PETA

[Clay Davenport]

Florencia

You have apparently missed the entire point of what I have said concerning pet keeping.  
It has absolutely nothing to do with your pets being carnivores. The issue is not what you feed them in captivity, the issue is the captivity itself.
And yes, animal rights is an all or nothing prospect. You just seem to want to focus the topic only on the consumption of animals. The idea of animal rights is much broader.
If an animal has the right not to be used for a utilitarian purpose, then it has the right not to be used for any utilitarian purpose. This includes anything we use animals for, food, clothing, work, and yes, pets as well.
The point is you cannot selectively apply which uses the animal has the right not to be used for.
If you feel the instant death of an animal is cruel, but the confinement to a cage is not then I have no ability to debate that point because your reasoning is flawed.

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">And *that*, my friend, is the benefit of being a captive pet: free food on a regular basis, plus freedom from predators.
</td></tr></table><span id='postcolor'>

Ok, then based on your own opinion what if you were confined to a house, for your entire life. Lets even be extravagant and say a mansion in Beverly Hills.
You were not permitted to leave that house unless someone else had a short need for you to be out momentarily. You were provided with food, TV, and nice furnishings, and protected from the dangers of this world such as car accidents, thieves, weather disasters, etc, but you were never allowed freedom to do anything of your choosing outside that house.
Would you consider that a benefit, or a better life than you could lead with freedom.
The point is if the subject directly affected does not perceive any benefit, none exists. I may think you are better off inside that house. Your life may be extended by many years. You would not experience the cares of all those unfortunate people who had to take care of themselves.
But you would not have freedom, you would be completely subjected to the actions of others for your entire life.

You simply cannot consider other uses for animals to be unacceptable while you yourself keep caged animals.

The other quote of interest
</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">That is, either you think ALL animals are the same and you'd eat the meat of a crow or a hagfish or a tarantula or whatever...or...NOTHING: you won't eat any animals because they all hold the same value to you.
</td></tr></table><span id='postcolor'>

This reasoning bears no relevance. What you are describing is a choice, not a moral stand.
I have no moral objections to eating a tarantula, or any other organism that inhabits the earth, I merely choose not to. Other cultures are far different and tarantulas are a common food source for them.
The difference lies in the vegans which do not eat meat on moral grounds, i.e. they feel it is inherently wrong to use animals for this purpose.
There is a huge difference in personal preference, and percieved moral requirement.
The same situation would apply to someone who likes porkchops, but is not fond of Ribeyes. It's only personal preference, and therefore contributes nothing to the debate.

One last point. Cnjreptiles posed this question:
</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Question, how can PETA support groups that kill or hurt people and fight for animal rights?
Are we not living creatures as well?  Do we not have rights as well?  </td></tr></table><span id='postcolor'>

You need only to look to the words of Ingrid Newkirk herself for those answers:
</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">"Humans have grown like a cancer. We're the biggest blight on the face of the earth." (Readers Digest, June 1990)
</td></tr></table><span id='postcolor'>
</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">"I am not a morose person, but I would rather not be here. I don't have any reverence for life, only for the entities themselves. I would rather see a blank space where I am. This will sound like fruitcake stuff again but at least I wouldn't be harming anything. All I can do-all you can do-while you are alive is try to reduce the amount of damage you do by being alive." (Washington Post, Nov. 13, 1983) </td></tr></table><span id='postcolor'>
I think she makes it abundantly clear what her position is concerning the human race. It is only too bad that the second quote by her isn't reality.

 

[Florencia R.]

Why the fuçk are you asking ME about why PETA hurts people? I'm not the leader. I'm not a member, or even a supporter. I just don't agree with any living being getting hurt, human or non-human. Please, don't burn me as your effigy, I'm not who or what you're really fighting against.

