Animal Rights Raid on Egg Farm Kills Thousands of Chickens
In Finland, some ALF-type activists raided a chicken farm and killed thousands of chickens in the process. From the story:
Suspected radical animal welfare activists raided a poultry farm in Narpio in the southwest of Finland Thursday night. The raiders broke eggs, and destroyed electric equipment, causing the ventilation system to break down. Up to 5,000 of the 26,000 chickens are believed to have died for lack of air.Of course, they won't care that the chickens died. In other similar situations, animal rightists claimed that death was better than lives lived in torture.
Graffiti left on the wall of the farm contained the letters EVR, the Finnish abbreviation of the Animal Liberation Front.
On a more macro level, we are seeing increased viciousness in political activism from the Left, in animal rights to be sure, but also in the wake of the passage of Proposition 8 in California with some now targeting people who supported the measure for blacklisting and job losses (let's not discuss the gay marriage issue here), and in the language of vituperation that is becoming increasingly commonplace in political discourse. This all bodes badly for democracy.
Labels: Animal Rights. ALF.
posted by Wesley J. Smith @ 10:50 AM
26 Comments
26 Comments:
In one of my final semesters I attended a course on U of Houston campus called, "The Environment and Literature," misunderstanding the blurb, "Studying the effects of the environment on modern literature" as being about how writers are affected by their surroundings. Turned out to be an environmentally active group, and we read novels such as EVEN COWGIRLS GET THE BLUES, and other novels with radical environmental messages in them. One such novel proclaimed the blessings of eco-terrorism.
At the same time, a friend of mine had bought Penn & Teller's BS (from the Showtime channel) and, while I disagree with a lot of what Penn says, I found the anti-PETA and anti-radical environmentalism of their show refreshing. I ended up getting into so many arguments, shipping links to the various websites via email to my classmates, and getting a giggle out of watching them struggle to refute the atheist Penn without accusing him of being a right-wing religious nut.
Funny thing, that was the first gut reaction. "You're just saying that because you believe God is going to magically remake the world, Tabbie. You don't care because you believe in that fairy tale stuff."
"Penn Jilette hosts BS and here's the DVD with the episodes I talked about last week. He's an atheist."
Dead silence until I played the DVD.
People automatically assume that anyone who believes in human exceptionalism is some kind of religious nut, have you noticed? There are plenty of people out there, like Penn and Teller, who are *not* religious and who believe in what they see - that humans are exceptional and therefore should not be knocked down to the level of some kind of animal. That we're the only creatures who understand fairness and law and who want to better ourselves and the lives of animals. For some reason, being religious makes us "dumb," and yet very smart people who are non-believers agree with us.
What people don't like is having to have some kind of standard. Moral atheists who share many of the same attitudes that the religious have are living up to a standard they believe in. People who want the "freedom" to do whatever they want without consequence or without thinking about other people hate standardes, because if they don't live up to them, they're in the wrong somehow. So they blame the religious for being irrational because we have a moral standard, and (get this!) they accuse the non-religious who are morally upright of being closeted religious nuts! I've seen such an accusation for Penn and Teller before (and bust a gut laughing).
That was a weird semester in college.
...You know, another thing that shocked and annoyed people was that, as a hunter and target shooter, I talked about wanting large tracts of unspoiled land for hunting, and that means caring for the environment and animals so that they stay healthy so we can enjoy our sport. Bothered them that I had fliers from the NRA and from local hunting groups talking about keeping the water and ground clean to protect our wildlife here in Texas.
(Well, I enjoy target shooting. I hunt but I don't enjoy it because I can't hit a deer if it's standing there blindfolded with a cigarette in its mouth. And I haven't brought down a dove in ages.)
"Of course, they won't care that the chickens died. In other similar situations, animal rightists claimed that death was better than lives lived in torture."
That means that they're "Peter Singer" types, for whom the alleviation of suffering is paramount, even if it means death. (See also, "assisted suicide," "euthanasia," etc.) I, on the other hand, became a vegetarian fifteen years ago not foremost to end suffering, but because I value LIFE (which, also unlike the Peter Singer types, includes human life).
