The animal rights quotes will be in bold type. A critique of the quote will be in regular type. Wildlife Damage Control welcomes new entries into this column. For your instruction, the term "anti" refers to people that believe animals have as many rights as humans. These people are called "anti's" because they are against anything to do with human uses for animals.
Of course it is dead. It is very difficult to wear a live fox. Isn't it inhumane to carry a live animal around your body all day?
This statement assumes the position that an animal is my fellow human. Since it is not, how can my killing it be considered murder? If animals can kill other animals, why can't I, if I am one? If I am not an animal, why am I held to a moral position that no other creature in the world is held to? In philosophy, we call this a category mistake.
"Ban Cruel Traps"
This was the bumper sticker placed on various cars during the 1996 ballot initiative in Massachusetts. It was Pro-Paw's argument that passage of this law would ban cruel traps. I guess they really didn't want to tell the truth or maybe the truth wouldn't fit onto the bumper sticker. Because the fact is the law only banned some of the traps they consider cruel. These anti's didn't ban, glue boards or multiple catch mouse traps. I guess they didn't care about those animals.
So isn't farming. Does that mean we should seek to ban farming too? What anti's regularly neglect to mention is that the rise of urbanization and endless regulations has more to do with the decline of sportsmen than changes in our philosophical perspective on animals.
This bumper sticker of course plays on the notion that our love for animals is somehow the same as our love for people or children, or at the very least it should be close. The fact is one could very easily ask the AR activist, on what basis, should our love for animals prevent humans from utilizing this food source. The fact is I love animals because I make my living off them. I also love animals because as another bumper sticker states, They taste great.
This idea was sent to me by an anti. His argument was that I, and others like me, don't respect all life. I guess he means that if you kill something you by definition don't respect it. Well there are a number of problems with this argument. First, he confuses the difference between animals and humans, in philosophy this is called a category mistake. It is like comparing apples and oranges. Second, trappers do respect their quarry as they enjoy their work and their role in ecology. Trappers and animal damage controllers are not destroying wildlife habitat that is being done by contractors and construction. Finally, I wonder if this anti is a member of a pro-life organization. Why is it that so many anti's are actually pro-abortion? Isn't the unborn child life too? We call this problem, "hypocrisy" and it is rampant in the anti movement.
This is another example of how emotional versus rational moral discourse has grown in America. We no longer talk about fact and ideas. We talk about how something makes me feel. I also fail to see how killing for sport is gross. I think watching a baby being born is gross. But that doesn't mean its wrong or terrible. Anti's, I think you can come up with a better slogan than this one.
This quote is another example of a category mistake. It fails to recognize that humans and animals are different. If I were a Jew, I think I would take issue with this quote. To say that 6,000,000 of one group of people are comparable to the use of raccoons and muskrats in fur coats seems somehow insensitive at best and perhaps racist at worst. One quote I do like is "Tyson Chicken is not Treblinka". I think everyone should know that Hitler took good care of his German Shepherd (this last point is disputed). Perhaps the antis will make another bumper sticker commending Hitler for his compassion. (PETA contends that Hitler was not a vegetarian. I would welcome research on this from any of our readers. I have recently learned that Hitler wasn't a vegetarian but ate very little meat due to his stomach ailment. Any more information is welcomed). One person, who says, he is an animal rights activist claims Hitler was a vegetarian. Here is his web site http://www.geocities.com/hitlerwasavegetarian/
More information on Hitler's pro-animal stance can be seen in the article listed at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2002/09/22/nhunt222.xml an abstract is listed below.
Thanks to Hitler, hunting with hounds is still verboten
(Filed: 22/09/2002) The Fuhrer, a vegetarian, was the pioneer of hunting bans. His draconian laws were announced in Germany on July 3, 1934, on the grounds that hunting with hounds was 'unsporting'. His odd legacy lives on, report David Harrison and Tony Paterson
These ten reasons to wear a fur coat was submitted by an animal rights activist. On behalf of clear thinking people everywhere, thanks. My responses are in red.
1. You are so vain you don't care that it takes the bodies of at least 40 dead animals to make a fur coat.
Vanity has nothing to do with it unless you think ugliness is virture. If animal activists weren't around driving up the costs, we might be able to make fur coats affordable to the masses like Russia.
2. You are so cold-hearted you don't care that the steel-jaw trap that captured your fur coat may also have captured a child's pet dog or even a child's foot.
This is typical animal rights disinformation. They have yet to provide credible evidence that footholds are a significant problem. The fact is cars are far more dangerous to pets and people. I have never heard of a child being injured by a foothold. Of course if the person who wrote these actually saw a foothold, she would know how difficult it would be to hurt a child.
3. You worship Cruella DeVil and wish Dalmations were more plentiful.
I don't get this one.
4. You like the idea of having something in common with cavemen.
I thought humans were to respect their elders/ancestors?
5. You don't care that ranch farmed fur-bearers are killed by anal electrocution, poisoning, decompression and suffocation.
Don't know much about fur farmed fur. I prefer wild fur as it allows us to protect more open spaces. Feel free to send me credible facts, not anti press releases.
6. It's your "right" to bring harm to other creatures as long as you think you look glamorous.
No. It is my right to utilize natural resources in a responsible way. Yes, fur coats are entirely responsible.
7. Those baby seals would die from starvation anyway, so you might as well club them to death.
So you believe that it is better to starve than to be killed? Yea, that is rational. Oh. I get it now. You must want us to feed those starving animals. I guess you are right. It is better to feed an animal than someone in Africa. How stupid of me.
8. You want your friends to envy you even though they really think you're despicable.
My good friends aren't ignorant enough to debate animal rights ideology with me.
9. You convince yourself there's a difference between wearing a stinky ole' mink and your pet Fluffy.
No. There isn't a difference. I don't get the argument that wearing dog fur is wrong. I thought it was stupid for Burlington Coat Factory to give money to the HSUS after being caught with pet fur coats from China. I think it smacks of cultural bigotry to think that other countries are wrong to use fur coats from animals we just happen to call pets.
10. You think wearing dead animal skins will fill the void in your life.
Does a petroleum based coat fill a void in your life? Again, I don't get this argument. I guess my meat eating ways have clogged my brain arteries.
"The time will come when the murder of animals will be perceived in the same way as the murder of men." --Leoardo Da Vinci
Well, this quote tells me how even the smartest people can say some very stupid things. But I am sure Da Vinci would have been horrified by the million plus abortions each year in the U.S. But of course, AR people don't protest that. So I guess Da Vinci was right but in a way the AR people didn't quite get. By the way, I would love to know the exact citation for this quote.
7/7/04
Do you know of some other stupid quotes from the Animal rights Movement? We would love to add them. Feel free to e-mail us at info@aallanimalcontrol.com* All correspondence becomes property of WDC. Wildlife Damage Control also seeks accuracy in all of its statements. We welcome information that points out errors in our accuracy.
© 1999 Stephen Vantassel
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