Rescue Journal

i am in a foul mood tonight

Carol  ·  Feb. 5, 2009

the dogs have been at it all freaking day. usually i can count on them settling in the evening but the electrician was here, in and out and just left. gawd!!!i am freaking sick of the barking and reacting every three minutes. i finally get them settled and then there is someone beeping their horn in the driveway looking for eva's grandson's friend....dogs go nutz again... i gave them directions to eva's house...eva...colton is not allowed to have friends over after 5 pm!
grrrh. i hate chaotic evenings....and right now i pretty much hate dogs too.

anyway..i am typing so that is their signal to settle down and sleep...i might just sit here typing til midnight so i can have some peace.

my daughter called, she is writing a paper on animal ethics and advocacy. she asked me why do i think animals should be treated ethically and have rights?

i said because they are thinking, feeling, sentient beings...she asked...so if someone were to remove the ability to think and feel from a human being would that then automatically strip them of all human rights? ...hmm, ok no.

i guess if i look at it from a backwards perspective, like why do animals NOT have rights instead of why they SHOULD have rights...i see it like this....they don't have rights because they are property, property is inert, property is a "thing." this means that animals do not even own their own tails, ears and claws or even their lives...a human owns them and therein lies the legal ok.
we can legally slice the cord off our toaster therefore we can legally slice off 10 of our cat's toes. we can dismantle our 69 ford mercury therefore we can dismantle (aka butcher) our 69 cows. we can buy and sell real estate or even give it away, and so we can do the same to fluffy, rover, or black beauty.

it makes perfect legal sense.

i don't know about the stripping of thought and feeling from a human (does that make them a plant, just like me?)..all i know is we do it every day to animals and i think that royally sucks. i think tonight i am unbiased because i am saying this as a current dog hater....i'd honestly love to strip out a whole whack of vocal cords, i'd love to nuke that freaking phoebe, i would love to give jewel away "free" to a "good home" on craigslist.

there is so much i'd love to do today AND legally, because i own them...i can do it all first thing tomorrow morning.

sighing again....but even in my utterly foul mood, i know this is not ok and so i won't...but ...it is tempting....(those damn ethics in animal advocacy have screwed me to the wall.)

Comments

Linda

Ah, animal rights - we need to keep on fighting for this. Where would all of us women be if nobody had fought for our rights? Yep - still "owned" by our fathers or spouses - still unable to own property - still unable to vote. Hopefully it wont take as long for animals to have rights.....

Eva Stock

Hi Carol;

Don't blame you for being angry, I would have been too. That was a relative of Rene"s too. Her uncle. Small world hey. I guess that is what made him think it was ok to pull into the driveway. Tell Rene' it was Ryan's dad. Sorry about that. I told Colton and he laughed and said ohh. See you later. Eva