I see SHS's point about the raid's resulting in the death of the chickens parallel to the death culture, with reference to animl rightists having claimed that death was better than lives lived in torture in other situations, and, if that is the reason for your opposition to the animal rights movement, I understand. But one cannot be sure that these particular activists didn't care that the chickens died, even if in other similar situations, animal rightists claimed that death was better than lives lived in torture, unless they knew what the equipment was for and their intention in destroying it was to kill the chickens. Further, it is no surprise that a bunch of humans raiding a chicken and egg factory whose conditions are crowded, which is part of what they were protesting, ended up breaking eggs, which would be hard to avoid. (The aptness here of the line about not being able to make an omelet without breaking some eggs is cringeworthy.) I know that if I were to break into a scientific laboratory, I would be doing it in order to end the suffering of helpless, innocent animal "research subjects" there by freeing them, not by providing them with a fate worse than life. I wish that there were enough of us animal rights people so that we could shut down every single place where animals are tormented; there are not; part of the purpose of these raids is to bring to public attention to the conditions they are meant to expose; they are meant to be shocking and dramatic. They are done to stop what is going on, to put the perpetrators on notice that they can no longer continue to do as they please without the world outside being aware of it, as well as to disrupt their operations, which is meant to be a deterrent as well as a way of getting publicity. If what they are trying to stop did not go on outside of public view and in places to which the public does not have access, they would not have adopted these tactics. PETA's stunts are similarly motivated, and have had, via their publicity value, a very significant impact on public awareness, and, as a result, in the way people think about and treat animals, with more humane treatment of animals the incremental net result. (PETA, by the way, got a lot of heat, when it euthanized by injection animals it had rescued from shelters a few years ago; they did it because those animals had faced euthanasia by the horrific method used at that shelter; Ingrid Newkirk had euthanized by injection many at a shelter she worked at(and one could see the effect that had had on her when I met her years ago) in order to protect them from the abuse of them by shelter workers that she had witnessed, in a situation in which the animals were going to be euthanized no matter what; this was her frame of reference; it would be better if enough people were available and willing to harbor all the animals to be saved, but that, sadly, is not the case, and there are only so many that each person can take on. The methods animal rights activists use are not perfect, and I am sure that I am not the only animalitarian who would love to hear suggestions of other means to bring about the end result of ending cruelty to animals than have been tried to date; what has to be addressed is immense, and it is not an easy situation. I understand your point about the death culture, and I do note that pets are getting treated more and more like humans at the same time as the death culture is taking hold, but I don't think there is a connection; I think it indicates an increase in the quality of humanity on which we can build. Aggression by one species against species on which it preys runs throughout nature. and human exceptionalism rings of that subtly. The death culture is no one's fault except humans'; in that, we are exceptional. But we are not the only animal to understand and exercise fairness, and to the extent of their capacity, animals have and follow laws, too. I'm not sure what animals are supposed to do in order to better their own and the other species' condition, I don't buy wanting to keep them healthy so that we can enjoy hunting them as an example of that, let alone an altruistic one, I don't see what's fair about bringing down a dove (of all things), and while we are "exceptional" in having created the death culture and manifested in individual specimens such as Singer and Pope,if we are focused on "bettering" ourselves, why have we created the death culture? I guess the Judeo-Christian tradition would go on about our being "imperfect," "to be forgiven," constantly improving, etc. as an explanation of that, but in fact it's the destruction of the far greater achievements of classical civilizations, which did value life and embody human exceptionalism better than ever since while simply regarding what beings are as what they are, by Christianity that started this whole juggernaut that has ended up with this "merciful" death culture we've got now.
p.s. Even if the Scandinavian activists smashed the eggs on purpose, those eggs were going to end up as, e.g. omelets for human consumption anyway, and they may have been doing it to cut into the factory chicken farmers' profits, as a gesture re that and re "we're not going to tolerate this" (which is "arty," I know, but that's part of "human exceptionalism," by which I mean what's peculiar to humans, too). Taking a stab at their "hypocricy" in disrespecting life in that way, and even holding it out as an example of the "death culture," does not obviate the fact that human exceptionalism includes concern about the lives in the chicken eggs, it shares ground with "animal rights," after all. Non-human animals don't have to discuss and try to enforce fairness and justice; they already have their own, which does value life; we are the ones who created the death culture, the plight of animals that our other side, which is "humanity," decries. When Anthony Hopkins' character said "I wouldn't do that to an animal" in response to Alec Baldwin's character's suggestion that he unleash his lawyers on the man-eating grizzly bear that was on their trail and which they eventually had to kill in order to escape with their lives, he was referencing a lot about human and non-human animals, including the fundamental decency of the latter, which is not universal in the former, and the one who came out of the woods alive was he, who exhibited it and was willing to exhibit toward the latter, one of which (the bear) he was willing to kill only in order to survive. (Yes, the bear wanted to kill them, but it was just being a bear who had previously tasted human blood, just as Hopkins' character was one kind of person, and Baldwin's another. But how does "human exceptionalism' explain the death culture, which advocates killing not to survive, but for "Christian" ("merciful") and utilitarian reasons, and if the latter reason is really about eugenics/natural selection, then how are we "exceptional" and different from non-human animals?)
(p.s. again) I mean other than in the ways that are obvious, such as our form, having opposable thumbs, what are brains can do (which seems), etc., etc. The film cited in the previous post is The Edge. As for Christianity, my views regarding it, and regarding it and the subject at hand, were formed long since, and proven correct when a representative of the local diocese and the "guardianship" organization court-ordered at the hospital's behest to make sure that my mother was murdered by removal from her ventilator, on which she wanted to remain (but years ago she'd signed a "living will" she was now to weak to rescind formally), showed up for the execution and I told him to stay away from her, he said, "Aren't you Catholic?" and when I said no, he said, "Aren't you Christian," and when I said my mother is Greek Orthodox but I'm not Christian, he said, "But my mother would be so happy if this were being done for her." That's what it's come to. Greek Orthodoxy considers what was done to her killing and murder, but the priest who was with her was a convert (from Catholicism, I believe), and had previously objected to the murder to the hospital and "guardians" who (Catholics) ignored his objections, but, when the murder was at hand, told me that he was "not sure that it (disconnecting her) was the wrong thing." Again, this is what we've got now, and have to deal with -- bifurcation in the same Catholic Church (which condones "living wills" and a person's right to "choose" to be removed from life support if s/he wishes not to burden his/her "family or the community with too much expense) that is regarded as the proponent of the sanctity of life. How can the fight against the death culture be won with that kind of thing going on? After all, "eu"thanasia is "merciful."
