Extremes (Dawn, 20060530)
This is positively the final installment in the Animal Rights/Animal Welfare debate of the day. I managed to hear a recording of the segment. It was... interesting, and of course showed that there's still work to be done to make people AWARE of what's wrong with the current situation. Dawn has also, once again, put into succinct words, her thoughts in the aftermath of the radio segment:
"Do not be so eager to deal out death and judgement. Many who live deserve death, and many who die deserve life. Can you give it to them, Frodo?" - Gandalf ChronologyExtremes That was an interesting discussion on Yakety Yak about animal rights. I missed the first 5 minutes or so because I was fiddling with my RealPlayer and wondering why it wouldn't tune in. Thanks Calsifer for sending in my blog entry. It was strange that they read it just before I went on air.
It was quite interesting that people were saying that animal rights activists if left to go to the extreme would change the world and not allow other people to eat meat, or have pets, or a whole range of other things. In every realm of human activity, there will be extremists. There are people who believe that to protect an unborn baby, it's permissible to kill other people or blow up a clinic. There are people who believe that to protect the purity of one race, it is fine to exterminate another. Some others think that in the name of religion, it's acceptable to kill. There are people who have subverted every human activity to extreme ends, including religion, ethnicity and just about anything you can think of.
It also predisposes that people would impose their beliefs on others and not take into account what they feel at all.
So why judge people by the worst? We can always look into the abyss of the soul and see the worst that humans are capable of - or we can try and find the positive and try to be more like that. The same best impulses that drive what is purest about humans are the same that we should extend towards animals - compassion, empathy and an awareness of another's suffering. If we can find it in ourselves to extend it to those who are most helpless, whether they be human or animal, then it speaks volumes of our humanity.
- Radio segment on Tue, 30 May: Is Animal Rights Activism a waste of time and resources?
- Animal Rights is not the same as Animal Welfarism?
- Animal Rights/Welfare - do we know the difference?
- Go to Pawprints: TNRM - Go to SINGAPORE UGLY / Casefile: Cruel Singapore. Hack-care Singapore. - Go to HDB bans cats - government body chronically misconceived - Go to Singapore's Love-Hate Relationship with Trap-Neuter-Release Management - Check out the purrsNswipes Adoption Guidebook - Meet our homeseekers - Go to Pawprints: TLC for cat minon requisite education - Go to SOS and see how you help some Singapore animals in need
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