Good...play dead, and maybe PETA will leave you alone...
I have long believed that PETA, the Norfolk, Virginia-based “People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals,” not only gave ethics a bad name, but also people, and you might as well throw in pita bread while you’re at it. This conviction was partially based on such stunts as PETA’s using Michelle Obama in ads without her permission and offering to pay Octomom money to put a billboard on her lawn comparing herself to an overly fecund pet.
Then there is PETA’s fondness for killing puppies and kittens.
In 2010, out of 2,345 dogs and cats PETA took in under Virginia law on the pretense that it was facilitating those animals’ adoption, PETA found new owners for just 44. 63 were transferred to another Virginia facility, and seven were reclaimed by the owner. The rest, 2200 of them, were euthanized. These statistics are from PETA itself, in the documentation it is required to supply Virginia at year’s end. 2010 was actually a good year: since 1998, PETA has kept alive only one out of every 300 dogs and cats that it has “rescued,” killing more than 25,000.
Does it seem to you that the organization’s concept of being ethical to animals is to have fewer of them around? The website Pet Connection has suggested that it’s all a big misunderstanding, and that the ‘E’ in PETA really stands for “extermination.”
That would explain a lot.
Ethics Alarms 
“You can avoid reality, but you cannot avoid the consequences of avoiding reality.” Ayn Rand
Amazing how rapidly “IwannapuppyIwannapuppyPLEASE PLEASEPLEASE” turns into “Icleanedthepoopyesterdaynotmyturn” reality.
The adult version is “We are going to protect these poor animals” running into “Shit that’s a lot of money and you’re not cutting my salary to save them”
Grownups make reasoned decisions and accept the consequences of those decisions. Non-grownups ignore reality and make excuses when it bites them.
Are you talking about PETA, or the pet owners who give the dogs and cats to PETA?
Did Ayn have a dog? I can’t picture it.
Sorry. Talking about PETA…running into the reality that saving ALL dogs and cats is economically difficult.
George Orwell would have fun with this organization, AETP.
(Animals for the Ethical Treatment of People.)
Even moreso would be the emergence of PETH; People for the Elimination of The Human race. Or are they already here? sometimes I wonder if that’s not PETA’s true goal.
PETH has to be one of the worst-sounding acronyms ever. You’re not going to get into a PETHing match here, I hope…
It was the best I could do on short notice, Jack! My favorite fictional group remains Al Capp’s SWINE. Students Wildly Indignant about Nearly Everything.
PETH is a bad acronym, but VHEM (Voluntary Human Extinction Movement, pronounced “vehement”) is a GREAT acronym.
Yikes! Love it!
I didn’t mean to be “PETHetic”, guys! Jeff’s will work.
Not arguing with you, but I wonder if there are nationwide figures out there somewhere. Unfortunately, these numbers don’t don’t look remarkably different from our local Humane Society’s. There are many good, ethical reasons for euthanizing animals; there are many pragmatic reasons; there are many venal, corrupt, and cruel reasons. Without the ability to analyze on a case by case basis, it would be helpful to have at least a context for these numbers, which are pretty disturbing, albeit (alas) not surprising. N.B., “not surprising” here means in the context of animal over-population, the lack of real progress in spay/neuter programs, etc., not specifically with respect to PETA per se.
I agree completely. The stats here in Arlington Virginia and DC are quite a bit better than 1 in 300, though not great. But if I were running PETA, if I could manage to do better than this, I’d want to get out of the animal adoption business. We kill dogs and cats for our convenience, not theirs. They trust us to do better—that’s what kills me.
I volunteer at a shelter in San Diego county, and the shelters here have an adoption rate of 97% for dogs.
I think PETA only gets support because most people don’t know what PETA actually does. My ex was involved with various ethical animal rights groups (TNR programs, no-kill shelters, etc), and they would get flooded with new members whenever a news story mentioned PETA’s actual record with freed animals.
The PETA name sounds great, and the main media attention is over the ads that are against wearing fur, an ethically supportable position. Most people don’t know more.
And there have been instances of people throwing paint on the fur coats of women in NYC. Also not an ethically supportable action. No, I don’t know if the perps were PETA members or not.
In Los Angeles last year, people who said they were from PETA picketed the homes of several UCLA researchers who were using monkeys in their work. Yes, the picketing was peaceful and on public sidewalk.
The home of one researcher was damaged by fire. The police could not determine if the arsonist was a PETA member or not.
Also not an ethically supportable action.