In the first set of parentheses in the previous post, I mistyped and it should have been, in complete form,(which seems to be both create the death culture and value life/be humane). I understand that the Pope recently sent a Cardinal to the U.S. to try to look into what the Catholic diocese-run "charitable" organizations are doing, after one in Maryland was involved in an abortion, and to try to straighten them out. A local Catholic priest who tried to mobilize protests and demonstrations to save my mother's life (but, he said, everyone was afraid for their job and no one would do it) told me that many people had emailed the Vatican about my mother, and that he wouldn't be surprised if her case was the real reason for the Cardinal's visit here. (In which case why didn't the Catholic press say it was one of the reasons? If it was, then the Vatican feels comfortable about opposing abortions (can't let the population decrease) but not about opposing the scientific establishment, which the Catholic Church itself put on its course of death by declaring that animals do not have souls and approving animal experimentation long, long ago.) The pamphlet offered by the one here that made sure that my mother was murdered as the hospital wished (and which has done likewise as that hospital's stooge in other cases) to justify what it was doing presented, it said, the position of the Vatican, and the local Catholic newspaper recently ran an article in which the diocese's "right to life" official endorsed "living wills." In a world with emails and airplanes, why wasn't the Vatican on top of what the "organizations" of the dioceses in the U.S. were doing already? I would feel very anguished over its behavior if I were a Catholic myself; I've got enough reason to feel anguished as a result of it as it is; my mother was aware that she was being killed. That's "merciful"? No, that's the death culture its roots in the "many mansions," "the other world is better," and other myths, etc. propaganda of Christianity, which was a refuge for those with no hope who were being thrown to the lions. My sympathy remains with those with no hope who are trapped in laboratories and feel pain just as we do, and no, I don't want them euthanized and don't think death is better than suffering; I want them out of there, and to be actually free from it, not "free" as in the "peace" and "setting free" the death culture advocates, and fighting to free them is no different from the fighting for life and survival that the death culture denigrates and fears. Again - we started out by "sacrificing" animals in laboratories and "putting" pets "to sleep," and look what we've got now.
The same 'right to life official' of the local diocese mentioned above who endorsed "living wills" in The Catholic Courier here told me that "living wills" really are a way of getting rid of the elderly and the disabled to save costs, that the Hastings Institute had put out a report a few years ago (about the same time my mother was rooked into signing one) concluding that they are a bad idea because of the rate at which technology keeps advancing and changing, and that "The diocese is aware that many in the community are very unhappy/displeased with Catholic Charities of the Diocese d/b/a Catholic Family Center, and we will be addressing this systemic problem over the coming months and years, but not in time to save your mother's life, you'll have to prevail legally in order to do that, and the bishop is out of town all month but no, even if he were here he wouldn't help." I am not making this up! What are people supposed to think? (That was the red-herring issue all along; after "guardianship" was imposed people kept telling me, "Well, at least you don't have to worry about their pulling the plug; they're Catholic." They didn't do their job under the statute, either. The tv news reported that they said they were getting angry phone calls. But still they went along with the hospital. Also, what's with this whole "end of life" culture? Anyone's life could end at any moment. Has SHS addressed the issue of Dr. Timothy Quill? Sorry, this has gotten a bit afield of the animal rights issue. And I'm sure the animals prefer to be as far as possible afield of Quill and the whole shooting match.
Oh, I forgot - the diocese "right to life" person asked me, "And how are you planning to be with your mother in Christ when she does die (is removed from the ventilator)? And what are your plans for after that, will you be staying in town/keeping the house?" They were dead set on this -- a Catholic diocese was. I'd already told her I'm not Christian, and she knew I was fighting for my mother's life, and this is what I had to hear nonetheless. From the "right to life" official of the diocese. I don't know what she was talking about with that "in Christ," and I don't want to know (honestly, I don't); I just know that the murder wasn't supposed to happen. I understand what you mean about the element in the animal rights movement that says death better than suffering, and I don't like that either. But that is not what the movement is about, and that must mean, too, that you might have to consider the logic of what I've been saying about how we treat animals is how we treat humans. Keeping the animals healthy so that we can enjoy shooting them is to me a repugnant concept, and I think "human exceptionalism" is used to justify that, among other things. "Hunting" when the animals do it is preying on the weak; I can see why by what logic the "death culture" would then be analogous to the "non-exceptionalism" of non-human animals, but it doesn't hold water. If we're hunting for food, and non-human animals pick off the weak and vulnerable in the herd, then why don't we hunt the weak and vulnerable non-human animals? Either way, the prey is going to die, and, in fact, non-human animals DO attend to the health of the species by picking off the weak. I suppose that makes them Peter Singer? No, because Peter Singer is arguing economic utilitarianism that "exceptional" humans should not make a priority if we favor life in no matter what state. (And if Princeton thinks the idea about the parents being able to euthanize their own disabled offspring is what makes Singer, who can't even settle on a firm age limit, an exceptional thinker, it isn't aiming very high.) The pro-life argument against the death culture is, at least in part, one in defense of our very survival; non-human animals already know how to defend their own. We're the ones whom Singer represents. I understand about the glory and pride and self-celebration involved in human exceptionalism, as exampled in feeling entitled to using animals in laboratories and wanting to manipulate the environment even to the point of ensuring that the animals we shoot are prime specimens, and the the pleasure in that, but that's also the same thing that underlies the "quality of life" argument that is part of the death culture. We're the ones with the guns; isn't that proof enough of our superiority, just as the lion's claws and teeth and hunting skill are proof of its superiority over its prey? "Peculiar" means "specific to the herd (pecus)" and herd is a concept associated with non-human animals; what's peculiar to humans certainly is peculiar. The philosophy of human exceptionalism, which carries connotations of constant improvement and further refinement, has been around longer than the death culture, as the classical world preceded the Christian one, but it's the death culture that's winning, and in order to prevail the life ethos has to include the acknowledgement that life is life and animals, including us, are animals, and the humanity, which it correctly calls the death culture on only claiming to endorse and exercise.
