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Thursday, August 07, 2008
PETA goes way over the line
This is barely believable.
PETA--People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals--has a brand-spanking new campaign in Manitoba. They plan on publishing the following full-page ad:
From PETA's blog-o-moral-equivocation:
"This tragic incident will certainly leave scars on the minds of the other passengers and the victim's family and friends. While it isn't every day that a human is violently attacked and eaten by another human, it's worth noting that it is the norm for many people not to give any thought to the fact that restaurants are serving flesh that comes from innocents who were minding their own business before someone came after them with a knife. How amazingly and conveniently compartmentalized the human mind is…
"To stress this very point, PETA will be running an ad in the Portage Daily Graphic comparing the similarities between this gruesome bus butchering and the acts of cruelty and killing performed every day by the meat industry."
Yeah. Rabbit = person. Got it. Eating human beings = eating cows. Same thing, no difference. Check and check. Got some more moral enlightenment for us backward barbarians? Publish ad comparing the brutal murder and eating of a human being to eating animals about two weeks after the event? (I don't know exactly when they'll place their ad) Okay, mmhmm, sounds good.
Even Warren Kinsella gets this right: "These people are scumbags."
Posted by P.M. Jaworski on August 7, 2008 in Crime | Permalink
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Comments
HAHA, PETA is positively tone deaf about public opinion. In response to their ad, I'm going to eat an animal. Maybe one of my cats... mmm.
J/K, PETA, don't blow a gasket.
Posted by: Terrence Watson | 2008-08-07 1:07:55 PM
They ran an add before comparing the slaughter of poultry to the holocaust. Shocking yes, but nontheless expected from the post-modernist, progressive minded PETA: the self-proclaimed next stage of human evolution.
Posted by: Condor | 2008-08-07 1:08:58 PM
You don't know the half of it! Greyhound has suspended their ad campaign that reads "There's a reason you've never heard of bus rage"? Irony!
http://www.canada.com/windsorstar/news/story.html?id=0ae00464-9d02-416a-9ae4-08ccc246c322
Posted by: Zebulon Pike | 2008-08-07 1:09:07 PM
And I thought PETA stood for People Eating Tasty Animals.
Posted by: Alain | 2008-08-07 2:46:03 PM
Here's my plan for a visit to a PETA or Greenpeace rally:
1) Get a Hummer H3
2) Put "Bush/Cheney 00", "Bush/Cheney 04", "NRA", "Support the Troops", and "McCain 08" stickers on it.
3) Gun rack with several weapons.
4) put a dead giant seal in the trailer
5) When they ask, I'll say "You know, I shot it 5 times with my 30-06, but it just wouldn't die. So I had to club it to death with this *shows bloody baseball bat*.
6) Also in the trailer is my portable propane powered BBQ. Want some seal burgers?
Think they'd ask me to become a member?
Posted by: Zebulon Pike | 2008-08-07 3:10:57 PM
Zebulon, not if they are from Toronto.
Posted by: TM | 2008-08-07 3:22:02 PM
I'm still stunned and coming to terms with the news story about what happened to this unfortunate 22 year old man. Bad taste doesn't even begin to explain it.
Posted by: Faramir | 2008-08-07 3:46:04 PM
1) Get a Hummer H3
Posted by: Zebulon Pike | 7-Aug-08 3:10:57 PM
Can't afford the gas for a real one, eh?
Posted by: Snowrunner | 2008-08-07 4:10:51 PM
I defend PETA's right to do what they have done though. Everyone should have the right to make a complete ass of themselves.
Posted by: TM | 2008-08-07 4:19:05 PM
Agreed TM. I am not aware of anyone demanding government intervention or censorship. People (most at least) are very capable of seeing PETA for what they are, so I do not think this sort of bad taste will help their fund raising.
Another thing is that I find most of us are opposed to cruelty to animals. Personally I am opposed to what I call factory farms where poultry or livestock are confined in areas far too small, but I am also opposed to the actions taken by "animal rights" activists. I could never support any of these activist groups. They are all far to fascist, extremist and full of anger and hate.
Posted by: Alain | 2008-08-07 4:41:18 PM
They know what they have done. The end surely justifies the means in their minds, "By juxtaposing the shocking details of the murder with the fate of animals whose bodies are casually hacked apart to end up between two slices of bread, some good will come."
PETA has opened a comment thread: "We Got Your Hate Mail ..."
Go ahead and leave a comment http://blog.peta.org/archives/2008/08/we_got_your_hat.php
Posted by: Dana | 2008-08-07 4:52:58 PM
When I see Peta activists on the news, with there little picket signs, I am often tempted to ask them what their shoes are made of.
Posted by: Glenn Schneidmiller | 2008-08-07 4:53:19 PM
These people are so incredibly bent its difficult to even fathom the depth of it with a sane mind.