And anyway....People in fact are NOT meant to eat meat, and I know this for a fact learned from a [albeit short] lifetime of working with animals, including comparative anatomy/physiology. (I won't even bring up the point about how we're evolved from monkeys and apes, who eat a 95-100% vegetarian diet.) Consider the following:
*If people were meant to eat meat, then why are we built with no fangs, no venom, no claws, a weak body (compared to a chimp of the same size, who is ten times stronger), etc., all of which are found on carnivorous and omnivorous animals? Instead of all these we have the grinding molars of an herbivore.
*The intestinal tract of herbivores is much longer than that of a carnivore; 10-12 times the length of the body in herbivores and 2-5 times the length of the body in carnivores. It is much shorter in the latter because meat spoils quickly, even within the body, and releases toxins, so it is digested and passed quickly to eliminate the risk of damage. The human gut is 14 times the length of the body. This is why heavy meat comsumption causes high cholesterol, colon cancer, and other problems in humans but not in carnivores.
*Carnivores have very strong acid in their stomachs to digest meat. Herbivores' stomach acid is 20 times weaker. The latter is true in humans as well.
*High cholesterol is a problem not found in carnivores, since their bodies are built to break down cholesterol (a substance found only in the soft-walled cells of animals) and yet it's an enormous problem with humans. The countries with the highest rates of high cholesterol, heart disease, cancer, osteoperosis, and stroke are also the ones with the highest rate of meat and dairy consumption. And at the same time, vegetarians and vegans have drastically lower risks of these diseases. Linked to the note above about meat releasing toxins:
"I have found of 25 nations eating flesh largely, 19 had a high cancer rate and only one had a low rate, and that of 35 nations eating little or no flesh, none had a high rate." (Rollo Russell, "Notes on the Causation of Cancer") There are many other sources for this info but this is the one I had on hand.
The quote is in reference to the fact that steroid metabolites and other carcinogens are released into the body while meat is digested in the long gut of an herbivore.

There's much more on the subject, of course, but I don't have the time to sit here all day writing up posts...

 

[Florencia R.]

I never brought up the issue of keeping animals in captivity, and I certainly don't want to argue about it. You're less playing the devil's advocate and more just looking for something to argue about. Here's my viewpoint on the issue, mine all mine. If I'm keeping the animals in captivity, yes, it perhaps restricts them a bit. That's why I don't think people should keep monkeys or lions or whatever, because they get so depressed...they mutilate themselves, they go insane...Even parrots, such social animals with complex social structures, are separated from each other, their wings are clipped, and they're kept alone in a cage, relying on its human for much-needed affection. With the intelligence of a four-year-old, it's no wonder birds in these situations end up with behavioral problems.

Now reptiles....They're a different story. Yes, they're quite intelligent, they can recognize people, etc., but they are nowhere near mammals, at least in the capacity for mental anguish. If my axolotls hate being caged up, then why do they swim up to the front of the cage and wiggle around? Because they want me to feed them, of course. But they seem pretty happy to me. They sure get excited when they see me. You know, it's a trade-off. Contact with animals makes me happy, and since I can't go live in the middle of the Amazon rainforest, where I could see all kinds of beautiful wildlife right in my own backyard, I have to compromise.
God put animals here for us to use; more specifically, to help us and to make us happy. That one guy that said I'm a charlatan can agree with me at least that far. I think my pet snakes would rather be in their cages where it's warm and safe than be in a bucket of snakes getting skinned for soup...if they used colubrids and pythons in that sort of thing, heh... The former is a much better way to "use" animals than the latter, don't you think?

 

[franklinedwards60]

Here is a list of human teeth. If we were not ment to eat meat then why do we humans have Canine teeth?

Which are ment to tear meat.

Tooth Eruption Cart
Tooth Primary Permanent
Upper Teeth
Central Incisor 8-12 months 7-8 years
Lateral Incisor 9-13 months 8-9 years
Canine 16-22 months 11-12 years
1st Premolar  - 10-11 years
2nd Premolar  - 10-12 years
1st Molar 13-19 months 6-7 years
2nd Molar 25-33 months 12-13 years
Wisdom Tooth  - 17-21 years
Lower Teeth
Central Incisor 6-10 months 6-7 years
Lateral Incisor 10-16 months 7-8 years
Canine 17-23 months 9-10 years
1st Premolar  - 10-12 years
2nd Premolar  - 11-12 years
1st Molar 14-18 months 6-7 years
2nd Molar 23-31 months 11-13 years
Wisdom Tooth  - 17-21 years


teeth link

this will tell you how the human digestive tract breaks down all food including Meat

As to pets.