And if we're hunting not for food but for pleasure, isn't that a death culture? Like war? Or is inflicting death, rather than honoring life, all right in those cases? Non-human animals don't do those things...and they survive just fine until we get into the picture. We "elevate" ourselves above needing to hunt and eating weakest-in-herd by means of agriculture and animal husbandry, but we still want to kill, for pleasure, mind us, and we still wage war for insane reasons (or are muslim extremists not human?). I'm not against war, as long as we don't wage it against helpless animals in the laboratory (which ultimately harms us as well) or against the elderly and the disabled, which any of us could end up being; in fact, courage and is humanity, and fighting to defend life is fighting to defend life, and doesn't leave room for the death culture, and is not vicious, whereas the "liberal" causes, e.g. the death culture, are accompanied by viciousness and hatred and cowardice. But when it comes to certain things, "human exceptionalism" is an excuse, and isn't prevailing because it fails on logic.
Equating econimic pressure of Prop 8 to this CRIME is just foolish and does not follow except by a stretch worthy of Plasticman. Equating this to Prop 2, put forth by the same hyper-left morons, is more appropriate.
the Mudslinger: The forcing of people out of their jobs, the demonstrating in front of people homes and calling them bigots, etc., the church invasions, the smashing of an elderly woman's cross, the calling racial epithets, that a minority of those angry with the passage of 8 is part of a disturbing trend I am seeing on the political Left to coerce and bludgeon people into accepting their perspectives. I did not mean it as a direct comparison to this kind of felonious conduct.
Ianthe: I believe that there is a hierarchy of moral worth. I don't believe the life of a human being and those of animals are of the same value.
I and the wolf have a lot in common. I enjoy eating what I hunt and I enjoy the hunt. There is no shame in either vocation. I am quite happy to be the part of nature which the wolf and myself enjoy. We can be exceptional because we are more aware of our species place in the greater scheme of life then any other animal but that awareness does not remove us from our commonality with animals either. In fact I am cooking a "pot luck stew," right now. I will enjoy the mix of deer meat, rabbit meat & partridge meat as much as the wolf would but I am aware enough to know I left more critters for tomorrow's conservation.
In fact in my opinion ,you are missing the greatest portion of out fit within natural world. Flesh dies so that other flesh will live, off the dead. I happen to think that God created the plan but even within the confines of evolution our bodies are meant to thrive on meat derived nutrients. Our exceptualism does not exonerate or lose our commonality to nature as amoral omnivores. There is no sin or loss of our exceptualism in getting the nutrients our bodies were designed to thrive on. That points stands by evolutionary standards or in my belief that God Created be to be the omnivore.
Pure case of folks who know nothing about animal husbandry trying to pretend they know what is good for animals.
Lanthe, I'm sorry to learn of what you and your family went through with your mom. But I'm confused on the outcome. Did those who wanted to have her removed from life support "win"?
"I understand what you mean about the element in the animal rights movement that says death better than suffering, and I don't like that either. But that is not what the movement is about..."
I know. Not all people who refer to themselves as "animal-rights activists" have the same beliefs. That's what I was driving at. Dr. Smith has pointed out on this blog that many AR "activists," themselves, kill animals. It's the "we'll kill them so that they won't suffer" and/or "we'll kill them so they won't die later" (which, yes, makes no sense) argument.
I believe that "hierarchy of morality" is an impossibility and an oxymoron. Framework of morality yes, but hierarchy no. Further, the stunts pulled by a minority of those angry with the passage of 8 are not within the framework of morality or good social order, but when it comes to the "careers" of those who place their careers ahead of morality by furthering the death agenda, whether by pulling the plug on a human being in a hospital or torturing animals in a laboratory, I say that a position, and actions, that in fact are analogous to having shown anger at Princeton are in order; the latter did in fact concern an instance of career, in that case Singer's, and the enabling of it by an institution named Princeton. Princeton, Singer, and those who promulgate, enact, and accept the death culture may not be capable of getting the point, but moral outrage, and the expression of it by word or deed, are moral, in order, justified, and necessary.