PETA’s conduct and statement show such a devotion to situational ethics that they cannot be trusted of predicted, and the group’s use of the word ethics in its name is oxymoronic.
CREW is close behind. Well, a lap or two.
People for the Exploitation and Termination of Animals.
And then there’s us “carnivore’s” term. People Eating Tasty Animals.
Why don’t you try looking at it from the animals point of view?
Would you want to be locked in a 4’x4′ cage, for lthe rest of your life, at a no-kill shelter? For your only crime, that of being born?
Do any of you realize just how many dogs and cats there are out there to be adopted? Have you ever been to a rural “shelter”? They are NOT nice places. Some rural no-kill “warehouses” have crates stacked three / four high, with hundreds of dogs that nobody is going to adopt.
Under your thinking, it is more humane and ethical to allow a thinking, feeling, creature to suffer a life of in a cage, to save you from your perceived moral highground?
Really! I think the kindest thing that can be done for these millions of animals born out of the stupidity, and greed of those they entrusted their lives, is to to let them be free, and if that means euthanasia, so be it.
Imagine yourself, as a scared, abandoned dog, your family left you, because you became inconvenient to their lifestyle, you are 2 years old, and you have just been dropped off at a shelter, that has at best, a 12% adoption rate. You are going to live, possibly, another 10 years, in a box, with little to no real human contact. WE DONT DO THAT TO PRISONERS! Why, tell me, Why is this Okay for Dogs and Cats?
If the choice is between a lousy life and no life? I’ll take life, please. And so would you. Even if that isn’t your answer, the default answer should never be death for a living thing you can’t question. Gee—bugs must be miserable…crawling around, eating horrible stuff. Kinder to kill em all. Serial killers reason like that. Oh-oh…I hope you don’t have my address. I’m happy!!! Really!! I am!!!
Bottom line: PETA’s adoption rate is horrible, which means it isn’t trying…which means it is stacking the decks in favor of death. Your rationalization isn’t convincing–at all.
PETA’s tracking you down, Jack!
Bring it on. I’ve adopted 4 dogs, and only one of them had to be put down. That’s a.750 batting average, PETA. Match it, and we’ll talk.
Now they’ll REALLY be after you, Jack! PETA hates competition. Effective competition in particular.
The shelters in San Diego county where I live, which are “low-kill”, not “no-kill”, and they have an adopt rate for dogs of 97%.
Far far better than PeTA’s rate.
I wish I could agree; however, I cannot. And, you are completely incorrect, I would rather not spend the rest of my life locked up over being dead.
The individual loss of freedom, if you have ever experienced it, is not something that one wishes to re-experience anytime soon. If you don’t control your life, and how it is lived, or not lived, you are merely a pawn in someone elses game.
I stand by my conviction, and I would take that conviction to my maker (and i really, really hope that the almighty creator turns out to be an animal that was once used in experiments, and that all those that have harmed animals shall pass before that judge when time comes.
/rant off
I don’t doubt you, but I am confident that no animal, given the chance, would calculate the relative benefits as you do. And since we can’t talk to the animals, unless you are Dr. Doolittle, don’t you think a desire for life gets the benefit of the doubt? I sure do. And while a dog or cat is living, there is always a chance for adoption. Nobody adopts dead pets any more, sadly…
Individual loss of freedom, etc.? I’ve never been in jail, but, should I ever be in that unfortunate circumstance, and given a choice, I would take life without parole over execution any time. It’s somewhat similar to the lives led by ancient anchorites or hermits (yes, I know, they had a choice).
Life is what you make of it. No jailor can imprison my mind. Attitude is everything.
Following up with Curmudgeon. I think the debate on which is harsher punishment, the death penalty or life in prison, is pretty cut and dry. You’re not going to find many followers for that one.
Really? Then why do all the guys on death row fight so hard to live? I don’t think there are many followers on the OTHER side, except in the abstract, as in, “that poor guy is better off dead.”
Or dog.
Easy for YOU to say.
Jack, we’re in agreement. My statement was somewhat ambiguously worded, but I was trying to get across the idea that the discussion of relative punishment has been settled (death is harsher than life), and Noah’s not going to get much support to reopen it.
I believe that a few death row inmates have campaigned for a quicker process for their death, but their reasoning tends to be that they deserve to die or that their sentence didn’t involve incarceration, not that death is a lesser punishment than life.
My mistake…I was thrown by the reference to Curmudgeon. Apologies.
Agreed to Disagree good people.