[lbo-talk] Re: boycotting the unorganized (miidle class)

[Michael Dawson]

> If human rights must be extended to rabbits, then why not to
> lettuces? (Although if rabbits are to be offered the right to life,
> liberty and the pursuit of happiness, then there soon won't be much
> room on the planet for anything else. This part of the planet anyhow.)
> 
> I would want to see some answers to how we are going to feed
> gargantuan hordes of rapidy-breeding meat animals before we go giving
> them too many rights. Or is it "compassionate" to let them starve to
> death in the desert outside the fenced-off lentil farms? What about
> the human rights of the plant life that emancipated sheep will mow
> down? I think some of these vegetarians have been watching too many
> Walt Disney cartoons. Sheep aren't people folks, sorry to break it to
> you. Neither are cabbages.


> Bill Bartlett
> Bracknell Tas

Animal rights ranks well down the list of contemporary problems, IMHO, and I
do eat meat, but, still, what's to be gained by your irrational
insensitivity?  All mammals have mid-brains that facilitate emotional
bonding.  Lower animals and plants don't.  Why steamroll this important
fact?  Dogs can't reason much about their pain, but they certainly feel it.
Hence, there IS some material basis for the distinction you dismiss.
Cabbages don't yelp when cut or crushed.

And there's also some pretty good human reasons to encourage respect for it,
as well as for life in general, regardless of an organism's sentience
ranking.  For example, isn't there some meaning for you in the fact that
disproportionately many severe adult criminals were pet-torturers as kids?

Your tas seems to need a bit less bracknell...