RoR: Forum

Thanks for all the responses.

James,

"P.S. Marcus, Hitler liked ice cream. DO YOU???"

Peter,

"He also liked beautiful women, Walt Disney's Snow White, Broadway musicals (especially those featuring Fred Astaire), representational art, and the music of Puccini and Franz Lehar."

Talk about equivocation!!! I never wrote that because Hitler loved his dog, therefore James is like Hitler.

Hitler had two sheep-dogs that he loved and adored. Nothing wrong with that. Nothing wrong with anyone loving their pets.

What I meant was that former associates of Hitler have often said in interviews that he preferred the company of his dogs to many of his fellow human beings. Now, I believe that this fact is significant to his psychological make-up!!! Also, I see that many "Animal Extremists" share exactly the same sentiments as Hitler. So it is not all surprising that they are willing to terrorize or murder their fellow human beings, valuing them less than their pets.

Now. I know there was a lack of discussion in my article of "domesticated" pets, which are clearly different to "wild" animals. In a way, Pets are wild animals that have become more humanized. However, this is only the product of conditioning in a human environment. A "wild" animal will never become spontaneously domesticated. What I was trying to get across in my article is that people are "anthropomorphising" animals. They look at their Pets and feel sorry for other "wild" or "laboratory" animals (lab animals are not treated like pets). Pets are not human, nor will they ever be. They can be trained and yes, they will be conditioned to be more human-like, but they are not in their natural element. Nobody has any right whatsoever to torture or kill your pet. If they do, they will be prosecuted. It belongs to you. Nothing will change that.

However, anyone that finds that they relate better to pets than they do their fellow man has serious psychological problems. And it is not surprising that it is exactly these types of people that then become dictators and terrorists!!!!

Post 21

Friday, September 24, 2004 - 12:06pm

Now Linz is being too kind. Get near my dog and you'll be dog food.

(Actually, Robert, this is argumentum ad humorum, an accusation of which you do not seem to have to worry..)

Post 22

Friday, September 24, 2004 - 1:28pm

Linz:

"Mr. Bisno, James is letting you off lightly. It is one thing to recognise that animals, being non-conceptual, don't have rights; it is quite another to say that one should impose limitless suffering on them for one's own convenience because one *does* have rights."

Have you ever seen the inside of a meat factory? When I talk about "grinding them up", I'm not talking some bizarre ritual here, I'm describing what happens on a daily basis to provide you with hamburger or steak. If you feel guilt about the fact that animals are subject to unimaginable suffering for your convenience, that's your problem, not mine: I had a hamburger for lunch and i'm wearing a leather coat right now. Nonhuman animals, excluding cats, are of benefit to me pretty much only when they are ground up, and I see no reason to feel guilty at grinding them up.

" If you had come to her, intent on "grinding her up & letting her suffer any hell" that served your life, *you* would not be alive today, because *I* would have murdered you,"

Straw man, Linz, Straw man. I have clear reasons to respect the property claims of human beings, and I declared no intent to steal from you a dog which is your property.

"That marks you out as a sick, evil fuck. Lithium is not the answer for monsters like you - the treatment you would mete out to animals is."

No, it marks me out as someone who lives a rational selfish existence, and who does not develop arbitrary, sentimental attachments to raw material simply because it happens to have fur and legs. And it is against your interest to subject me to such "treatment" -- it violates the legitimate rules barring legitimate force against human beings, and my flesh does not taste good.

Post 23

Friday, September 24, 2004 - 1:55pm

Jana wrote:
"Animals who have fight-like mating rituals never actually kill each other. There are biological mechanisms that prevent the violence from escalating to that point, ..."

Yes, they do. If gazelles don't do it, male lions definitely fight each other to death. Then the winner would kill off all the cubs fathered by the loser, and start mating with the lioness to produce his own offsprings. Such practice and inbreeds probably will eventually lead to the extinction of such a extraordinary species.

Like James, I am also unclear about human-animal relationship. I marvel at those magnificent creatures, but I don't feel a shred of guilt eating meat, or do necessary experiments on them. Though I believe that many animal are intelligent, have emotions, and even have their own languages, I don't think it is human's position to defend the right of another species. After all what do we know about other animals, their happiness, or their rights?

Pets, especially dogs, are very interesting issue. I've seen small child growing up together with family pet dog. It seems that they are nearly equals before the child reaches 3 or 4 years of age. It's not strange to me at all that some people would prefer dog than human company, probably not all the time though. Dogs could die to save their owner/master. Would another human do the same for you?

