PETArds launch "large-scale" offensive.

[vrikasatma]

I culture=hacked some grafitti I saw in Berkeley once.

Someone had scrawled on the side of a restaurant "Meat Is Murder." I wrote "Rotting" before the "Meat" so it read "Rotting Meat Is Murder."

[JoshuaMadoc]

Please tell me the graffitti is big enough for everyone to see. I'd love to see that slogan on t-shirts everywhere.

[vrikasatma]

Yep, it was. 18" letters. Not there anymore, unfortunately; got cleaned up.

That's okay...the meme is released into the world, put it on a t-shirt. Put it on a sticker. Piss off a militant vegan

[Zombie]

Yep, those PETArds are awfully offensive allright. Maybe I should hold public demonstrations on how to field dress rabbits, squirrels, gamefowl and deer and then have a big barbecue afterwards across the street the next time they show up..

[MattSullivan]

Protecting unspoiled wilderness and endangered animals is fine. More than fine. It's admirable. But when you get militant about it, I stop listening.

[RedEye]

I culture=hacked some grafitti I saw in Berkeley once.

Someone had scrawled on the side of a restaurant "Meat Is Murder." I wrote "Rotting" before the "Meat" so it read "Rotting Meat Is Murder."

It's also quite English. They like their meat green and fuzzy.

[Searif]

wow... I honestly love animals myself, and I hate cruelty to them... but this is just stupid...

and anubis is right, they have to quit trying to be better then us.

There was this one girl at my school who thought that anyone who eats meat is a sinner and bitched at me because I was eating a (out of all things to eat at school) steak and said I was killing innocent animals, I simply turned around and said "the cow was more then likely going to die anyways, atleast this way its not just standing around doing nothing all day, think about it, If I didn't eat it, a wolf would have or some other predator, and the way the would eat it would be much worse then this... think about the predators too for once... geeze" that got her to stop bugging me...

[Ansuru]

I've said it before, I'll say it again: I find spaying/neutering at all to be unethical. I understand why some people make the choice, but for me, personally, it's an issue of responsibility to and for your pet. If you're a responsible owner, you'll make sure breeding does not occur, or that if it does, the offspring find good homes, -without- resorting to mutilation of those in your power.

There is a severe human population problem on this planet. Would you vote for mandatory mutilation of 90% of the planet's humans to alleviate the problem? Fewer humans = fewer resources needed = less pollution, it would be a good thing all along that logical chain. It's more likely that we'll eventually sterilize all felons and license parents "for the protection of children." Hell, I'd vote for that LONG before I voted to spay/neuter a beloved pet.

After all, the last time I looked, there weren't over 6 billion labamutes poisoning the Earth.

[Scott Gardener]

I'm a proponent of logic. I am also an advocate of animal rights, but I will not defend stupid arguments, even if their conclusion favors my causes.

I advocate animal rights because, being an animal myself, I believe in extending compassion to beings who have the same emotions and sense of consciousness that I have. I advocate human rights for exactly the same reason. But, this culture unfortunately has a hard time dealing with the simple fact that humans are animals. The artificial notion that there is a seperation between the two camps rather than simply a subcatagorization of one within the other has caused a tremendous amount of needless suffering.

I do have to grant that historically, that we are animals is a realization that we've had to come to over the centuries, against assumptions to the contrary. Perfectly intelligent people like Descartes simply had no idea we were animals; they genuinely believed that other animals felt no pain and had no consciousness. But, this notion is no longer supported by modern science. Humans have appearantly unique cognitive abilities and sophisticated language skills that alter how our consciousness operates. We handle abstractions, we build on our ancestors' works, and as a consequence, we've got great art and music. Still, if a human child, who hasn't yet developed these skills, or a "special needs" child who will never develop these skills, or a clump of embryonic cells in a dish with only the theoretical potential to form something conscious all get endowed with rights, then something else with consciousness should have the same rights, independent of the details of form.

Vegitarianism: I'm one myself, but I'm not going to be a jerk about it. I would oppose laws banning meat for the same reason that I would recommend voting pro-choice regardless of personal belief; it should not be government's place to force ethical decisions in places where society has yet to establish a consensus. (I just wish society would hurry up and establish said consensus on the issues neccessary to bring about some desperately needed social and technological reforms!) I'm not technically vegitarian; I actually eat meat all the time. But, I only eat meat from animals that were not forced to suffer needlessly beforehand. I'm in effect boycotting major meat industries. Continuing to give money to a system that brutalizes conscious organisms encourages allowing that system to continue.

Population control: Hunting for "sport" often is endorsed by the argument that it "controls the population." This is a poor argument, because the same logic could also support getting through rush hour traffic by taking a rocket launcher to all the other cars on the road. Human population is an established crisis, and generally only psychopaths and sadly misguided would-be associates such as PETA actively advocate mass slaughter of our species. Instead, I feel it is better to allow nature to police its own. Humans are an exception; we've become conscious enough to change the rules, but that also bestows upon us the responsibility to behave ourselves and reproduce responsibly. I find it quite amusing that so much of mainstream society thinks itself so seperate from animals, when they actively flaunt their obsession with sex.

