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Friday, August 11, 2006
Has the Animal Rights Movement Given Up on Human Rights? Part 2
In an earlier post, I ranted about the animal rights movement. In sum, I argued that the animal rights groups have given up on human rights, that the resources devoted to protect animals said something about the neglect of human rights. They've chosen to prioritize care for emotional sponges over ordinary humans, who are not always easy to love, forgive, etc.
Reen commented that my argument was a false dilemma; that animal rights activists could care about human rights too. These groups are just doing what they're supposed to do, and they're effective. She's right, of course. So, let me explain why I'm beginning to believe that animal rights activism is a sort of escapism, an abandonment of more difficult problems like human rights. I'm doing some work for a low-income legal clinic, and in the process, have become familiar with the process and politics of expunging criminal records. It turns out that two types of crimes are particularly difficult to clean from a criminal record: DUI offenses, and animal cruelty. This is because well-organized and vocal interests write to our elected judges when people are forgiven for these crimes. I'm sorry, but there are more serious crimes than animal cruelty. No one is writing letters when former gang members seek forgiveness for weapons crimes, crimes that terrorize entire neighborhoods. No one is writing letters in domestic violence and other crimes that affect millions of Americans. One response might be that there is social science research showing a link between animal abusers and sociopathy. But these people aren't sociopaths. They've had an extended period of lawful behavior. Chances are, these are animal neglectors--when young, they bought pit bulls and the like and simply didn't take care of them properly. They weren't actively torturing the animals, which is a sign of depravity. Anyway, the priorities are screwed up. I find the intensity and resources devoted to protecting animals distasteful in a world where so many humans don't live as well as our stupid pets. |
10 Comments:
"I argued that the animal rights groups have given up on human rights, that the resources devoted to protect animals said something about the neglect of human rights."
**You seem to think that the heart has very little room and that love is finite. It's not. You can love and care about all sentient beings on the planet. You don't have to pick a group of beings and neglect the rest. By the way I am a vegan animal rights activist who is also a human rights activist and a member of an antiwar/antiracism group. Humans ARE animals. Real animal rights supporters care about people too because they are against speciesism.
"I'm sorry, but there are more serious crimes than animal cruelty."
**So if you see a child being beaten you can't try to help the child because there are children being treated even worse than that child? If a person is doing activism for children, is it wrong because they aren't trying to stop cancer or they aren't in an antiracism campaign? Why is it that many of you anti-animal people think that we have to help EVERYONE or NOONE. Can't we help who we can?? One person cannot focus on all abuse in the world..so should we all quit?
"No one is writing letters when former gang members seek forgiveness for weapons crimes, crimes that terrorize entire neighborhoods. No one is writing letters in domestic violence and other crimes that affect millions of Americans."
**Really? What planet are you living on?
"Anyway, the priorities are screwed up. I find the intensity and resources devoted to protecting animals distasteful in a world where so many humans don't live as well as our stupid pets."
**This disgusts me. I think YOU are distasteful for thinking we have so little compassion that we can't care about everyone and can only care about some. We all share this planet, we all feel. Racism, sexism, any descrimination (that includes speciesism) makes mankind look distasteful.
Love is an INFINITE resource. Lets make the most of it.
10:13 PM, August 11, 2006
Funny. If someone spends money on diamonds, electronics, and other material items, no one says anything. The moment someone spends some money to help a living breathing animal, suddenly it's "shocking" "appalling".
10:16 PM, August 11, 2006
Actually, I think it's kind of interesting -- the fact that there are well-organized and vocal constituencies devoted to animal rights and DUI, rather than to gun violence.
I would wager that the well-organized letter writers interested in animal cruelty by low income persons likely to come to a legal clinic aren't living in the same neighborhoods as the clinic's clientele, and yet they care to write about animal cruelty and DUI.
DUI is sort of understandable -- DUI is moving, and necessarily expands beyond the neighborhoods where the DUIers live. The animal cruelty thing I think reflects the attitude I brought up before -- animals are utterly helpless and dependent, and thus not susceptible to any arguments that "they should fix it themselves" or "if we help them, we're just enabling them."
I'm not sure it's a form of escapism, so much as a combination of familiarity (with animals in general -- you look at your pet beagle, and extend your love for it to the abused animals you hear about) and this idea that we can't "screw up" animals by saving them, so they're "safe" to help. Uncomplicated, too. The animal you help isn't going to show up on your door a year later, asking for more money.
Not, probably, a good reason for a person "not to care" about children, vis-a-vis animals, but may go part way to explaining the phenomenon of choosing animal-rightsiness as your issue of choice.
As an aside, maybe it's different in granola-crunchin' Berkeley, but it was my understanding that it is pretty darn hard to get yourself actually arrested for animal cruelty. Usually they just take the animals, and maybe give you a civil fine. So, if you actually have a criminal record for animal cruelty, it shouldn't be just dog-in-a-hot-car or empty-water-dish level neglect. I'm not sure there's really a meaningful difference in the depravity of torturing an animal and starving it to death.
12:32 AM, August 12, 2006
Also -- if most of the low-income clients' problems are with DUIs and pit-bull induced cruelty raps, I wonder if it's more NIMBY than animal-rights that's driving the letter-writers. Like I said, drunk drivers leave their own neighborhoods, and run down people in other ones. Similarly, pit bulls freak the hell out of most people, and if they escape, they can be one hell of a problem. So maybe you're encountering not a love of animals over people, but something that could be better described as an attempt (whether conscious or not) to keep "those people's" problems with "those people." Still not pretty, though.
12:36 AM, August 12, 2006
Ugh, hippies.
I can't stand it.
Love is infinite my ass. It's just that kind of hippy crystal-clutching crap that keeps the progressive movement back.
I get the point Buck is making. When you're working to expunge the record of someone who is trying to turn your life around, it's a little bit shocking to find it's easier to get wife-beating off your record that animal cruelty. You would think there would be more emphasis on violence against humans specifically rather than against animals, and I think he's got a good point.
I've mentioned before that I'm really becoming disturbed by the animal rights movement myself. As a biological scientist you see how critical animals are to research and how it would simply be impossible to do biology without them, and then you see the protesters in Oxford terrorizing scientists, threatening their lives, vandalizing their labs, all to prevent animal research being done. I believe that ultimately animal-rights protesters will be a bigger threat than Bush and the Republicans to science once that level of extremism starts occuring in this country.
1:28 PM, August 12, 2006
@bluebutterfly, you're not addressing my point--I know that people feel that love is infinite, but the point here is about resources. Sure, you can care about everything in the world, but when letters are being written to prevent social forgiveness of 10 year old animal crimes, but not for domestic violence or other crimes, isn't there a problem?
7:03 PM, August 12, 2006
Ding!
Give that man a cookie.
8:57 PM, August 12, 2006
It may be that we help animal, but do not help down street man or little girl of Africa, this is sad thing I think to myself. Then some man on top, he say, "You is man with no love," but I think he that is saying this on top, he is very very wrongly in it and you is the right person over him.
10:24 PM, August 12, 2006
Hey Buck. Just wanted to let you know -- I purchased an item yesterday, and the purchase price included a donation to either a Malawi orphanage or a Namibian anti-poaching organization. My pick. I went with the orphanage.
So, just to let you know. The orphans of Malawi thank you. But the giraffes hate your guts.
2:03 PM, August 13, 2006
humanoids will take care of humanoid rights.
9:24 PM, August 14, 2006
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