Animal Rights?

[Gauntlet offline]

Well, I was just buzzing around another forum of mine, and read a pretty innovative thread. The thread was, basically, if you can put a value on human life, but hey, we're not here to talk about that. The topic had a sub-thread, about animal rights, and I read a few interesting posts, as well as somethings I've noticed outside of the forum. So, what are your thoughts on animal rights?

To be honest, I dislike animals. Y'know, a dog is fine and whatever, but you cannot pay me to take care of him. It's not that, because I hate animals, I wouldn't take care of it. It's just that I can't take care of an animal myself (besides, I have enough trouble resisting the urge to run into a car these days). My hate for animals stemmed from the lack of compassion most people show these days. I've watching TV for about two hours after midnight, up until now actually, and there have been a lot of animal commercials.

No, not those...toilet paper advertisement commercials. Those commercials for the cats and dogs without homes. Yes, those. Generally, they don't really bother me. However, tonight was a dud; I couldn't find anything to watch, so I merely flipped channels for a while. I noticed, though, that these animal commercials kept popping up a lot, asking for donations and to provide shelter for these animals. I think I only saw one commercial, that Christian fund raising program, for children in Africa.

How disgusting. Furthermore, the people in the animal commercials were hugging, cuddling, and kissing those animals. Only the host of the program--who's name escapes me--actually held the children, and looked at them. Most people I know would rather spend days volunteering to wash Bobo the monkey, or to clean up a mess from the koala bears, and would rather die than spend a day amongst sick, malnourished, and obviously financially broken children living in a run down house in an alleyway made of cardboard.

Do you people understand what I'm getting at? I dislike animal rights activists; once we can get enough helping hands working to help children, then we might look at Sparky and decide if he needs it or not. People humanize animals too much, people disregard humans, and overall, it looks like animals take priority over humans.

I'm not saying, "Oh, let's go light the neighbor's cat on fire and laugh". I don't condone animal abuse; not only is it hurting the animal, but you're also disrespecting yourself. I just don't find it sane that people appreciate animals over humans, dub their animals as "babies/daughter/son", and that animals get more attention than the distraught humans. Overall, I don't agree with animal rights; respecting animals is what should be expected of humans. However, respecting other human beings, it seems, is rather rare these days...

Now, what are your thoughts?

[DeadViolet offline]

I'm 100% for Animal rights!

[JeremyHopper offline]

I say that Animals are resources that should be used wisely. They aren't humans and shouldn't be thought of as such, but I believe in Animal rights at some level or another.

[Ghost Guest offline]

once we can get enough helping hands working to help children, then we might look at Sparky and decide if he needs it or not.

That's utopic. There will never be enough people to help the children in need. Even with all the charity groups and whatever, there will always be people suffering for one reason or another. We just can't wait until there are enough helping hands for children in order to help animals, because that won't happen. Animals deserve a big share of our compassion too. And I don't really believe that animals are getting top priority. I do hear more news of organizations that help people, than of organizations that help animals. But anyway, there are too many groups like that in the world to count them all and divide them into categories to compare.

I believe that if you're doing a good deed (which is heartfelt) you should't be judged by other people because they think that you should be doing what they consider is a better deed. And if you feel that people haven't been doing enough to help people in need, then maybe you could do something to contribute to a good cause.

[Gauntlet offline]

I'm really made to sound out like the villain today, eh? lol

You're right, ese mae. A good deed is better than none. While animals do need help, personally, I feel that people place too much priority on animals over human care. Pet food is probably a million times healthier than our food; it's packed with nutrients, protein, whatever you can think of. We have junk food like Happy Meals and the Big Whopper. I know, not everyone eats junk food, I rarely do, but it does seem like a lot of people are caring for animals a lot more than humans. When pet food brands were causing sickness and death in animals, everyone jumped.

When many drugs have side-effects like heart attacks, liver failure, and other body-ravaging side-effects, and when people are homeless or sick, nobody looks twice. Pets have healthy food, and when their food is causing sickness, people are suddenly aware of things. When humans have drugs on the markets that can kill people, when humans suffer from a chain reaction to medication, loads after loads of drugs, and when humans are eating the worst food in the world, no one gives a damn.

There will never be enough hands to help everyone in the world. Suffering is a fact of life. Humans, however, have it a lot worst off than animals in my eyes. The mere fact that some people overlook malnourished children, and go for dogs in a pound makes my stomach wrench. We do need people to help animals, but I think people are overlooking the fact that humans deserve our compassion more than a dog.

I'm not saying people shouldn't help animals, but people focus their attention on animals alone. If you can do both in your free time, help animals and the homeless, in some way, that's good. If you have to pick one or the other, I would prefer people pick humans, just because there are so many worse things that are destroying people than dogs. There are about 3 animal shelters to battered women shelters, take a look at that. An animal shelter, undoubtedly, costs less than providing for battered women and their children, but at what cost?

Which brings up another thing. People humanize animals too much, to the point where they are degrading themselves. Calling your cat your four-legged daughter, buying them a thousand dollar mattress with linen and silk, dressing them up, and preferring them over humans are just.... ugh. Look at it from a homeless person's point of view, too; they probably know no one wants to help them, and that people want to help dogs and cats. How would you feel?

People just care more about animals when it comes down to it, bottom line. I don't know how I should stress this, and if I need to remind anyone, but you should help animals in need. I believe that, when you start to take care of animals over humans, that's when it becomes a problem.

My two cents.

[Mewberries151]

I don't really have an opinion either way, nor do I really want to have one, as personally I think help should be given wherever it can be and to whomever (or whatever) needs it.

I will say this though towards the consensus that pets/animals are helped more often than humans and that is that pets and animals do not require as much care as a human being nor do they need it for as long. In addition to that, animals lend themselves a tad better towards "being helped". If a dog is cold, or hungry, or tired, more than likely it's going to go with someone who can offer it food or shelter. Humans are more tricky. It's the same reason why so many homeless people die on cold nights. It's not because they couldn't go to a shelter...it's usually because they chose not to, or left because they felt they didn't want to be there. There's a sanity factor as well...but I digress.

I stand by my first statement though. Help as many living creatures as you can (be it human or animal, or even plant sometimes). Even if it's in a small or what looks like an insignificant way, it will make a difference. ^_^

[HereticalRebel offline]

im pro-animal rights!!!! i'd like to live in america because of that... but hey! i'm not a vegetarian!!!

[Gauntlet offline]

Oh dear.

I remember creating this thread about animal rights because of a commercial I saw on TV, when, in fact, it was not about animal rights at all. It sounds more like a rant than a discussion, but at least someone more intelligent than I made something worthwhile out of it.

Oh well. Continue with the thread, I guess, though it'll probably just fall back to the other pages before it really gets anywhere.

[knifey offline]

On an actual note, I can't really see much of a difference between raising and killing animals to eat them and testing them. Call me ignorant, but that's what I view as of now.

[JesusFreak offline]

PETA strikes again!