Eminent Domain

As you can probably tell by the PETA Sucks link on the right side of the screen, I don't have many positive feelings towards PETA. After just reading this column by talk show host Cam Edwards, I'm feeling a little more perturbed at PETA than normal so I decided to put everything I hate about animal rights groups into one big post. It's unfortunate that most people don't know what lurks behind the scenes at PETA and other groups. They see the anti-fur ads or the videos of cattle mistreatment and think "Oh, PETA just cares for animals. I care for my doggy/kitty/giraffe too, so I better send PETA a check." Things are much worse than you think.

PETA and groups like it protest at animal shelters (usually in skeleton costumes or something as equally subtle) because the shelters have to kill dogs and cats. No one adopts them, so the shelters can only take care of them for so long before the little critters get gassed. The shelters don't have the funds to hold the animals indefinitely, and the protesters are rarely seen taking a new pet home after the protest. The protesters are also rarely seen raising money and cutting a check to supplement the shelter's funds.

Stop and think about this for a minute (since the animal rights protesters do not). Who is likely to work at an animal shelter? Probably someone who likes animals. These are people who do everything that they can to get the animals a good home and keep them alive and happy for as long as possible. They aren't junior concentration camp operators.

As a side note, my dog (who is sleeping at my feet as I type this) was adopted from an animal shelter. So yes, I'm going to look down my nose at all these protesters who leave the shelters pet-less.

I know what you're saying. "Steve, you're just pointing out that these groups are attention whores who love to protest things but not actually contribute something to solving the problem. That's the standard operating procedure for many adovacy groups. Why are you picking on PETA and their underlings." And I respond, wait. There's more.

PETA has a hell of a lot of money at its disposal. With over 750,000 members worldwide, they have no shortage of funding. That massive chunk of resources is at the fingertips of one Ingrid Newkirk, president and founder of PETA. Here's a choice quote from Newkirk's speech at the Animal Rights 2002 convention...

Most people in this room understand that slavery is not over in America, or in the Western world, or in the world in general. The animals are today's slaves.

Well, Newkirk is sort of right. There is slavery in the world. It's in places like the Sudan where people are still bought, sold, and owned. But she doesn't seem to give a rip about that little problem.

As noted above, PETA has no problem going way overboard with their arguments. They got in a little trouble with the Holocaust on Your Plate ad campaign. That's right. You the meat eater are no better than the Nazis. PETA equates one of the greatest crimes in human history with chicken farms. They seriously believe this stuff. The only explanation that I have for this trivialization of the Holocaust (which this is) is that PETA doesn't really care about people. They care more about livestock. Anyone who cared about human beings would not use Holocaust footage in such an exploitive way.

PETA loves to use its money to go after your kids too. I already made a post about PETA's crusade against the evils of fishing. They also send this guy, Gary Yourofsky, into schools to preach this crap. Anyone who compares themself to Martin Luther King, Gandhi, and Jesus in the same speech has a huge ego problem. He's also done time in Canadian prison. He stands up in front of a class and says that animal research is unscientific and animal derived data cannot be relevant to another species. What school is letting this crap in?! I guess Yourofsky is right if you ignore polio, measles, anthrax, yellow fever, tetanus, chicken pox, smallpox, hepatitis A and B, rabies, mumps, cholera, and rubella, as well as other medications, devices, and treatments. Mary Beth Sweetland, senior VP of PETA, is a diabetic who uses dog research-derived insulin to stay alive. She thinks her life fighting the good fight is too important for her to take a principled stance, quit the insulin, and die though. No hypocrisy there at all.

There is a phrase, "total animal liberation", that PETA uses occasionally. What does it mean exactly? PETA opposes zoos, circuses, horseback riding, apiaries (when will those human monsters stop enslaving bees and taking their honey?), fishing, the use of service animals (those would be seeing eye dogs for the blind), and pets. Yeah, no pets allowed according to PETA. You know, those animal shelter protesters from earlier in the post are starting to make more sense now. Of course they won't adopt an animal and give it a loving home; they view that as immoral.

Now onto the bottom of the barrel. Professor Steven Best is an activist with ties to the ALF, the Animal Liberation Front. Edwards touches on this group in his column. These freedom fighters firebomb animal testing labs in their spare time. They break in and free animals, leaving spray painted slogans like "VEGAN POWER" and "ANIMAL LIBERATION" on the walls. Best sees these tactics as totally legitimate. He also predicts that violence will be used against animal rights abusers in the future. Avid hunter, carnivore, and musician Ted Nugent has dealt with these threats as well. People have threatened to murder his children on the way to school because the Nugents eat meat.

And if we finally scrape the very bottom of the barrel, we'll find Rod Coronado. He gained infamy for firebombing a Michigan State University lab, as well as six others, in the name of animal rights. These aren't charges; he's admitted his crimes in court. Guess who funded this activity? PETA and Ingrid Newkirk. As much as I hate the IRS and the tax code, it is useful for some things. Their tax return for 1995 shows a $45,000 donation to the Rodney Coronado Support Committee. PETA also made a "loan" to Ray Coronado, Rod's dad, that Ray knew nothing about. I guess this is PETA trying to be craftier about how they move their money around.

Now for the final blow. PETA kills animals. Also on their helpful tax returns is a notation for a walk in freezer purchased on 5-28-02 for $9,370. Why on earth would a non-profit animal rights organization need a freezer that big? Keep the on site tofu supply chilled? Nope. "...[S]ometimes the only kind option for some animals is to put them to sleep forever," said by Ingrid f'ing Newkirk. Over a thousand dogs and cats were killed at PETA headquarters in 2002.

Is this an incredibly long winded post? Yes it is. But I can't stand these people. They make my blood boil. They use violence and property destruction as their tools because they cannot convince people rationally that their goofy ass viewpoint is correct. I think this sums things up nicely...