ANIMAL RIGHTS

Why animal rights don't exist: "My point was, in essence, that rights are just not the sort of things animals other than people could have. Could animals have guilt, be blamed, feel regret and remorse, or apologize or anything on that order? No, and why so, that was the gist of my thesis: They are not moral agents like us, not even the great apes." I must say that I cannot see any way that rights can arise except through some sort of contract (implicit or explicit) or law so the idea of inborn animal rights seems mere emotionalism to me. Though I imagine that Keith Burgess Jackson might have something to say about that.

PETA's latest: Constitutional rights for fish! "Sorry, crustaceans and reptiles. You didn't make People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals' list of animals that deserve protection under their proposed constitutional amendment, which declares 'all mammals, birds, and fish will, henceforth, be defined as 'persons' in the eyes of the law.' Of course, PETA's idea of protecting animals would strip us of everything from our leather shoes to the milk in our breakfast cereal (not to mention bacon and eggs). PETA president Ingrid Newkirk has called human beings the 'biggest blight on the face of the earth.'"

Get ready to see the real PETA, warts and all . ... Showtime will air the program at 10pm (all time zones) on April 1. ... This might be the only kind of publicity PETA's self-styled 'total press sluts' would prefer to avoid. The group's radical zealots may wish this were just an April Fool's joke, but it's not."

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