If it is wrong for the meat packers and slaughterhouses to exist, then it is wrong for the consumers of the product they produce. That is like saying that it is wrong to sell humans into slavery, but it is acceptable to own slaves.
Like those who have waged the battles for liberation throughout history, those of us comprising the animal liberation movement, collectively speaking, employ many strategies, two of which are germane to our little dialogue here.
Our strategy at the individual level is to educate and inspire “meat” eaters to become vegan, as we were once educated and inspired to do so ourselves. Despite my misgivings about our species, I have not lost faith in the human animal’s capacity to empathize with other sentient beings to the extent that eventually we’ll abandon the malevolent “tradition” of exploiting, torturing, murdering, and eating them.
But you have no right to punish or attack people that have not broken any laws. You do not have the authority do to so. If you want the law to change, there are legal ways to go about it. Maybe you get a change in the law, maybe you do not, but you do not have the right to commit direct actions because you are emotionally charged. Again, what if someone did that to you, would that be acceptable?
However, the greedy and cynical individuals and corporate entities wielding the power to enslave, torture, and murder billions of nonhuman animals every year for profit are incorrigible and irredeemable. They spend hundreds of millions of dollars lobbying (or bribing would be a more apt term) our “representatives” in our capitalist “democracy” and mind-f*cking the populace with Madison Avenue mendacities.
Are you saying that all Liberal lobbyist should be stopped? Or does it just depend on whether or not the lobbying effort coincides with your view? Everyone has a chance to be heard. That is what Lobbyist do. The represent groups of people that want something from their representatives. Your opposition to the capitalist system and democracy is about what we expected. Of course, we do not live in a democracy, we live in a Republic. We practice democracy when we vote. This is a common mistake that most people make thinking that our government is a democracy.
These actions perpetuate the insane and sociopathic practice of exploiting sentient beings (that means that they feel pain, just like you and I) so that people will continue to eat their flesh, wear their skin, drink the milk of their babies, and more because it is “normal and healthy.” Therefore, as we (again speaking collectively) struggle for animal liberation, it is moral, just and necessary to impede and assail the murder machine by any means necessary.
It took the Civil War to end that “peculiar institution” of human slavery. Perhaps history will repeat itself.
You wrote:
If you want to get into the question of the Iraq war, this is quite a shift from Steven Best and his support of direct action. In order for you to claim that this war is illegal, you first must ignore the terms of the Ceasefire from Gulf War I. It was not an illegal invasion. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news but anyone that claims that this is an illegal war does not understand that if Saddam had lived up to the terms of the Ceasefire, he and his sons would still be alive and in power to kill as many of their citizens as they felt like killing.
Setting aside the debate as to whether or not the invasion was “legal” or not, there is no sane argument demonstrating that the hundreds of thousands (a conservative estimate relative to numbers cited by a number of sources) of dead Iraqis, four million displaced Iraqis and those Iraqis living in a decimated, depleted uranium laden environment under the rule of a US puppet government are better off now that Saddam is gone. Funny how Saddam the torturer was an ally when it was in “America’s” interest. He was A-OK with the Red, White and Blue to the extent that we supplied him with the means to kill a million Iranians and tens of thousands of Kurds back in the days when Reagan sent “Rummy” to suck his co*k, figuratively speaking of course. So we enabled Saddam to kill as many of his citizens as he felt like killing when he was our ally, once his strategic value evaporated we let our puppets try him in a kangaroo court and lynch him in a fashion that would have made the Klan beam with pride, and then we took over where he left off, using 150,000 of our troops to kill as many of his citizens as we felt like killing. (Actually, past tense is not accurate—it’s present and future as well; our troops are still slaughtering away!)
He was the leader of a foreign country. We did not agree with his government, but it was a sovereign country and all we can do is to either befriend him or make him an enemy. He was more of a friend until he decided to invade Kuwait. But it is good to know that you think that American troops are targeting civilians at will. In your opinion, it would seem, we never really had any military targets, just civilians to kill randomly and as we saw fit. We think you are wrong, but I am sure the troops over there appreciate your support.
Besides, where was “America’s” benevolent concern for victims of ruthless tyrants in the many instances in which we installed and supported them?
For example:
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/US_ThirdWorld/dictators.html
Which brings me to another important point. Your strong tendency to fetishize laws puts you in direct opposition to justice in many instances, as history (and the present too for that matter) is rife with examples of legal mechanisms supporting and perpetuating abject injustice. Two such historical examples, if you are true to the image that your site projects, would be highly applicable to you. Christ railed against the Pharisees for their legalistic ways. Are you not a Christian? The Boston Tea Party, one of the catalyzing acts of the American Revolution, involved destruction of property. And the Revolutionary War itself involved a tad of violence too. Are you not a patriot?
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