Posted on 05/11/2005 7:38:54 AM PDT by DogByte6RER
PETA's silence, hypocrisy
By: RICK REISS - For The Californian
Zoos have always been popular with the public. My family and I are longtime members of the San Diego Zoological Society. A trip to the zoo is the best way to see up close wild and exotic animals from around the world.
In just a day at the zoo, you can see critters from tropical rain forests to African savannas without risking exposure to Third World diseases and genocidal regimes.
While no zoo is perfect, most are nonprofit organizations striving to preserve endangered species through care and captive breeding programs.
The San Diego Zoological Society is the gold standard for the preservation of wildlife worldwide.
Despite this, extremists at the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals recently staged protests against the San Diego Zoological Society. PETA objected to the euthanizing of an elephant that had been transferred from the San Diego Zoo.
Two sidebar questions: Aren't humans part of the animal kingdom? And where were the PETA protesters when Terri Schiavo was "euthanized" through dehydration and starvation?
Anyway, in 2003 the San Diego Zoo transferred several elephants to Chicago's Lincoln Park Zoo. The San Diego-based elephant Wankie was recently transferred from Chicago to a zoo in Salt Lake City and was euthanized due to health problems caused during the transit.
PETA is now demanding the head of Doug Myers, executive director of the San Diego Zoological Society. No doubt this was a tragic aberration and folks like Myers are mortified.
Maybe the zealots at PETA have too much time on their hands, or more likely, they just have misplaced priorities. Why does PETA foam at the mouth over unintended tragedies in our American zoos, yet remain silent at the wholesale government-sanctioned slaughter of African wildlife?
Last month the Marxist dictator Robert Mugabe ordered the slaughter of all big game wildlife on Zimbabwe's animal preserves. Since taking power, Mugabe has seized private farms and instituted Soviet-style land reforms. Once the breadbasket of Africa, Zimbabwe now stands on the brink of mass starvation.
The country of Zimbabwe is now cannibalizing itself. Government directives mandate the widespread slaughter of elephants, giraffes, lions and rhinos. Zimbabwe park rangers and soldiers are carrying out Mugabe's orders.
Several elephants were shot in front of shocked tourists at Lake Kariba. They were later barbecued for Mugabe during a Zimbabwe independence day celebration.
Where is the outrage from PETA? Their silence is deafening.
While PETA demands the firing of Doug Myers, they remain quiet about the bloody dictator Robert Mugabe.
Equally outrageous are reports from the Center for Consumer Freedom that PETA put to death more than 10,000 dogs and cats at its Virginia headquarters. Apparently, it was cheaper to euthanize these former pets so that PETA could afford campaigns comparing your dinner plate to the Holocaust and to fund the domestic terrorist group Earth Liberation Front.
How's that for hypocrisy?
Rick Reiss of Temecula is a regular columnist for the Californian. E-mail: RickReiss6@netscape.net.
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Primates
Superfamily: Hominoidea
Family: Hominidae
Subfamily: Homininae
Genus: Homo
Species: H. sapiens
Please note the "Kingdom."
They were minerals (i.e., "rocks").
Well, if you took out all the duplicate votes and subtracted the dead voters, the percentage would be significantly less.
Don't forget all the felons.
True.
It can be quite easy to smoke out the guilt laden PETA nuts. Ask them if a bear snatching and eating a fish from a stream is considered nature. They should answer yes because they don't want to get in a bear's face. Then ask them if a human catching and eating a fish from the same stream is nature. They will either a) realize how foolish they are, or b) argue that we (humans) are not part of nature. Either way, you will win the argument or smoke them out by exposing their belief that humans are an inferior enemy to nature.
Since most PETA militants are also tree huggers, another interesting approach is to tell them how much pain fruits and vegetables feel when they are harvested and eaten. You will then find out that trees have feelings, but fruits and vegetables do not.
I thought we evil humans were foreign to planet Earth and are the cause of destroying it with our evil capitalism and evil CO2 emmissions.
I was trying not to pile-on.
Re: No we are not "animals"...
Human beings are classified within the animal kingdom through the Linnaean system of classification.
It is this system of classification that utilizes the categories of genus and species (among others) in which the name "Homo sapiens" is derived.
Unlike animals, Homo sapiens excercise free will and conscious thought through the souls and spirits that we are endowed with by our Divine Creator.
We may have physical bodies (i.e., "shells") that are in essence the bodies of animals...yet we also possess those innate added dimensions of spirituality, reason, culture, insight, creativity and other uniquely human characteristics that separate us from the beasts.
The reference comparing humans to animals only relates to the physical. The Linnaean system of classification is based upon the theories of Charles Darwin.
While I am not a knee-jerk evolutionist, I do believe that Creationism and the Theory of Evolution are NOT mutually exclusive. I beleive that the two ideas can dovetail together.
For more info about the Linnaean system of classification, go to:
http://anthro.palomar.edu/animal/animal_1.htm
We're certainly part of the ecosystem!!
From the PETAphiles I've met, I can assure you: it's both!
Regardless of what you post, I will not agree. Yes I will deny it until the day I die and them I will be satisfied.
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