Blogging evokes in me a strange mix of
arrogance and humility. It
can also be a fairly stress-free exercise
of putting down thoughts without the pressure of making things
perfect. That’s important
for my type of
personality. Still,
blogging is a sort
of art, and art is meant to be shared, even if it is only with a
few
others. Hope you enjoy.
I make weird connections and correlations. Consequently, I think I find
correlating
weird contradictions. I
move in circles
where it’s not uncommon to hear someone denouncing the personhood
of corporations. Inevitably
the criticism will include what we
all learn in elementary school, that when given rights, we are
then burdened
with responsibilities. To
be responsible
is to be held accountable and thus it is criminal for corporations
to have the
rights of people but not be held accountable as people. I agree wholeheartedly. I remember watching a
documentary where some
psychiatrist said if he were to evaluate most any large
corporation as he would
a regular person, that these corporations would more than fit the
bill as a
psychotic, dysfunctional person—a danger to society—who would
consequently be
required to be institutionalized immediately.
Unfortunately, these multi-national “persons” are protected
by law, but
are hardly held accountable by law.
Also, being “people” these corporations presently have
access to
politics in an unprecedented manner.
In
any case, I think most of us have heard this discussion before.
The funny part for me is that many of these
same people that
have ranted against corporations are also staunch defenders of
animal
rights. It kind of gives
me a brain jolt
to think that so many people believe the basis of being humane to
animals is
because they have rights. Strikes
me as
another form of attributing personhood to something that, pretty
much by
definition, is not a person—like a corporation.
Animal rights advocates are very touchy about death. Third world practices are
simply out of the
question. And I use the
word practice
tongue in cheek. Basically
when it’s
time to kill the goat, you chase it down.
Tackle it. Bind its
feet. Pull out whatever
implement you got and cut the
animal’s throat open. It’ll
die soon
enough. However, if the
animal has been
given personhood, this seems undignified.
I mean, even the mass murderer from death row gets the
dignified lethal
injection. There are some
places in the
USA where to be humanely certified, a farmer has to kill his
chickens by means
of gassing them before slitting the throats so that these
creatures will not
feel any pain. Other
humane practices
require electrocution before the knife.
Somehow, these practices bring to mind strange connotations
of Nazis and
concentration camps, which I suppose to the pure animal rights
individual, is
the point. Better to only
kill plants—oh,
and Nazi’s if they’re being evil enough to warrant it. But ultimately the problem
with giving
animals rights is that old elementary school axiom of rights being
coupled with
responsibility and accountability.
Have
you ever seen your cat play with a terrified mouse for twenty
minutes before
finally crushing its neck? The
cat keeps
letting the mouse almost
get away and
then pounces at the very last second. Or
what about the wolves or other predators that single out the young
or weak and
then run them down to their deaths?
Heck, I had a dog that would hunt hare and start chomping
on the
hindquarters before the poor thing was even dead. If they have rights,
shouldn’t they be
accountable? Better round
up all those
psychotic predators and punish them.
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