What can their agenda possibly be? Without a doubt it is evil to the core.
Posted by: JC | 2008-08-07 6:32:44 PM
Like I give a rat's ass (mmmm tastayyyy) what PETA does.
Posted by: epsilon | 2008-08-07 8:11:12 PM
Penn and Teller did a piece on these bozos. Most of the animals they "save" are eventually put down because they have no place to go.
Fucking killers!!!
Posted by: Opinion | 2008-08-07 9:36:29 PM
No kidding. There are plenty of domestic meat bearing animals that would become extinct in a matter of months.
I'm also curious about their goal to turn every human being into a vegetarian. I suspect about 2 billion people would starve to death in a big hurry.
Posted by: dp | 2008-08-07 9:49:52 PM
Think they'd ask me to become a member?
Posted by: Zebulon Pike | 7-Aug-08 3:10:57 PM
I'd like to bet the Flat Earth Society would welcome you as a member.
Posted by: The Stig | 2008-08-07 9:59:57 PM
dp wrote: "I'm also curious about their goal to turn every human being into a vegetarian. I suspect about 2 billion people would starve to death in a big hurry."
I'm not sure I see your point here, dp.
While I don't agree with PETA, vegetarian diets are more efficient by as much as 8 to 1. It take 800 calories of grains to create 100 calories of meat. (Ratios vary depending on the meat.)
I'm not advocating vegetarianism, and I’m especially not advocating mandatory vegetarianism, but those are the facts as I understand them.
Posted by: Matthew Johnston | 2008-08-07 10:05:22 PM
MJ- I don't think we could get enough protein from plant sources to keep all of us alive. I live with a vegetarian, and she has to really work at getting enough protein. If all food production shifted to a vegetarian based diet, who knows what would happen?
People in northern climates would have to import most of their food. Grains would handle a lot of it, but they're not a complete protein. We live in a balanced world, and animal protein is part of that balance. We could probably cut back on meat in this country. Most Asians get by with less than half what we eat. Once we whithered away to the size of a Cambodian teenager, we might even save on some other things, like shoes.
Besides, what about all the sequestered carbon in those cattle herds? We'd have to buy a bunch of credits just to dispose of them, unless we put them into a really deep pit.
No, I think we were meant to eat just about anything, and we evolved into the most efficient and healthy creatures by eating other creatures.
Posted by: dp | 2008-08-07 10:58:47 PM
While I don't agree with PETA, vegetarian diets are more efficient by as much as 8 to 1. It take 800 calories of grains to create 100 calories of meat. (Ratios vary depending on the meat.)
I'm not advocating vegetarianism, and I’m especially not advocating mandatory vegetarianism, but those are the facts as I understand them.
Posted by: Matthew Johnston | 7-Aug-08 10:05:22 PM
That's because in our industrialized food production chain we feed cows corn, something they aren't really meant to eat which causes all kinds of problems.
If you would grace the cows on grass and then slaughter them the energy input is "free" as the grass grows from sunlight and needs little else.
I recommend reading: The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan
There is also a nice documentary called "King Corn":
http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/kingcorn/
Posted by: Snowrunner | 2008-08-07 11:25:37 PM
Hey Matthew any comments on the Cdn govt stopping those fanatics from the USA from entering Canada to protest at the McLean funeral in Winnipeg?
Is this a free speech issue for you and other libertarian types?
Do these people have the so called right to harrass the family outside the funeral of their dead son? Do they?
Posted by: Merle Terlesky | 2008-08-08 10:11:14 AM
While I don't agree with PETA, vegetarian diets are more efficient by as much as 8 to 1. It take 800 calories of grains to create 100 calories of meat. (Ratios vary depending on the meat.)
I'm not advocating vegetarianism, and I’m especially not advocating mandatory vegetarianism, but those are the facts as I understand them.
Nice middle of the road posistion Matthew? What about the actual PETA ad though? As that is what this thread is about-not simple vegetrian types. No wonder they all look anorexic. I met Avril Lavigne a veggie and she was like a pencil.
Oh and btw God did not place chickens and cows on the earth as pets-it is food!
Posted by: Merle | 2008-08-08 10:15:34 AM
I understand why Merle is offended by vegetarians. He is a vegetable, afterall.
Posted by: Sarcasm | 2008-08-08 1:50:31 PM
Hey sarcasm piss off if you cant participate in actual debate ok!
If your pea sized intellectual abillity is so small then simply shut up!
Or fess up with your real name and we can deal with your BS.
Real brave to insult behind a fake name ya coward.
What am I just suppose to suck in all this Libertarain BS crap! I dont think so-try replying to the Q at hand if you can?
What a weasel you are.
Posted by: Merle Terleski | 2008-08-08 2:37:27 PM
I find the PETA ad offensive, Merle. Thanks for your question.
