Hunters are unlikely to drive the saiga to total
extinction but without an unexpected reversal in its fortunes it will soon be
confined to zoos and a few small reserves." Rare antelope driven to
edge of extinction by well-meaning conservationists (Independent, 13 Feb, 2003)
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/environment/story.jsp?story=377834
Response g) Yep--those hunters really do good. (http://www.guardian.co.uk/france/story/0,11882,1342683,00.html)
Hunters kill last brown bear Amelia
Gentleman in Paris Thursday November 4, 2004 Hunters have shot dead
the last female brown bear native to the Pyrenees, condemning the species to
extinction and causing an "environmental catastrophe" for France,
the government said. Animal protection groups were last night concerned for
the survival of the bear's 10-month-old orphaned cub which escaped unharmed,
but which was barely weaned. His mother, affectionately known by game wardens
as Cannelle (Cinnamon), was killed on Monday when a group of boar-hunters shot
her in what they claim was self-defence. The environment minister, Serge Lepeltier,
was to visit the site of the killing last night to launch an investigation into
how the six experienced hunters had been allowed to organise a wild boar
shoot in the area where the bear was living.
2)Question/attack:
a) "A lot of people say
let the deer's
Response: b) If we were the natural predators of deer we should be able to run down and catch and devour a deer with only our teeth and hands--just like a lion does. If we didn't use tools--we would be the prey!
3)Question/attack: Animals are treated terribly in the meat industry so isn't hunting better than getting meat from the super market?
Response: a) Maybe, but since meat eating itself isn't justified, there is no excuse to be hunting either.
Response: b) People who can go out and learn to use a rifle, get a hunting license, drive a car to get ammunition then drive to the forest to wait for an animal to come along, then shoot it, then take it home on the hood of the car(assuming it doesnt get away and die a slow painful death), then cut it up and skin it, then cook it---can very easily just drive or walk or bike to the grocery store and get vegetables and fruit or meat alternatives which are healthier for you. It saves time--and money--and it avoids the nastiness of the meat industry altogether.
Response: c) No its not better. It is like saying: "torturing someone before you kill him is worse than just killing him." Yeah--but its irrelevant, since the killing is unjustified to begin with.
4)Question/attack:
"Native peoples hunt and fish and trap, are you going to say it is wrong
for them to do it?"
response: a) yes, but we are not talking about native
peoples, we are talking about people who can easily give up the eating of
animals --like you.
response: b) some people in desperate situations kill
other people and steal from them to survive, are you saying that's right?
response: c) anthropological excavations of many sites
all around the world have shown that native people actually survived primarily
(over 70%) on foraging, not hunting. and in any case, it is no longer necessary
for their survival to hunt and fish.
response:
d) If they are human beings then they should live according to the same ethical
principles as any other human. No one can justify causing unnecessary harm to
others by citing tradition or racial background.
Response: e) Modern tribal peoples (at least in North America) use guns, electronics, industrial textiles and often sell their products to westerners. They would be hypocritical to say that they are living traditionally--when they are using modern technology. If they are willing to give up the tradition of carving spears--than they should be willing to give up the tradition of cruelty.
Response: f) Some native tribes like the Makah also kept human slaves. Others practiced human sacrifice and infanticide. Should they be allowed to re-adopt those practices too?
5)Question/attack: "Your philosophy may say that it is wrong for natives/aboriginals to hunt and fish, but they regard the animals as their brothers."
Response: a) If that is the case, then why do the Inuit, allegedly the natives of the arctic, need hides and tools to survive, while their "brothers" the wolf and polar bear, do not? Without their artificial support, humans would be the prey.
Response: b) While some aboriginal beliefs may regard other species as their kin, they still treat them in ways that run contradictory to the way they would treat other humans in their group. Citing some brotherhood is a sentimental appeal, not based on reason or ethical consistency.
Response: c) Oh that's sweet. "I love you brother--that's why I am going to drive this spear into your gut, skin you, then sell your innards for cash so I can get a better tv set."
11: MEAT EATING AND DAIRY CONSUMPTION back
1)Question/attack: "Everyone eats meat, so why shouldn't I?"
response: a) if everyone
jumped off a cliff would you?
response: b) don't give into peer pressure!
response: c) if everyone thinks like that then we will
never make any ethical progress on this world!
response: d) so you believe that you should hold yourself
to the lowest common ethical standard possible?
Response e) "Why is it
so hard, seemingly impossible, for our "responsible" press to convey the kinds
of concerns that Socrates raised
as portrayed in Plato's Republic" Socrates: Would this habit of
eating animals not require that we slaughter animals that we knew as individuals,
and in whose eyes we could gaze and see ourselves reflected, only a few hours
before our meal? Glaucon: This habit would require that of us.
Socrates: Wouldn't this [knowledge of our role in turning a being into
a thing] hinder us in achieving happiness? Glaucon: It could so hinder
us in our quest for happiness. Socrates: And, if we pursue this way
of living, will we not have need to visit the doctor more often? Glaucon:
We would have such need. Socrates: If we pursue our habit of eating
animals, and if our neighbor follows a similar path, will we not have need to
go
to war against our neighbor to secure greater pasturage, because ours will not
be enough to sustain us, and our neighbor will have a similar need to wage war
on us for the same reason? Glaucon: We would be so compelled. Socrates:
Would not these facts prevent us from achieving happiness, and therefore the
conditions necessary to the building of a just society, if we pursue a desire
to eat animals? Glaucon: Yes, they would so prevent us. "Today,
the resources that are required to sustain this wasteful way of living ("diet"
is Greek for "way of living") include large amounts of energy (read "oil") for
fertilizer, pesticides, antibiotics, refrigeration, water pumping, etc. So today
we go to war to maintain our access to oil supplies, but the point Socrates
made 2500 years ago is still relevant today. We do not hear about these concerns
he raised so many years ago. Why not?" (Originally posted in the Usenet
newsgroup rec.food.veg on Nov 18, 1994 by John Champagne (jchampag@lonestar.utsa.edu).
Reposted at the International Vegetarian Union website http://www.ivu.org/history/greece_rome/socrates.html
Response: f) Heart disease and cancer are the leading killers of Americans - if you were to follow a vegan diet your chances of dying from heart disease or cancer is greatly reduced.
Response: g) Humans who eat meat risk being the incubator for new diseases that may jump species. SARS, BSE (or mad cow disease), and now Asian bird flu: "Thai officials were battling yesterday to contain mounting public panic over the outbreak of avian influenza, which has left millions of chickens dead and killed at least eight people across Asia. Up to 13 deaths have been linked to the disease......However, far more worrying than the demise of the chicken industry is whether, under the right conditions, a mutant strain of airborne influenza is developing that jumps species and can be transmitted to, and between, humans. That could put the world at risk of a deadly epidemic that would dwarf the impact of Sars." http://news.independent.co.uk/world/science_medical/story.jsp?story=484485 Who needs germ warfare labs when you have meat eaters?
Response: h) From the Lancet 2004; 363: 234-36 "The establishment of permanent live-animal markets (wet markets) in many countries means that there is usually carry over of animals from one day to the next, and more expensive animals (eg, pheasants in poultry markets, civet cats in red-meat markets) can stay from days to weeks. Daily introduction of new animals provides optimum conditions for amplification and perpetration of disease agents such as influenza. The influenza virus has a segmented negatively stranded RNA genome with a propensity for reassortment and generation of novel agents. Add the daily human contacts (including children) with the live animals, and conditions are at an optimum for zoonotic transfer and the evolution of infectious disease agents."
Response: i) "Scientists have shown that the three major pandemics of human influenza in the 20th century - 1918, 1958 and 1968 - were all the result of avian virus changing its structure and becoming more infectious to people. The densely populated Far East is considered a source of new flu strains because domestic poultry and pigs are routinely reared and handled by ordinary people." New threat feared as pigs test positive for bird flu virus. By Steve Connor, Science Editor 07 February 2004 http://news.independent.co.uk/world/science_medical/story.jsp?story=488767
2)Question/attack: "People from 3rd world countries have to eat meat to survive and what about the people in the Arctic?"
Response: a) People in a Third world country do not need to eat meat to survive. The grain and water used to feed livestock could easily be used to feed many times the population according to a vegetarian diet. As for people in colder climates--if they can import guns, clothing, electronics, computers etc, then they can import vegetarian food. After all, people in colder climates, unlike real natives of the colder regions--polar bears, penguins, arctic wolves, need artificial means to survive--without it--they would perish. So relying on vegetable and fruit imports is no big sacrifice if one wants to be compassionate and ethical.
3)Question/Attack: " Inuit in the Arctic need to eat meat to survive--just like bears and wolves."
Response: a) People in the Arctic choose to live there--they don't need to live there--thus they don't need to eat meat. A bear does not choose to live there--they have to live there--thus they do need to eat whatever they can to survive.
4)Question/Attack:
"Alright, if we're not supposed to eat animals, how come they're made of
meat?"
Response:
a) Humans are made of meat too--so that means it is ok to be a cannibal
also.
5)Question/attack:
"If everyone stopped eating meat(and/or dairy products), then one would get all scrawny
just eating a diet of vegetables."
Response: a)do I LOOK like i am starving?
Response:
b)name 4 sources of calcium OTHER than dairy products." (i love this one.
Response:
c)any idea why the USA has one of the highest percentages of dairy
Response:
d) Okay great! I have a vegetarian bodybuilder I want to arrange a death match
with you. I might as well get rich off your stupidity.
Response: e)Carl Lewis, super-athlete and winner of 8 Olympic Gold Medals, promotes a vegan diet. Check out www.carllewis.com and click on "Carl's Diet"
6)Question/Attack: "You only go around once, do not sacrifice your entire life for something that does not matter."
Response: a) Oh yeah--and I guess fighting child abuse, women's rights, crime, and injustice doesn't matter either. Why not just become a serial killer with an attitude like that.
7)Question/attack: "If everyone stopped eating meat, then what would we do with all the animals? We would be overrun by them."
Response: a) Everyone wouldn't stop eating animals at once. As demand drops off,
8)Question/attack:
"If everyone stopped eating meat, then the species would go
extinct without us breeding them for consumption."
response: a)people are not going to stop eating animals all at once, it will most likely be a gradual reduction. There will also
probably be a few people who will still keep them as companion animals.
response: b) so? if they did go extinct it wouldn't hurt anything. They have been breed over the years to be something other than what
their indigenous species originally was and all they are doing right now is causing erosion and pollution to the environment.
response: c) if the only way to keep your family lineage
intact was to put you in extremely poor living conditions, force breed you, eat
you, and then steal your children and put them through the same cycle, wouldn't you rather go extinct?
response:
d) They existed in the wild before they were domesticated for human consumption..
response: e)If
we were all vegan, then organizations like Farm Sanctuary (www.farmsanctuary.org)
could still operate farms where chickens, pigs, and cows could peacefully and
naturally live out their lives in harmony with human animals.
response: a) have you ever looked at who sponsors those food charts? (psst! the meat and dairy industries)
response b) The foods in the charts depict only the most common
foods. The USDA likes to emphasize that their food guide pyramid is "well known". But on closer inspection, even mainstream
organizations like the USDA/FDA do not claim that meat and dairy are actually necessary for good health. Alternative food charts for vegetarians and
vegans exist. On the other hand, evidence abounds that the current overconsumption of meat and dairy is responsible at least in part for
common health problems, like heart disease, obesity, diabetes.
response c) Nutrition is not an easy science. The results of mass experimentation
take a long time to become clear. Mass experimentation in the developed countries with overconsumption of meat, fat and dairy has led to
an epidemic of heart disease, obesity and other diseases. The
official recommendations are beginning to change. But both from a medical perspective and from an ethical perspective the change is too slow.
Response: d)"You know, we are THE ONLY species that actually drinks the milk of another species. You don't see giraffes nursing on goats, do you? That milk was made for the cow's baby, not you".
10)Question/attack:
Response: a) gorillas are vegetarians and they have 97.7% human DNA. Likewise, chimpanzees have 98.4% human DNA and are
primarily vegetarian. (Humans and chimpanzees are more closely genetically related than an African elephant is to an Asian elephant).
Chimpanzee and gorilla's eyes are not on the sides of their heads.
response: b) when we have fangs, prehensile tails, and claws we can continue this conversation.
response: c) so, I have the means to kill you, but I am not going to.
response: d) set a toddler down next to an apple and a hamster. if he/she eats the hamster and ignores the apple, then we can talk.
response: e) my fists have the ability to punch people but that doesn't mean I should go around doing that.
response: f) so what does that make me?
response: g)Comparitive anatomy of
humans: by Milton R. Mills, M.D. In conclusion, we see that human beings have the gastrointestinal tract
structure of a “committed” herbivore. Humankind does not show the mixed
structural features one expects and finds in anatomical omnivores such as bears and raccoons. Thus, from
comparing the gastrointestinal tract of humans to that of carnivores, herbivores and omnivores we must conclude
that humankind's GI tract is designed for a purely plant-food diet.