Post 24

Friday, September 24, 2004 - 4:27pm

The question that interests me the most is not centered on how human-like animals are; the differences are vast. I am more interested in in how we define what it means to be human. How we treat animals is part of how we define ourselves.

Post 25

Saturday, September 25, 2004 - 12:16pm

Mr. Perigo says:

It is one thing to recognise that animals, being non-conceptual, don't have rights; it is quite another to say that one should impose limitless suffering on them for one's own convenience because one *does* have rights. Precisely because *we* are conceptual, we can generalise our experience of pain - & its anti-life nature - & seek, as a logical, human extension of our identification - to avoid/minimise it in our treatment of non-conceptual beings. That, at least, is what any *decent* human being would do.

Ok, fine. But you're ignoring the complexities and contradictions one encounters when acknowledging that it's OK to utilize other animals as resources to better human life, while simultaneous endorsing protections to animals based on their capacity for pain and suffering.

Your statement would have enhanced the discussion more if you explored some implications of your thesis, rather than construct a straw man argument about a (non-existent) threat that Mr. Bisno poses to your pets.

For example, I would be curious to hear your answers to the following questions:

- Should cockroaches and dogs afforded the same level of consideration? If not, why not?

- Is it immoral to set lethal traps for mice and rats? Should we instead devise ways of capturing them alive and then drive them out to rural areas for release?

- I enjoy fishing. Sometimes, I put a hook through the mouth of a small minnow and throw it out in the water in hope that a big fish will bite it. This is all done for my enjoyment - is this immoral?

- Do you think it is moral to conduct animal testing for reasons other than discovering life saving medicines and therapies, for example to improve cosmetic products?

- Should people be allowed to eat a dog or cat if they raise it and kill it in the most humane way possible?

I think by exploring questions on a case by case basis like this will help unearth some better discussion on the subject.

Post 26

Saturday, September 25, 2004 - 4:32pm

Pete - I think it's understood that none of us is going to attempt an exhaustive treatise on *any* subject in *one* post on SOLOHQ (though Mr. DeSalvo seems to be giving it a damn good try on another thread!). I was simply laying out a general principle in response to Mr. Bisno's apparent savouring & relishing of animal suffering in his first post (from which he seemed to back off in his second, thankfully). How this principle might be applied in the scenarios you raised, or a thousand others you *could* have raised, was not my concern.

Linz

Post 27

Saturday, September 25, 2004 - 5:54pm

With all due respect Mr. Perigo, when Mr. Bisno says something like:

As it stands, most nonhuman animals (except cats, which are adorable), have nothing at all to offer me except for their meat and their leather, and because of technological advantage can pay me no reprisal if I enslave and destroy them. Thusly, I say, harvest them all, grind up their bodies, let them suffer any hell that serves my ends and my life: I will not feel a moment of remorse.

Mr. Bisno is simply stating here that he feels no guilt about utilizing animals as a resource. Humans do in fact enslave animals, and even grind them up in some cases - it's big business as a matter of fact. Nowhere is he suggesting any uneccesary or 'limitless' suffering. Indeed, it seems reasonable to conclude that Mr. Bisno is in fact a cat lover himself!

I'm surprised that you of all people Mr. Perigo took offense to the fact that he chose to use graphic and exaggerated language for effect.

Post 28

Sunday, September 26, 2004 - 7:42am

"- I enjoy fishing. Sometimes, I put a hook through the mouth of a small minnow and throw it out in the water in hope that a big fish will bite it. This is all done for my enjoyment - is this immoral?"

That is another point not mentioned in my article - the defintion of animal. I didn't want to go on for pages. When I talked about animals, I was definitely thinking in terms of mammals. I was considering "mammal" rights (marsupials are a sub-branch of mammals). Nobody ever seems to worry about suffering to birds, reptiles or fish, and for whatever reason they are never included in animal welfare legisaltion.

So let me give some reasons for only including mammals.

1) We relate to and empathise most with any distress caused to mammals as we ourselves are also mammals.

2) We also understand how mammals perceive pain at the scientific level. We can measure their levels of stress through the production of hormones and those parts of their brains that are responsive to pain and stress also correlate to those same areas of our own brains.

3) We are not concerned too much about birds, reptiles, fish and insects because their brains are so tiny in comparison to those of mammals. I don't believe that anybody has managed to show scientifically how or if they suffer pain and distress (except for birds). I am not ruling out that they don't experience those things (there are even some that claim that trees feel pain and scream when they chopped down), but it all goes to reinforce the point that any animal we respond to emotionally, it is simply at the level of human empathy for that creature.

If a cockroach does not evoke empathy in any sane human being, then it doesn't. End of story.