bmmg39: Thank you. Who really suffered was my mother, whom in the end they did murder, after forcing her to hear and endure unspeakable things and go without the care and treatment she needed. The priest who was present and had said he wasn't sure it wasn't the right thing then told me that if I allowed myself to be emotionally broken by it, then they would have "won." Later I learned that he had in another case "counselled" with a couple, one of whom I had grown up with, and who held the hospital in high regard and had gone along with the hospital's agenda of "meetings" and "meeting with Dr. Quill," who had ultimately decided to remove one of their mothers from life support. That priest, and just about everyone else, seemed to think that the, in essence, quality of my own life and my own ordeal in this whole thing were issues with regard to the whole thing, as if my mother's right to life, her own fighting for it, which made obvious "what she wanted," and what she suffered by her real wishes not being respected did not exist. Obviously it's impossible to express condolences to her now, except in the form of prayer and spiritual communication, and I appreciate your kindness; I'm talking about the attitude people displayed while she was still alive. As I kept telling them, she was the patient, not I, and what I was having to endure was nothing compared to what she was; I'd go through an infinite multiple of the ordeal that was thrust upon me if it could restore her to life, and would willingly have done so, as well, if it would have saved her, and what outrages me is the attitude and acts of the hospital and the "guardians," and the attitude and refusal to wake up of those who could have helped and didn't, and who told me things like "she's old," "let her die," "why don't you remove the ventilator and if God wants her to breathe, she will," "she signed a living will," "it's your life that matters, think of yourself and your own future, do what's best for yourself" etc., etc., not to mention "this is what she wanted" (as if this were not a different point in time, at which it was not was she wanted at all),which all reflected the rank complacency, callousness, and stupidity, as well as the agenda, of the death culture. Thank you again, and I really do appreciate it. As for what "family" went through, I'm an only child, one cousin, her late brother's son, was supportive, and her brother and only living sibling told the head of the i.c.u. that he "thought she should die," while her niece (a nitwit, meddling nurse) said (in her hearing, no less) "She's 97, maybe you should just pull the plug" and that one's brother (they were raised Catholic, had pulled the plug on their own mother, attended the "guardianship" hearing, and have always referred to my family's property as "in the family") shook hands with the hospital's lawyer at the end of the first day of the hearing and said publicly, amidst false and defamatory statements about me, that "I know my aunt would never want to be on life support, and my family and I are appalled..." The pushers of the death agenda, of course, hardly mind taking advantage of that kind of thing, which does go on in families at times, unfortunately, and if I had siblings, and one or more of them had not been on the same page with my mother and me, it could have been even worse.
Not that anything, of course, could have been worse than what happened to my mother, and again, thank you. The priest who said the day before the murder that he was "not sure it was not the right thing" after having been extraordinarily conscientious in visiting her throughout her hospitalization, is considered by his congregation to be "more spiritual" than the "too-mercenary" other priest, who was shocked to hear what the former had said and instantly understood when I told him that I suspected that my mother's spirit had caused the former to trip on the steps of the altar at the beginning of the funeral service. Meanwhile, I've since learned of three other cases in which the same hospital, and another one in town, disconnected, against the family's will, people's mothers who wanted to continue to live on a ventilator, and in those cases there was no "living will," let alone "guardianship proceeding." Also, I saw in another section of SHS Wesley's account of having represented, pro bono, the wife of a patient whom a hospital wanted to kill (God bless you for doing that, Wesley, for having won in that situation, in which the patient lived for another three years, and for pointing out that when a hospital pulls a stunt that requires those on whom it pulls it to have legal representation, the hospital should pay for their legal costs); the "guardianship" statute in this state requires the person being petitioned against, on whom guardianship is sought to be imposed (termed the "alleged incapacitated person"), to pay the legal fees of all parties -- their own counsel, the hospital's counsel, the counsel representing the person(s) they had chosen to exercise their power of attorney and health care proxy, whom and which the petitioner for guardianship (which in this case, as in many others, was the hospital) seeks to push aside and invalidate, the court evaluator -- and their assets to be frozen, in effect (making it impossible for them or their chosen attorney-in-fact to retain adequate counsel if that cannot be done without transferring/liquidating assets, for example), pending the outcome of the hearing.
Faculty, and other students, had never heard of animal rights law and regarded my desire to practice animal rights law as sort of outlandish during my first year there; the next year, a professor who had been one of them picked up on the notion and asked me to be his research assistant; not long after, law schools began teaching courses in animal rights law and I thought, "I told you so!" -- and then -- then -- Singer goes and betrays his own brilliant opening sentence in Animal Liberation... By the way, what about Lawrence Tribe and the Quill case?
Faculty, and other students, had never heard of animal rights law and regarded my desire to practice animal rights law as sort of outlandish during my first year there; the next year, a professor who had been one of them picked up on the notion and asked me to be his research assistant; not long after, law schools began teaching courses in animal rights law and I thought, "I told you so!" -- and then -- then -- Singer goes and betrays his own brilliant opening sentence in Animal Liberation... By the way, what about Lawrence Tribe and the Quill case?
(I promise, including to myself, that I'll stop after this post.) Human exceptionalism unfortunately includes the human ability to live in our heads too much, which leads to the over-spiritualism" and the "over-intellectualism" that have abandoned morality, justice, ethics, and common sense, and to "utilitarianism," and have yielded Singer, Princeton in its current state, Pope, Tribe, Quill, Kevorkian, et al. and those who "drink the Kool-aid" of the death culture, whereas the instinct of non-human animals automatically yields ethics, sense, morality, justice, and intelligence. They know where the line is, universally adhere to it, and demonstrate the integration of instinct, emotion, and reason that yields what those who oppose the death culture are fighting for. That's an admirable and valid example of exeptionality, in contrast to kind humans claim; the "allegiance" the death culture claims with other animals is false, and the one that the quality of humanity which extends to consideration of the rights of vulnerable animals, human and otherwise, claims with them is true, and it's the only thing that can save us from ourselves. Singer's "utilitarianism" doesn't invalidate the rightness of animal rights; it invalidates him and his own faulty reasoning, and it's a good thing we are able to make the distinction and keep our eye on the ball when our species turns out specimens like him and his ilk; the "death culture" may not be able to make the distinction, but we can, and shouldn't blame the concept of the rights of animals for the errors of the death culture.
"bmmg39: Thank you. Who really suffered was my mother, whom in the end they did murder, after forcing her to hear and endure unspeakable things and go without the care and treatment she needed."
