It's Em-Pathetic

Our society isn't perfect. But it tries. And it's by and large the best standard of living ever found, for the largest breadth of society... so I'm not referring to the wonderful lives of Roman emperors, the few, made on the backs of thousands of slaves. Most of us have heated homes with electricity and running hot water. That is an enormous accomplishment on a scale which has never before been matched. 

And it will keep improving, continually, wherever on the planet. 

This enhancement in comfort gave us the ability to think about things other than survival, and ultimately brought us to the focus of this rant: Empathy.

Or use any of the other synonyms-- they will all work: compassion, caring, concern, commiseration, consideration, kindness, pity or sympathy. They all mean the same thing-- becoming expansive enough to give a shit about others.

Living creatures outside of humans on Earth keep their compassion tightly reined in, saving it mostly for their babies and, to a lesser extent, the other members of their community. We humans are alone in the sheer volume of compassion we are capable of producing.

And it is that volume which causes the conflict I bring before you.

See, the Earth is a wondrous, beautiful place. It is alive, both in the sense that it houses myriad living creatures and in that Earth itself is an ongoing process full of movement and reaction. It rotates on its axis causing day and night (and he heating and cooling processes which result) and revolves around the sun, causing the seasons (and the heating and cooling processes which result). The Earth itself is internally heated and is a huge magnet, having an iron ball 4000 miles in diameter at its core. Then there are the tides, the weather and geological movement. And just for fun... volcanoes.

So the Earth is always moving. It's also very dangerous. Everything on Earth is always evolving, being born and living and dying and decomposing and ending up in a million new living things... which then die, decompose and you get the picture. Animals eat plants or other animals, bugs eat plants and some plants eat bugs, big fish eat smaller fish that eat tiny fish... it's a gore fest.

And knowing this, I wonder how it is that some people can cry out for the plight of the poor animal. Now don't get me wrong. I understand this feeling. I watch Animal Planet. Seeing the lion make his score is both thrilling and torturous, imagining what agony the last few seconds of life must be for that poor creature... but I also know how its death will contribute to the lives of so many others, all the way down to the insects that pick the bones white and the plants which are nourished by the fecal matter left all around it.

So here's my problem. The people with the 'most' compassion have formed a group called PETA. PETA stands for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. Whoa, practically a holy name, it sounds so good. But here's the rub: PETA's ultimate goal (if they get all their demands) is to see that all animals be treated as royal subjects, to be protected from harm by any and all human intervention, and to release all captive animals into the wild. That includes pets.

Yeah. Sounds dumb to me, too.

Maybe the group started out logically enough. One day, on a tour of some animal testing facility, a sensitive, politically active person saw a live kitten with its brain on the outside and recoiled in horror, resolving to stop these Frankenstein doctors from creating any more monsters. Apart from the emotional response, it is hard to reconcile their actions until we realize that this test ended polio (for example... no fact there). And I agree we shouldn't make animal's lives horrid just to find out what eight pounds of lipstick pumped into a chihuahua's stomach will do. 

But PETA's initial mission statement seems to have gotten corrupted, and they can no longer see the chickens for the drumsticks... (ugh. Maybe I'll stick with 'forest for the trees'-- the other one seems awkward) They seem to have not thought it through that if they let all the animals run free, they will soon die because: 

• They are ill-prepared to live in an environment full of predators

• They were not raised in that environment and will not know how to find food

• They don't know how to protect themselves from harsh weather

They seem not to recognize that all the animals which are used for experiments are well taken care of, well fed and when necessary, are killed painlessly. They promote science tremendously which betters life for all of us, humanity and the animal kingdom together-- where do you think animal vaccines get their approval from, anyway?

They find the raising of animals with soft fuzzy fur to be a crime as millions of these animals are slaughtered in their prime, only to be used for linings in warm jackets. I find that industry unnecessary, especially as technology produces ever more realistic artificial fur. But as it is done now, don't think these dead carcasses are thrown into the trash to rot in a landfill somewhere. No. The company would be ignoring a prime source of revenue if they did. Those carcasses are used in animal food production and for a wide variety of other uses. So their little lives aren't wasted, either. Call it recycling if you will.

They also complain about food animals being raised in poor environments. Now this is one thing I can appreciate. Nobody should have to live their lives in a crowded, dark place, and if the poor things could be given a little more breathing room and maybe had some Beethoven pumped into their pens they'd have it better until they were killed for our dietary enjoyment. 

But something the PETA people never mention is that animals living 'free' spend every moment of their usually short lives on edge. In fear. Nervous about their survival, knowing that at any moment they could be attacked and eaten. Even if they are blissfully unaware of their fates (which I doubt because of the instinct to run when approached), that still shortens their lives as the predator descends, with a very undesirable finish. 

Why doesn't that fate bother the PETA people? 

At least all the factory farm animals have abundant food and comfortable temperatures and no fear of predators-- they have a life free of concern-- until that last second when they do their service to humanity, repaying them for their not unpleasant life, free of danger.

As a matter of fact, I feel I could compare PETA and their desire to keep animals 'safe' from humanity by cruelly releasing them into the predator-filled wilds, with the religious right's desire to keep all unborn children safe from abortion so that, once they are born, they can be ignored and left to fend for themselves in the cruel, uncaring world.

It just makes no fucking sense.

Sure I think we should not go overboard with our testing. Keep in mind though, that a lot of testing came about because of an overly litigious public... the corporations ordered the testing to eliminate dangers in their products, and thereby avoid lawsuits. But if that hadn't happened, people would instead be dying of untested products. Then there would be lawsuits, and... well, you see where I am going. 

So don't go overboard with the testing. Test only those products with the potential to do human damage, and not unnecessary tests whose answers are easy to discern. Like, you don't need to throw lawn darts high and into a pen full of chickens to know that if it hits one, it'll kill it. Now there's an unnecessary test.

I also agree that it wouldn't kill the factory farms to let a little fresh air in, some light... even some room to move. I doubt the meat would get very tough if the contributing animals lived in a larger pen. We really do have to be on the lookout for people who ignore cruelty for the sake of the bottom line. When you think about it, that happens in our society, now, to people, by a number of sociopathic businessmen calling themselves bankers, CEO's and politicians... but that's a topic for another rant.

As a matter of fact, I'm thinking we wouldn't fare so badly if we were to create another watchdog group, and giving it the acronym PETU.

"People for the Ethical Treatment of Us."

The first order of business: Making sure that the mission of PETA doesn't violate OUR civil rights.