Facial Muscles Carnivore: Reduced to allow wide mouth gape; Herbivore:
Well-developed; Omnivore: Reduced; Human: Well-developed Jaw Type
Carnivore: Angle not expanded; Herbivore: Expanded angle; Omnivore: Angle not expanded;
Human: Expanded angle Jaw Joint Location Carnivore: On same plane as molar teeth;
Herbivore: Above the plane of the molars; Omnivore: On same plane as molar teeth;
Human: Above the plane of the molars; * Jaw Motion Carnivore: Shearing; minimal side-to-side
motion; Herbivore: No shear; good side-to-side, front-to-back; Omnivore: Shearing; minimal side-to-side;
Human: No shear; good side-to-side, front-to-back Major Jaw Muscles
Carnivore: Temporalis; Herbivore: Masseter and pterygoids; Omnivore:
Temporalis; Human: Masseter and pterygoids Mouth Opening vs. Head Size
Carnivore: Large; Herbivore: Small; Omnivore: Large; Human:
Small; Teeth (Incisors) Carnivore: Short and pointed; Herbivore: Broad, flattened and spade shaped;
Omnivore: Short and pointed;
Human: Broad, flattened and spade shaped; Teeth (Canines)
Carnivore: Long, sharp and curved; Herbivore: Dull and short or long (for defense),
or none; Omnivore: Long, sharp and curved;
Human: Short and blunted; Teeth (Molars) Carnivore: Sharp, jagged and blade shaped;
Herbivore: Flattened with cusps vs complex surface; Omnivore: Sharp blades and/or flattened;
Human: Flattened with nodular cusps; Chewing Carnivore: None; swallows food whole;
Herbivore: Extensive chewing necessary; Omnivore: Swallows food whole and/or simple
crushing; Human: Extensive chewing necessary; Saliva Carnivore: No digestive enzymes;
Herbivore: Carbohydrate digesting enzymes; Omnivore: No digestive enzymes;
Human: Carbohydrate digesting enzymes; Stomach Type Carnivore: Simple;
Herbivore: Simple or multiple chambers; Omnivore: Simple; Human: Simple;
Stomach Acidity Carnivore: Less than or equal to pH 1 with food in stomach;
Herbivore: pH 4 to 5 with food in stomach; Omnivore: Less than or equal to pH 1 with food
in stomach; Human: pH 4 to 5 with food in stomach; Stomach Capacity
Carnivore: 60% to 70% of total volume of
digestive tract; Herbivore: Less than 30% of total volume of
digestive tract; Omnivore: 60% to 70% of total volume of digestive tract; Human:
21% to 27% of total volume of digestive tract; Length of Small Intestine
Carnivore: 3 to 6 times body length; Herbivore: 10 to more than 12 times body
length; Omnivore: 4 to 6 times body length; Human: 10 to 11 times body length;
Colon Carnivore: Simple, short and smooth; Herbivore: Long, complex; may be sacculated;
Omnivore: Simple, short and smooth; Human: Long, sacculated; Liver
Carnivore: Can detoxify vitamin A; Herbivore: Cannot detoxify vitamin A; Omnivore:
Can detoxify vitamin A; Human: Cannot detoxify vitamin A; Kidney Carnivore:
Extremely concentrated urine
Herbivore: Moderately concentrated urine; Omnivore:
Extremely concentrated urine; Human: Moderately concentrated urine; Nails
Carnivore: Sharp claws; Herbivore: Flattened nails or blunt hooves; Omnivore:
Sharp claws; Human: Flattened nails; (http://www.earthsave.bc.ca/materials/articles/articles/health/comparative_p7.html)
Response: h) Humans are predators because they choose to be not because they have to be.
Response: i) From the Christian perspective God put our eyes just where he wants them and there they will stay..
I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvellous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well. 15 My
substance was not hid from thee, when I was made in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. 16 Thine eyes
did see my substance, yet being unperfect; and in thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were
fashioned, when as yet there was none of them. (Psalm 139:14-16 14 )
11)Question/attack:
"If
everyone stopped eating meat, then the food would be bland."
Response:
a) There are good meat substitutes on the market...
response: b) the food is really anything but
bland. most people find that after switching to a veg diet their food options seem to
expand because they are forced to try new things and their palate no longer revolves around the same foods in every meal. it's not
just raw tasteless vegetables. you can still use herbs and spices and many sauces and pastas and breads....etc. Plus there are many
great substitutes for all of your old favorites.
12)Question/attack: "If everyone stopped eating meat, then you would suffer from calcium, iron, and protein deficiencies."
Response:
a)Certain fruits and vegetables are loaded with calcium.. Certain greens contain much iron. Soy products, and legumes provide
ample protein plus fiber without the fat and cholesterole.....
response: any nutrients that you find in meat can easily be found in plant foods (and without all the fat and cholesterol). If you eat
a variety, there is no need to worry about vitamin or mineral deficiencies. It has actually been found that americans get 2-3 times the
protein amount that is healthy for them, and this extra protein overloads the body with acid. to buffer the acid the body takes calcium
out of your bones. Studies have also shown that vegetarians have stronger bones and lower cholesterol than meat eaters.
Response: c)Soldiers in the Roman Army subsisted on a diet made up of very plain foods. Soldiers were required to pay up to one third of their wages
for their food. They ate mostly bread, perhaps porridge, cheese or beans with cheap wine to wash it down (Marks, Tingay 16).
Marks, Anthony, Tingay, Graham. The Romans. London. Usborne Publishing Ltd., 1990.
Response: d) "Dupont says that a soldier's diet was even more extremely limited. She reports that Legionaries ate only bread and drank only water plus
a little vinegar when the weather was hot. It was considered that "bread was the only food "fit for a soldier, hard food for hard
men"(Dupont 125). Dupont, Florence. Daily Life in Ancient Rome. Cambridge, USA. Basil Blackwell Ltd., 1992.
Taken from: Social Position and Food in the Roman Empire -or- You Eat What You Are Jean Preston Roman Civilization Dr. Christine Renaud 2 December 1997
"http://www.carthage.edu/outis/food.html"
Response:
e) Roman soldiers carried their grain (high gluten wheat) and flour grindstones with them on the march. At night, after their 20 mile
daily march they would have pasta and baked bread. They preferred this even over meat. When they did eat meat they considered it
to be "barbarian food." (http://www.bible-history.com/rome/RomeEarly_Roman_Society_Facts.htm)
13)Question/attack: "What about B-12? The only reliable sources are animal products. Without it you could suffer from pernicious anemia and other neurological problems." (also "you couldnt have been a vegan 80 years ago because you need modern technology to create fortified foods.")
Response: a) From: What Every Vegan Should Know About Vitamin B12
by Dr. Stephen Walsh
The only reliable vegan sources of B12 are foods fortified with B12 (including some plant milks, some soy products and some breakfast cereals) and B12 supplements. Vitamin B12, whether in supplements, fortified foods, or animal products, comes from micro-organisms.
Most vegans consume enough B12 to avoid anaemia and nervous system damage, but many do not get enough to minimise potential risk of heart disease or pregnancy complications.
To get the full benefit of a vegan diet, vegans should do one of the following:
1. Eat fortified foods two or three times a day to get at least three micrograms (mcg or g) of B12 a day or
2. Take one B12 supplement daily providing at least 10 micrograms or
3. Take a weekly B12 supplement providing at least 2000 micrograms.
Response: b) From: What Every Vegan Should Know About Vitamin B12 by Dr. Stephen Walsh
"To be truly healthful, a diet must be best not just for individuals in isolation but must allow all six billion people to thrive and achieve a sustainable coexistence with the many other species that form the "living earth". From this standpoint the natural adaptation for most (possibly all) humans in the modern world is a vegan diet. There is nothing natural about the abomination of modern factory farming and its attempt to reduce living, feeling beings to machines. In choosing to use fortified foods or B12 supplements, vegans are taking their B12 from the same source as every other animal on the planet - micro-organisms - without causing suffering to any sentient being or causing environmental damage."
Response: c) From: What Every Vegan Should Know About Vitamin B12 by Dr. Stephen Walsh:
Vegans using adequate amounts of fortified foods or B12 supplements are much less likely to suffer from B12 deficiency than the typical meat eater. The Institute of Medicine, in setting the US recommended intakes for B12 makes this very clear. "Because 10 to 30 percent of older people may be unable to absorb naturally occurring vitamin B12, it is advisable for those older than 50 years to meet their RDA mainly by consuming foods fortified with vitamin B12 or a vitamin B12-containing supplement." Vegans should take this advice about 50 years younger, to the benefit of both themselves and the animals. B12 need never be a problem for well-informed vegans.
Further information:
Dietary Reference Intakes for Thiamin, Riboflavin, Niacin, Vitamin B6, Folate, Vitamin B12, Pantothenic Acid, Biotin, and Choline, National Academy Press, 1998 ISBN 0-309-06554-2
(http://books.nap.edu/books/0309065542/html/306.html#pagetop)
Vitamin B12: Are you getting it?, by Jack Norris, http://www.veganoutreach.org/health/b12.html
(http://www.vegfamily.com/articles/b12.htm)
Response: d) excerpt from Dr. Klaper’s article ‘Nutrition for Optimum
Health’: "Let me be very clear about this, cows do not make vitamin B-12. They never have, they never will. Pigs don't make vitamin B-12, chickens don't make vitamin B-12, no animal makes vitamin B-12. They never have, they never will.
Vitamin B-12 is synthesized by single-celled microbes (bacteria) that live in the soils of the earth. And long ago when the earth and soils were healthy, before we put all sorts of chemicals on them, the surface of the earth was covered with vitamin B-12. There used to be lots of vitamin B-12 in our lives. Even if you were a pure vegetarian 300 years ago, you could open up the back door of your cottage and outside would be a beautiful organic garden. Every carrot you pulled out of the ground would have little particles of vitamin B-12 sticking to it. When it came time to get your water, you'd take a bucket of water out of the stream, and there too you would find vitamin B-12. There would be B-12 under your finger nails from working in the garden. There would be plenty of B-12 in your life, and since you needed so little of it, concerns about deficiency would not be an issue.
We've become very isolated from the earth and we've lost our natural sources of B-12. Cows have B-12 in their muscles because they're eating grass all day and their pulling up clumps of dirt that have B-12 producing organisms clinging to the root of the grass. They eat the B-12 producing organisms who produce the B-12, which gets absorbed into their bloodstream, goes out into the muscles, and is deposited into their muscles and livers. But that is bacterial B-12 in the cow's muscle. The cow did not make it, nor did the pig or chicken.
Those same organisms are now cultured in big vats, producing their B-12 that is eventually separated out. It is then added to breakfast cereals, soy milks soy burgers, nutritional yeast, and vitamin tablets. It's easy to get vitamin B-12 without consuming animal products and I suggest if you really want to lighten up your diet, find a non-animal source of B-12.
We are evolving as a species. What our caveman ancestors ate is of little import to us now. The question is what is the best diet for modern human beings? Medical literature is clearly showing that the less animal fat and animal protein you put in your system, the healthier you are going to be."
Response: e) Strict vegetarians(in the Jain religion) have lived for many
hundreds of years in India. If B 12 deficiency was such a problem, jainism would
have not have continued to this day.
Response: f) We don't live 80 years ago--we live now. If you want to turn back the clock you can easily get your daily sources of B 12. Just dont wash your hands and avoid taking baths. Since you want to live naturally you will also want to avoid using running water, electricity, industrial clothing, etc.
Response: g) I would rather risk the low chance of getting B 12 deficiency through a vegan diet as opposed to the much greater risk of heart disease from a meat diet.
14)Question/attack:
"We have been killing and eating meat for centuries, why should we stop now?"
Response: a) If you use tradition as your moral standard it allows that human slavery, the oppression of women, ethnocentricity and religious based discrimination would be tolerated. You would need to show why humans are deserving of an exemption from this ethical standard. Why a racist or a religious bigot could not discriminate on the basis of race or religion while others could discriminate on the basis of species.
Response:
b)
Response:
c) There are many religions that do not adhere to such a principle and in fact
propose a contrary perspective:.Jainism, Buddhism, etc. Compassion for all life
is a matter of doctrine.
Response: d) " There were always a few individuals who protested against the Atlantic slave-trade right from the beginning; but governments and traders paid no attention to them during the fifteenth, sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It was not until the late eighteenth century that serious attempts were made to put a stop to this trade. James Boswell, trying to refute the arguments of abolitionists, writes in his Life of Johnson that, "The wild and dangerous attempt which has for some time been persisted in order to obtain an act of our legislature, to abolish so very important and necessary branch of commercial interest, must have been crus(h)ed at once, had not the insignificance of the zealots who vainly took the lead in it, made the vast body of Planters, Merchants, and others, whose immense properties are involved in that trade, reasonably enough suppose that there could be no danger. The encouragement which the attempt has received excites my wonder and indignation; and though some men of superior abilities have supported it, whether from a love of temporary popularity, when prosperous; or a love of general mischief, when desperate, my opinion is unshaken. To abolish a status which in all ages GOD has sanctioned, and man has continued, would not only be robbery to an innumerable class of our fellow-subjects; but it would be extreme cruelty to the African Savages, a portion of whom it saves from massacre, or intolerable bondage in their own country, and introduces into a much happier state of life; especially now when their passage to the West Indies and their treatment there is humanely regulated. To abolish that trade would be to shut the gates of mercy on mankind." Boswell, J., Life of Johnson (N.Y.: Modern Library Edition, 1965) p. 365. http://www.al-islam.org/slavery/6.htm
15)Question/attack:
"Other animals kill other species for food."
Response: a) They need to eat meat to survive--humans do not.
Response: b) Some species have been known to kill members of their own species-if you are saying it is okay to kill other species because a lion does it, then a child murderer could say we have a right to kill our children because lions do it too.
16)Question/attack: "Much of the grain we feed to the animals is not edible by humans."
Response: a) It would take much less energy to make that grain "human quality," than it would to feed it all to cattle and then get just a little bit of beef with all of the environmental impacts that entails.
Response: b) What about water? Think of the water shortages today. There are people in India who have to travel for miles to get daily water, while livestock in the US gets all the water they need--just to support an unnecessary diet of meat and dairy.
17)Question/attack:
"Meat tastes good and is good for you."
Response: a) It's not good for you - cholesterol, saturated fat, and no fiber.
Response b) The drug addict likes their drugs. They might even know the drugs are bad for them. But the excuse for not giving them up is they like them. Any rational person however will recognize the disfunctionality of this argument. The sane person gives up destructive behaviors.
18)Question/attack:
"If everyone stopped eating meat, then people would lose lots of
jobs."
Response:
a) A lot of people would lose jobs if people stopped smoking. All those
response: a) well, that's better than nothing, but it's
not the best option.
response: b) are you doing that?
response: c) what if slave traders only kept a few slaves and treated them
relevantly well?