My condolences, then. And I'll point out that (though you seem to have figured it out already) while you may not see quite eye-to-eye on the AR issues, you will find that he's quite sympathetic towards what you went through (are going through even today) with your Mom.
"[Others said] 'She's 97, maybe you should just pull the plug.'"
There's a scene in the film PASSED AWAY when a dour-looking funeral-home director is showing a distant family member (a young hot-shot) around the facility. At one point, he shows a deceased person being prepared for funeral services, explaining that the person had just died at the age of 95. The young hot-shot says, "Phew! Who wants to live to be ninety-five?!"
And the director just looks him square in the eye.
"People who are ninety-FOUR."
"...amidst false and defamatory statements about me, that 'I know my aunt would never want to be on life support, and my family and I are appalled...'"
I wish I could have been there for you, Lanthe, just so I could have gotten in their faces on your behalf. Your mother is/was not their aunt. If their aunt gave instructions not to be given life-support, great. But that's not what your mother said. I became so incensed during the Terry Schiavo travesty that people figured that THEY would never want to go on living in that condition, and then projected those views onto TS. Some people really would want to go on fighting, and it's nobody else's place to argue against them.
This finishes the point: What non-human animals do exemplifies the principles of balance, reason (which cannot yield a life-affirming result without incorporating the life-affirming aspects of emotion and instinct), and moderation that formed, in the classical world, the basis of the glory of western civilization (including what I hold to be true human exceptionalism, which is not a utilitarian concept that says we are more valuable than other animals, but focuses on what makes us "more advanced" than they are, and does not need to reaffirm itself by comparison to them), which celebrates life, and which we are now trying to protect from destruction by the hate-filled terrorist agenda of non-westerners who, if they don't fall under the rubric of death culture, I don't know what does, as well as by the "quality of life," "utilitarian," "mercy killing," "assisted suicide," "let's use animals in laboratories to advance our own careers and improve the quality of life of humans," "we have compassion for you and therefore we're going to take away your life support," etc., etc., etc. bunch. Things went off the rails, in terms of valuing life, when Eastern mysticism moved in and the "many mansions" concept pushed aside Achilles' statement from the underworld that he would rather be a lowly slave on earth than a king in Hades, and the institution of the western Church decreed that animals do not have souls and validated animal experimentation, which separated the concepts of soul and morality from science, which then became as beknighted, arrogant, utilitarian, and soulless as what as a consequence became the "business" of modern medicine is today. Without proper insight, moderation, and balance, the concept of mercy has been perverted, and reverence for "science" without consideration of those qualities has yielded the death culture of the West today, whose proponents are just as blind to the logical possibility that one day they might be he victims, rather than the beneficiaries, of their own "living wills," for example, as to the danger of the destruction of what's left of western civilization from without, and so dumb that some "understand" why the terrorists are "outraged" by what the proponderance of dummies here have allowed to go on in the west, without considering that, like Singer, even a broken clock is right twice a day. Today's concept "human exceptionalism" is following a red herring when it comes to animal rights, and all wound up considering things that those who exemplified it in creating our civilization didn't even need to bother to consider. They were not exempt from committing "anti-life" acts like, in their mythology, human sacrifice, studying birds' entrails, sacrificing animals to propitiate the gods, etc., exposure of infants, and abortion, but at least they ate the animals they sacrificed, and wouldn't the principle of human exceptionalism would include the concept of our having improved ourselves since then? We've gone backwards instead, and can't go forward unless we remember the importance of balance and reason, which were their paramount values, and return to an appreciation of the "humanity" that incorporates those qualities, along with emotion, instinct, and common sense, which all supports the concept of animal and human rights; forget Singer and utilitarianism, I'm talking about what they and the death culture don't get and western civilization, to the point of its own undoing, has allowed itself to forget.
bmmg39: I appreciate very much that he is, and what you've said. One reason I've gone on (and on) about it here is to provide information and an example of what is going on that has to be fought. To clarify, she was their aunt (but not their mother) and she had signed a "living will" at the behest of an attorney who was supposed to be straightening out a mess concerning a trust that a previous one (who was a friend of Timothy Quill and had harangued her for 22 years to sign one, which she'd refused to do) had created, but she didn't want it followed, was fighting like hell to live, and was giving indication in response to questions that she wanted to stay alive even if she had to be on a ventilator for the rest of her life, which the appellate court ultimately ignored. In fact, if the nurse cousin had been honest and truly concerned and done what she had said she was going to do some years before re an action that needed to be taken re the first lawyer, who had jeopardized my mother's life in other ways, to put it mildly, the second one, who even testified that the document had been his idea, not hers, but justified his refusal to be helpful when things hit the fan by maintaining that "it was what she wanted" (note the past tense, and, in fact, even by his own testimony, it was what he wanted) and the "living will" never would have come into the picture. (But as I noted, hospitals here disconnect patients who want to continue to live, over their families' intense and unified objections, even when there the patient has no "living will.") Everyone who actually knew my mother, whose vitality, regard for and attachment to her own life, stubbornness and willfulness were, shall we say, "marked," knew that her nature was such that if she wanted to die, she'd have done it already, and a reporter remarked to me that everyone she'd asked about my mother when researching the story, and that they'd said likewise. The funeral director in the story you cited was right on the money. People know themselves, people don't think (even to the point of realizing that they can't possibly know what it really feels like to be an age they have never yet been) and those who don't have the stuff to make it to an advanced age and know on some level that theirs are not the strongest genes in the pool would be make comments like that of the young distant relative; all that in turn accepts and drive the death culture. There is, also, a terrible prejudice against the old, as against the disabled, by those many who themselves have such disabilities of intellect and character. I admire the Jewish half-humorous (and half-not) attitude of "Oy! He was only 90!" and a friend of my mother, a Jewish lady who at age 86 has not yet retired from her career and still goes to work every day, was more comfort to me than anyone as she told me, each time we