One of my friends is an avid hunter and has a ready reply when anti-hunting types ask if he shoots “innocent” animals.
“No,” he replies, “only the guilty ones.”
Although sharp witted and humorous, it tells a deeper point. It’s ridiculous to think of animals as being guilty or innocent in any way. Animals have no
Ethical Code.
Rights do not extend between species. Didn’t you realize this?
According to some activists, it is immoral to eat animals. Animal-rights advocates such as Tom Regan and Peter Singer, and even local activists contend that animals must be treated ethically.
What they really are saying is that animals should be treated as if they were human beings.
The animal-rights crowd is not fighting cruelty to animals, its saying animals should be treated like humans, i.e.,
Like Your Mother.
There is, of course, one large problem with such a view: Animals are not human beings. Your mother is not an ape-I hope.
Animals do not treat each other as if they had rights. It would be foolish to think that a fish commits a crime by eating another fish. There are no monkey police or
Monkey Jails.
Bears eat other animals. Bears also eat fish.
This being the case, there is no reason why I cannot eat the same type of animals eaten by the bear, or the same fish.
There is similarly no reason why I cannot morally kill and eat the bear. Fair is fair.
Benjamin Franklin was a vegetarian in his youth, believing that killing animals was “a kind of unprovok’d Murder.” Later, however, Franklin “was tempted by the smell of fish being fried.
Having seen small fish in the stomachs of fish being prepared, he decided he could eat them if they ate each other.”
If animals are to be treated ethically, then human beings should expect them to act ethically.
Animals should be required to serve on juries, pay taxes and vote. We should expect them to go to church rather than lying at home or running around the yard all day.
It would follow that Social Security be provided for retired animals,
Veticare
with drug benefits, and Vetacaid for those who are born runts or fall on hard times.
After all, where would this country have been without the slave labor of animals?
Society owes these standard rights to animals (at least the cute ones-ugly ones don’t really matter).
The deeper problem does arise in the fact that it is impossible to raise animals to the level of humans.
Animal right proponents, consequently, will often attempt to take humans down to the level of an animal.
The result of Peter Singer’s claim that “a dog is a rat is a pig is a boy” is that humans are to be experimented upon, as if they were
Rats.
One must wonder where abortion fits into the picture. Abortion is practiced on animals.
So, where does an animal’s right to life fit in with say, the mother’s right to choose?
As a matter of consistent thinking, I wonder if many who are pro-life for animals are pro-choice for humans? Equal rights, right?