Just what we need

Yet more terrorists.

Some interesting FAQs from the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals website:

• "What do you mean by 'animal rights'?"--People who support animal rights believe that animals are not ours to use for food, clothing, entertainment, experimentation, or any other purpose and that animals deserve consideration of their best interests regardless of whether they are cute, useful to humans, or endangered and regardless of whether any human cares about them at all (just as a mentally challenged human has rights even if he or she is not cute or useful and even if everyone dislikes him or her).

It sounds like that would include guide dogs for the blind and companion dogs for the deaf and wheelchair bound, but if it were a long-term goal to end that "slavery," PETA would be understandably hesitant to reveal it at this time.

• Where does the animal rights movement stand on abortion?--There are people on both sides of the abortion issue in the animal rights movement, just as there are people on both sides of animal rights issues in the pro-life movement. And just as the pro-life movement has no official position on animal rights, the animal rights movement has no official position on abortion.

This accords with the animal-rights movement's equivalence between humans and animals.

• "Don't animal rights activists commit 'terrorist' acts?"--The animal rights movement is nonviolent. One of the central beliefs shared by most animal rights activists is the belief that we should not harm any animal—human or otherwise. However, all large movements have factions that believe in the use of force.

Notice "most" animals rights activists oppose harming any animal, but "factions" believe in the use of force. Whatever floats your boat.

• How can you justify the millions of dollars of property damage caused by the Animal Liberation Front (ALF)?--Throughout history, some people have felt the need to break the law to fight injustice. The Underground Railroad and the French Resistance are examples of movements in which people broke the law in order to answer to a higher morality. The ALF, which is simply the name adopted by people who act illegally in behalf of animal rights, breaks inanimate objects such as stereotaxic devices and decapitators in order to save lives. ALF members burn empty buildings in which animals are tortured and killed. ALF "raids" have given us proof of horrific cruelty that would not have otherwise been discovered or believed and have resulted in criminal charges' being filed against laboratories for violations of the Animal Welfare Act. Often, ALF raids have been followed by widespread scientific condemnation of the practices occurring in the targeted labs, and some abusive laboratories have been permanently shut down as a result.

Including, for example, a research lab at Oxford University. The truth is that I don't like unnecessary vivisection either, or cruelty to animals, but I'd rather see us work through legislation, negotiation, persuasion and innovation to make the change, instead of depending on people who can justify any action on the basis that they're doing the equivalent of liberating Jews from the Nazis.