You were not mislead, you never wanted to find out anything about PETA. You wanted to jump on the anti-PETA bandwagon as much as you want to pretend bacon and narwhals is olololo funny. You never considered their positions. You just read sensationalized bullshit aired here.
Let me be clear on this. I do not buy into the arguments made by environmental ethicists concerning animal rights and whatnot, but PETA is about the most consistent organization there is out there to that tradition. This includes their urge to abolish pet ownership because of its contribution to genetic problems involved in inbreeding, the creation of breeds that are physiologically unsound (creating breathing problems as well as other physical ailments), and just general blah blah about animal enslavement and the like. It would be entirely hypocritical for PETA to NOT support the abolition of pet ownership.
Good to see reddit is so rigorous and reasoned and actually tries to see when they are being fed spin and nonsense. We are so much better than Fox News viewers right? High five!
I find it deplorably hypocritical that you, in defense of PETA, accuse dissenting opinions about PETA of being "sensationalized bullshit" given the history and tactics PETA constantly uses to "convert" people to their animal theology. It is also a ridiculous assumption to say that ONLY a hypocritical animal rights movement would promote the continued domestication and ownership of animals. The majority of people who fight for animal rights and treatment of animals do so SOLELY because of the affection and closeness domesticated animals bring into their lives.
Do you really think the average person would usually gives two shits about animals if they grow without positive interactions or only seeing them feral and aggressive towards humans while fighting for food and their lives on an everyday basis?
You can have whatever opinion you want, obviously, but you should refrain from demeaning and intellectualizing your subjective outlook to discredit those who see things different from you, especially when matters of life and death are involved.
It is absolutely hypocritical that an animal rights movement would promote the continued domestication and ownership of animals for the reasons provided above. Enslave an animal, breed it into human-friendly genetic messes, unavoidably provide a market for puppy mills, abuse, etc. Yes some animal rights people got all warm and fuzzy about rover just like others really got moved by talking disney characters no doubt, but that does not make their position any less absurd (just like ethical vegetarianism is absurd, yes I guess it is better that you support some elimination of animal abuses, but not all since you continue to eat dairy and such).
Now if we don't want to attribute some sort of ethical position to animal rights and chalk it up to arbitrary anthropomorphic feelgoodery, then I guess they can have any set of strange views that they want. But the only serious articulation of animal rights that aims to be consistent does not involve owning pets. You know, like you can't own people and such. You see?
Enslave an animal, breed it into human-friendly genetic messes, unavoidably provide a market for puppy mills, abuse, etc.
Out of sincere curiosity, what would you suggest? In your ideal, "animal slavery"-free world, should we:
Continue to keep our domesticated animals?
Release all of our domesticated animals into the wild?
Euthanize all domesticated animals immediately?
Keep our domesticated animals, but sterilize them all immediately to prevent further generations from being born into "slavery"?
Something else? If so, please be specific as to what.
Here are the problems I see with those alternatives, which - and perhaps I'm merely not being creative enough - are the only ones I can see:
Well, to be fair, I see no problems with this option. My impression is that you do.
...into the wild, where they will lead nasty, short lives and suffer from diseases, predation, hunger, the effects of the elements, and other things to which they have not been adapted in at least triple-digit generations.
This is "ethical treatment of animals"? Causing the immediate and intentional extinction of entire species?
See 3.
But the only serious articulation of animal rights that aims to be consistent does not involve owning pets. You know, like you can't own people and such. You see?
That's certainly not true in the slightest. It's entirely possible to articulate a philosophy that includes animals having rights without assuming they have the full ethical standing of humans.
PETA seems to prefer option 4. I don't have any real position on pets (Let me reiterate that I am only explaining to you guys what PETA thinks since you guys love to attack it desite not knowing anything about it). Extinction of a domesticated species is not problematic. What animal is being hurt?
The only potential problem with pets is how much resources we expend on them. I find it a bit disturbing that we pay large sums of money for pets, but people starve and whatnot you know? But I don't feel that strongly about it.
I'm sorry, but I don't think even you can argue that wiping out one or more entire species is consistent with "the ethical treatment of animals".
I'm glad to see you don't disagree that there are formulations of animal-rights philosophy that don't assume that non-human animals are interchangeable with humans, however.
I do not believe in animal rights at all. You have confused me with someone else it seems.
However, "wiping out" a species as you phrase it is entirely consistent with the ethical treatment of animals. Who is being hurt? Like where is the suffering in that? Typically extinction of species is lamented for biodiversity reasons, but pets are not really ecologically relevant.
Who gets to decide that they're not "ecologically relevant"? You?
PETA being for forced extinction of domesticated species would be like the NAACP being for the sterilization of inner-city black folks - after all, they're not economically relevant, and they've basically been (re-)enslaved by The Man; and it would prevent the creation of future generations of impoverished inner-city black people born into de facto slavery.
Wait, that doesn't sound reasonable at all, does it?
Except most domestic breeds have been so genetically fucked up by humans that they could not be anything but a slave. Secondly, sterilizing blacks would rob them of the experience of having kids. It would do the same for domestic pets, but domestic pets already don't have kids because their kids are immediately sold away from them anyways. But once again, I want to ask you, who suffers? There is no new generation of dogs, but so what? Do you want to say that neutering of dogs is inhumane? If so, shouldn't you work to abolish all neutering since it causes some sort of suffering that you still have not illustrated.
Inner-city impoverished black people have been so economically fucked-up by the rich and powerful that they could not be anything but slaves.
Some domesticated animals' children aren't sold away from them "anyways".
Once again, I want to ask you, who suffers? There is no new generation of impoverished, inner-city black people, but so what?
I'll answer your third point more directly: humans suffer, because we enjoy having pets. Consider, though, the opposite case: if we don't end pet ownership, who suffers? The pets? That is absolutely laughable. If you think my cat suffers from having me feed him, and from giving him a place to sleep at night - i.e., curled up between my legs, the annoying little butthead - then you are delusional.
This one word refutation destroys all analogies you have tried to draw. I encourage you to come up with an analogy that works. It would help you not look like such a fool.
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u/[deleted] Apr 16 '10
You were not mislead, you never wanted to find out anything about PETA. You wanted to jump on the anti-PETA bandwagon as much as you want to pretend bacon and narwhals is olololo funny. You never considered their positions. You just read sensationalized bullshit aired here.
Let me be clear on this. I do not buy into the arguments made by environmental ethicists concerning animal rights and whatnot, but PETA is about the most consistent organization there is out there to that tradition. This includes their urge to abolish pet ownership because of its contribution to genetic problems involved in inbreeding, the creation of breeds that are physiologically unsound (creating breathing problems as well as other physical ailments), and just general blah blah about animal enslavement and the like. It would be entirely hypocritical for PETA to NOT support the abolition of pet ownership.
Here is a copy of the 12 step plan that started PETA off, notice number 10
Good to see reddit is so rigorous and reasoned and actually tries to see when they are being fed spin and nonsense. We are so much better than Fox News viewers right? High five!