Are you sick and immoral for hooking the fish?

Only if you truly believe that this animal is in fact suffering and in pain - and you are in fact enjoying the idea that it is indeed in pain and suffering as a consequence.

Post 29

Sunday, September 26, 2004 - 12:51pm

Marcus- I am in substantial agreement with your arguments, which are well thought out. I agree that it is foolish to compare the love one feels for a pet with the love one feels for another human being. However, there is one point I would like to make:
I can see in a pet an honesty towards its own survival that people frequently have lost. For example, I love the way my dog will come into the room and climb up on the couch and lean against me while surveying the world around her. It is not anthropomorphic to see in her behavior that she feels safe with her back to me. She does it with no one else. There is a purity in that behavior that I respect. Some people feel that way about me, but no one expresses it so simply. I believe it is tied into an instinct; I do not mean it as a tribute to her "reasoning" ability. But it is something I share with her.

Post 30

Sunday, September 26, 2004 - 6:26pm

Marcus,

I personally agree with the notion that humans generally empathize more with the pain and suffering of mammals than other creatures. And I also personally agree that any notions of 'animal welfare' should apply to mammals only as a result.

However, in trying to codify an Objectivist position on the specifics of animal welfare, it seems to me that the line drawn in the sand with mammals is an arbitrary one. For example, is one irrational if one were to identify more with the suffering of a bald eagle over a rat?

Post 31

Monday, September 27, 2004 - 4:32am

I think anyone who can contemplate with equanimity the needless suffering of an animal, would also cheerfully contemplate the suffering of a human being. Note the attitude toward life in those countries that treat their animals with relative kindness, and those that are indifferent to their suffering.

Civil disobedience can indeed be a virtue, and I believe it should be practiced by any decent human being who sees an animal being deliberately or neglectfully hurt -- in the form of a hard punch to the jaw if there is no other recourse.

There is a solution, not an easy one, but a solution, to the problem of pet owners mistreating their animals, which does not require ascribing rights to animals. Breeders and pet stores could issue a contract when they sell a dog or cat, a contract in which the buyer guarantees not to mistreat the animal. If there were a crusade among animal lovers to make such a practice widespread, I believe it would very quickly catch on and become almost universal -- so that if one saw a pet being hurt, one could legitimately assume that it was protected by contract -- which means, by law -- and could call for police enforcement. And I see no reason why this could not be extended to other owned animals -- horses, for instance, cows, and others.

This would, unfortunately, not protect the fox in that most savage of "sports," the fox hunt. I will not call the sport bestial, since no animal kills just for fun or to prove its dubious manhood. Only aristocrats, apparently, sink to that level.

Barbara

Post 32

Monday, September 27, 2004 - 5:05am

Robert Bisno wrote:

". . . most nonhuman animals (except cats, which are adorable), have nothing at all to offer me except for their meat and their leather, and because of technological advantage can pay me no reprisal if I enslave and destroy them. Thusly, I say, harvest them all, grind up their bodies, let them suffer any hell that serves my ends and my life: I will not feel a moment of remorse."

I can never recall accusing anyone of being a sadist,but it is clear -- clear, I suspect, to everyone reading your posts -- that no one but a man who savors the sight of agony, human or animal, could write such a monstrosity as the above
.
You clearly relish every disgusting word you wrote. You're fortunate that animals "can pay [you] no reprisal" -- certainly not the reprisal you deserve. Mental disease can be a tragic fate, but who can feel anything but abhorrence for the sadist?

I would understand it if your purpose in posting were to reject the concept of animal rights; but clearly that is not your purpose. The loving detail with which you have twice posted your pleasure, your almost-drooling pleasure, in the infliction of a hellish agony on innocent creatures, demonstrates that your real purpose is to parade your own savagery. You may rest assured that is is well understood. After reading your posts, I find it impossible to believe that you would not equally find pleasure in grinding up human bodies, letting people suffer any hell that serves your ends.Decent people should keep a sanitary distance from you.

It may interest Solohq to know that Ayn Rand said that she could not justify ascribing rights to animals, but that she hoped someone would come along one day who could do so.

Barbara

Post 33

Monday, September 27, 2004 - 5:06am

Monday, September 27, 2004 - 6:20am

Linz:

"...think it's understood that none of us is going to attempt an exhaustive treatise on *any* subject in *one* post on SOLOHQ (though Mr. DeSalvo seems to be giving it a damn good try on another thread!)"

Hey! They took my short responses as evasion, so I let em have it!

