Friday, May 21, 2010

What is your feelings on animal rights versus animal welfare? The links below will explain diffrences?

http://www.americananimalwelfare.com/rig...
http://www.furcommission.com/debate/inde...
http://www.sover.net/~lsudlow/arvsaw.htm...
Answers:
I am absolutely OPPOSED the false concept of animal "rights". Many of the people(and a lot of them are teenagers or younger)who are so pro-Animal Rights have no clue what it means to have "rights" in the first place! Your "rights" are NOT about how others are supposed to treat you, but what YOU are or are not allowed to do in a legal context! Every single right that we have, as citizens of one country or another, was fought for in some way and hard-won by the people who stood to gain the most from it, and with the understanding that will every right, MUST come responsibility and accountability for one's actions! Animals cannot in any way, shape or form comprehend this! They do not even know or understand what it means to have rights, or that anyone is out there trying to give them rights in the first place! Animals certainly cannot be expected to behave within certain parameters as established by their rights, either. To give some examples, the Constitution of the Untited States of America guarantees me, as a citizen of this country, the right to keep and bear arms, in other words, to own and use a gun. It also guarantees me the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. IF, however, I abuse those rights, and my idea of the pursuit of happiness is to use a gun to rob a convenience store and shoot the clerk, I understand that I can lose not only the right to keep and bear arms, but my liberty and my happiness(not gonna get too much of those in the Federal pen, am I?)and in some states, my life. I understand that I have to act with responsibility within those rights. An animal cannot understand this. I am held accountable by the legal and justice system if I violate the parameters of my rights; who is to hold an animal accountable? Without personal accountability, rights cannot exist. There has also been some parallels concocted by the Animal Rights people between the "struggle" for the "rights" of animals and the Civil Rights struggles of Black people in this country, which is still going on. Here's where the differences lie, folks. The people who were striving for Civil Rights were the ones who stood to gain the most from them; they knew what the stakes were, and were willing to risk everything for THEIR OWN gains and those of their decendants. The biggest gains in Civil Rights for Black people were NOT made by Whites. Animals do not even know that anyone is trying to give them "rights". They do not CARE. Thus, any gains in the rights of animals MUST be fought for, and gained by, those who stand to benefit the most from those rights-the animals themselves! Show me a speech written by a cow that comes close to Dr. Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream", or a bunch of dogs staging a sit-in at a restaurant to gain the right to order and eat there, or a pig who refuses to ride in a livestock trailer in order to protest pigs not being allowed to drive cars, and I'll start to believe, but until then, the whole "Animal Rights" thing isn't gonna fly with me!
The REAL purpose behind the Animal Rights movement is not so much to give rights to animals, though, but to TAKE rights from HUMANS. It's about controlling humans-any would-be dictator knows that the way to gain control of a populace is to find out something that the majority has in common, and gain control of THAT, be it their religion, their food supply, or whatever. Most of us, in some way or another, are impacted by the presence of animals in our world-we eat them, wear their skins or hair, ride them, train them to pull things, depend on them for protection or alarm, and many of us keep them as pets. If a group can gain control of the animals-how they can be kept, how they can be treated, and for what purposes they can be kept-they have gained control of the people. Don't let anyone fool you into thinking that these folks really love animals, either. Most believe that animals are better off dead than being around humans. Wanna know who supports laws to ban and kill certain breeds of dogs? The Animal Rights folks, that's who! It's not so much about loving animals or caring about animals, as it is HATING HUMANS. Most will tell you that the human race is a blight on the universe and that our extinction would be the greatest thing ever; it might play well to "emo" teens, but not to this adult! Check out some more interesting links below, and MAKE SURE to check out the last one!
YOU NEED A JOB or social life
I do feel that animals have rights. We don't let people hunt other people for fun, so why should we let them hunt animals? We are also mammals. So yea, there's my opinion.
If animal rightists, such as PETA, got their way, there would be either a great deal of short-term misery for many domesticated animals, should they merely be turned loose, or if breeding of domesticated animals was merely halted there would still be many breeds of animals, if not entire species, that would become extinct. We would lose, not merely protein and clothing sources, and animals on which we experiment so as to improve our own health, but our animal companions who give us such joy, not to mention the 'hands-on' link to the natural world. Additionally, we would lose the assistance animals on which handicapped people have become to dependent: dogs for the deaf, the wheelchair-bound, the people subject to seizures, the blind. We would be so much diminished by their lack.

I don't believe that hunting in general should be banned on the grounds of animal welfare. It is not uncommon for deer to outpopulate their range, which leads to starvation for those less able to command food resources. If hunting is maintained at a reasonable level, the species as a whole benefits. We have, after all, deprived them of the natural predators which would keep their numbers in check. And no, I am not a hunter. I do not believe that fur farms should be banned either. The lives of such fur-bearing animals may be short, but relatively comfortable. Plus any animal which can be commercially exploited in such a way it not one which is likely to become extinct. And no, I don't own any fur coats either.

I do believe that all animals within our care should be treated with respect and consideration. Environments should be enriched not just for zoo animals, but for "factory farms", which as we all should know are breeding grounds for not just animals for food, but disease for which the animals are treated with excessive antibiotics. And we should exercise what ability we can to improve the lives of animals in the wild; or at least take pains to see that their lives are not negatively impacted by our intrusions on their domains.

If it appears that there are dichotomies in my stances, put it down to idealism tempered by pragmatism.

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