It's Animal Rights Awareness Week here at Examiner.com. Awareness of the animal rights philosophy and agenda is important for any Boxer owner -- indeed for any pet or animal owner or lover. Many people support animal rights without really understanding what they're supporting, or what the leaders of the movement believe.
The Good
Most people who say they support animal rights probably mean they support animal weflare. They believe that animals have a right to food, water, shelter, and care; deserve to be treated humanely and with dignity; and that people who abuse or mistreat animals should be prosecuted. Most do not oppose responsible breeding, humanely raising animals for food, responsible fishing and hunting, or the humane use of animals for exhibition and educational purposes. These are the people that own and love pets, run farms or ranches, visit zoos, and celebrate the bond between humans and animals.
The animal welfare movement has had a significant positive impact on the lives of animals. People whose lives involve the care of animals are constantly looking for ways to improve and enhance their practices. Animal welfare laws and standards have been written to address the issues of abuse and neglect, educational programs and available low-cost spay/neuter clinics have dramatically reduced the number of pets abandoned or surrendered to shelters, and conservation laws have kept wildlife populations in check without endangering the species. Humans and animals enjoy a relationship that is generally of mutual benefit.
The Bad
Somewhere along the way, however, the animal rights philosophy changed to one of "total animal liberation" -- essentially, a complete severing of the bond between humans and animals, except "enjoyment at a distance". While there is a range of beliefs among animal rights advocates today about such things as responsible breeding, small-scale farming, or hunting for food, many animal rights activists believe that humans should not eat, wear, use for research, exploit, or enslave animals. ("Enslavement", incidentally, covers not only using animals for work but keeping them as pets.)
Some animal rights groups are facing growing public dissatisfication with their agendas and actions, from excessive lobbying activity (a violation of IRS rules regarding charitable non-profits) to misleading or deceptive fundraising strategies to allowing abuse to continue for weeks or months until a staged "shock video" can be released just ahead of new legislation. For some in the animal rights industry, the battleground has shifted from advocating for animals to factory fundraising and political lobbying. Ironically, these groups are exploiting animals far more than the people against whom they're campaigining: millions of donations pour in to "help the animals" and only a fraction of those funds are used for any hands-on animal care.
At its most radical, the animal rights agenda seeks to give animals rights not only equal to, but greater than the rights of humans. Many animal rights extremists hate humans and support the concept of a "no birth nation". The radical animal rights agenda supports mandatory sterilization of all pets, until there are none; seeks to outlaw science-based animal care practices in favor of emotion-based systems that are often less advantageous for the animals; promotes a vegan diet, often by introducing laws that make non-vegan foods prohibitively expensive; and opposes no-kill shelters, believing instead that it is kinder to kill an animal than to subject it to a life of enslavement and exploitation as a pet.
The Ugly
Discussions between animal welfare advocates and animal rights activists often quickly deteriorate, especially in unmoderated arenas such as article or blog comments and Facebook pages. Many fanatical animal rights activists are unable to see any viewpoint other than their own. Anyone who disagrees with an animal rights fanatic is automatically assumed to be someone who abuses and tortures animals; ad hominem attacks are common since often the facts themselves are inarguable. (A very small percentage of the public supports activities that are cruel or abusive to animals, and they aren't the ones who bother discussing the issue with anyone.) While welfarists can be sharp-tongued as well, the concept of animal welfare in general is more accepting of differing viewpoints than animal rights.
Worse than rude or even vile debates, however, are the extreme animal rights activists who believe that violence is an appropriate means to their end. Laboratory destruction, fire-setting, and bombing of researchers' homes and cars is a common extremist tactic -- so much so that in 2006 Congress passed the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act, escalating animal rights extremist groups to the status of domestic terrorists. Most animal rights groups oppose the Act, claiming it is overbroad and restricts First Amendment rights (in reality the Act explicitly permits expressive conduct protected by the First Amendment); the extremists groups claim it will have no impact because their underground activists don't care about laws anyway. The loss of a human life is acceptable, extremists claim, if it saves the life of an animal.
Fortunately these extremists do not represent the majority of animal rights activists. The fanatics, however, comprise a much larger portion of the movement and encompass many leaders of the largest animal rights groups. Slick marketing and public relations campaigns, along with politically correct language necessitated by the advance of the Internet, where everything is public and preserved, have served to obfuscate the true agenda of these groups. Actions still speak louder than words, however; a look at how a group spends its money, what activities it sponsors, and the legislation it promotes will give a truer sense of whether the group is concerned about animal welfare, animal rights, or animal abolition.
Author's note: Obviously this is a surface examination of the animal rights movement. Generalizations are used for the sake of brevity, and of course exceptions can be found to any of them. The point is not to describe every minute facet of the animal rights agenda and those who follow it, but rather to raise awareness of the issues and the ultimate goal of the extremists. The names of any specific groups have been purposely left out, to avoid comments defending or demeaning any particular group's practices at the expense of the subject matter. Even those groups that do not publicly support the extremist agenda may, through funding or legislative initiatives, support the concept of total animal liberation. Most importantly, before donating to any animal-related organization, know how that money will be used and whose agenda it will support.
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