Humans have rights. Animals do not have rights. But a dog is not a chair. It is a living thing which experiences pain. If you whittle on a chair, or smash it to pieces, it may be a sign of delinquency or of emotions run amok. But if it is your chair, no one is getting hurt. If you cut up a dog, or beat it to death for no good reason, you are a rotten, sadistic sob. You are causing needless pain and suffering to a living thing. I like to think that one way to really test a person's SOL is to observe how they treat animals and humans they have authority over. Works every time. Can Mr. Bisno ~really~ think that torturing an animal for 'fun' is moral?

Post 35

Monday, September 27, 2004 - 8:54am

"This would, unfortunately, not protect the fox in that most savage of "sports," the fox hunt. I will not call the sport bestial, since no animal kills just for fun or to prove its dubious manhood. Only aristocrats, apparently, sink to that level."

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!!!!!
This statement is so wrong-headed that it hurts!!!!!
I would have expected to read something like this on the party website of the "Marxist Working Class Association".
I need to go and take a valium.

Proving manhood? Indeed, many male animals cause one another cruelty and suffereing and sometimes death to prove their own manhood during the mating season.
Just for fun? Haven't you even seen domesticated cats "playing with their prey" while it is still alive?

What is so bad about being an aristocrat??????
In fact, all classes across the board take part - not just the upper class and aristocracy!!!!

Most savage of sports? I don't actually know that much about it myself. However, I don't discount when they say it is done for pest control - nor can I determine what enjoyment they actually get out of it. I am oppossed to those that enjoy the suffering of animals, but I don't see that those fox hunters are torturing animals for kicks!!!! In fact, being of the countryside - they generally love animals more than most city dwellers!!!!
Notice too how nearly all animal rights activists are neurotic types from the city with their heads up their own assess!!!!

If I had the choice to share a room with one of the animal rights activists or an aristocrat fox hunter, then I will choose the fox hunter every time!!!!!

Post 36

Monday, September 27, 2004 - 12:00pm

Barbara said:

Breeders and pet stores could issue a contract when they sell a dog or cat, a contract in which the buyer guarantees not to mistreat the animal.

This is absolutely brilliant. It certainly fits in with everything I can conceive as a rational, non-coercive society.

Sam

Post 37

Monday, September 27, 2004 - 12:29pm

Barbara:

"I can never recall accusing anyone of being a sadist,but it is clear -- clear, I suspect, to everyone reading your posts -- that no one but a man who savors the sight of agony, human or animal, could write such a monstrosity as the above"

Most animal rights advocates accuse their opponents of having no clue what the animals go through so that the opponent can have their meat or their leather. And in most cases, they are right. Everyone who thinks my prose on this matter is inherently sadistic or repulsive should really take a long hard look at the inside of a slaughterhouse or meat factory one of these days-- If anything, I'm soft peddling the matter. It is a FACT, indisputable FACT,that so much of the pruducts we use are created by putting animals through conditions that make auschwitz look favorable by comparison. I'm not just talking food and leather either--the gel coating on over the counter gel-caps is made from ground up cow hoof. Do you really want to tell everyone who eats at McDonalds or takes Tylenol that they are accomplices to mass slaughter and only their own willful evasions let them morally go on? If you say that the suffering of nonhuman animals deserves any moral consideration at all, you are essentially saying just this. If you truly believe animals deserve to have any sort of "minimization" placed on their suffering, and that any second or dime of human welfare must be sacrificed toward this end, you have bought into the philosophic seed of animal rights.

Essentially, we have 3 options:
1:Decide that animals deserve some sort of moral consideration (which, despite all insistences to the contrary, sounds a lot like animal rights)

2: Deliberately ignore what goes into actually goes into harvesting animals into resources (Read: Evasion)

3: Declare that animals are nothing more than natural resources, and that their welfare means nothing to us-- tell the animal rights activists that they can show us as much bloody video footage as theyve got and that we won't feel an ounce of compassion, because we refuse to sacrifice our time or our compassion for entities which are more beneficial to us dead than alive.

Post 38

Monday, September 27, 2004 - 12:35pm

"your real purpose is to parade your own savagery."

Oh come now. How does it benefit me to "parade my savagery", especially here of all places? I am making an arguement against animal rights and animal welfare considerations, on the grounds that letting the monumental suffering of such creatures deter us from the pursuit of our own selfish interests is tantamount to altruism.

I suggest that everyone read Pete's interpretation of my posts. I also suspect that I should tell the lot of you that I own a pet cat, which I treat very well and have never raised a hand against. I am very nice to entities such that it is my selfish interest to be nice to them. The rest are all raw material.

Post 39

Monday, September 27, 2004 - 5:34pm