"The cow was going to die anyway": Buying a hamburger feeds the industry, encouraging them to raise more cows. Not a problem if they're farm-raised cattle that live on grain and can live a reasonably comfortable life. But, right now, they're not. Not telling you to give up eating meat, just telling you to give up that particular argument. If the meat industry as it is today loses support, they stop making animals whose life purpose is to suffer and then die.

"Quit trying to be better than us": I feel it is a reasonable goal to strive for the ideal state, even if it is logically impossible to attain it. My goal in life is infinite longevity, infinite knowledge, and infinite resources, while solving all problems everywhere. This goal is mathematically impossible, and anything that resembles it from a human perspective is in terms of probability effectively impossible. But, I feel that keeping in mind the true ideal rather than a mediocre compromise helps me keep motivated to live well and retain my optimism. It's essential survival when you work in the ER, constantly being exposed to a dysproportionate percentage of dysfunctional people who have very low, simplistic, or twisted senses of ethics and ideals.

I feel the best way to end animal suffering is to change the mindset of human society. When the notion that humans "have been given dominion" is gone and humans instead realize they're a fellow animal, but one with talents that could allow a real transcendence some day, when humans can get past the adulescent "know-it-all" stage and become an adult species, then the motivation to produce industries built on suffering while other people pretend not to know will be gone. Looking the other way and saying "I don't want to know" is metaphorically similar to not wanting to go to the doctor to biopsy a lump. Not being diagnosed with cancer early on will only allow it to progress to a more advanced stage when coughing up blood or a collapsed vertebra forces the issue.

[Kzinistzerg]

There is one thing that separates us from the great majority of animals, though, and that is the ability to perceive the future. No, I don't mean "looking into the future" but I mean anticipating. Most other species are solely reactionary. Something happens, they react to it. So are we, to a great extent. But we also anticipate things.

Death for instance. Humans fear death (in our society, I mean), because we can see it coming. You can induce suffering in a person via death. But in most everything else, they do not suffer.

For me, the questions is not it's potential, though that should certainly enter into the equation, the question is, Does it suffer?

On the subject of vegetarianism, I dislike militants about it. But, you see, I agree totally with your argument about the animals suffering. I've read lots of things that all agree on the matter. I happen to live in a household that is not vegetarian and also wouldn't accept it. My father is ridiculously hard-headed.

Hunting for sport I don't particularly like. I consider it horrible if it's out of season, though. If you EAT it, well, I can't truly argue much. But I think we should just reintroduce the predators responsible for taking care of the system anyway. Like wolves.

I agree with changing the mindset. But species-wise, we're still whiny annoying angsty really really ANNOYING teenagers. We should be locked in a barrel. We're not, of course, so we'll just have to work on getting a bit more rational.

Ansuru: I support spaying/neutering because while that animal suffers, there are SO many more of them out there to be adopted. As much as I'd hate the suffering caused to any one animal, there are just waaay too many of them. Because of irresponsible people.

And, have you EVER tried to control a cat? It's impossible. The phrase "herding cats" exists for a reason.

"Do I support human equivalent"

... KINDA. I think we should definitely have much more access to birth control and we really need better ways to do it. We need something that is near-failsafe. And inexpensive. I think we do actualyl have these things, but not in wide circulation. The difference here, is that pets tend to have less control over it than we do, and we can do things like take birth control.

One of the reasons we do spay/neuter cats and dogs is because their behavior changes a LOT. Unfornutately it works that way for humans too.

I just can't see a way to solve it dthat won't A, violate the hell out of human rights, and B, be extremely susceptible to corruption of it's ideals.

See humans will eventually be capable of ration decisions, en masse. It's just that I don't want to wait for evolution to work on pet genes. Evolution of memes goes a lot faster, and we can change them if we work at it.

[vrikasatma]

I believe in population control. Replacing oneself is fine but in the developed world, you don't have to squeeze out five or six kids because cholera/typhoid/tuberculosis isn't around as much as it used to be. You ain't gonna lose half of them to virulent disease. Stop at two, adopt or foster if you want more.

The problem here is that there are religious programmings in place that say "Have kids until her pelvis turns to jelly." Not just in Abrahamism, either. I won't go into the welfare hacks who just keep having kids for the benefits. In an ideal world, birth control would be fashionable and "Every child a wanted child" would be a major societal meme.

I got a lot of fire in the belly over this point so I'll stop there and spare y'all.

[vrikasatma]

The asshattedness continues. Some twerps up in Spokane raided a KINDERGARTEN class and stole the class's pet rabbit to protest a circus coming to town.

The only good thing is that they guaranteed that those kids will never buy their bullshit.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20975943/?gt1=10357

[MattSullivan]

i think PETA should be labeled a terrorist organization

[PariahPoet]

The only animal rights group I've found that is even the least bit sensible is Defenders of Wildlife.