20)Question/attack:
"What if we genetically engineered animals to
response:
a) well, to get to that point there has to be many animal sacrifices that do
have brains and feelings. plus, it would still be bad for your health and the
environment (in the production of such a thing). also, there are many fake meats
that work just as well and don't involve risky animal experiments.
response: b) what if you genetically engineered humans
to have no brains and no feelings so we could use them in scientific experiments?
would that be ethical?
21)Question/attack: "Eating cats and dogs is no different than eating other animals such as cattle or pigs for food."
Response: a) What other species actively eats carnivores? It is not a healthy practice, especially considering that carnivores don't usually have long lifespans.
Response: b) Basically when you say
it is no different from eating any other animals you are right, but since eating
farm animals is wrong too, how does that make eating cats and dogs right? How
do two wrongs make a right?
Response c) Let's say someone criticized
Russia for its treatment of people in Chechnya. And let's say that Russia replied,
"our treatment of people in Chechnya is no worse than Israel's treatment of
the Palestinians."
Maybe so, but how does that DEFEND what Russia is doing in Chechnya? In order
to defend the practice of eating cats and dogs, you have to use an argument
that defends the practice in and of itself, not one that deflects the issue
to some other exploitation. Eating domesticated cats and dogs for food is unnecessary
and not consistent with a principle of trying to be as ethical and as fair as
possible--period. There are healthier and less cruel alternatives.
12: MISC. back
1)Question/Attack: "Native hunters/whalers regard the animals they hunt as their
brothers."
Response: a)"Ah yes, "I love you brother. That is why I am going to harpoon and club you to death."
Response: b)The Makah whalers say the whales they slaughter are their "brothers"--yet the Makah word for Grey whale translates as "devilfish" (since their "brothers" often defended themselves when attacked--apparently that makes them evil). Quite the endearment to call your sibling.
2)Question/attack:
"It's necessary to make a qualitative distinction between
Response: a) While I would agree that commercial whaling is more ethically problematic than Inuit whaling, the real issue is whether whaling itself is justified. Assuming that a community's survival is "completely" dependent upon whaling, the real question becomes: does it need to be?
Response: b) . If the "civilized" nations of the world, including the Inuit representatives, can travel by 21st century technology to meet in Japan for an IWC meeting then alternatives to whaling for survival do exist. The apologists for whaling would have us believe that we can put a man on the Moon, and design a computer that can play chess, but when it comes to providing daily sustenance for all humans, only a harpoon can accomplish the task—or in other words, that we must approach a 21st century problem with 1st century solutions.
Response:
c) while I would agree
that a man who mugs people and shoots them dead is not as nasty as another man
who mugs people then douses them with gasoline and lets them burn to death,
this qualitative distinction on my part does not mean I endorse the actions
of either man. The distinction becomes trivial in light of the greater issue:
whether either man needs to engage in such behavior, and whether I should be
assisting either of them in committing such acts.
3)Question/attack: "to ask First nations hunters to give up their hunting and fishing and rely on international food aid would be to rob them of their independence."
Response: a) No man is an island, and one cannot go back in time to 1000 CE. If they are able to stomach the concept of using non Inuit technology for some aspects of their lives (guns and ammunition for hunting, air travel to whaling summits etc), then why can they not stomach it for other possibilities? A fair and ethical treatment of others should trump lifestyle choices and tradition—if one wants to have a more consistent ethical philosophy.
Response:
b) none
of us are truly independent from our societies, or national governments. While
I believe that people should have choices in how they live their lives, the
choices become a matter of ethics where the lives of others are involved. A
man who wants independence cannot have his cake and eat it too. If he wants
others to respect his right to independence, he has to be fair and just in the
implementation of that independence.
4)Question/Attack: "Since the end of the seal hunt Inuit trappers and hunters have succumbed to bad health from eating junk food, alcohol abuse, poverty, even suicide. Helping animals hurt First Nations people."
Response: a) Negro slave traders also suffered when the slave trade was stopped. Does that mean that it was wrong to abolish the slave trade? If it is okay to put slave traders out of work to liberate others, then it is okay to do the same for seals or other species.
Response: b) Alcohol and junk food is bad for everyone. The answer is not reinstating the seal fur trade, but dealing with those problems among the Inuit community. I suppose the government would much rather return to killing seals and making profits from fur, than adopting wholesome and compassionate methods for solving these problems.
Response: c) It is unfortunate that they have had bad times--but it wasn't as bad as a seal being orphaned or getting shot or his/her head bashed in.
Response: d) If Inuit people cannot live normal happy lives without going out and killing an animal then they really have problems. I suppose one would like to believe the myth that it is some natural instinct for northern human societies to hunt, trap and fish. Yet polar bears and wolves and other species are born to survive by these methods-humans on the other hand, choose to live in harsh climates. They don't have to. Seals, wolves, bears---they are meant to live in the Arctic--but humans are not physically equipped for it. Perhaps what the depressed Inuit hunter needs is a change of scenery--and coming to realize that there is more to life than killing when one does not need to.
Response: e) There was a time when seal hunters in the North did not have markets to sell their "wares." Somehow they managed to live okay without an international fur trade. Is it the loss of a tradition that is the culprit for their woes or is it rather, the loss of money?
5)Question/attack: "Native trappers and hunters etc are living on the planet the way we are supposed to."
Response: a) Hey! Can you lend me your copy of "HOW TO LIVE" by Supreme Deity? I want to check the section on what to do with arrogant humans.
Response: b) Ignoring your apparent claim of access to the divine scheme for human existence, some tribal societies had been known to sacrifice humans and keep them as slaves(such as the Makah whaling tribe). Tribal peoples are humans too--meaning they are just as capable of being cruel, greedy or deceitful as any other ethnic division of the human species. By your argument how do we know that butchering each other and other species is not the way we are supposed to live--so why bother having police to curb our violent tendencies? If it is wrong for Makah whalers to enslave and exploit other humans, than its wrong for Northern trappers to enslave and exploit other animals.
6)Question/Attack: "there are more (enter animal species) in the wild than before the white man arrived."
Response: a) Unless you have access to a time machine, that statement is a little hard to verify with Stats Canada in the year 1600.
7)Question/attack: "Animals that we trap and hunt die from disease and starvation in the wild."
Response: a) Wow! Imagine that, things get sick and die! And here i thought Nature worked like a Disney cartoon!
Response: b) humans also die from the same causes--do you suggest we hunt and trap those poor unfortunates and turn them into coats (with fur designers and hunters getting the profits)?
Response: c) "James Boswell, trying to refute the arguments of abolitionists, writes in his Life of Johnson that, "...To abolish a status which in all ages GOD has sanctioned, and man has continued, would not only be robbery to an innumerable class of our fellow-subjects; but it would be extreme cruelty to the African Savages, a portion of whom it saves from massacre, or intolerable bondage in their own country, and introduces into a much happier state of life; especially now when their passage to the West Indies and their treatment there is humanely regulated. To abolish that trade would be to shut the gates of mercy on mankind." Boswell, J., Life of Johnson (N.Y.: Modern Library Edition, 1965) p. 365. http://www.al-islam.org/slavery/6.htm
8)Question/attack: a) "a Northern trapper sees himself as the "caretaker of the land."
Response: a) How utterly arrogant. Nature does not need managing, humans do. Other species were taking care of themselves long before humans arrived on the scene and they will get along just as well when humans go the way of the Dodo bird (exterminated I might add, by "caretaker" humans).
Response: b) And white slave traders saw themselves as caretakers for the non-white non-christian races--so should we then forgive anyone for practicing human slavery?
9)Question/attack: "Northern tribal societies like the Inuit are as well adapted to their "indigenous" environment, as the polar bears or seals or whales that share it."
Response: a) A naked polar bear, Arctic wolf, seal, or whale is born with all the equipment he or she needs to survive. But a human, even of Inuit extraction, would perish in mere minutes if left naked on the ice flows of his or her so-called native habitat. If an Inuit is naturally meant to hunt whales, as is frequently claimed by defenders of exploitation industries that use First Nations communities for supplies or propaganda (i.e. whaling, sealing and trapping), then its factual validity can be tested by simply having one courageous Inuit hunter jump naked into the Arctic sea and try to bite a whale to death with only his teeth and bare hands. The result is easily predicted. Because the Inuit need tools to survive, and those tools are now chiefly provided by outside communities (i.e. the government of Canada, Smith & Wesson), then it would be hypocritical to suggest that the best long term, ethical solution to First Nations subsistence needs cannot be based on more compassionate aid from those very same communities, whether it be food aid or subsidized relocation to climates more suited to human beings.
Response: b)When they are born with fur and blubber and claws instead of having to take it from other Arctic natives, then i will believe that are indigenous to the climate.
10)Question/attack: "They cant move anywhere else! The Arctic is their home!"
Response: a) But not in the same way it is for seals, whales, bears or wolves.
Response:
b) Why is it that of
all the native inhabitants of the Arctic, only the Inuit are not born with all
the physical tools they need to survive? Until they are born with a thick hide
of blubber and fur from their backs, I will say that a sub-zero temperature
is not their natural environment.
11)Question/attack: "the trappers use all the scraps of the animal, nothing is wasted."
Response: a) Hitler also used all the scraps of his victims--is that a defense for what he did?
12)Question/attack: "To criticize First Nations people(or Japanese Whalers or Bali turtle hunters) for hunting and fishing and trapping and whaling is just cultural imperialism (aka identity imperialism, racism etc.). You are trying to impose your beliefs on others." [note: this is a form of the Moral relativism argument--which states that one cannot judge the actions of one culture (or person) by the ethical standards of another).
Response: a) If one applied this moral relativistic belief consistently and fairly it would mean one could not condemn someone else for discrimination against other humans based upon their own cultural and ethical beliefs. People who practice bride burning or honor killings or child labor could say it is "cultural imperialism" for outsiders to criticize their actions.
Response: b) Activities from spousal abuse to ritual murder to cannibalism have also been defended by bogus claims of racism or "Imperialism," and this hasn't nullified the ethical arguments against these practices;
Response: c) Other species can also be said to suffer under unjust, discriminatory treatment, and every human ethnic group, including First nation ones, are capable of being the oppressors.
Response: d) We are talking about life, not a lifestyle. When the issue involves the very real harm caused to others, ethical beliefs do apply, and it is certainly within reason to make judgments based upon those beliefs. Since no human society on Earth lives in a vacuum, and all have at least some connection to other cultures, and they all expect at least some moral consideration from each other, the charge of discrimination may be leveled against any one of them. The only way an Inuit hunter or Japanese whaler (or Michigan deer hunter for that matter) could use moral relativism as a defense, is if he holds no ethical belief (such as his own right to life) that he expects should be honored by anyone else (whether Inuit or not). That possibility is very very remote.
Response:
e) Actually the true cultural imperialism is when the Inuit or the Japanese
or anyone else tries to impose their culture on whales or other animals by killing
them when they do not need to.
13)Question/Attack: "Do you eat bread? Nutritional yeast is alive. You are killing bacteria."
Response: a) Thanks! I will switch to flatbreads tomorrow,
but regardless, it doesn't excuse you from supporting meat eating, the
fur industry, animal research etc etc. How does that justify you supporting
the meat industry, animal research, hunting etc? By your logic, any act of killing,
necessary or not(right down to the microscopic level), negates any effort to
to curb it. Therefore, since we cannot avoid killing microbes just by the act
of living, we shouldn't worry about muggings, murders, wars etc. If you say
yes we can worry about them, then we can also worry about meat eating, hunting,
and any other practice it is possible to stop.
Response: b) Just because I am trying to live more ethically
does not mean that I am perfect. One cannot avoid all killing in life. That
is not to say that animal rights and veg*anism are pointless. If I accidentally
kill a bug by stepping on it, that does not mean that I should give up the whole
compassionate living thing altogether. Everyone should just do as much as they
can manage to aspire towards a moral life. Eating meat, buying products tested
on animals, etc, these are things that can be easily avoided and are direct
links to mass cruelty.
Response:
c) I think I killed about a million microbes just from gasping at the stupidity
of your argument. Man, I am worse than Hitler.
Response: d) Yeast isn't a sentient lifeform--unless you worry about bacteria.
So I take it you don't bath because you don't want to kill millions of them?
14)Question/attack: "If we don't consider ourselves better than animals we will treat each other terribly."
Response: a) So does that mean that if whites consider themselves superior to blacks then they would naturally treat whites better?
Response: b) Tell that to Stalin and Hitler.
Response: c) ATTACHMENT:
ANIMAL VICTIMS / HUMAN VICTIMS:
REPORTS FROM POLICE CASE FILES Russell Weston Jr., tortured and killed
12 cats: burned and cut off their tails, paws, ears; poured toxic chemicals
in their eyes to blind them; forced them to ingest poison, hung them from trees
(the noose loose enough to create a slow and painful death.) Later killed
2 officers at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, DC. *****Jeffery Dahmer
staked cats to trees and decapitated dogs. Later he dissected boys, and kept
their body parts in the refrigerator. Murdered 17 men.**** Kip Kinkle shot 25
classmates and killed several in Springfield, Oregon. He killed his father and
mother. Said he blew up a cow once. Set a live cat on fire and dragged the innocent
creature through the main street of town. Classmates rated him as "Most
Likely to Start World War 3."*** As a boy, Albert De Salvo, the "Boston
Strangler," placed a dog and cat in a crate with a partition between
them. After starving the animals for days, he removed the partition to watch
them kill each other. He raped and killed 13 women by strangulation. He often
posed bodies in a shocking manner after their murders. ****Richard Allen Davis
set numerous cats on fire. He killed all of Polly Klaus' animals before abducting
and murdering Polly Klaus, aged 12, from her bedroom.****11-year-old Andrew
Golden and 13-year-old Mitchell Johnson tortured and killed dogs. On March 24,
1998, in Jonesboro, Arkansas, Golden and Johnson shot and killed 4 students
and 1 teacher during a fire drill at their school. ******After 16-year-old Luke
Woodham mortally stabbed his mother, killed 2 classmates and shot 7 others,
he confessed to bludgeoning his dog Sparkle with baseball bats and pouring liquid
fuel down her throat and to set fire to her neck. "I made my first kill
today," he wrote in his court-subpoenaed journal. "It was a loved
one...I¹ll never forget the howl she made. It sounded almost human." In
June 1998, Woodham was found guilty of 3 murders and 7 counts of aggravated
assault. He was sentenced to 3 life sentences and an additional 20 years for
each assault. *****Theodore Robert Bundy, executed in 1989 for at least 50 murders,
was forced to witness a grandfather who tortured animals. Bundy later heaped
graves with animal bones.******At 4-years-old, Michael Cartier dislocated the
legs of rabbits and hurled a kitten through a closed window. He later shot Kristin
Lardner 3 times in the head, before shooting himself. *****Henry Lee Lucas killed
numerous animals and had sex with their corpses. He killed his mother, common
law wife, and an unknown number of people.
