The author of this Book(Wesley Smith) interviewed me quite extensively for insights into what the impact of Animal Rights or the misunderstanding of animal rights is to humanity. I hope some of you buy the book a it ill give us a more valuable understanding of how to combat the illogical Philosophy of animal rights while teaching us that we can be proud of our specieism & exceptualism.
http://www.amazon.com/Rat-Pig-Dog-Boy-Mo...0606&sr=1-1Here is a review that describes Wesley Smith's challenge to the ARA and reasonable thinking people.
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
In defense of 'speciesism'
By Colleen Carroll Campbell
03/04/2010
http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/co...32?OpenDocument Wesley J. Smith is a speciesist. And he thinks you should be, too.
An attorney and author of a new expose on the animal-rights movement,
Smith promotes what was once an uncontroversial idea: the belief that
"human beings stand at the pinnacle of the moral hierarchy of life."
He thinks humans have a duty to treat animals humanely. He also thinks
we have a right to use animals to promote human flourishing and
alleviate human suffering. In short, Smith loves animals but values
humans more.
According to animal-rights activists, that makes him guilty of
"speciesism:" a form of discrimination as arbitrary and pernicious as
racism, and one that some believe must be eradicated by any means
necessary. After all, "animals are people and people are animals," as
self-described "eco-anarcha-feminist animal" Pattrice Jones puts it.
Or, to quote People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals president
Ingrid Newkirk, "A rat is a pig is a dog is a boy. They are all
mammals."
Newkirk's non-sequitur serves as the title for Smith's meticulously
documented book, "A Rat Is a Pig Is a Dog Is a Boy: The Human Cost of
the Animal Rights Movement." His research reveals the muddled,
misanthropic thinking behind a movement that has gained mainstream
acceptance in America, even as most Americans remain ignorant about
its true goals.
Those goals include the elevation of animals to the moral and legal
status of people and the eradication of virtually all uses of animals
— for food, companionship and even medical research. If animal-rights
activists have their way, we will see the abolition of everything from
recreational fishing and visits to the zoo to the use of guide dogs
for the blind and household pets of any kind. Forget about eating meat
or sushi or strapping on leather shoes and wool sweaters. And don't
even think about donning a silk scarf or drizzling honey on your
dairy-free dessert. Animal-rights activists object to beekeeping
because it subjects hive queens to "rape racks," and PETA opposes the
use of silkworms because they are "feeling beings."
It's easy to snicker at the sort of people who berated Barack Obama
last year for smacking a fly. (PETA denounced his televised swat as an
"execution.") Yet Smith told me in a recent interview that he found
surprisingly little distance between the views of the movement's
violent radicals and those who serve as its more moderate public face.
Animal-rights terrorists — those who plant bombs in the cars and
target the children of medical researchers who experiment on animals —
often operate with the sympathy and tacit approval of more peaceable
protestors.
Even more troubling, animal-rights activists have succeeded in
confusing the public about the difference between animal rights and
animal welfare. The latter is a noble cause supported by the vast
majority of Americans who want to protect animals from cruelty, even
though they do not consider animals their moral equals — a caveat that
runs counter to animal-rights ideology. Despite this distinction,
"animal rights" has "become the catchall term for virtually any effort
to protect animals," Smith says, and the resulting confusion has
allowed the animal-rights movement to gain legitimacy it does not
deserve.
That legitimacy threatens universal human rights, which are grounded
in the principle that all humans are equal simply because we are
human. If we reject that principle and argue that our rights are based
on something other than our shared human nature — that it is a
creature's apparent rationality or self-awareness, for instance, that
entitles it to rights — we can wind up elevating the rights of chimps
and pigs above those of profoundly disabled or demented humans.
Indeed, some animal-rights advocates have done just that.
Animals do not have rights or the moral responsibilities that
accompany rights. That's why we prosecuted Michael Vick, not his pit
bulls, for dog-fighting. That's why executives at Sea World, not its
orcas, are facing public scrutiny for a whale trainer's death last
week. And that's why we ponder our moral obligations to animals — who
are, after all, the ultimate speciesists — even though animals do not
do the same for us. We do so because we are human, endowed with
exceptional dignity that deserves singular defense.
Colleen Carroll Campbell is an author, television and radio host and
St. Louis-based fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. Her
website is
www.colleen-campbell.com..
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