spoke, "Don't worry, she'll be all right, she's young!" Note, also, the Hasidic doctrine of life evidenced in the case of the young boy in hospital in D.C. recently. My 102-year-old aunt was furious, 20 years ago, when her doctor (who had written her a letter congratulating her on being the healthiest octagenarian in his practice) said to her, in response to her concern over some ailment or other, "How long do you expect to live, anyway?" and when my mother, after recovering fully from a heart attack at 91, asked her internist (whose bizarre behavior subsequently led to her ending up in hospital) "What about my longevity," said "You've had your longevity." They both still were fuming over it years later, because they knew that underlyiing it was a desire for them to die, and a threat to their very existence, which they wished to continue, while in the vulnerable state of old age. The whole damned hospital was like that, and I get emails from others whose relatives have lived to well over 100 and now are fighting the same "time to die" agenda on behalf of yet another elderly family member. But it's not just old people. I've been hearing, as have many others,"Well, after all, you're (age), what do you expect?" from doctors since I was 28. Doctors have been trained (by the same system that used animal experimentation to train them, a practice doctors and medical students who understood the negative effect it had have succeeded in curtailing; I remember when they and Neal Barnard formed Physicians for Responsible Medicine, and helped prepare their initial position paper, and physicians who belong to that organization also happen to have been the best ones I've run across as a patient) to view life as a terminal disease, which "legitimizes" the death culture.
bmmg: Re what you noted about people's comments during the Schiavo case, if they do not reflect self-centeredness, arrogance, ignorance, and rank stupidity, I don't know what does. And yet they walk among us, and are the real ones with disabilities who are a threat to the survival of society. Two attending doctors at the hospital that murdered my mother, an agenda driven by one of them, who is an "ethicist" at the hospital (and terms himself a philosopher because his undergraduate major was classics, but he is to classics as Singer is to animal rights), and the other one, like the rest of the attendings, didn't want to rock the boat of his job security, made their own genetic inheritance and status clear by telling me that their mothers had told them that they would not want to be on life support -- and this was supposed to convince me. I kept having to ask them over and over(because they were too dense to get it, being dense enough to have started out on this line in the first place) whether I was their sister.
To tie up a loose end in something stated earlier, the "logic" of the Singer/utilitarianism/death culture is winning and is presenting and being accepted as the most valid logic in the scenario because if prevalent weapons against it used thus far are "human exceptionalism" and the religious-affiliated right to life movement,neither is sufficient, because "human exceptionalism" does not incorporate what I've mentioned that is required in order to yield ultimate winning logic, and, as I've pointed out, the institution of religion in the form of the Catholic church is bifurcated, to put it nicely, and Christianity is what started this whole mess in the first place. And now I'm off to try to find some kosher-slaughtered meat and poultry and then rake leaves, even at night in order to stay off the computer and while the weather allows; yes, I have no sympathy for the poor disabled leaves, and on the subject of vegetable rights, if there is such a movement, I do believe that plants feel and express in sound pain, but the distinction is that for whatever reason at this stage of evolution, nature has made it obvious to us that animals do, and not that plants do, and of course non-human animals disregard it (and as far as we know cannot hear it); it's wrong for humans to disregard that if we are. If you say that it's all right to disregard it in the context, for example, of animal experimentation because we're more valuable than they are and it's beneficial to us and we have a right to do it, that's utilitarian without regard to humanity (in both senses, which makes you Singer; if you say that Singer is only wrong because it's a human he's advocating doing away with, it remains to be explained why the life force, emotion, sentience, etc. are more valuable in humans, and why we should ignore our own instincts about cruelty to animals, as in laboratories, is wrong, because without those humane instincts, we're back to being Singer again. Yes I believe in nature rights and think it's a darned neat idea, for our own sake; we need that stuff in the rain forests that natural healers have known how to use for millenia, western medicine has ignored, and offer much more to yield via study, and if we don't want the same "science" that's already given us the death culture to prevail in its "utilitarianism," we'd better preserve it so that we can give the death culture a run for its money. It's also just plain ugly, and bad for humans, to top mountains for coal mining. Isn't part of human exceptionalism aesthetics and the ingenuity to figure out how to get fuel in ways that are not dangerous and unhealthy? I have to admit that the smell of actual gasoline and the way cars were when they were still cars is, to me, worth the risk of cancer from petroleum, or whatever (and that if I were to get cancer, from that proveable cause or any cause, I wouldn't want treatment developed on the back of animal experimentation), and that's human exceptionalism, too (but can an exception please be made for pre-1974 Chevies?). As for global warming, that's another shibboleth. But what damages the environment in any way that makes our lives less aesthetically enjoyable and healthy while we're here on earth, I'm against. Or is it ok to harm even some humans in the course of exercising "human exceptionalism"? Don't they have rights to live too? Because they're less "economically viable" is it ok to build a railroad over the bodies of immigrant Chinese and slap up a skyscraper, ignoring safety standards, at the cost of the lives of a few construction workers, and mine coal unsafely because those Appalachian guys don't have any other choice of occupation, and who cares about their lungs or if some don't come out alive? Oh, but they do the work because money is necessary to survive, and in the grand design of things, some come out ahead of others. If Singer and human exceptionalism both say that, and the only difference is that Singer doesn't think the canary should be put at risk in the mine (or thinks it's better to "euthanize" proleptically), then something needs reworking here. I've been saying, all along here, that "human exceptionalism" as it is is unnecessary, incomplete, and actually enables the death culture, and that the concept needs to evolve somewhat in order to be able to fight the "death culture" effectively. It concerns me, actually, that SHS regards and expresses concern over what is going on all too mildly, in terms of "is this what we're coming to." We're already there, and long past there, and the current proponents of life have failed to succeed in stopping it; in fact, they have enabled it by not having adoped the most effective possible philosophical and practical/mundane positions. Is it a fight, or not? To be won, or not? "Figure out what you want them to do, and make them do it," I was taught. Haven't stopped, and can't stop, the death culture with what's been available up to now, both philosophically and in terms of practical tactics.