*****Edward Kemperer cut up 2 cats. He later killed his grandparents, mother
and 7 other women.*****Richard Speck threw a bird into a ventilator fan. Killed
8 women. *****Randy Roth taped a cat to a car's engine and used an industrial
sander on a frog. Killed 2 of his wives and attempted to kill a
third. *****David Richard Davis shot and killed 2 healthy ponies, threw
a wine bottle at a pair of kittens and hunted with illegal methods. Murdered
his wife, Shannon Mohr Davis, for insurance money.**** Peter Kurten, the
Dusseldorf Monster, tortured dogs, and practiced bestiality while killing animals.
Murdered or attempted to murder over 50 men, women and children.**** Richard
Trenton Chase, "The Vampire Killer of Sacramento," bit the heads off
birds, drained animals for their blood, killed animals for their organs, and
later killed 6 people in random attacks. One police officer present at the scene
of the first murder, confessed to having nightmares about the crime for months
afterwards.*******"The Kobe Killer, an as yet unnamed 15-year-old boy in
Japan,
beheaded a cat and strangled several pigeons. Decapitated 11-year-old
Jun Hase, and battered to death a 10-year-old girl with a hammer, and assaulted
3 other children in separate attacks.*****Richard William Leonard's grandmother
forced him to kill and mutilate cats and kittens when he was a child. He later
killed Stephen Dempsey with a bow and arrow. He also killed Ezzedine Bahmad
by slashing his throat.****Tom Dillion murdered people's pets. He shot and killed
Jamie Paxton, aged 21; Claude Hawkins, aged 49; Donald Welling, aged 35; Kevin
Loring, aged 30; and Gary Bradely, aged 44.*** David Berkowitz, "Son of
Sam," poisoned his mother's parakeet out of jealousy. He later shot 13
young men and women. 6 people died and at least 2 suffered permanent disabilities.****Arthur
Shawcross repeatedly threw a kitten into a lake until the kitten drowned from
exhaustion. Killed a young girl. After serving 15-
1/2 years in prison, he killed 11 more women.**** Jason Massey's killing
resume began with cats and dogs; at 20 he decapitated and disemboweled a 13-year-old
girl and fatally shot a 14- year old boy. He claims to have killed 37 cats,
29 dogs and 6 cows.****Patrick Sherrill stole neighborhood pets, tethered them
with baling wire and encouraged his dog to mutilate them. He killed 14 co-workers
and himself in 1986.****Keith Hunter Jesperson, "Happy Face Killer,"
bashed gopher heads and beat, strangled and shot stray cats and dogs. He is
known to have strangled 8 women. He said: "You're actually squeezing the
life out of these animals...Choking a human being or a cat--it's the same feeling...I'm
the very end result of what happens when somebody kills an animal at an early
age."****Carroll Edward Cole, executed in 1985 for an alleged 35 murders
and reputed to be one of the most prolific serial killers in U.S. history, confessed
that his first act of violence was to strangle a puppy under the porch of his
house.***
15)Question/attack: "Wasn't Hitler a vegetarian?"
Response: a) And Al Capone started the first soup kitchens in Chicago. I guess anyone who supports helping the homeless is a gangster?
Response: b) the testimony
of Hitler's personal cook in Hamburg during the late 1930s - Dione Lucas. In
her "Gourmet Cooking School
Cookbook," she records that his favorite dish - the one that he customarily
requested - was stuffed squab (pigeon). "I do not mean to spoil your appetite
for stuffed squab, but you might be interested to know that it was a great favorite
with Mr. Hitler, who dined in the hotel often." (http://www.ivu.org/history/europe20a/hitler.html)
Response: c) So was Gandhi--does that make him a war monger and mass murderer?
Response: d) They say Osama Bin Laden liked hunting. So did Timothy McVeigh. So by your logic, every hunter is a terrorist!
Response: e) "Otto D. Tolischus in 1937 in The New York Times pointed out that the Führer was a vegetarian who 'does not drink or smoke' but who also 'occasionally relishes a slice of ham' along with delicacies such as caviar and chocolates." (Ibid.) Robert Proctor calls Hitler a vegetarian "of sorts" (The Nazi War on Cancer, p. 134) and is content to state that Hitler was a vegetarian who "occasionally would allow himself a dish of meat," (p. 135) and quotes The New York Times as stating that in addition to ham and caviar Hitler also occasionally ate squab." (http://www.micahbooks.com/readingroom/Hitlerveg.html)
Response: f)His cook, an enormously fat man named Willy Kannenberg, produced exquisite meals and acted as court jester. Although Hitler had no fondness for meat except in the form of sausages and never ate fish, he enjoyed caviar....(The Life and Death of Adolph Hitler (Praeger, 1973)(p. 346) (http://www.micahbooks.com/readingroom/Hitlerveg.html)
Response: g) Hitler's reputation for being a vegetarian seems to consist solely of his not having eaten red meat. The effort to describe Hitler's eating habits as vegetarian requires changing the definition of "vegetarian" to exclude liver, ham, and sausages from the list of meats, and changing the definition of "animal" to exclude pigs. Hitler did exhibit a sympathy with a vegetarian diet, but paradoxically, vegetarians and the vegetarian movement in Nazi Germany were persecuted. Vegetarian societies were restrained, subject to raids, and "books that contained vegetarian recipes were confiscated by the Gestapo." Janet Barkas has a good account of this period in German history in her book, The Vegetable Passion. German vegetarian societies were forced to leave the International Vegetarian Union; they were prohibited from organizing and from publishing material, but individuals were not molested and "could exchange their credit notes for meat for dairy products. About 83,000 vegetarians participated in this program." (http://www.micahbooks.com/readingroom/Hitlerveg.html)
Response: h) Hitler
and Animals Like many of his fellow human beings, Adolf Hitler used animal epithets
to vilify other people. He often called his
opponents "swine" and "dirty dogs." The Bolsheviks were "animals," and the Russians
a "bestial people" and Slavic "rabbit-family" whom Stalin had molded into a
totalitarian state. After Hitler conquered Russia, he wanted "the ridiculous
hundred million Slavs" to live in "pig-pens." He called British diplomats "little
worms," and, as for the "half-Judaized, half-Negrified" people of
America, they "have the brains of a hen." Hitler had contempt for his own people,
referring to them as "the great stupid mutton-herd of our sheep-like people,"
and when the defeats mounted late in the war, he blamed them for not having
risen to the challenge. Hitler called his own sisters "stupid geese." Whatever
deficiencies members of the Germanic Volk might
possess, however, Hitler believed the Aryan/Nordic race was infinitely superior
to the surrounding sea of sub-human "monstrosities between man and ape," as
he made clear in a speech in Munich in 1927:
"We see before us the Aryan race which is manifestly
the bearer of all culture, the true representative of all humanity....Our entire
industrial science is without exception the work of Nordics. All great composers
from Beethoven to Richard Wagner are Aryans....Man owes everything that is of
any importance to the principle of struggle and to one race which has carried
itself forward successfully. Take away the Nordic Germans and nothing remains
but the dance of apes." Charles Patterson (http://www.powerfulbook.com/excerpts.html)
Response i) Hitler was fond of dogs, especially German shepherds (he considered
boxers "degenerate"), whom he liked to control and dominate. At the front during
World War I, he befriended a white terrier, Fuchsl (Foxl), who had strayed across
enemy lines. Later, when his unit had to move on and Fuchsl could not be found,
Hitler became distraught. "I liked him so much," he recalled. "He only obeyed
me." Hitler often carried a dog-
whip and sometimes used it to beat his dog the same way he had seen his father
beat his own dog. In the Fuhrer headquarters during World War II, Hitler's German
shepherd, Blondi, offered him the closest thing he had to friendship. "But with
his dogs, as with every human being he came into contact with," writes his biographer
Ian Kershaw, "any relationship was based upon subordination to his mastery."
http://www.powerfulbook.com/excerpts.html
Response: j) The reputed fondness
of Hitler and other top Nazis for animals, especially their dogs, has been put
into perspective by Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno. For certain authoritarian
personalities, they write, their "love of animals" is part of the way they intimidate
others. When
industrial magnates and Fascist leaders want to have pets around them, Horkheimer
and Adorno maintain, their choice falls on intimidating animals such as Great
Danes and lion cubs, which are intended to add to their power through the terror
they inspire. "The murderous Fascist colossus stands so blindly before nature
that he sees animals only as a means of humiliating men," they write. "The Fascist's
passionate interest in animals, nature, and children is rooted in the lust to
persecute." While with their hand they might negligently stroke a child's head,
or an animal's back, that same hand
could just as easily destroy them. "The petting demonstrates that all are equal
in the presence of power, that none is a being in its own right. A creature
is merely material for the master's bloody purposes." (http://www.powerfulbook.com/excerpts.html)
Response: k)http://www.micahbooks.com/readingroom/Nazisandanimalresearch.html "It is alleged that the Nazis revered or admired animals. Hitler's nickname, "Wolf" is adduced as evidence for this. The Nazi interest in animals was part of their adaptation of social Darwinism to racial policies: they were fond of powerful animals, not animals they perceived as weak. Hitler's nickname, "Wolf" is a good example. He didn't call himself "rabbit," or "deer." As Kenneth Clarke points out in The History of Animals in Art human behavior towards animals is extremely paradoxical. Human beings can be fond of animals and cruel towards them. Admiration for animals often accompanies cruelty towards them. A hunter loves his hunting dog. Lion hunters admire the lion. Some Medieval barons had bears inscribed on their escutcheons, yet hunted them and tortured them, sometimes blinding them for entertainment and bear fights."
16)Question/Attack: "Other animals are sadistic too. They will torture a mouse and know they are torturing it."
Response a) Not according to Mark Twain: "Of all the creatures that were made, man is the most detestable. Of the entire brood he is the only one--the solitary one--that possesses malice. That is the basest of all instincts, passions, vices--the most hateful. He is the only creature that has pain for sport, knowing it to be pain. Also--in all the list he is the only creature that has a nasty mind.- Mark Twain's Autobiography; and: "Of all the animals, man is the only one that is cruel. He is the only one that inflicts pain for the pleasure of doing it. It is a trait that is not known to the higher animals." (The Lowest Animal)
Response: b) You say a cat knows that a mouse feels pain,
that a cat knows what a mouse is feeling, and then deliberately tortures the
mouse--just as we know for fact, humans--such as researchers, are capable of
doing(the fact that researchers will name lab animals "goner" or three
animals with broken spines "snap, crackle and pop" demonstrates this..
When you see cats or weasals do the same, or gather to watch other cats torture
mice as a spectator sport--just as humans do in bullrings and rodeos, and in
the Roman Coliseum--then you will convince me. Until then--keep fantasizing.
Response: c) You are trying to project all the negative qualities of humans onto non humans..but you miss something. Only humans are capable of slander. Only a human can accuse an innocent of doing that which it does itself.
Response: d) Humans are also capable of torturing others via language. Insults, lies etc. Can other species do that?
Response: e) There is zero evidence that other species, unlike humans, are aware that they are causing members of other species to suffer. Do cats or weasals set up arenas or stadiums in the wild or back alleys where they sit around as other cats and weasals torture mice? Do they roll on their backs in apparent glee as they watch a mouse screaming--as humans have been known to find pleasure and amusement from watching others--human or not--suffer? For a cat to be aware that a mouse suffers, and then to derive pleasure from its suffering, would be to project very human characteristics onto the cat. And remember that there is one advantage that humans have over non humans in their capacity for cruelty. Only humans are capable of mental torment. Using language to tease and torture others.
17)Question/attack: "Do you eat meat?/What are your shoes made of?"
Response: a) The issue of meat eating and/or animal by-products is a valid and important issue in animal rights, but it does not have anything to do with the moral and ethical problems of animal research. The fact that an animal activist making a pro-animal rights/compassion argument may be inconsistent in those ways does not in any way detract or invalidate the argument on animal research. It is a separate issue.
Response:
b) If South Africa was being criticized by the
18)Question/attack:
Well you are entitled to your opinion but I am entitled to mine and I say---FILL
IN BLANK
Response: a) Everyone is entitled to an opinion (although
some are more able to express one publicly than others) but if the opinion
involves causing harm to others--there is usually a generally accepted restriction
on ACTING upon such opinions. I.e. "I think Christians like me are superior
to non-christians, therefore we should be able to enslave non believers."
If it is wrong for white supremacists, christian supremacists, anti-gays, male
chauvinists, etc to act upon their opinion, thus it should be the same for ALL
forms of unfair discrimination--including willful discrimination against animals.
19)Question/attack: "Mind your own business."
Response: a) I'll mind my own business when you let other species mind their own business.
Response: b) If "mind your own business" wasn't an acceptable defense from a negro slave trader or a Nazi camp guard it isn't an acceptable defense from you either.
20)Question/attack: "Who says you have a right to tell us what to do?"
Response: a) Who says you have a right to tell other species what to do?
Response: b) Because, if we have a right to tell a wife beater, child abuser, Nazi or negro slave trader what to do then we have a right to tell you what to do also.
21)Question/Attack: "You are never going to stop (insert animal-environmental cause)/convince people that (insert action) is wrong."
Response: a) We are never going to eradicate homicide, child abuse, spousal abuse, theft, etc. so I guess by your logic we shouldn't even try.
