Humane cause & violence

[Guest guest]

The struggle for animal rights, animal welfare, justice for

animals, & whatever else one wishes to call it is, in historical

context, one phase of the very long struggle to reorganize society

from the notion that " might makes right, " and institute instead the

idea that one should do unto others as one would be done by.

 

The following chronology, to which India has made a

contribution second to none over the centuries, illustrates the

point.

 

In all phases of this struggle, there have been those who

from time to time have claimed that their particular part of it was

so urgent as to warrant the use of violence, or have tried to

rationalize venting their own anger and frustration in the form of

violence by cloaking it in the higher cause, or have pretended that

a cause of oppression was a cause of " liberation. "

 

Defenders of these perspectives have afterward often argued

that the violence in some manner furthered the nonviolent cause,

especially if the nonviolent cause succeeded despite the mayhem done

in the name of it.

 

But simply because " Y " follows " X " does not mean that " Y "

caused " X, " or had anything to do with " X " coming to pass. " Y "

might merely have been an obstruction en route from ABC to X.

 

There are those who wish to argue that there is a place for

the nightriding tactics of the Ku Klux Klan and other such goondas in

the cause of lessening violence toward animals. If there is such a

place, it is in the place of rejected, discarded, defeated, and

abandoned self-destroying tactics.

 

There are those who wish to " debate " the use of bombings,

arsons, death threats, etc.

 

This is just debating crime. Among the very first

semi-universal agreements among humanity over prohibition of " might

makes right " was the agreement that murder and attempted murder,

arson, and other such coercive tactics were & are wrong.

 

The cause of animals is now attempting to extend this

perspective to include animals. Going backward to rescind portions

of the agreement reached thousands of years ago on behalf of humans

does not help animals; it merely retards the cause on behalf of all.

 

 

 

--

Merritt Clifton

Editor, ANIMAL PEOPLE

P.O. Box 960

Clinton, WA 98236

 

Telephone: 360-579-2505

Fax: 360-579-2575

E-mail: anmlpepl

Web: www.animalpeoplenews.org

 

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