Animal Rights & Genocide,

Good Advice About Evil

I recently wrote a long Monograph on the subject of Animal Welfare for a
South American Veterinary Journal.  As is always the case, when I mention
politics or morality I get an increase in nasty comments.  In the Monograph,
which I circulated to readers and posted on my Blog, I mentioned both of
these "hot buttons".  Two things have happened in the intervening week that
made me very glad that I didn't flinch about mentioning the obvious.  The
first was two articles in the Saturday newspaper and the second was some
good advice from an old and reliable source that I will pass along.

The political observation I made in the Monograph revolved around the fact
that Animal Welfare and its' shadow (animal rights) are a direct challenge
to the "Ownership" of animals in the United States.  I expanded on this fact
to wonder about how the political "Left" (particularly Socialists) has fully
embraced Animal Welfare and animal rights campaigns while the political
"Right" either supports these matters outright or selectively as elections
approach.  One need look no further than the Spanish Socialists that were
elected due to the Madrid train bombings and then immediately set out to ban
bullfighting, hunting, and guns.  The cooperation in US politics between
Democrats and many, if not most, Republicans to pass these un-American laws and to defeat any reforms (think Endangered Species Act) is scandalous to say the least.  In truth there is NO organized defender of property rights
or the culture and tradition of animal owners and users in the political
landscape.  We are treating property rights for animals like the Kelo
decision treats real estate property in that we have NO RIGHTS unless
government grants them or allows us to keep them at government's pleasure.

The best analysis of this (what I thought was original) political phenomenon
I could find was made by the philosopher/writer GK Chesterton in England 100 years ago.  He said the dirty little secret that Socialists and Capitalists
share is that they are both "opposed to the widespread ownership of
property".  Socialists want the government to own everything and control
every aspect of life.  Capitalists they think of property as a game of
Monopoly where one person eventually owns everything and everyone else owns nothing.

The moral observation I made in the Monograph was the relationship over the
past 35 years between the acceptance of greater and greater "animal rights"
and the concomitant decrease in the respect for and protection of the Human
Right to Life.  Hunting and fishing and medical experiments and pets and all
manner of animal use and ownership are being eliminated in Europe and other "western" Nations while at the same time moral dogmas in churches, church attendance, and church support dwindle.  Governments are discouraging religious practice or recognition at every turn.  Churches are abandoning any "judgments" about right or wrong.  Churches are increasingly unattended. Former moral transgressions from abortion, birth prevention, euthanasia, and homosexuality to children out of wedlock  and genetic engineering are now OK if you like them and thus are symptoms of a disappearing lack of moral agreement in society.