Secondhand Smoke (Blog)
Animal Rights Activists Like Wolves Picking Off the Weaklings of the Herd
By Wesley J. Smith
Thursday, March 06, 2008
http://www.wesleyjsmith.com/blog/2008/03/animal-rights-activists-like-wolves.htmlI write often here about animal rights, most often to decry the
violence in the movement. But we shouldn't lose sight of the perfectly
legal methods liberationists also apply to end the domestic use of all
animals.
One of the most effective, is to focus attention on a few discreet
alleged "abuses" of animals at a time. This is smart. Animal products
are so ubiquitous that railing against them all would be to disburse
the movement's energies and render it impotent. So liberationists
choose a few primary enemies at at time, allowing all aspects of the
movement from the theorists, to the lawyers, to the political
activists, to the terrorists, to concentrates their attention like a
knife point and do real damage.
This is why the movement is now so focused on foie gras--the product
made from overfed duck and goose livers--with a national effort
underway to legally outlaw foie gras. It worked in California. And
now, there is an attempt in Maryland to legally ban the sale of foie
gras even though none is made in the state. From the story:
"The Senate's education, health and environment committee, accustomed
to debating global warming, septic systems and high-school dropout
rates, heard two hours of testimony on the durability of goose gullets
and whether a duck feels pain as its liver is fattened up..."
This seems an odd choice because far fewer birds are killed in fois
gras manufacture than are chickens or turkeys. But it makes good
tactical sense: First, it is a delicacy, so unlike, say milk, few
people consume it and thus will not respond defensively to the
criticisms. Second, the method of fattening the livers of the
birds--forced feeding through a tube--allows liberationists to claim
that foie gras is especially cruel in both the method of swelling the
birds' livers and the alleged suffering thereby caused. Foie fras
producers scoff. They claim that the birds don't mind being overfed at
all, that birds in the wild stuff themselves in preparation for
winter, and moreover, that at least one study shows no increased
stress in the birds having food poured through a pipe down their
gullets. But empirical analysis isn't the point of the liberationists'
attack--by hook or by crook they seek the destruction of all meat
industries.
The point of this post isn't to defend foie gras but to note that
animal liberationists are like wolves picking off the weakling in the
herd. It went after sow gestation crates in Florida because there are
very few pig farmers in that state, and they knew the pork industry
would be too shortsighted to spend sufficient resources to defend the
use of crates in Florida. Now, it is attacking foie gras producers,
which are few and far between in this country, knowing that other food
industries are unlikely to rally to that small industry's defense. And
slowly but surely, various meat products and practices are being
constrained.
Credit where credit is due: This is effective advocacy and smart politics.