Human Rights and Animal Rights: Why does one feel more out weighed than the other at times

[jpoon]

Humans always pull rank in my book, that's all there is to it.

 

[Dragonbums]

This is why I put more work into supporting the ASPCA.

Unlike PETA, these people are actual animal cops that see the horrors of animal abuse first hand.

I'm surprised it's PETA that's still the face of animal rights, when the Animal Cops series has been going on for so long.

 

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

What exactly is the defense of people who think that animals rights come before human rights?

Not even a trick question, I genuinely want to know.

Now... I will put it like this, though I'm not in favor of treating animals like they're "above" humans, they do deserve some form of dignity and respect. Humans can stand up for themselves and speak for themselves, for the most part. Animals never have that chance, so people come to their defense much easier. I do have a tendency to flip on people who abuse animals, but that switch gets triggered for ANY lifeform that cannot defend themselves. So... yeah. I do however respect the idea of the food-chain and have no qualms about eating meat.
Too much thought into a debate like this though makes my head hurt. I just try to be decent and respectful towards all life, while maintaining a positive outlook. Doesn't always work, but its the best I can do.

 

[ShipofFools]

Human rights are more important to me.
I may be a bit biased, being human and all.

But animal rights are important too, damn it. They're living things, just like us, you know? All part of this grand mystery that is the universe.
We're in it together, is what I'm trying to get across.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Nah, you're just being willfully obtuse, the question is based on equal immediacy and visibly of need as you well know. If you are presented with two cases of hunger and the are equally easy to alleviate and you pick an animal over a human you are by very definition a sociopath.

EDIT apologies for ruined quote, phone playing up with fix as soon as I get to my pc.

Equal immediacy and visibility of need? Millions of people walk past starving homeless every day. The knowledge that there are starving people in situations of extreme privation overseas is no secret to anyone. Yet people will go out of their way to get, say, a dog, and then feed it because it's hungry.

Unless you are attempting to outline a fantasy scenario in which you have a starving dog and starving man in front of you, and you have exactly one tin of food, equally nourishing to both, and you must decide which one gets it, and no assistance of any form may be extended to the other because of mysterious reasons. But why would anyone do that? That situation will never occur, and thus it boots nothing to hypothesize about the outcome of it.

And this is to say nothing of all the people who just spend that money on themselves, say by buying...I dunno...a video game, or a fancy meal at a restaurant, or a trip somewhere exotic. All money that could have gone to save starving humans, yet instead has been frittered away on luxuries! Sociopaths, all of them!

And what of your home? Your car? Your general standard of living? It's a poorly kept secret that there are millions if not billions of people living in abject poverty. By maintaining any reasonable first world standard of living instead of donating funds to charitable organizations, you are stealing bread from childrens' mouths! What kind of person would do such a thing? I can only assume some manner of sociopath!

Or perhaps we should be less free with ludicrously over the top labels like "sociopath" when describing inter-species altruism. Not only is it patently absurd from the position of proper psychological diagnosis (let alone "the definition of the term"), it is extraordinarily judgmental, vituperative, and hyperbolic.

 

[bjj hero]

But why should we give 'rights' to a species of animal (All of them but us) that don't even understand the very concept of what a right may be?

I'm not saying we should all bust out the seal clubs and whale harpoons, but why should we?

For that very reason, because they don't understand. Rights of those incapable of understanding rights must be protected by those that do, else they become exploited, abused, or outright exterminated. It's no different than protecting children's rights, or the rights of the handicapped. Whether or not they appreciate it is irrelevant.

To put it simply: everything that exists has the right to exist.

That includes animals raised for experimentation and food production, by the way. Simply because their existence is predetermined doesn't remove their rights to have it; our interference in their ability to exist on their own takes the responsibility of maintaining that right directly into our hands.

But not smallpox...

Honestly,most animals are a resource with a monetary value attatched. Everyone talks about rights but makes no mention of responsibilities. Animals have no responsibilities which greatly reduces what rights they have access to.

 

[bjj hero]

Ultra snip!

"it is extraordinarily judgmental, vituperative, and hyperbolic" - ha ha, gosh, the only hyperbolic thing around here is your reply old chap.

Anyway, no amount of bluster changes the fact that if you feed an animal over a human it's sociopathic.

Is it not more time consuming to feed your pet dog? I could go to the store, buy dog food for the week,have to transport then store it, go to the effort of opening the tin, feeding the dog and then cleaning up the mess? Or I could set up direct payment from my account for the same value to say Oxfam or The Red Cross, your local foodbank or whoever.

It much more effort to feed a pet. Ill never give to animal charities, there are charities for people who need the money. Ill never get cat/dog people or animal nutjobs in general. No pets in my house, if nothing else theyre dirty and smell.

 

[A'tuin]

No offence, but the original post is _very_ hard to read. The text bouncing from your slang talk skills to blah blah biting head off to your superior questioning skills to existense of God to politician chasing hookers.

Reading the other comments, I realized this post had something to do with PETA and animal rights. Luckily PETA doesn't operate in nordic countries, all they seem to do is create flashy PR stunts which boosts their fame instead of actually helping animals. It's the same with Greenpeace, hijacking oil rigs and attacking fur farms, "releasing" minks into Finnish nature where they don't belong -> major disturbance to local ecosystems and the minks slowly starve to death. This severely undermines the efforts of responsible foundations such as WWF, marking all nature conservation as "bunch of hippie terrorism".

As for human rights vs. animal rights:

Don't get me wrong, humans eat animals and there is nothing wrong with that.

But how we treat the animals. With what amount of hypocrisy we scoff at violence against animals and don't think twice before eating animals that've led tortured lives just to end up on our plates or in our clothes.
The lack of morality and sense we show when it comes to treatment of animals just baffles me time and time again.

I get that not everyone has the money to buy all-biological meat and all that, but just THINK for a moment what it is you're contributing to by not questioning what happens to all these animals you devour.

Couldn't agree more. Nothing wrong with people eating animals, we're meant to be omnivores after all. Still there's huge difference between forcefed foie gras (sticking a tube down duck's throat and stuffing massive amounts of food is just torture) vs. game meat (the animal lives a totally natural life for 99.9% of the time, and the death is quicker than being killed by wolves for example). Quoting again: "THINK for a moment what it is you're contributing to by not questioning what happens to all these animals you devour."

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Anyway, no amount of bluster changes the fact that if you feed an animal over a human it's sociopathic.

Not by any definition of the term outside of the fanciful one in your imagination, alas. Nevertheless, let it never be said that I do not encourage people to indulge their imaginations.

 

[Winnosh]

This is why I put more work into supporting the ASPCA.

Unlike PETA, these people are actual animal cops that see the horrors of animal abuse first hand.

I'm surprised it's PETA that's still the face of animal rights, when the Animal Cops series has been going on for so long.

Yes don't even mention PETA when talking about REAL Animal Rights groups. The could care less about helping animals.

 

[Winnosh]

This is why I put more work into supporting the ASPCA.

Unlike PETA, these people are actual animal cops that see the horrors of animal abuse first hand.

I'm surprised it's PETA that's still the face of animal rights, when the Animal Cops series has been going on for so long.

Yes don't even mention PETA when talking about REAL Animal Rights groups. They could care less about helping animals.
The amount of documented attrocities, support for murderers and such they've committed. I'd be happy seeing every higher up in PETA in jail.