(UPDATE–Awww. The judge dismissed the case. Of course, it took him two days to do so, rather than two seconds. That doesn’t get the legal profession off the hook.)
Animal rights? There’s no such thing. Animals with rights would actually be people.
Inalienable rights? There’s no such thing. If you murder someone you give up your right to life. I don’t blame the Founders for the mistake, though. They never dreamt that people could become so ignorant as to demand “rights” while denying responsibilities.
So, back to PETA’s latest stunt. This is a gang of spoiled, stupid children. Never treat them as your peers. There’s only one correct response to their insane claim that animals have rights. Ask them about animal responsibilities. Ask why PETA never brings murder charges against rattlesnakes or man-eating bears. Rub their delicate little noses in it.
Take a moment to revel in the stupidity. Imagine the court case. “Your Honor, the defendent, Bart the Bear…”
“…did willfully and with malice aforethought kill and eat Al Gore, aka ManBorePig.”
That is exactly how idiotic PETA’s case is. It’s precisely how embarrassed the legal profession should be for dignifying it. You think prosecuting animals is crazy? Unlike PETA’s claim, it has precedent.
This is an occasion where I covet a huge audience and national forum. Because PETA cannot answer this self-contradiction. PETA’s own argument destroys PETA’s argument. When you go to court to claim that animals are no different than people you acknowledge the difference. Else why didn’t the orcas bring the lawsuit themselves? Why aren’t they being called as witnesses? Above all, if animals are no different, PETA…how did your client Tilikum avoid prosecution for murder?!
Hey, I’m not saying he’s guilty. In fact, I’d acquit him if serving on the jury. Slaves have the right to fight and kill for freedom. Of course, there’s also these deaths to investigate. And many, many more. The crimes of animals are legion, yet somehow never prosecuted. So where’s the justice, PETA? Why do you only hold humans to a standard of conduct?
Why, it’s almost as if you believe we’re different.
World's Only Rational Man 
Though, killing Al Gore isn’t murder. It’s self defense.
But yes, if this “lawsuit” (which is a making a complete farce out of a system that is already a complete farce) goes through, I shall treat the PETA folk like animals do it.
And I’m an alpha animal.
It’s not so much that I feel alpha, that most everyone else is…gamma? “Omega” is the bottom letter, but doesn’t fit because it has bad-ass connotations.
I consider myself an Alphalpha male. Chicks tend to like me, but I’m intimidated by jocks.
Jocks used to intimidate me back in my school days (and the really funny thing is that I was always the tallest kid.) Today I’d just be “Do you feel lucky punk? Do you?”
I’m a Gibbs-style alpha. I don’t need to yell and scream at people to get stuff done, I don’t need to flaunt my masculinity into people’s faces.
You make me realize that there’s a false accusation implied in my self-characterization that I need to clear up. I can’t remember any “jock” ever being mean or intimidating to me. They were all nice people where I was from. So, it’s all in my head. Where most of my other deficiencies reside.
It’s always in the head.
Nevertheless, can I Gibbsslap you for not being clear enough?
Thank you, sir! May I have another?
PETA is getting what they want from the suit … a lot of attention.
Good point on the “inalienable rights” … I think, not quite sure. The point of the constitution is to limit government to a place below God and the individual’s God given endowment. But laws that punish man’s imposition into another man’s rights are justified. Laws that impede man from exercising his rights (generally with the intent of putting another man’s foot on his neck) are unconstitutional.
Constitutional laws are rules for keeping your “inalienable” rights that we were endowed with. The “inalienable” applies broadly to the equal and free endowment from God to “all mankind”, but then the individual can act badly and lose them. The bill of rights gives more specifics on what rights the laws cannot limit. We have the right to bear arms, but there are usage rules.
I’m not sure whether the founders considered what you said they didn’t … the more I learn, the more I find they really considered a LOT. All men have an equal and inalienable right to the endowment from God …. THAT can not be taken away by government. That seems self evident. But as with any property, there are rules for its usage that must be obeyed. But since power corrupts, the bill of rights puts more limits on government, specifically granting more rights to the individual, to equip him against evil government.
Noon whistle … just my thoughts … thanks for yours. PETA is screwing the pooch … if dogs have rights, who will have dogs?
Yes, by inalienable they meant that nothing else, not government nor person, can legitimately usurp human rights. But that’s not what they said. Maybe they considered adding “….obviously you forfeit those rights by murdering, raping or torturing. Duh!”
But as is, the Founders claimed inalienable rights to life and liberty while simultaneously making provision for executions and imprisonment. You can’t claim a man has an inalienable right to life and hang him for treason. I contend that they messed up by not putting that “Duh!” down on paper, stupidly obvious as it would seem to them. My evidence? The millions of today’s Americans who constantly scream about their rights without ever acknowledging their slightest responsibility.
Semantics perhaps … can God make a bigger stone than he could lift? Does a right to life mean you shall not surely die? lol
God went to the bother of saying what the conditions were, but the constitution is about “negative rights”, and sets limits for government. Laws emerge in alignment with these principles. (or used to)
“A negative right is a right, either moral or decreed by law, to not be subject to an action of another human being (usually abuse or coercion).” To use Justice Brandeis’ famous phrase more broadly than he used it, negative rights are “rights to be left alone.”
To be left alone = inalienable, as I see it.
http://unenumerated.blogspot.com/2005/10/negative-rights-and-united-states.html
In the context of the constitution, the intent seems to define what could not be taken from a (good) citizen. To get into penalties for breaking the laws might have been putting the cart in front of the horse. The “Duh” was there, but that was for later … this was to declare a grand idea of God and Citizen first, government subject to them.
