Oh I can believe it. I regularly fight PETA, HSUS, and other groups attempts to limit MY rights to enjoy my pets. Do a quick web search on Ingrid Newkirk,Wayne Pacelle and other 'animal rights' type folks. It's illuminating.
Animal welfare? I'm all for it. But I would truly like to see the definition of 'rights'. The 'right' to freely wander where the animal chooses? The right to propogate at will? No more shelters or euthanasia as the animal has a 'right' to life as it chooses? WHat are 'rights' as applied to animals?
The only rights anyone or thing has are the rights it is able to assert.
One can talk about "inalienable rights" "rights by virtue of birth" and even the "rights bestowed by the Almighty" and yet it is all just words.
One's "rights" don't mean anything if a more powerful being or entity decides that one does not possess that right at a given time. One's right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness can be taken from one by a neighbor, a government, a criminal, a tiger or a bacterium and so are not inherently one's own always and forever. The Almighty has provided us with the gun to equalize the struggle with many of the threats to our "rights" and unholy science provides the illusion of equalizing the threat posed by others.
One's rights are what one's might (be it brawn or dollars) will secure--all other talk is so much piffle.
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