My last post got me thinking about this issue.
One thing I have noticed that has always baffled me, and I have seen it pop up a lot on the Internet but also I have come across on TV and on the Radio as well, is the fact that for some reason I do not quite understand there is this contingency of people who get really angry at people who express a concern for animal rights. And while I grant there are some Animal Rights groups out there that can be rather extreme and I myself do not always agree with everything they do, but it seems like any time anyone brings up an issue with animals rights there is a certain percentage of people who seem almost offended as if somehow they are being attacked.
I will read a post someone wrote addressing a concern with some issue relating to animals and scanning the comments it is strange and baffling how many are negative, and angry, and attacking the poster. A lot of the time they are just hecklers and trolls and people intentionally trying to get a reaction as such that can be found pretty much anywhere, but there also seems to be this very strange mentally a lot of people have that a person has to choose between caring about animals and caring about people, and they get really mad if someone writes about an issue relating to animal abuse because human’s are also sometimes ill treated.
To give a recent example there was an article posted in which a person was expressing concern regaining the movie the Hobbit and allegations that some of the animals used in the film where neglected and treated badly and some of the animals died because of neglect. and a lot of people posted really angry at the poster because there are people who also die sometimes on working on movies to. And if said person cares so much about human lives lost in movie making instead of yelling at someone (who has nothing do with it) about it, why not write your own article addressing the problem you think is more important?
It is this really strange idea that people have that there is this competition or war between these two different issues/groups, or it is this strange nonsensical mentality that since humans are abused, ill-treated, and bad things do happen to people by default means that we shouldn’t care if it happens to animals.
I have a hard time wrapping my head around that concept. I am a very strong supporter of animal rights, and I will admit I am also rather anti-social and a misanthrope, but if I saw someone writing an article addressing an injustice done against human beings I wouldn’t be angry at them for it because bad things happen to animals too and I do happen to like animals more than I like most people.
I don’t understand why people cannot just accept the fact that it is wrong for either humans or animals to be abused, and you don’t really have to choose sides and only care about one thing or the other, you can care about both. There are some groups that dedicate themselves to trying to improve the lives of human beings and there are some people that dedicate themselves to trying to improve the lives of animals, and it is good to work on both those problems and ignoring one of those issues isn’t going to make the other go away faster.
Because there are still injustices and inhumanities against humans and that those things are wrong, doesn’t mean we shouldn’t care when it happens to animals, or doesn’t mean it is ok to happen to animals because it also happens to people. Both are equally wrong. And if a person’s passion might be towed solving the issue with ill treatment in animals doesn’t meant they don’t believe that issues regaining human injustice should not also be addressed and resolved.
Labyrinth of the Mind 