22)Question/attack: "Why are you Vegan?"
Response: a) Everyone is! Just some people add animal
products to their diet.
Response:
b) Everything is! Just some foods have animal products added
Response:
c) I was training my dog not to beg and got used to the diet
Response:
d) Because god told me.
Response:
e) Because I ate part of my best friend once and that kind of put me
Response: g) because I find it terrible to have thoughts of eating muscles cut from my friends' dead bodies, and disgusting to stuff one's face with decaying animal remains.
Response: h) Because you aren't.
Response: i) Socrates, Pythagoros, Leonardo Da Vinci, H.G. Wells, Dr. Spock, Mister Spock, Einstein...either they were ones or endorsed the concept--since genius and vegetarianism seem to go together so well, I thought somebody better keep the tradition alive!
Response:
j) I don't feel like its in my nature to kill animals for food because I know
that I couldn't kill an animal and eat it. It doesn't seem fair
to pay a corporation to take care of if for me.
23) Question/Attack: "How can you compare the Holocaust to the treatment of
animals in farms and labs? It is an insult to the memory of those who died in the camps to
use the word in reference to animals."
Response: a) The word "holocaust" originates in reference to the sacrifice of a male animal in Biblical times, thus, if it is fitting for humans to change its meaning to highlight a mass slaughter committed against humans, then certainly it is fair and just to use the word in reference to the slaughter of the subjects in its original meaning.
Response: b) Groups and individuals who discuss the Nazi Holocaust often refer to "cattle cars" and comparing Auschwitz victims to "lab animals," therefore they themselves are acknowledging that non human animals are treated in horrible and atrocious ways--the proof is that they use them as examples of how not to be treated!
Response: c) If anything it is an insult to the billions of non human animals that have been slaughtered--since their victims far outnumber that of any human tragedy. And unlike humans, the victims of animal holocausts are incapable of ever being the victimizers. Not true of Jews, Armenians, Cambodians, etc.
Response:
d)
Response: e) To think it is an insult is to demonstrate the same sort of arrogant supremacy mindset that the Nazis showed--valuing the suffering of some over others.
Response a) Japan does not need to rely on the oceans for food--and certainly not by resorting to fishing/whaling. It is not possible to feed the entire population of Japan through whale meat--as it stands it is expensive and a luxury item.
Response: b) In order to justify whaling--the Japanese must be able to defend whaling on its own merits--not by using an ad hominem attack that attempts to find imperfections in the anti-whaling critic. If one wants to discuss the negatives of cattle ranching and meat eating in general--whaling would still be condemned. So this is not a defense of whaling.
Response :c) Japan raises cattle as well--and imports beef from the US. Thus--the Japanese whalers are hypocritical--condemning North Americans for doing something that they themselves do--except, the Japanese also hunt whales--they look doubly bad.
25) Question/Attack: "Eating whale meat is no different than eating cattle."
Response a) In some sense this is true--just as homicide is in some sense no different from deer hunting--but how does that justify whaling? There are many good reasons to be against cattle ranching--and these same reasons can be used against whaling--so where is the defense of whaling by citing this as a defense?
Response: b) except whales are about 10 times the size of a steer and there is no natural predator for them beyond the microorganism scale. Humans must use spears and exploding guns--no other species is as cruel and crude in its killing methods. If japanese whalers were meant to eat whales--they should be able to kill them with their bare hands and teeth like any true predator.
27)Question/attack: "(quoting question Q and A page) You say that nature is neither cruel nor
merciful that it just is. since humans are part of nature, it cannot be said that they are merciful or
cruel. they are the way they are. whether or not we protect animals or hurt them, we are acting
perfectly
within our nature."
Response a) since humans have concepts of mercy and cruelty, they certainly
can make judgments about their behavior using these standards of conduct(and
do so all the time). This is how we form civil relations, laws etc. Where the
problem arises is when a claim is made that suggests that nature itself can
be proven to be one or the other as some absolute certainty. That's tricky territory.
Response b)-if you took this from the Q and A section
page: "Nature cannot be proven to be cruel or compassionate--it just is.
Anything else is a projection of human beliefs and sentiments onto a non-human
subject. There is no way to make an absolute verification of such beliefs.********this
is what follows it:
"But--for the sake of argument--let us say that Nature is inherently
cruel. Then why should humans care any more about human rights than they do
about non human rights? There are dictators around the world that have lived
very comfortable lives while they tortured and killed other humans. According
to the argument of the human supremacist, they are just living according to
Nature. Humans have raped, murdered, enslaved and stolen from each other for
thousands of years. It is still true today. These acts would seem to be permissible
according to Nature--why then should we try to stop them? If you try to argue
"well, because stopping them has mutual benefit for all humans," the
fact is that some humans--those with power--have done quite well without worrying
about "all humans." So "mutual benefit" is not proven. The
true harshness of Nature implied by this argument also applies to human situations.
To deny this is to be either emotional (as animal activists are often accused
of being), or hypocritical." So in other words, yes, you can
say humans are neither cruel nor merciful--whether they are dealing with non
humans or humans. It makes no difference to the argument. Since human supremacy
has not been proven, it allows one to use this reasoning to let humans exploit
non humans or humans as they see fit. This is unacceptable to the human supremacist-but
his or her reasoning cannot close the loophole their own belief creates.
13: PLANTS AND VEGETABLES back
1)Question/attack: "Do you eat plants? Fruit? You are killing anyway./Plants feel pain."
Response:
a) This attack implies that
the animal activist should not even try to stop exploitation and killing, since
it cannot be avoided in all situations.
Response:
b) This is an argument fallacy. It is an example of argumentum ad hominem. A
changing the subject tactic. Instead of attacking the argument, the opponent
attacks
Response:
d)if your lawn
starts bleeding and screaming when you mow it, give me a
Response:
e) take a class in biology. when you learn about the central nervous
Response:
f)
14: RELIGION back
Response: a) Not according to the Seven Days Adventists who are vegetarian.
Response: b) In Genesis it clearly states that the first best food for humans is vegetables and fruits.
Response: c) Some people would say God also meant whites to rules blacks, that its okay to beat children and hang homosexuals. You can use God to justify any argument.
Response: d) If God meant us to eat meat why do animals run away from us when we want to eat em?
Response: e) Oh that's what the devil wants you to think. Bwhahaahahahaha.
Response: f) "Well, if god put animals on the earth for us to eat and gave them feelings and emotions so they would suffer then god is an asshole."
Response: g) It's easier to argue that
Satan meant us to eat meat, since its consumption is based on violence and destruction.
Perhaps Satan altered the Bible to promote injustice and violence. How can you
prove he didnt? The corrupt Roman Empire adopted the Christian religion and
edited the gospels. I could point to all the modern violence and injustice committed
in the name of God and the Bible--so much for mercy and compassion among its
adherents. Strange that fruits and vegetables are so bright and colourful and
resistant to disease while meat is the colour of excrement and full of bacteria.
Odd that raising cattle for meat is incredibly destructive, wasteful of water,
and time consuming while growing vegetables and fruits are much easier.
2)Question/attack: "My god tells me that animals are here for our use. The Bible and all religions say so."
Response:
a) The Bible also contains incest, stoning adultresses to death, raping a
Response:
b)
Response:
d)
Response: e) I guess you never heard of Buddhism or Jainism.
Response: f) My god tells me that animals aren't here for our use.
Response: g) And there are adherents of religions who say their god tells them that their race, gender and religion allows them to exploit others who don't (or do) follow their religion(or have their race or gender). Let's see you get your god to speak up and prove them wrong.
Response: h) Because anyone can claim anything by invoking the authority of a deity(or deities) such an argument is invalid.
Response:
i)Old Testament attitudes that no longer are applicable: 1 Corinthians 11:3-15
3 But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head
of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God. 4 Every man praying
or prophesying, having his head covered, dishonoureth his head. 5 But every
woman that prayeth or prophesieth with her head uncovered dishonoureth her head:
for that is even all one as if she were shaven. 6 For if the woman be not covered,
let her also be shorn: but if it be a shame for a woman to be shorn or shaven,
let her be covered. 7 For a man indeed ought not to cover his head,
forasmuch as he is the image and glory of God: but the woman is the glory
of the man. 8 For the man is not of the woman; but the woman of the
man. 9 Neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for
the man. 10 For this cause ought the woman to have power on her head because
of the angels. 11 Nevertheless neither is the man without the woman, neither
the woman without the man, in the Lord. 12 For as the woman is of the man, even
so is the man also by the woman; but all things of God. 13 Judge in yourselves:
is it comely that a woman pray unto God uncovered? 14 Doth not even nature itself
teach you, that, if a man have long hair, it is a shame unto him? 15 But if
a woman have long hair, it is a glory to her: for her hair is given her for
a covering. **********And: 1 Corinthians 14:34 34 "Let your women keep
silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they
are commanded to be under obedience, as also saith the law." ********And:
1 Timothy 2:9-15 9 "In like manner also, that women adorn themselves
in modest apparel, with shamefacedness and sobriety; not with broided hair,
or gold, or pearls, or costly array; 10 But (which becometh women professing
godliness) with good works. 11 Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection
. 12 But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man,
but to be in silence. 13 For Adam was first formed, then Eve. 14 And Adam was
not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression. 15 Notwithstanding
she shall be saved in childbearing, if they continue in faith and charity and
holiness with sobriety." *******And about mixing races: Numbers 25:6-9
6 "And, behold, one of the children of Israel came and brought unto his
brethren a Midianitish woman in the sight of Moses, and in the sight of all
the congregation of the children of Israel, who were weeping before the door
of the tabernacle of the congregation. 7 And when Phinehas, the son of Eleazar,
the son of Aaron the priest, saw it , he rose up from among the congregation,
and took a javelin in his hand; 8 And he went after the man of Israel into the
tent, and thrust both of them through, the man of Israel, and the woman through
her belly. So the plague was stayed from the children of Israel. 9 And those
that died in the plague were twenty and four thousand." ****And on mercy:
1 Samuel 15:1-23 Samuel also said unto Saul, The LORD sent me to anoint thee
to be king over his people, over Israel: now therefore hearken thou unto the
voice of the words of the LORD. 2 Thus saith the LORD of hosts, I remember that
which Amalek did to Israel, how he laid wait for him in the way, when he came
up from Egypt. 3 Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they
have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling,
ox and sheep, camel and ass. 4 And Saul gathered the people together, and numbered
them in Telaim, two hundred thousand footmen, and ten thousand men of Judah.
5 And Saul came to a city of Amalek, and laid wait in the valley. 6 And Saul
said unto the Kenites, Go, depart, get you down from among the Amalekites, lest
I destroy you with them: for ye shewed kindness to all the children of Israel,
when they came up out of Egypt. So the Kenites departed from among the Amalekites.
7 And Saul smote the Amalekites from Havilah until thou comest to Shur, that
is over against Egypt. 8 And he took Agag the king of the Amalekites alive,
and utterly destroyed all the people with the edge of the sword. 9 But Saul
and the people spared Agag, and the best of the sheep, and of the oxen, and
of the fatlings, and the lambs, and all that was good, and would not utterly
destroy them: but every thing that was vile and refuse, that they destroyed
utterly. 10 Then came the word of the LORD unto Samuel, saying, 11 It repenteth
me that I have set up Saul to be king: for he is turned back from following
me, and hath not performed my commandments. And it grieved Samuel; and he cried
unto the LORD all night. 12 And when Samuel rose early to meet Saul in the morning,
it was told Samuel, saying, Saul came to Carmel, and, behold, he set him up
a place, and is gone about, and passed on, and gone down to Gilgal. 13 And Samuel
came to Saul: and Saul said unto him, Blessed be thou of the LORD: I have performed
the commandment of the LORD. 14 And Samuel said, What meaneth then this bleating
of the sheep in mine ears, and the lowing of the oxen which I hear? 15 And Saul
said, They have brought them from the Amalekites: for the people spared the
best of the sheep and of the oxen, to sacrifice unto the LORD thy God; and the
rest we have utterly destroyed. 16 Then Samuel said unto Saul, Stay, and I will
tell thee what the LORD hath said to me this night. And he said unto him, Say
on. 17 And Samuel said, When thou wast little in thine own sight, wast thou
not made the head of the tribes of Israel, and the LORD anointed thee king over
Israel? 18 And the LORD sent thee on a journey, and said, Go and utterly destroy
the sinners the Amalekites, and fight against them until they be consumed. 19
Wherefore then didst thou not obey the voice of the LORD, but didst fly upon
the spoil, and didst evil in the sight of the LORD? 20 And Saul said unto Samuel,
Yea, I have obeyed the voice of the LORD, and have gone the way which the LORD
sent me, and have brought Agag the king of Amalek, and have utterly destroyed
the Amalekites. 21 But the people took of the spoil, sheep and oxen, the chief
of the things which should have been utterly destroyed, to sacrifice unto the
LORD thy God in Gilgal. 22 And Samuel said, Hath the LORD as great delight in
burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the LORD? Behold,
to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams. 23 For
rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry.
Because thou hast rejected the word of the LORD, he hath also rejected thee
from being king." ******And then there's Biblical attitudes towards mercy
and equality: Deuteronomy 7:1-11 "When the LORD thy God shall bring
thee into the land whither thou goest to possess it, and hath cast out many
nations before thee, the Hittites, and the Girgashites, and the Amorites, and
the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven
nations greater and mightier than thou; 2 And when the LORD thy God shall
deliver them before thee; thou shalt smite them, and utterly destroy them;
thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor shew mercy unto them: 3 Neither
shalt thou make marriages with them; thy daughter thou shalt not give unto his
son, nor his daughter shalt thou take unto thy son. 4 For they will turn away
thy son from following me, that they may serve other gods: so will the anger
of the LORD be kindled against you, and destroy thee suddenly. 5 But thus shall
ye deal with them; ye shall destroy their altars, and break down their images,
and cut down their groves, and burn their graven images with fire. 6 For
thou art an holy people unto the LORD thy God: the LORD thy God hath chosen
thee to be a special people unto himself, above all people that are upon the
face of the earth. 7 The LORD did not set his love upon you, nor choose
you, because ye were more in number than any people; for ye were the fewest
of all people: 8 But because the LORD loved you, and because he would keep the
oath which he had sworn unto your fathers, hath the LORD brought you out with
a mighty hand, and redeemed you out of the house of bondmen, from the hand of
Pharaoh king of Egypt. 9 Know therefore that the LORD thy God, he is God, the
faithful God, which keepeth covenant and mercy with them that love him and keep
his commandments to a thousand generations; 10 And repayeth them that hate him
to their face, to destroy them: he will not be slack to him that hateth him,
he will repay him to his face. 11 Thou shalt therefore keep the commandments,
and the statutes, and the judgments, which I command thee this day, to do them."
