Animal rights activists are going to court to try and stop the New Jersey black bear hunt, scheduled to take place next week. As much as I hate to do it, I applaud these activists for operating within the bounds of the law, even if the ideas they promote exist outside the bounds of common sense.
Of course, for every one of these activists who operate inside the law, there are others who have no qualms about violating the law; threatening violence, committing acts of vandalism, even advocating death for hunters.
In the wake of my last column on these animal rights terrorists, a number of supporters of animal rights extremism have emailed me, taking me to task for being a speciesist. “A what,” you ask? A speciesist is one who discriminates on the basis of species. I, being an omnivore, am obviously a speciesist because I eat meat and I don’t have a problem with hunting.
This is a pretty typical email, received earlier this week by a fellow named Najib. He writes:
“how about stopping them [animal rights terrorists] by stopping the killing of these animals?!
how fair is it to hold any being at gun point when they cannot fight back?!
how would u feel if your child or even yourself was fullowed [sic] by a group of blood hungry people with guns?!”
So, following Najib’s logic, the way to stop terrorism is to change your behavior so that it’s no longer upsetting to the terrorists. Surrender, in other words. That doesn’t exactly sound like a winning strategy in fighting terrorism. It sounds like grade school level reverse psychology from a supporter of animal rights terrorism, as a matter of fact.
Emailer James is at least a little more coherent in his argument. He writes:
“You should give animal rights people a little more respect. Most of them are more concerned with animal pain than they are animal death.”
I’ve got no problem with prosecuting people for cruelty to animals. But I should give a little more respect to these people because they’re only interested in stopping animals feeling pain? Let me tell you a story, and then you tell me how much respect you have for these “animal liberators”.
For three decades, the Hall family has raised guinea pigs at their farm in Newchurch, England. Guinea pigs have long been used in medical research, helping scientists develop the vaccine for diphtheria, treatment for whooping cough, and the antibiotic streptomycin. The Halls are providing a service to mankind by raising these animals that can be used as research tools.
But the animal rights terrorists don’t see it that way. They see the Hall family as killers who must be stopped by any means necessary. And for six long years they tried. Death threats, bomb threats, and vandalism were just a few of the tools the terrorists used to try and stop the Halls from breeding their guinea pigs. Nothing worked. That’s when the creeps decided to dig up the Hall’s grandmother.
That’s right. In October of 2004, the animal rights extremists that we should respect dug up the body of 82-year-old Gladys Hammond and held it for ransom, in essence telling the family “give up the rodents and we’ll give back Grandma”. The Hall family waited for months while police investigated the crime, but finally in August of this year they capitulated. A spokesman for the family said at the time “We now hope that, as a result of this announcement, those responsible for removing Gladys' body will return her so she can lie once again in her rightful resting place.
"David Hall and Partners are planning a return to traditional farming. They have no plans to be involved in any way in the breeding of animals for medical or scientific research."
At last report, the family was still waiting for Gladys Hammond’s remains to be returned.
Don’t talk to me about respecting these sickos. They deserve respect like Ashton Kutcher deserves an Oscar. And obviously the animal rights activists don’t respect humans. Besides the obvious mistreatment of the body of Gladys Hammond, just look at the recent comments by PETA2 blogger Noah Cooper, who recently called hunters “"really dumb white trash who should fall off a cliff”.
Not every comment I received was from a moonbat. In fact, the vast majority of them were against these extremists. Rob, for instance, wrote something work quoting:
“Animals have no responsibilities, therefore they have no rights. We have rights and responsibilities, including the responsibility to manage animal resources properly. We should never be wantonly cruel to animals, not because animals have rights, but because wantonly cruel behavior hurts us as human beings.”
Am I a speciesist? I suppose I am. I do believe that humans are at the top of the food chain. I do believe that humans are different than animals. I do believe that we have rights and responsibilities, and animals have neither. I’d hazard a guess that 99% of Americans feel the same way. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some leftover turkey from Thanksgiving to polish off.