Sweet land of liberty of thee I sing …. but we will hang you if you murder someone … they didn’t include that in the song. They were right to leave it out of the song and the Declaration 🙂 Obama has expressed his disappointment in the negative rights constitution, and wants positive rights … what government must provide to you …. home, job, health care … womb to tomb. Obama has them screaming, but only because schools have brainwashed them. I’m thinkin’ the founders stayed on message … the “duh” would have distracted.
I guess it could feel like semantics, but it doesn’t seem that way to me. We have an increasingly dictatorial government that bears ever-less resemblance to the Constitution. I try to account for all the reasons why. Lack of personal responsibility is a major one, to me.
Certainly that is true … and it is true of lawyers and politicians. “What can we get away with” is the standard. Pay to play is the law. A nation of reprobates is just fine with those guys. Little entitlement promises for the proles helps keep them in line.
Hard to blame wording in the constitution when half the judges want to change it anyway. Probably will take some watering of the tree of liberty to stop the gradualist march to the left. I think the founders foresaw that.
I don’t want to seem like I’m “blaming” the Founders. The mistakes they made were not detectable prior to being made. But given what’s happened since, improving on their work is child’s play. Assuming human liberty is the goal.
Bill’s pretty spot on.
An old check for whether something was a Right was whether it created any force or action against another; and whether it deterred someone’s force or action against you. Rights are containerized to you and you alone, for your benefit, and do not impart the ability to inflict something on someone else.
Anything compelling another is relegated to the social system the parties live under, and governed by its rules. (It may be called a right but it exists as part of the society, remove the society and it goes with it.)
The order for murder and such as you listed, Wormme, is very simple:
The murderer is attempting the deprive the other of life, violating their Right. Because of that violation the individual has the Right to preserve their Right by force; should they fail the society can enforce a penalty to protect others.
It’s important to remember the collective nature of all societies; they are aggregations of people who will act in self defense against people harming their Rights and, as given by the particular system, Privileges.
The harming of another’s Rights releases the society from its obligations to protect the offender’s Rights. Rights are only protected by a society so long as the individual complies with the society’s expectations. That was really an inherent assumption for the Founders.
Inalienable Rights, in my opinion, mean those rights that scholars at the time were considering as beyond a society’s scope: Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. (Again note the explicitly personal nature of these, and the complete lack of a guaranteed outcome for them.) The better theory of the age held that there were rights, beyond the society’s reach, which people might temporarily yield for a perceived benefit, but could not fully discharge. Part of the theory was that a society could ask too much or push too much, or, as in some theory formulations, naturally decay; the failure of the society automatically released the former members from their obligations. This theory posited a return to an origin status of being ‘Naturally endowed’ with their natural rights and ‘equality’.
In short, to them, it was an Inalienable Right because it was a constant that people automatically reverted to when Governance failed, they were wronged, or society grew better.
You guys are right, and I wasn’t clear enough in my apparent attacks on the Founders and freedom philosophers. As you say, MG, personal responsibility was an inherent assumption. Far-seeing as some of them were, apparently they never envisoned societies so rich that this obvious fact was forgotten.
But it was, at least by enough people that we’re in our current crisis.
It was nice of Edo to pose for the picture. And brave of nice of that little fella to stand next to him to provide scale.
What shall I say, I had time and the fans were going crazy. Ah, the things I do for my fans.
Ahh, I miss Bart. Did you guys see “The Edge”? Excellent movie.
A recommendation from Worme is not to be taken lightly. Put it on my list. Right up there with Loo Me Say RHGHGHAAA Bluh.
It was kicked out by, surprised, a Clinton apointee: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/02/08/judge-tosses-out-case-seeking-slavery-protection-for-killer-whales
OT, Iowahawk . . . What can you do with Iowahawk but just stand in awe.
And laugh a lot.
And I’m a major Eastwood fan.
Yeah, just read that. I bet it’d be even funnier if I’d seen the commercial.
I’ve worked with militant vegetarians that tried to get me to give up eating meat because “humans are just another kind of animal so it’s morally wrong to eat them!”
I usually just tell them that I’ll give up meat when they convince sharks and tigers to eat only salads. Typical response: “But it’s natural for them to eat meat!”
Plants are alive too … vegetarians have no respect for the Secret Life of Plants. And plants are so defenseless …
Dude, eating rice is genocide.
Do you have any idea how many kids people are boiling and eating in a single bowl of rice.
Each one of those only wanted to grow up and be a strong plant and have dozens of little rice-lings, but nooo, some idiot animal had to come along and murder thousands.
Let’s not get into who all has to die to make flour.
I’m totally serious here; join me in calling for a life free universe; it’s the only way, for justice.
You ever see the joy in a vegetarian’s eyes when he rips the skin of some raw fruit or vegetable … then lets its life juices drip from his lips … after tearing the young fruit violently from its parental grip … plants have rights too dammit.
I’d get into the torture grasses endure in these vegetarians “well manicured” lawns, and all the bugs that are mangled as they mow … but I have to go have a good cry now.
You don’t even have to bother about poking holes in PETA’s rationale. All you have to do is say, hippocrate!
http://www.wvec.com/home/PETAs-euthanasia-rates-highest-in-Hampton-Roads-125837098.html
cheers
They are impervious to shame, aren’t they? Of course that’s true of almost everyone trying to boss others around.