Response:
j)The same Bible that seems to condone the eating of animals flesh allows men
to have hundreds of concubines to use whenever and yet will stone a woman caught
in 1 act of adultry. The same Bible that you use to teach the eating of flesh
also teaches that others be used and kept as slaves. The same Bible teaches
that woman can't even pray without having long hair or their heads covered.
It teaches that woman are to be in submission to men. That we are not even allowed
to speak in the church. That they are to be keepers at home. How many Christian
woman have left their homes for careers and the rearing of their children to
others? To use the Bible to teach that the eating of meat is okay for the day
in which we live is just as stupid as the above mentioned and is nothing more
than modern subjectivism.
Response: k) New Testament attitudes towards human
slavery: Ephesians 6:5-8 5 Servants, be obedient to them that are your
masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in singleness of your
heart, as unto Christ; 6 Not with eyeservice, as menpleasers; but as the
servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart; 7 With good will doing
service, as to the Lord, and not to men: 8 Knowing that whatsoever good thing
any man doeth, the same shall he receive of the Lord, whether he be bond or
free.*Colossians 3:22 22 Servants, obey in all things your masters according
to the flesh; not with eyeservice, as menpleasers; but in singleness of heart,
fearing God:" ******Also: Philemon 1-25 10 I beseech thee for
my son Onesimus, whom I have begotten in my bonds: 11 Which in time past
was to thee unprofitable, but now profitable to thee and to me: (Paul is
saying that Onesimus, a runaway slave converted to Christianity, was not a good
servant in the past. His conversion to Christ will change that. Thus, human
slavery is condoned.)12 Whom I have sent again: thou therefore receive him,
that is, mine own bowels: 13 Whom I would have retained with me, that in thy
stead he might have ministered unto me in the bonds of the gospel: 14 But without
thy mind would I do nothing; that thy benefit should not be as it were of necessity,
but willingly. 15 For perhaps he therefore departed for a season, that thou
shouldest receive him for ever; 16 Not now as a servant, but above a servant,
a brother beloved, specially to me, but how much more unto thee, both in the
flesh, and in the Lord? (*****Paul is saying the servant is not to be received
just as a servant but now as a brother in Christ also...) *******And about poverty--
Matthew 26:6-11 6 Now when Jesus was in Bethany, in the house of Simon the leper,
7 There came unto him a woman having an alabaster box of very precious ointment,
and poured it on his head, as he sat at meat. 8 But when his disciples saw it,
they had indignation, saying, To what purpose is this waste? 9 For this
ointment might have been sold for much, and given to the poor. 10 When
Jesus understood it, he said unto them, Why trouble ye the woman? for she hath
wrought a good work upon me. 11 For ye have the poor always with you; but
me ye have not always. (So basically the creator(or son of the creator)
is saying you might as well anoint me with this--because you will never get
rid of poverty. So I guess we shouldn't try?) ********* ADDITIONAL references:
"Ambiguous Biblical Terms used to Describe Slavery "In an apparent
attempt to disguise the practice of slavery, some translations in the Bible
translate the word slave (doulos in Greek) as servant. Casual readers of the
Bible would assume that the passages refer to a hired servant (diakonos in Greek)
- i.e. a butler or a maid. The King James Version of the Bible (KJV) frequently
referred to slaves by various ambiguous terms, such as: bondmen, servants, maids,
handmaid, manservant, maidservant, etc. For example, consider Exodus 21:2 which
is part of the Laws of Moses: 21st Century King James Version "If thou buy a
Hebrew servant..."King James Version "If thou buy a Hebrew servant..."*Living
Bible: "If you buy a Hebrew slave..."*Modern Language "When you
buy a Hebrew slave...**New International Version: "If you buy a Hebrew
servant..."*New Living Translation: "If you buy a Hebrew slave..."*Revised
Standard Version "When you buy a Hebrew slave..." ****** Genesis
9:25-27: "Cursed be Canaan! The lowest of slaves will he be to his brothers.
He also said, 'Blessed be the Lord, the God of Shem! May Canaan be the slave
of Shem. May God extend the territory of Japheth; may Japeth live in the tents
of Shem and may Canaan be his slave.' This text was frequently
used by Christians to justify negro slavery. *"The Ten Commandments: Rabbi
M.J. Raphall (circa 1861) commented that the 10th commandment places slaves
"under the same protection as any other species of lawful property...That the
Ten Commandments are the word of G-d, and as such, of the very highest authority,
is acknowledged by Christians as well as by Jews...How dare you, in the face
of the sanction and protection afforded to slave property in the Ten Commandments--how
dare you denounce slaveholding as a sin? When you remember that Abraham,
Isaac, Jacob, Job--the men with whom the Almighty conversed, with whose names
he emphatically connects his own most holy name, and to whom He vouchsafed to
give the character of 'perfect, upright, fearing G-d and eschewing evil' (Job
1:8)--that all these men were slaveholders, does it not strike you that you
are guilty of something very little short of blasphemy?"*Exodus 20:17"Thou
shalt not covet thy neighbor's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife,
nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing
that is thy neighbor's."*Deuteronomy 5:21"Neither shalt thou desire
thy neighbor's wife, neither shalt thou covet thy neighbor's house, his field,
or his manservant, or his maidservant, his ox, or his ass, or any thing that
is thy neighbor's.***Beating and Killing Slaves: Although an owner could
beat a male or female slave, she/he would have to avoid serious injury to eyes
or teeth. The owner would have to avoid beating the slave to death. But it was
acceptable to beat a slave so that he/she was mortally injured and died a day
or so later: Exodus 21:20-21 "And if a man smite his servant, or his maid,
with a rod, and he die under his hand; he shall be surely punished. Notwithstanding,
if he continue a day or two, he shall not be punished: for he is his money
[property]."*"Emancipation of Slaves: Slaves in ancient Israel were
automatically emancipated after 6 years of slavery, but only if they were Jewish."
"...Foreign slaves were out of luck."(see Exodus 21:1-4, Deuteronomy
15:12-18, *Leviticus 25:44-46: "Your male and female slaves are to come from
the nations around you; from them you may buy slaves. You may also buy
some of the temporary residents living among you and members of their clans
born in your country, and they will become your property. You can will them
to your children as inherited property and can make them slaves for life, but
you must not rule over your fellow Israelites ruthlessly." (NIV)*"Neither
Jesus nor St. Paul, nor any other Biblical figure is recorded as saying anything
in opposition to the institution of slavery. Slavery was very much a part
of life in Palestine and in the rest of the Roman Empire during New Testament
times.Quoting Rabbi M.J. Raphall, circa 1861, "Receiving slavery as one of the
conditions of society, the New Testament nowhere interferes with or contradicts
the slave code of Moses; it even preserves a letter [to Philemon] written by
one of the most eminent Christian teachers [St. Paul] to a slave owner on sending
back to him his runaway slave." 3 * Rabbi M.J. Raphall, "The Bible View of Slavery,"
delivered in New York City, 1861. Available at:
http://www.access.digex.net/~bdboyle/bible.slavery.txt
*"Priests still owned slaves: Mark 14:66: "And as Peter was beneath in
the palace, there cometh one of the maids of the high priest:" *"One of
the favorite passages of slave-owning Christians was St. Paul's infamous instruction
that slaves to obey their owners in the same way that they obey Christ: Ephesians
6:5-9: "Servants, be obedient to them that are your masters according to the
flesh, with fear and trembling, in singleness of your heart, as unto Christ;
Not with eyeservice, as menpleasers; but as the servants of Christ, doing the
will of God from the heart; With good will doing service, as to the Lord, and
not to men: Knowing that whatsoever good thing any man doeth, the same shall
he receive of the Lord, whether he be bond or free. And, ye masters, do the
same things unto them, forbearing threatening: knowing that your Master also
is in heaven; neither is there respect of persons with him." (from
*
1 Timothy 6:1-3 "Let as many servants as are under the yoke count their own
masters worthy of all honor, that the name of God and his doctrine be not blasphemed.
And they that have believing masters, let them not despise them, because they
are brethren; but rather do them service, because they are faithful and beloved,
partakers of the benefit. These things teach and exhort. If any man teach otherwise,
and consent not to wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ,
and to the doctrine which is according to godliness;" ***Others who believe
the Bible supported human slavery: "[Slavery] was established by decree
of Almighty God...it is sanctioned in the Bible, in both Testaments, from Genesis
to Revelation...it has existed in all ages, has been found among the people
of the highest civilization, and in nations of the highest proficiency in the
arts." Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederate States of America 1,(*
Dunbar Rowland quoting Jefferson Davis, in "Jefferson Davis," Volume 1, Page
286 * Jefferson Davis, "Inaugural Address as Provisional President of the Confederacy,"
Montgomery, AL, 1861-FEB-18, Confederate States of America, Congressional Journal,
1:64-66. Available at:
http://funnelweb.utcc.utk.edu/~hoemann/jdinaug.html)
*****"There is not one verse in the Bible inhibiting slavery, but many regulating
it. It is not then, we conclude, immoral." Rev. Alexander Campbell ***"The
right of holding slaves is clearly established in the Holy Scriptures, both
by precept and example." Rev. R. Furman, D.D., Baptist, of South Carolina
*** "The hope of civilization itself hangs on the defeat of Negro suffrage."
A statement by a prominent 19th-century southern Presbyterian pastor, cited
by Rev. Jack Rogers, moderator of the Presbyterian Church (USA). **** "The doom
of Ham has been branded on the form and features of his African descendants.
The hand of fate has united his color and destiny. Man cannot separate what
God hath joined." United States Senator James Henry Hammond. 5(*William Lee
Miller, "Arguing About Slavery: The Great Battle in the United States Congress."
Alfred A. Knopf, (1996), Page 139.)(text references from http://www.religioustolerance.org/sla_bibl.htm)**********And
unless you think Human slavery is justified: "It is hard to believe but
it seems that the Roman Catholics think it quite in keeping with the teachings
of their church to obtain slaves even in this era of 1970s. In August 1970 the
world was shocked to hear that the Roman Catholics had purchased, at the price
ranging from 250 pounds to 300 pounds each, about 1500 Indian girls to shut
them into convents because European girls do not like to live as nuns.[29] There
was so much outcry in the world press that the Vatican had to establish a commission
to enquire into this affair. But even before the commission started its enquire,
a Vatican spokesman had to admit that there was an "element of truth" in the
reports, though he dutifully condemned the Sunday Times for its sensation-mongering.Sunday
Times (London) as quoted in East African Standard (Nairobi), August 25, 1970.(http://www.al-islam.org/slavery/9.htm#r27)
15: SPECIES UNITY back
1)Question/attack: "Instead of worrying about animals--worry about homeless people or war orphans."
Response: a) Must one be so narrow minded that he can worry about one at the exclusion of the other?
Response:
b) Okay since you believe that compassion follows a hierarchy, tell me this.
Which is more important, women's rights or worker's rights? Child abuse or sexual
abuse? What about racial injustice vs. poverty? Religious discrimination vs.
age discrimination? When you have the list in order--get back to me.
Response: c) Who says compassion is in a finite amount? I can be compassionate towards both humans and nonhumans without it running out. I guess you are more limited in your compassion.
Response:
a) The intention here is to force the animal activist to admit that there is
a situation where he/she would choose the life of a human over a non human,
thus validating the animal research position. The trouble here is that even
if the activist chooses to save the life of a human over a non human, it does
not then mean that the activist is endorsing factory farming or the vivisection
industry or making any policy decision.
Response:
b) Rephrasing the scenario, what if the burning barn is filled with humans...half
are white and half are black. If you are white—who do you save?" The animal
research proponent does not intend that the burning barn scenario be considered
in this way--but it must be for consistency.
3)Question/attack:
"Ethics are irrelevant. Speciesism
is not the same as racism. We have a biological drive like all species to stick
together and protect our own/Question/attack:
"Humans have
a natural biological drive to preserve their species over
Response: a) Humans have enslaved and discriminated against each other based on race, religion, gender, age, intelligence, and appearance for 1000s of years. The ideal of universal human rights is itself a new concept. Despite our laws we still have discrimination and exploitation of humans for a myriad of reasons. One doesn’t lock their doors at night to keep out pit bulls.
Response:
c) Citing some unsubstantiated "law" of the Natural world cannot
defend the argument that humans are meant to "stick together".
Response:
d) The very fact that the concept of animal rights is accepted by some shows
that there is no overriding biological drive in humans to "stick
together" or avoid compassion
for members of other species.
Response: e) If you truly believe in species unity, and think it is applicable to humans, go walk through a notorious crime alley with $5000 in your hand and see how that "unity" holds up brother.
Response:
f) The
species unity myth is also used to make a jump from desperate emotional choice
to ethical policy. If a human chooses to save a life of a human over a non human
in some life and death situation( a river, a barn fire, a locked car/boat with
no food etc), the argument is made that it is therefore logical to exploit non
humans in factory farms, in laboratories etc. But if one were to apply this to a human vs human
scenario--(white vs black, Christian vs non Christian, family member vs
stranger) and you choose that which you regard as most
familiar or valuable--then the same consequences are applicable. Will
you then exploit the loser en masse?