If you believe you are right in saying people should not have Lions and Monkeys. Then anyone who says you shouldn't have a reptile would be right. So if this is what you believe then you are basically taking your own animal away from you.

We have to be open and fight so we all can have what ever pet we chose and not let oters decide what is best for us.

The minute we do we will all lose are pets one by one.

That is why you need to think of the big picture on anything you want to support.

Just like gun laws. They take guns from honest people. Because a crimimal will get a gun with no reguard to the law.

Same thing if you let them start they will not stop until they have all our animals taken from us.

 

[Florencia R.]

Oh golly, I'm not leading the whole revolution, here, I'm just saying that I think exotic mammals shouldn't be in captivity. I can think whatever the heck I want about keeping animals, because it's my damn opinion. If you take one thing out of every pice of writing I've put on this forum, remember this: IT'S MY OWN OPINION! DAMMIT! My theory makes perfect sense. You can disagree with me if you want, but it's silly.
Now, really, I don't want my pets taken away from me any more than you do, and I'd most certainly hate to see the fall of the herping industry, however...Ideally, laws wouldn't create precedent for other laws, but they do, so it's understandable that you're nervous, but COME ON! It's PETA, here, not anyone that the lawmakers take seriously. Anyway, what if that was how people decided on laws? Then there wouldn't be any laws at all, for fear that other laws might someday down the line arise as a result. But that's not a realistic way to think. What about animal welfare laws? I'm sure most of you agree with me that breeders who keep their animals in terrible conditions shouldn't have any animals, and there are laws, loose laws that are rarely-enforced, that enforce those laws. But it's better than nothing. What if we didn't even have them?

Okay...teeth...

You can't be serious. Teeth debate? Foo..
Canines are meant to get a good chokehold on your prey, but these teeth I'm talking about are long and sharp, real canines like those you'd find in a lion or a bear or a baboon.. Our canines pale in comparison, and they're no more useful for cutting meat than are any of our other teeth. Have you ever tried to eat steak without a fork and knife? No, I doubt it, mainly because it's bad manners, but also because you couldn't do it! You may as well try to eat it with a plastic spork. Our canines, so-called only because they're pointy like the canines of some other animals, are much more suited for tearing the flesh of, say, an apple or other tough-skinned fruit. It would be hard to bite an apple without those little guys, wouldn't it?

 

[Ken Harbart]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">My theory makes perfect sense. You can disagree with me if you want, but it's silly. </td></tr></table><span id='postcolor'>
It neither makes perfect sense, nor is it silly to disagree. What people have been trying to get at, Florence, is that your opinions are based on flawed logic and pseudoreasoning.

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">but COME ON! It's PETA, here, not anyone that the lawmakers take seriously.</td></tr></table><span id='postcolor'>
Lawmakers have taken PeTA seriously. It's hard not to take a multi-million dollar organization seriously, especially when they have their supporters (PeTA only has three members) contact legislators and rally on Capitol Hill. Additionally, PeTA has ties to the HSUS, a group that superficially appears less radical, and is more strongly represented in Washington.

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Have you ever tried to eat steak without a fork and knife? No, I doubt it, mainly because it's bad manners, but also because you couldn't do it!</td></tr></table><span id='postcolor'>
Funny you should ask. Yes, I have eaten steak without any silverware on a regular basis. I tend to spend a good deal of time abroad. I've found myself in the Middle East, where silverware was a luxury not available to us. I've eaten quite a few tough varieties of meat, sans a fork and knife.

 

[Florencia R.]

Oh god...Think whatever you want..That was my point from the beginning. The only thing I want to know is why you're so adamant about questioning me and proving me wrong.
What I meant by... "my theory makes perfect sense. You can disagree with me if you want, but it's silly."...was not that my theory is perfect, nor that you're stupid if you disagree with me. I just worded it loosely, and had I said it to you with the tone I was hearing in my head, you would have realized that I was just trying to say "this is what I think, feel free to agree or disagree." If you can find something in this post to fight about, then you really need to just relax, breathe, and let it go....That's what I'm doing, and what I tried to do before but you just insist...No more, I'm through with this..

