Re: Thankyou for the facts
@h4m0ny: A very nice post.
Listen to Ricky Gervais lambasting Karl Pilkington for the "monkey on the bridge charging bananas...". (in one of the podcasts).
You may not may not like RG's humour, but the way he explained the logic to Karl is absolutely perfect for this farce.
As this is a contentious issue I will throw a bit of clarity in.
IANAL, however....all of the laws of the land (whichever you are in) applies to HUMANS -specifically. We treat children (usually) as not-quite adult, based on the lack of responsibility inherent in the general HUMAN population. Therefore there are property laws for HUMANS, laws of criminality (for HUMANS in their right mind), mental ward (for those NOT), and every other biological organism on this planet is just that - an animal defined as NOT HUMAN.
We all know that the wars of the past have tried to cast the opposition as "less than HUMAN" to make it easier to treat them as animals. Hence, the modern day attempts to get "HUMAN RIGHTS" secured.
Humans are the dominant species on this planet and we can do whatever we want. However, that doesn't mean we don't have responsibility to maintain the environment. It also doesn't mean we can *mistreat* animals for our entertainment. That much I would say, is self-evident.
The PETA movement appears to be trying to approach the boundary the other way, saying that a chimp is *almost* HUMAN. They want to make the chimp get copyright so they can leverage the "ownership" right, to give the chimp proxy legal standing (so they can hire lawyers to fight on its behalf). It is madness, even without a Charlton Heston quote...
They have only one problem, and it is pretty major: the science does not support this ideology in the slightest.
So outrageous appeals to emotion are inevitable.
P.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