1)Question/attack:
"Nature
is cruel--cats will play with their food--so we should be cruel too. It's
survival of the fittest. Compassion is not natural, and other species are
motivated by self interest. "
Response:
a) "survival
of the fittest" would allow one to exploit and enslave other humans . You
acknowledge that one animal will prey on another, but you ignore that they can
also prey on members of their own species--in which case, by using this moral
standard and policy, humans preying on
Response: b)a
domestic cat is fed, and has no predators. A wild cat has to be on guard for
competitors. Not catching prey means not eating. The time for playing with their
food would be greatly diminished.
Response:
d) The very fact that the concept of animal rights is accepted by some shows
that there is no overriding biological drive in humans to "stick
together" or avoid compassion
for members of other species.
Response:
e) There was an experiment conducted where monkeys were starved unless they
pressed a button that would release food--AND torture a monkey wired to shock
devices. It was found that the monkeys preferred to endure starvation rather
than inflict pain on another--the exact opposite response anticipated by the
scientists. Yet a similar experiment involving humans where neither subjects
were truly being tortured(unlike the monkeys) found that most of the humans were
willing to see another human suffer--just to avoid displeasing the individual
giving them the orders.
17: TRAPPING back
1)Question/attack: "Leghold traps are painless and humane."
Response: a) if you think they are then try slamming your car door on your fingers, and stay there for a week.
18: WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT (see also hunting and fishing sections) back
1)Question/attack:
"If I
wasn't hunting prairie dogs and groundhogs they would ruin my crops and my
cattle would step in their holes and break their legs."
response: a) That is nonsense. Larry Rittenhouse of Colorado State University says “it would be almost impossible for a cow to break its leg in a
prairie dog hole.” He says “I study these animals behavior and they are extremely adept at placing their feet. In my 50 years around cattle and horses,
I don’t know of a single incident where a horse or cow has been injured in a prairie dog hole.” Cattle seem to actually preferentially graze on prairie
dog towns. It has been found that there’s a significant increase in protein content in the plants growing on prairie dog towns and they are highly
nutritious for the cattle.
response: b) many ranchers say that the only way to make farming profitable is to work with the elements of the ecosystem, instead of against them. It’s
just not economically feasible to spend precious labor and money killing wildlife. If you start killing one animal, where does it end? We don’t know
what species you can eliminate and still keep the system healthy. Contrary to folklore, prairie dogs do not breed like crazy. They don’t mate until their
second year and only about half of those born each year survive. As you know, prairie dogs are herbivores and eat mostly native grasses. Most
ranchers have heard the “fact” that prairie dogs diminish grassland productivity by a whopping 50-75%, but no one is sure how the biologist who
made this claim came up with the numbers. Since then, studies have been done that show if you get rid of prairie dogs, the amount of forage that you
gain is a puny 4-7%. It does impact the rancher in dollars and cents, but the cost of poisoning prairie dogs outweigh the gains made by eliminating the
animals. If you still insist on trying to “control” the prairie dog and groundhog populations, you could at least do it in more ethically sound and
natural ways such as giving predators a boost by building poles for raptors and digging trenches where foxes can hide.
response: c) Biologists call prairie dogs a keystone species. Lose the keystone and the whole ecosystem goes crumbling down with it. Species that
rely solely on prairie dogs include the endangered black-footed ferret, the mountain plover (a bird), the burrowing owl, and the ferruginous hawk
which preys on them. If you change the natural disturbance regime that the “varmints” provide, you alter the ecosystem and you may start losing
species (of animals and plants) because of it which in turn effects other things (like your crops). As for groundhogs, they actually improve the soil
quality by digging their burrows. The burrows allow more air and water to get underground, which in turn helps breakdown the soil to form more
valuable topsoil.
response: d) I have little sympathy for the livestock loss or damage because it wouldn't happen if no one was eating the livestock. As for crops that go
for human consumption (which the majority don’t), if everyone consumed on a veg diet, even a significant (which isn’t the case) loss of crops would
be acceptable economically because you are talking about so much less of a burden on our farm system. Any shortcomings could be made up by
more farmers raising more produce for human consumption. And in any case, If everyone has to deal with a problem, then the costs are passed on to
the consumer. In the end, the market bears the real cost of doing business, and if everyone operated on the same ethical level and accepted crop
losses via “varmints” as a natural issue to deal with, we could live in much better cooperation with our surrounding ecosystems and the natural world.
2)Question/attack: "If I wasn't killing the bear and wolves and cougars they would kill my sheep and I would lose business or they would eat my children."
response: a) You should not have sheep in the first place. If you must, keep them in a fenced area..
response: b) so instead of killing them, if you are so worried, why don't you work on helping protect their natural habitat so that
they won't need to invade your property and kill your livestock. and after all, you are really the one invading their territory.
response: c) by killing the bear, wolves, and cougars you are tampering with a very fragile thing --the ecosystem-- which could
very likely result in some other problem like an overpopulation of rodents or something.
response:
d)-only in a few isolated incidences in other countries have wolves become fearless and attacked; only become fearless as result of people
feeding them-India: parents were motivated to let wolves eat kids by extremely high
compensation from government… up to a year’s salary.
response:
e) -Chain reaction: in one instance, when the wolves had been killed, coyotes increased. When they were gone, foxes skyrocketed. Not only
does the method of removal prove ineffective, but according to the farmer, wolves should be better as they are much less likely to feed off of
the farmer’s livestock. -Farmers are compensated by govt for all losses (even though losses
are extremely minimal)-WOLVES ARE ONLY RESPONSIBLE FOR .1% OF ALL LOSSES OF CATTLE, AND .3%
OF SHEEP!
Response: f) It is your own fault that your sheep get killed. The same would be true if you had chickens. They are domesticated--in the wild, predators would not have an easy time picking them off. A farm is easy pickings for a wild animal.
3)Question/attack: "What about animals that are introduced by humans into an unnatural setting, like the broad-tail possum in New Zealand, which are overrunning the native species. Surely we have no choice but to kill them."
response: a) the possum are victims of human greed and stupidity(introduced into new Zealand by fur farmers)--humans just have to live with the consequences--and try not to cause more ecological disasters in the future.
response: b) who appointed humans to be Nature's exterminators?
response: c) so by your logic, if a group of humans are overpopulating an area--and driving out native species, it should be okay for some people to go in and massacre a large number--or rather, thin the populations, for the benefit of the native species.
response: d) well if you are so concerned about native species being wiped out by alien species, what are you doing to stop farmers from cutting down forests or companies polluting rivers? Are you prepared to use violence against them? Or do we make an exception for the number one polluter and natural destroyer on the planet?
4)Question/Attack: "Humans need to manage Nature and other species."
Response: a) Total arrogance. Nature and other species do fine when humans aren't around to mess things up for them.
Response: b) Oh you mean in the same way we "managed" forests, rivers, and the atmosphere by polluting them? If you call that "managing," I'd hate to see what wanton destruction would look like.
Response: c) here are some examples of how well humans have managed Nature http://news.independent.co.uk/world/environment/story.jsp?story=585082 World's 100 most destructive species named (note--the number one, human, is not mentioned funny enough)1 Nile perch: introduced to Lake Victoria, Africa, in 1954 to counteract the drastic drop in native fish stocks caused by over-fishing. Instead, it has contributed to the extinction of more than 200 endemic fish species through predation and competition for food. 3 Caulerpa: introduced to the Mediterranean around 1984, it is thought, as waste from the Monaco aquarium. Hardier than most tropical seaweeds, it has adapted well to cold waters and smothers habitats. 5 Small Indian mongoose: this voracious and opportunistic predator is native to areas as widespread as Iran and the Malay Peninsula. It was introduced to Mauritius, Fiji, the West Indies and Hawaii to control rats but has caused the local extinction of endemic birds, reptiles and amphibians. 6 Feral pig: introduced to many parts of the world, it damages crops, stock and property and transmits many diseases such as leptospirosis and foot and mouth. Diet includes juvenile land tortoises, sea turtles and sea birds.7 Dutch elm disease: deadly fungus, spread by the elm bark beetle, which can kill an elm in three weeks by clogging its water-conducting vessels. Spread in the UK in 1968 from imported Canadian timber to deadly effect, killing more than a third of southern England's 23 million elms. 8 Grey squirrel: the American grey has devastated Britain's native population of red squirrels, which are barely half the size. First appeared in the English countryside between 1876 and 1929, possibly after having been accidentally released from London Zoo. 9 Japanese knotweed: introduced from Asia to Europe in the mid-19th century as an ornamental and fodder plant. Grows rapidly, prevents native seeds from germinating and thrives on being uprooted - can even regrow after being rooted out and washed downstream. 10 Giant African snail: introduced to the islands of the Pacific and Indian oceans as a food source for humans but has a voracious appetite and has been recorded as attacking more than 500 different kinds of plants. Has spread to parts of South America. Tropical in origin, but copes comfortably with snow at other latitudes.
19: ZOOS back
1) Question/attack:
"Why shouldn't we go the circus/zoo? Are not the animals treated better there than if they
were living in the wild?"
a) well, first of all, who are we to be the all mighty ones to decide what to do with these animals lives? that would be like: aren't
children from 3rd world countries treated better when doing child labor, making purses for
mere pennies, than when they are home
with their families living in destruction? or weren't black slaves better off as slaves than free because they had a means of making a
living? .....and really, although there are hunters and destruction of their natural habitats, I would think freedom and all the enrichment
that the environment can provide would be a better life than being chained and forced to perform in stressful situations, constantly
moved from place to place, and often being abused.
b) By this logic we should take natives out of the dwindling jungles of South America and Borneo and put them in zoos so their lifestyle can be preserved. Surely they would be better off than if they had to struggle in the forests.
c)Well, we humans are also staying in the house, but are we still 100% safe?
**************
HELPFUL TERMINOLOGY back
Anthropocentrism: This
is routinely defined as: 1.Regarding
human beings as the central element of the universe. 2.Interpreting reality
exclusively in terms of human values and experience.
Human Supremacy myth: the conviction that human beings as a species or group, are superior in value to all other life, based upon arbitrary or subjective criteria conveniently determined by those who stand to benefit from the discrimination.
Anthropocentric
myopia: This may be defined as the condition demonstrated when the ethical
and practical arguments used in an attempt to ethically justify the harm caused
to non humans, fail to address and counter the effects these very same arguments
would have if applied fairly and equally to situations involving humans. (W's
note: it is my experience that countering and criticizing any anti-animal rights
argument along this line guarantees that your opponent will be unable to respond
effectively. Example: "Native/First Nations people have been
trapping, whaling, and hunting for centuries--who is to say that Europeans
have the right to criticize what they do?" To effectively
negate this attack, simply point out that Native people had also practiced human
sacrifice, infanticide, and human slavery for centuries before European colonialism---if
they decided to resume these practices would it be correct to criticize them
for doing so? If yes, then the issue becomes one of showing why human beings
deserve special consideration and exemption, while non human beings do not.
If the answer is no (a very unlikely scenario), then the issue becomes one of
why non native/first nations peoples would still be restricted from engaging
in infanticide, human sacrifice or human slavery themselves. Is one group of
humans superior to another group? If not--then a harmonization of one's ethical
conduct towards others would be a necessity to avoid social chaos(i.e. people
deciding to discriminate according to race, religion, gender--as some already
do). Essentially, Anthropocentric Myopia points out that no one lives in a vacuum.
Any attempt to excuse human beings from the equation results in a blatant flaw
in one's ethical philosophy and system. It is also very beneficial
for an animal activist to learn how not to take the concept of human
rights (as well as the Human Supremacy myth) for granted. The notion of universal,
inalienable human rights is a recent phenomena, dating back approximately 200
years. Prior to that there were certain preconditions to moral value (whether
you were male, believed in the particular deity, what language you spoke, how
much money you had etc.). Even today there are constant reminders of how arbitrary
and fragile the concept of human rights is--when one observes how frequently
these alleged rights are violated or ignored--even by countries that claim to
believe in them. I do not mention this to disown the concept of human rights;
on the contrary, the fact that human rights are just as fragile as non human
rights should serve as an incentive to be fair to all victims of discrimination.
To be consistent, you cannot have one without the other, and any effort to justify
discrimination against one group--leaves the door open for someone else to discriminate
along their own arbitrary, subjective measure of designating moral value and
worth.)
Six factors that fuel opposition to animal rights/ecological concerns:
2) ignorance: either they haven't thought about these issues--or they
refuse to, in order to avoid confronting unpleasantness, or a shake up to their
accepted world view.
3) laziness: Some people are not insensitive to the causes, but just
don't find the time or motivation to change.
4) greed: they make money or gain some comfort from a form of
exploitation (or the by-products of it) so they don't want to change
that.
6)arrogance: some people enjoy feeling superior to others, and treating them that way.
NOTABLE PHILOSOPHERS IN THE ANIMAL RIGHTS ARGUMENT (special thanks to "Lamb" for researching and the use of select quotes).
L Petrinovich, Lewis (ANTI)
Petrinovich
argues that humans possess a bundle of unique characteristics, setting them
apart biologically and morally from other species. "Although
Petrinovich's biologically based speciesist position is a recent contribution to
animal ethics, the idea of grounding ethics in biology is not new.
Herbert Spencer applied Darwin's theory of evolution to philosophical
problems in the mid 1800s [1], though in a way quite at odds with Darwin's
egalitarian perspective on animals. Closer
to our time, Edward O. Wilson linked evolutionary principles with social
behavior in his controversial book Sociobiology:
The New Synthesis.[2]
Petrinovich, a bioethicist and research scientist, contributes to the
current discussion about speciesism in two important ways.
In the first place, Petrinovich, like his predecessors, gives biological
evolution a central role in his ethical position.
Taking the biological natures of individuals into account is essential, I
think, in our ethical theorizing. Because
an animal does not behave as we do when in pain, for example, does not justify a
lack of moral concern for her pain. As
Bernard Rollin points out: "(I)t is a selective evolutionary survival
advantage for a cow to eat regardless of how it feels...(A) cow that didn't
graze with the rest of the herd would be flagged as vulnerable to predators."