Posted by: Matthew Johnston | 2008-08-08 2:46:40 PM
Jaws,
I agree that this ad will, no doubt, be upsetting to the friends and family of Tim McLean. I also agree that there is no question that as a PR move, this is a very bad one. I don't see how anyone could think that this ad would result in any animals being helped or in any more sympathy for the cause of protecting animals from suffering. I also must say my initial reaction to the ad was disgust. But then I thought about it and now I wonder just how bad the ad really is. Let me explain.
It is a terrible thing to be indifferent about what happened to Tim McLean. Any suggestion that it was not really such a bad thing is reprehensible. But PETA did not do that. To believe, as PETA people do, that treating animals in the ways described is just as bad as treating a human being as Vince Weiguang Li did is not to say that they care LESS about Tim McLean than we do. It merely is to say they care MORE about animals than the rest of us do. The mistake in assessing their statement is we see them equating the death of Tim McLean to the deaths of animals and think that they must therefore only care as much about McLean as WE DO about animals. But their statement is not one that McLean matters less than we think. It is that animals matter more than we think. So they (strangely) think that by saying that what happened to him is just like what happens to animals that we won't come to care LESS about him, but we will care MORE about the animals.
This ad is quite different, I think, from the case a few months ago when several seal hunters died and the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society said that the death of seal pups was a GREATER tragedy. That IS to lower the value of human life, and thus is disgusting.
We might think that PETA people are wrong and a bit nutty to care as much about animals as they do about humans. We also might be concerned about having PETA people serving, for example, in the fire department because they might be just as inclined to save an animal from a burning building as they would a person if they had to make a choice. But being a bit nutty and wrong is not the same as being evil. If they cared less for human life than we do, THEN I would say they are evil. But so long as their claim is merely to care MORE about animals than seems reasonable, then they are no worse than some of the more kooky pet owners I know.
Is that a fair assessment?
Posted by: Fact Check | 2008-08-08 3:50:41 PM
We might think that PETA people are wrong and a bit nutty to care as much about animals as they do about humans.
Posted by: Fact Check | 8-Aug-08 3:50:41 PM
I don't think they care about animals at all, they use them as a reason to get money out of humans (and that is as far as their concern for humans goes).
Any point they may have about bad treatment of animals etc. is utterly meaningless as long as they try to shock people and fall in the "do as I say, not as I do" category.
Posted by: Snowrunner | 2008-08-08 4:30:22 PM
This sounds like a previous ad campaign from the 2006 election.
Manitoba.
An innocent young victim's throat is cut ...
His struggles and cries are ignored ...
The man with the knife shows no emotion ...
The victim is slaughtered and his head is cut off ...
His flesh is eaten.
IT'S STILL GOING ON.
Throats. Cries. Knives. Slaughter. Flesh.
We're not making this up. Choose your entree, I mean Canada.
Posted by: Zebulon Pike | 2008-08-08 4:55:29 PM
Snowrunner: I'm not sure we should be so quick to impugn their motives. I know a few PETA supporters (one even carries a credit card that gives PETA a portion of every one of his purchases--I always insist that, if we go out to eat, it is on the condition that he not use that credit card. I'd hate to indirectly support an organization I have deep moral concerns over), and they appear to me to have sincere motivations.
That doesn't change the fact that there are at least a few higher-ups who probably see PETA as an easy way to earn a lot of money. But let's not take too much away from the sincere in the bunch.
Fact Check: First, I always appreciate the fact that you want to really delve into these issues and get the arguments clear and on the table. That's admirable.
As for your point--I tend to agree with you. I do think that they care MORE for animals than we do, and that the implication that they therefore care LESS about people is a non sequitor and a bad inference.
My concern, especially with this ad, is two-fold:
For one, I have an awfully difficult time understanding their claim that a chicken counts just as much as a human does. We can make this case on utilitarian grounds--they feel pleasure and pain, we feel pleasure and pain; pleasure and pain are the ultimate building blocks of morality, nothing else (agency, ability to make plans and projects, reason, etc.) morally matters (those other things only matter derivatively. That is, insofar as they have an effect on pleasure and pain do they count); therefore a chicken's pain is as morally important as a person's pain.
But thorough-going hedonist utilitarianism just has to be false. Surely the ability to have and act on projects of one's own choosing (agency, autonomy) is morally significant. And surely the significance of that is separate from any pleasure or pain that might come along with having your plans thwarted or come to fruition. Surely, surely.
So that's my first beef--their ethical view seems to be missing something.
But, never mind. They're entitled to push for reform on the basis of their peculiar moral view. Let's give them that. My other beef is with the timing of this ad. Like I said to my American friends yesterday, it seems callous and stupid to put out this ad within a week or two of the tragic event. While it isn't on a par with the Westboro Baptist Church idiots who plan on picketing at Tim McLean's funeral, it falls on the same scale.
