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IWMC
World Conservation Trust |
Source : National Post, 2006.04.20
Byline: Michael Coren
Email: mcoren@sympatico.ca
Website: www.michaelcoren.com
Animal rights activists have gone too far:
The final outrage was digging up the body of Hall's mother-in-law
Three men are facing 12-year prison sentences in Britain after admitting last week to a prolonged terrorist campaign against the owners of a guinea pig farm in the English midlands. The animals were sold to laboratories for experimental purposes. The farm owners, brothers Chris and John Hall, were the victims of systematic abuse and violent attacks on their property. Animal rights extremists used explosives in an attempt to so frighten the village community that the owners of the farm would be ostracized and have to sell their business.
The brothers and their families became virtual prisoners and their neighbours were afraid to be seen even speaking to them in case they too would be targeted. One man who supplied fuel to the farm had a brick thrown through the window of his home at his head, and his clients received letters accusing him of being a pedophile.
The final outrage occurred when activists dug up the body of Chris Hall's mother-in-law, Gladys Hammond, from St. Peter's churchyard. The remains have never been returned and the body is thought to have dismembered. The Hall brothers surrendered. Another victory for the animal rights movement.
Johnny Holmes, a spokesman for the campaign, told reporters: "This is the most fantastic day of my life. It's a victory for the animals and it's a fundamental victory for the animal rights movement." There was no comment from those suffering from chronic respiratory diseases, many of which are being treated with medication developed from research on guinea pigs.
Here lies the quintessence of the debate. It is entirely rational to have compassion for animals and even a moral and intellectual objection to the abuse of powerless creatures for the sake of human want. But there is something fundamentally different, and fundamentally dysfunctional, about obsessive opposition to the responsible use of animals for the sake of human need.
Once the difference is obscured, it is a short leap to use violence against people for the sake of guinea pigs, dogs or, for that matter, earthworms. In fact, it is only logical: If humanity has no right to use animals at all, animal supporters have every right to use any means necessary to achieve their ends.
Which is why the sort of people Lenin referred to as useful idiots – Pamela Anderson, Paul McCartney and the like -- are not merely eccentric and foolish but downright dangerous. While they are not violent, they help create a climate where violence is not only possible but inevitable.
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) was at one time on the radical fringe of the movement; now it has gone mainstream. When it compares the killing of chickens to the Holocaust, as it did in 2003 with its "Holocaust on Your Plate" exhibition, there is occasional outrage from the public but little if any dissent from within the animal rights community.
The relativist slide began more than 30 years ago when militants in Europe planted bombs in stores selling fur coats. The past three decades have seen an exponential growth in the feelings industry. We are no longer asked what we know, but how we feel. And kittens and puppies make us feel just like we're supposed to feel when we see them staring at us from glossy calendars
or PETA propaganda.
Neurosis has smothered thought. We find ways to explain away starving Africans or the homeless but insist, to use the animal rights line, on speaking for those who cannot speak for themselves. It's a bourgeois conceit. Impoverished Peru, for example, produces more fish than any other nation in the world, but most of the catch goes to North America as cat food. A fish equals a cat equals a Peruvian child.
In 2002, Ontario MPP and current provincial Immigration Minister Mike Colle broke down in tears at a press conference because his draconian bill demanding extraordinary punishment for people who raise dogs for sale in dreadful conditions failed to become law.
Of course people who run cruel puppy mills should be punished. Yet this particular law may well have meant that a convicted rapist would receive a lesser sentence than a dog abuser. When did we last see any politician crying in public because a home for mentally challenged children was being closed or because a woman had been murdered by her ex-husband due to inadequate state protection?
Newly sensitive North Americans and Europeans define themselves by what offends them and, increasingly, what moves them to tears. It's certainly not the plight of people, let alone guinea pig farmers and their deceased relatives.
Michael is currently available for speaking engagements. Contact him via his website, where his books can also be purchased.
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