[3] Secondly, Petrinovich's argument, I
think, is an attempt to provide a biological justification of the age-old and
commonly held assumption that for all our similarities to animals, we are still
morally distinct from them simply because we are biologically human." 1.Spencer, Herbert. The Data of
Ethics. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell and Company, 1879. 2. Wilson, Edward O. Sociobiology:
The New Synthesis. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1975. 3. Rollin, Bernard E. The
Unheeded Cry. New York: Oxford University Press, 1990, p 135. Petrinovich's
Argument In Brief
M Leahy (ANTI): Leahy thinks that the young and mentally disabled have an honorary status because they're human. He says: "Attempts to convince us that the eating of meat and fish is an evil invasion of the inalienable rights of animals and that it should cease forthwith are a sham."(Leahy,M "AGAINST LIBERATION" London: Routledge, 1991, p 220). He is a contractualist (like Peter Carruthers, Peter Harrison, and Lewis Petrinovich). The social contract between humans, according to these philosophers, separates them from animals. Rebuttal section 1, Q/A 5; Section 15;
Peter Carruthers (ANTI): says to have concern for farm and lab animals distracts
from humans who alone have moral standing. Carruthers says: "Those who are
committed to any aspect of the animal rights movement are thoroughly misguided.
" Said giving regard to animals is moral decadence. (Carruthers, Peter "the animals issue" Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1992.) (Dombrowski's response to Carruthers' incorrectly taking
moral sentiment to be a pie of a fixed amount-such that giving to animals leaves less for humans)
Both Carruthers and Harrison are neo-Cartesians. They try to resurrect the idea that animals cannot feel pain, so we should be
free to experiment on them. Rene Descartes claimed that when non human animals
screamed during an experiment, it was merely the obstruction of organic gears
and levers. (Harrison, Peter "Theodicy and Animal Pain" in PHILOSOPHY64, 1989.)
Rebuttal section 9; section 15;
McCloskey ,HJ (ANTI)
thinks that, given the benefits to humans, it's irresponsible to abandon animal
experimentation. ( McCloskey,HJ 'The Moral Case for Experimentation in Animals' in MONIST 70, 1987, and 'Moral
Rights and Animals' in INQUIRY 22, 1979.) Rebuttal: Section 2. Q/A 6.
Cohen, Carl (ANTI) Like
McCloskey, uses the benefits excuse, (Carl Cohen and Tom Regan, "The Animal Rights Debate" New York:
Rowman and Littlefield Pub, Inc, 2001.) Rebuttal: Section 2. Q/A 6.
Ryder,
Richard D. Coined the term "speciesism" in 1970.
Animal Revolution. Oxford: Basil Blackwell,
Singer,
Peter. "Like
Ryder, points out the parallels between racism, sexism, and speciesism.
Where individuals have similar interests, Singer argues, moral
consistency requires that equal consideration be given to the interests of each
individual. Race and sex, for
example, play no role in determining whether an individual has the intellectual
or moral capacity to vote. It would
be a form of racism or sexism, therefore, to decide on the basis of an
individual's race or sex whether or not to consider her interest in voting. On
the other hand, because infants and the mentally disabled do not have the
intellectual or moral capacity of normal adult humans, it makes no sense to
insist that equal consideration be given to their interest in voting.
Infants and the mentally disabled, however, like normal adults, are
sentient, and as such, have the capacity to feel pleasure and satisfaction.
Accordingly, moral consistency urges us to consider equally the interest
of all sentient humans in avoiding pain and experiencing pleasure. Animals, no less than human infants and the mentally
disabled, Singer continues, are sentient, and as such, should be accorded
comparable moral consideration. To
do otherwise, Singer argues, would be to show a bias for human beings and
against animals; that is, to be a speciesist."
Regan,
Tom. "Regan's
approach to animal ethics, while in one sense a challenge to that taken by
Singer, is in another important sense, an affirmation of Singer's position.
Singer's animal ethics was developed within a utilitarian framework.
Singer widened the application of the utilitarian principle to include
animals among those whose pleasures and pains are given impartial consideration.
Equality and impartiality are central features of Regan's rights theory,
as well. "The idea of
impartiality is at the heart of...the formal
principle of justice",
the guiding principle of Regan's theory. According
to the formal principle of justice, similar cases should be treated similarly,
different cases, differently. Though
the principle does not specify which factors are relevant in determining
similarities and differences, it requires that an account be given of how we
distinguish similar and dissimilar cases. If
it is claimed, for example, that suffering is wrong in the case of humans but
not in that of animals, it must be shown how a biological difference makes the
two cases morally dissimilar. Regan, like
Singer, insists that the interests of animals and humans should be given equal
consideration where they have similar interests.
Though
Regan acknowledges that Singer's utilitarian account complies with the formal
principle of justice, he favors a different interpretation of the principle.
According to Regan, all individuals with inherent value
possess it equally. That is, no individual, no matter how gifted intellectually,
socially, or morally, has a higher degree of inherent value than any other.
"Inherent value is thus a categorical
concept. One either has it, or one
does not."
Accordingly, formal justice requires that respect be shown equally to all
individuals with inherent value. Moral
conflicts cannot be resolved, therefore, by determining relative inherent value,
nor, indeed, by a utilitarian calculation in which an aggregate of satisfactions
has more value that the satisfactions of a single individual.
Francione,
Gary. Rutgers University. Very good debater. Introduction to Animal Rights: Your Child or
Angus Taylor: author of 'Magpies, Monkeys, and Morals' Taylor's is nice, quick and gives both sides fairly...He's a philosopher but clearly is on the animal rights side.
Daniel Dombrowski: "Babies and Beasts" Chicago:
University
Best,
Stephen. 'God, Culture, and Women.' in Skinned.
ed. Anne
Have Questions/attacks/responses? Then.......
askweebler@hotmail.com
LINKS back
Animal-rights.com The other FAQ page. Although a bit scholarly in language, it is well worth checking out.
International Vegetarian Union
http://vivisection-absurd.org.uk
http://www.zmag.org/animal_rights_watch.htm
http://www.animal-law.org/ Gary
Francione's page. Well worth visiting!
Animalsagenda.org Home of the magazine.
Animalconcerns.netforchange.com
Animal Concerns is the online community for people concerned about the welfare and rights of animals. Get the latest news headlines, links, articles, join discussions, vegan products and more!
animalove.com Animal rescue--especially for rats and other wee ones.
United Poultry Concerns Activist group that campaigns against cruelty to chickens and other domestic fowl.
American Anti-Vivisection Society The American Anti-Vivisection Society is dedicated to ending experimentation on animals in research, testing and education. AAVS also opposes and works to end other forms of cruelty to animals. Get campaign updates, action alerts, cruelty free shopping guide and more!
National Anti-Vivisection Society The National Anti-Vivisection Society is dedicated to abolishing the exploitation of animals used in research, education and product testing.
Animal Legal Defense Fund: The Animal Legal Defense Fund uses the U.S. legal system to fight animal abuse. Their vision is that the lives and interests of animals - in research labs, on farms, in the wild and in our own communities - would one day be recognized and protected by law. Put the law into action for animals!
PeopleforEndingAnimalCrueltyandExploitation New AR message group.
SATYA Very interesting.
Fruitarianism Very interesting page on Fruitarian philosophy, health information etc.
Fruitnut.net
your one stop source for info on fruit and nuts
Gentlebarn.org Hold a chicken, cuddle a cow! Located in Los Angeles, Gentle Barn is a sanctuary with over 80 rescued animals.
Pokesociety.com Power of Knowledge and Education of Animal Cruelty is a non-profit organization committed to educating the public about the animal cruelty that is prevalent in Canada and working to protect animals. We also foster homeless and abandoned cats. (Based in BC Canada.)
http://www.sugarrocket.com/vegan
a personal veg info resource
Infurmation.com European anti-fur organization. Great content.
Vegetarian Baby and Child Magazine
Veganstreet good site!
Vegsource Claims to be the largest veg site online. Lots of info on recipes, groups, events--and many message boards (though slow to download and definitely not as busy as it once was). Has developed a bad reputation for censorship, board rudeness, and a primary interest in generating money through the ads swamping every single page.
Vegetarian Resource Group (Dec. 13 2002: This organization has been cited in a McDonalds court settlement supporting the channeling of money to anti-vegetarian and pro-animal research groups. I am keeping it listed for its website content but I would recommend caution when considering donations or what you read on their site given this revelation concerning the ethics of this group. I have not read any further information on this.
North American Vegetarian Society
(Dec. 13 2002: This organization has been cited in a McDonalds court
settlement supporting the channeling of money to anti-vegetarian and pro-animal
research groups. I am keeping it listed for its website content but I would
recommend caution when considering donations or what you read on their site
given this revelation concerning the ethics of this group. I have not read any
further information on this.
Northwest Animal Rights Network
People For the Ethical Treatment of Animals
Sea Shepherd Conservation Society
Farm Sanctuary: Farm Sanctuary is an organization which operates farm animal sanctuaries and wages campaigns to stop the exploitation of animals raised for food. Read about their No Downers, No Veal, and Farm Animal Defense campaigns, adopt a farm animal and more!
Farmusa.org Farm Animal Reform Movement is dedicated to making this world a better place for farm animals. Learn about their many programs such as The
Great American Meatout, CHOICE, Global Hunger Alliance and more!
Animalrights.net This is a parody site designed to make those who oppose animal compassion and ethics look hilariously foolish. I think you will agree the author has done a fantastic job of imitating the irrational, hostile personality of an anti-nature extremist and really captured the essence of hunters, animal researchers and the unenlightened. Includes many examples of bad arguments, and a discussion board where other animal activists pretend to be hunters and researchers.
Aesop: Welcome to Aesop: The Leather Alternative, and our Virtual Catalog of non-leather shoes, belts and accessories featuring Online Ordering.
Zand.com Zand Herbal Formulas
Animaladvocacy.net includes info on which so-called wildlife groups support hunting.
Hfa.org The Humane Farming Association is the nation's largest and most effective organization dedicated to the protection of farm animals. Learn more about their National Veal Boycott, the practices of factory farming, and the rescued animals that now live at the Suwanna Ranch...the world's largest facility ever created for abused farm animals.
Pcrm.org The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine is an organization that promotes preventive medicine, conducts clinical research, and encourages higher standards for ethics and effectiveness in reasearch...without the use of animals. They also advocate the health benefits of a vegetarian diet.
URL:
http://www.utyx.com/alternative-medicine/
Title: Alternative-medicine Resources
Description: alternative-medicine related news, books and web resources
Pawsweb.org The Performing Animal Welfare Society is a sanctuary where abandoned or abused performing animals and victims of the exotic animal trade can live in peace and contentment for the rest of their natural lives. P.A.W.S. is dedicated to strengthening laws and educating the public on the animals' behalf.
http://www.egroups.com/messages/veganway
The Field of Dreams Hunting Club Brilliant!
http://www.mercyforanimals.org
http://www.worldanimalnet.org * 6000 links
http://www.nofishing.net
Freeanimals.org -Canadian site with special section devoted to Kensington cat torture case.
Taosanctuaries.org The Association of Sanctuaries provides a list of accredited animal sanctuaries of all kinds. Read the TOAS Horizons Newsletter and help support the sanctuary of your choice!
http://www.ivu.org/recipes
http://www.vegweb.com/food
http://www.vrg.org/recipes
http://www.vegsource.com/recipe
http://www.eatveg.com
Spiritual -
Jewish http://www.jewishveg.com
http://www.nimn.org
Buddhist: http://www.plumvillage.org
Hindu http://www.hindu.org
http://www.sathyasai.org
Islamic: http://www.islamveg.com
http://www.egroups.com/messages/drbashiruddin
Christian: http://www.all-creatures.org
http://www.christianveg.com
http://www.hacres.com
http://compassionatespirit.com
http://www.eco-cuisine.com
http://groups.msn.com/catholicveg
http://groups.msn.com/christianveg
http://www.ldsveg.org
http://www.egroups.com/messages/salvarmy
Jainism overview: http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jainism
http://www.cs.colostate.edu/~malaiya/jainhlinks.html
FamousVeggie.com List of famous vegetarians/vegans with quotes, links, recipes and a list of vegetarian restaurants.
www.uncaged.co.uk Provides reports on
what animal experimentation is being conducted and by whom.
Vegancats.com Cruelty-free, natural products for cats and dogs..including vegetarian (vegan) foods and treats, as well as supplements, remedies, flea products,and ... other stuff for the vegan cat!
Vegetus.org Vegan and vegetarian humor and information. Includes bios and interviews on entertainers, athletes, and intellectuals.
Vegan Voice magazine
Vernon Coleman This site by the provocative, iconoclastic UK columnist, author and campaigner features interesting challenges to hunters and animal researchers where they can collect large sums of money if they can justify their stances.
http://www.animalsuffering.com/forum
MSN message boards
http://groups.msn.com/AnimalRights/1.msnw (pretty much defunct)
http://groups.msn.com/PeopleforEndingAnimalCrueltyandExploitation/messageboard.msnw
http://groups.msn.com/AnimalsHaveRightsToo/home.msnw
http://groups.msn.com/ANIMALRIGHTS2/ (new!!)
Yahoo message boards:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CorrectTreatment/
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CorrectTreatment-news/
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HLSsucks/
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/A-Animal_NoKill_City/
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AnimalAdvocacy/
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/animalenemies/
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/animalguardians2/
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/animallovers2/
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/animalrightsactivistresources/
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/animalrightsdebateclub/
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/animals/
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AnimalsInNeed/
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AntiPoachers/
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/BanFur/
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/bracefacealiciasilverstone
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/discussanimalrights
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/friendsofdeer/
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/furisnotalive/
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Goat_Friends/
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ida-alerts/
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/in-defense-of-animals/
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/lovinganimals/
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nomoreanimalcruelty/
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/petasavetheanimals/
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/protectourpets/
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Save_Wolves/
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/therealpeta/
MHARC http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MHARC/