The timing is surely important here. And PETA's timing is terrible. Callous, insensitive, lacking sympathy for the family and friends, and using Tim McLean's murder as a means to the end of getting the rest of us to "see" that the decapitation of chickens is like what happened on that Greyhound bus.
It's just too soon, Fact Check. Agreed?
Posted by: P.M. Jaworski | 2008-08-08 4:58:56 PM
The purpose of the PETA ad is to get as many people as possible discussing the killing of animals in the same context as the killing of people. PETA does this all the time. It was not a bad PR move, as Fact Check asserts, and it was not “too soon” as Peter asserts. It was another example of the offensive but highly effective tactics used by PETA.
It seems like a bad PR move to us and it feels “too soon” to us because our sympathies are naturally with the recent tragic loss of human life and not with the everyday loss of animal life.
As for your comment Merle that I was taking a “Nice middle of the road position,” I was merely making a factual comment on the efficiency of a vegetarian diet. I’m not a vegetarian, as you well know. I don’t advocate vegetarianism, as you well know. And I wouldn’t mandate vegetarianism, as you well know.
And I’m not sure what “libertarian BS” you are referring to. Peter wrote the post in order to criticize the PETA ad, a position with which you agree.
It's a lively discussion. Let's try to keep it free from personal attacks.
Posted by: Matthew Johnston | 2008-08-08 5:26:32 PM
Jaws,
"So that's my first beef...."
No pun intended, of course.
I agree with all that you say except this: "It's just too soon". I'd say it's not just about timing. I don't think an add like this designed to make us think of any specific case involving a human would ever seem right. Now if an ad like this was done not against the backdrop of a real case and with an abstract enough description not to be connectable to any particular case, then it would be fairly unobjectiuonable, but equally ineffective.
I am reminded by this of the anti-abortion demonstrations that (visually) compare abortion to lynching blacks and the Nazi holocaust and compare planned parenthood to al-Qaeda and the destruction of the WTC and the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour. I similarly do not doubt the sincerity of those who think these are equivalent, but I also question whether anyone who does not already think abortion is murder would be convinced (as well as think that many family members of the dead would be disgusted and offended by the comparison).
Posted by: Fack Check | 2008-08-08 5:31:02 PM
Matthew: "It seems like bad PR move to us and it feels “too soon” to us because our sympathies are naturally with the recent tragic loss of human life and not with the everyday loss of animal life."
So, then, isn't it "too soon"? At least when it comes to their desire to be effective. People like myself are deeply upset about PETA's ad, and that works to harm their cause, not help it.
They should have picked a later time to get more of us to be inclined to think that killing chickens is like killing humans.
Fact Check: "I agree with all that you say except this: "It's just too soon". I'd say it's not just about timing. I don't think an ad like this designed to make us think of any specific case involving a human would ever seem right. Now if an ad like this was done not against the backdrop of a real case and with an abstract enough description not to be connectable to any particular case, then it would be fairly unobjectionable, but equally ineffective."
Okay, I'm beginning to see why the "too soon" comment may be false. But let me say a bit more in its defense. PETA could link it to a particular event. They could connect it with this tragedy. But they could do it later. And maybe doing it later would be more effective at getting more people on board with them.
Posted by: P.M. Jaworski | 2008-08-08 5:41:25 PM
Peter – the ad is wrong-headed and offensive, but it is not "too soon" if the purpose is to get people talking about animal rights in the context of a high profile murder, which is what PETA is trying to do. Mission accomplished, I would say.
The reason the ad offends is because, as you point out, we don't think of humans and animals as having the same rights or the same moral standing.
I think your argument is excellent. Human beings have a meaningful biographical life. They are more than just organisms with a capacity to feel pain.
Jan Narveson also makes a good contractarian argument for why animals don't count in matters of morality. But I’m sure you know this argument much better than I do given that you studied under the man.
Posted by: Matthew Johnston | 2008-08-08 5:56:15 PM
This is too great. This is probably the only time I actually support the group (PETA). They do make a lot of great points, but too bad we don't eat human. Might start a factory farm of human, think I'll start with the newfags (newfe) first.
Posted by: Indian | 2008-08-08 11:06:17 PM
Indian, I know you couldn't last one day on vegetables. Can you imagine trying to feed everyone in Ft. Mac. soybeans, rice, tofu, and corn?
There's another example of trying to belittle this victim happening in the Chinese community. One of the first things I heard the day after the event was that the victim was "part Native". When I asked what difference that made, the reply was that he might have been making trouble for Mr. Li.
Too soon? I read this over and over. Tell me, how long should one wait before kicking a grieving family in the guts? A week? six months? They'll never, ever get over this tragedy.
Peta should be systematically dismantled. They are useless. Not one single thing of value to society will ever come from all their past, present, or future efforts.
Posted by: dp | 2008-08-08 11:39:27 PM
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