Two possible paths emanate divergently from Singer's opening statement, "We are all animals," somewhat in the same way as the concept of "mercy" can be applied either healthily or unhealthily to the offspring of financially burdened parents hypothetized by Singer, and to any other vunerable animal. Singer has taken, one could say stolen, the high road by endorsing what "human exceptionalism" (which has its "humans are different and more valuable" parallel in the same Catholic Church that proclaimed animals not to have souls and thus destroyed the history of science, to the detriment of the human race, as we can now see the results in the science-driven "death culture" with the Vatican okaying "living wills" and a person's "wish" to be removed from life support "in order to spare their family and the community excessive expense"; in other words, endorsing Singer's utilitarianism for centuries and longer now) refuses to endorse, which is an attitude of humanity toward animals. Instead of acting, positively and assertively, to re-examine its own position and give its own doctrine enough legs to stand on by including the concept of humanity toward animals, "human exceptionalism" takes the automatically weaker tack of reacting to what is wrong in the animal rights movement (which Singer has corrupted) and ignoring what it right in it, which it needs to endorse itself in order to be in a winning position. Singer set a trap, and the opponents of utilitarianism have fallen into it while the death culture has been able to skate ahead. He said something that those who oppose him also should be saying, and then, with no opposition or competition, was able to cloak himself in sanctimony, as it were, and fool people, as the carpet of the utilitarian, death-culture agenda unfurled down the aisle all the way to Princeton, with which he has made a permanent academic union. (Talk about gay marriage...) All it took to stand in his way was to say yes, it's wrong to use animals for scientific expermentation, and true utilitarianism reveals that the reason is that it's ultimately not good for us, but instead, as he knew it would, the "life" movement, hobbled by the Catholic-inspired utilitarian tradition of which it's been boondoggled into not even realizing exists, and hampers it, to accept what should be its own position. Life advocates could have beaten him and shown him up right from the starting gate, but didnt. I know I formed my views on the sanctity of life, including human life and everything the death culture has brought us that is wrong, from abortion to "euthanasia," and on animal rights at the same time and for the same reasons; it's not impossible to do and they are not inconsistent. As a matter of fact, the same university and its medical center the energy from whose animal research used to distress me when I was an undergraduate is a home of the death culture via Quill, and the energy of the hospital that vaunts itself on his fame and killed my mother as it has many others; I did not put it all together, in the circumstances, until too late, when people in town were saying didn't you know, it's a bad place, they are sick and evil over there; at the same time I became aware at nauseatingly close range of how many had become part of the euphemistic "compassionate," end-of-life, "palliative care," "comfort care," "supposed to die," "life support" (on which my mother never would have ended up if these marmalukes had done their job right), pull-the-plug death-culture in an institution that prides itself on "research" and "studies" (and teaches residents that the patient "has a right to know that they are dying" and to go into the patient's room and force them to hear them tell that to a third party; they don't have the guts to tell the patient themselves, of course; that would require courage, a life-affirming quality). Unless the life movement takes the moral high ground on what Singer already has co-opted and that is actually valid (humanity, toward other animals as well as every member of our own species), and if it had before he came along, as it should have, he couldn't have gotten started, "utilitarianism" is going to continue to win. Instead, it let him start out innocuously and then build up to the "modest suggestion," in slow, small steps in the course of the march toward evil, just as it's been noted by others here that that's how evil takes root and takes over. That's why the animal rights movement has included an element of the death culture that life proponents should be saving it from (and should have in advance) and instead of are blaming it for. Meanwhile, Singer and his ilk are sitting there laughing, knowing that they've got the lead and have managed to confuse the opposition, which doesn't realize which end is up. If you don't want the world to be deluded into thinking that the death culture is "humane," show it how being humane is really done. Singer never would have gotten all the way to Princeton if it weren't for the lacunae in "human exceptionalism" which need to be filled, and if the religious-philosophical positions which which it is consistent and of Singer and the death culture (bifurcated, just like them) have exploited had not existed. Can't prove them wrong without being just as right as they have painted themselves as being, and it's necessary to catch up with them at the point at which Singer started, and simply then to take the other path than he did, in order to make what he and the death culture are up to obvious. It can't be done by identifying the animal rights movement with the death culture, because they are not the same thing; he used the former to mask the agenda of the latter. It's about time those who actually value life prove it in a way that Singer and his ilk can't beat and get fully on their own side, which is the same side as the non-human animals', at last. "Humane" isn't accidentally derived from "human," after all; it's its proper expression and requires an inclusive viewpoint. Not of euthanasia, of life.
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home