Quote:
Originally Posted by Wittgenstein's Ghost
People commonly cite this fact (that PETA kills animals) as though it is obviously a bad thing from an animal rights perspective. It isn't. I think you should say more on the subject.
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Ok. So I feel that over the past 20000 years or so, humans and their interactions with other forms of animals has changed drastically. In the beginning animals were a source of fear mostly as we were hunted. This is why we are still afraid of the dark instinct wise. We then began to harvest animals for food and shifted from gatherers to hunter/gatherers. At some point we began to domesticate animals to keep around for food and to help work loads. Then we began to see them as pets, and we kept them around as pet companions. At some point in the past 50 years though, more and more people have started to view animals as parts of their families and putting an almost human quality towards these animals.
I blame this mostly on large corporations who's sole purpose is to plunder your money. They have devised many marketing schemes over the years to humanize animals. The spin off to this is that once people started to see their animals as "human", we began to see groups like the ASPCA, PETA, Greenpeace, etc etc sprout up to stop the harvesting, killing, abuse, testing, etc of these animals.
This is a new problem. If you look back into history 200 years ago, you will not find a court case or corporation/non-profit company that advocated the "rights" of animals.
So, the next time you feel sorry for a killer whale's plight, or a monkey who's being tested on. Think of all the corporations, media outlets, lobby groups, that have made you feel this way, and ask yourself: How much profit, pockets lined, shareholders paid, etc have gone into me feeling this way.
Do I want to see some jerk kick his dog around? Of course not, but the reason I probably feel that way is because I was programmed to do so for someone's profit.
The fact that PETA slaughters animals on a scale that far exceeds the general public (in America at least) is about on par with the numerous other for profit corporations that exploit animals for our food/entertainment/safety/vanity/sport. I just laugh at the hypocrisy of it all as I nibble on my antibiotic laced factory grown chicken eggs (who's mothers are generally killed for our consumption once they no longer produce eggs), drug filled pork raised in a pen and slaughtered by a machine, and milk that's sucked out of a cow with a vacuum, pastuerized, shipped to me in a truck that they have to sterilize to keep from killing me, across 14 states, that's taxed by the government in numerous ways before it reaches my plate.
In Vietnam, for example, it's still perfectly fine to shoot a fruit bat, or dog, or primate, and throw it on a fire and eat it. The difference is our "sophistication" (or corporation...)
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