Animal rights and vehicles. What on earth could these two concepts have in common? Actually, they should have a lot in common but they don’t. Why? Animal rights activists don’t discuss them. They like people to think that they care about animals and are working to protect them from needless harm. Sounds wonderful doesn’t it? Yet, they conveniently ignore the carnage on our roads.
Why do they ignore this issue? I suspect the reason is that animal rights protest industry activists avoid the political heat of attacking activities that many people perform. Attacking the behavior of masses of people is the short path to political suicide. Animal rights protest activists, of course, are smarter than that. Or should I say, that most of the animal rights protest industry activists I have met were certainly smarter than that.
From one perspective, it makes sense to discuss issues that are more likely to be changed in our society. Okay, I can accept that. But doesn’t it seem a bit sneaky to not state the complete goal of one’s ideology? For example, pro-life activists will work to stop certain forms of abortion, but they are very clear that they oppose all abortions done except to save the physical life of the mother. Why don’t the animal rights activists make a similar declaration about their ultimate goals? Why don’t they tell society that they are against all animal killing, including that done by vehicles and that they will be enacting regulations to stop the carnage on our roads?
If someone has an answer I would love to hear it.
Stephen M. Vantassel is a major critic of the animal rights protest industry and loves to debate the topic when animal rights protest industry activists feel brave enough to engage in the dialogue.