How about some peace on this forum? Please? I already tried to be nice and explain myself without "hurting anybody's feelings" or whatever I'm doing to trigger your anger but really, why all the aggression? F##k, people, this is a forum, not a debate on CSPAN!

 

[Darin Chappell]

Florencia,

You wrote, "Nobody has yet explained *why* they eat some animals but not others."

It's like this:

Deer tastes good, but possum is too greasy.  So, I eat one and not the other.  However, it is morally equal to consume either of them.  I just choose my diet based upon my individual tastes.

By the way, what's up with the foul language from you?  You can't have a psuedo-debate without resorting to trash?  Cursing does nothing but suggest an inability to express one's self otherwise.  Nice.

 

[Florencia R.]

Well I'm really not cussing all that much, compared to many of the other posts I've read...Regardless...How would you feel if you were new to this forum and when you posted for the first time everyone immediately attacked you because they assumed you were some crazy left-wing liberal? You'd feel pretty scummy, wouldn't you? Now, say you're the kind of person that assumes that all people have some good in them, and thus you feel safe about posting something about your own beliefs..only to be met with a gang of people telling you that you're an extremist, that what you think is wrong, that you're trying to impose your crooked beliefs on others, and that you're generally leading the completely wrong lifestyle. Don't argue with me on this. How would that make you feel? So excuse me if I say a couple of "bad" words but it seems to me that all the words I'm using are the wrong ones...

 

[Florencia R.]

Anyway, how do you know I'm not just typing a bunch of pound signs instead of expletives, as in fact this is what I did for all but one or two of them.

 

[P120_Cartman]

I think PETA can do what they want just leave the rest of us to do the same!!!!!~ <img src="http://www.faunaclassifieds.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/mad.gif" border="0" valign="absmiddle" alt=''>

Now as for bombing and murdering people just to get people not to eat a hotdog or something Shi# if anything they're ten times worse then any of us!!!!!!

How badly d you want to save a freaking cow (Ex)? <img src="http://www.faunaclassifieds.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/confused.gif" border="0" valign="absmiddle" alt='???'> I mean come on there bred to be fed to bigger more powerful people..Humans are at the top of the food chain, not for saving the cow (Ex) but eating it!!!!!

On a better note if you let animals run your life, whats next the world?
ha just think of that!!
SOmethings are meant to die for others to live, if nothing died nothing could have of lived.

Just think of how many Fuc*ing  Vegetables died for your salad (SP)?<img src="http://www.faunaclassifieds.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/confused.gif" border="0" valign="absmiddle" alt='???'>

 

[Arboreals of the Rainforest]

I love this letter to PETA.  Enjoy.

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Dear PETA
As I set here in my mink lined Ostrich skin house slippers eating a beef jerky stick while enjoying all the animal mounts in my den under the light cast threw my real silk worm silk lamp shades and suffering from a serious bloat from the lobster dinner I just had, I have but one thing to say to you,  <img src="http://www.faunaclassifieds.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/tounge.gif" border="0" valign="absmiddle" alt=''> .

Now sirs, if you don't mind I will adjourn to my bear skin rug and play a naked cherub with a turkey drum stick as a harp and watch all the rats I just brained get eaten by all my perfect enslaved Basins that will soon be forced to breed for me so I can profit off their young.  But before I do that I must pick the lobster remains from between my teeth with the whale bone tooth pick I have soaking in Black Rhino horn juice next to my lifetime supply of dried Panda gal bladders for medicinal use only.

God I miss clubbing baby seals while wearing my Silver Fox skin fur coat and sea turtle hard hat lined with Angora.  Maybe you can send me a list of people you protest so I can call them and join in the fun again.  I still have my club made from the femur of an elephant we slaughtered for the Ivory.

Yours Truly,

The Animal Prostitute</td></tr></table><span id='postcolor'>

 

[P120_Cartman]

Rock on LOL best letter ever!!!! <img src="http://www.faunaclassifieds.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/tounge.gif" border="0" valign="absmiddle" alt=''>   <img src="http://www.faunaclassifieds.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/tounge.gif" border="0" valign="absmiddle" alt=''>  <img src="http://www.faunaclassifieds.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/tounge.gif" border="0" valign="absmiddle" alt=''>
who wants to bet when they get it hey piss there pants and nearly die i have 50$