>Yoshie Furuhashi:
>> ***** http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,41733,00.html
>> FBI Goes After Bonsaikitten.com
>> by Declan McCullagh (declan at wired.com)
>> 10:10 a.m. Feb. 9, 2001 PST
>>
>> ...In December 1999, President Clinton signed a law that makes it a
>> federal felony to possess "a depiction of animal cruelty" with the
>> intent to distribute across state lines -- such as on the Internet.
>> During a floor debate, Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Calif.) claimed that
>> "sick criminals are taking advantage of the loopholes in the local
>> law and the lack of federal law on animal cruelty videos."... *****
>>
>> It's not a matter of personal choice but what is compatible with
>> capitalism. You _can't_ prohibit standing armies & weapons of mass
>> destruction unless you abolish capitalism, whereas you can pass laws
>> prohibiting "a depiction of animal cruelty" (however futile such laws
>> may be), as Clinton, etc. did, without disturbing capitalism at all,
>> merely bringing _hypocrisy_ (it is _cruelty_ to torment cute furry
>> creatures, but it is _patriotic honor or military necessity_ to kill
>> or injure human animals, be they enemy soldiers, enemy civilians,
>> soldiers of one's own & allied armies, or even civilians in whose
>> name one is fighting) in the USA to a higher level.
>
>Now that you've retreated from your implied slander of my
>friends at Food Not Bombs, we have less to argue about.
I doubt that the Food Not Bombs folks think it a good idea to make a "federal felony to possess 'a depiction of animal cruelty' with the intent to distribute across state lines." The law is laughable if it is not so pathetic. Why are Americans so _legalistic_?
Furthermore, Food Not Bombs doesn't seem to be either the most vocal or the most numerous of all animal rights advocate groups.
>However, I'll give the short form of the argument. There are
>those who believe that "Man", having the power, has therefore
>the right and perhaps the duty to freely do whatever he wishes
>to the inanimate environment. Likewise, there are those who
>believe that "Man", having the power, has therefore a similar
>right or duty to do whatever he wishes to non-human animals
>of whatever apparent degree of sentience. It is not much of
>a step from these propositions to the proposition that some
>instances of "Man", having the power, have therefore a right
>or duty to do whatever they wish to other instances of "Man",
>especially because the latter are of a certain class, caste,
>ethnicity, or other deprecated category. There is no basic
>contradiction between crushing humans, crushing non-human
>animals, and crushing the earth in general, and there is no
>contradiction between opposition to one of these and
>opposition to another. The philosophic fabric of all three
>crushing procedures is one and the same: "Might makes right."
Non-human animals don't recognize the world of rights, for rights are made by and for humans, incomprehensible to them. Generally speaking, I believe we should take animal welfare into consideration, but if & when there is a conflict between human welfare & non-human animals' welfare, the former takes precedence.
"Might Makes Right" is an unhappy reality, though it is not a satisfactory moral principle. Leftists can protest all we want about capitalism, imperialism, sexism, racism, etc., _but_ unless we have _power_, our (truthful & morally justified) protests get _nowhere_.
If you care about the welfare of animals, the best thing you can do is to work the hardest to abolish capitalism & imperialism (and in the meantime, try to work on worthwhile reforms, not on passing futile laws).
Yoshie