Animal Rights and Terrorism : Steve Best versus Gary Francione

September 2, 2009

Thanks to Diana Hartig for forwarding this. I would love to read a

transcript for the tactics and competing ideologies of individuals and

organisations working for animals fascinates me. If it takes the form of a

one to one debate, it attracts me even more, like NDTV's 'The Big Fight' or

BBC's 'Doha Debates.'

http://www.examiner.com/x-4198-Vegan-Examiner~y2009m8d26-Steve-Best-Gary-Francio\

ne-to-debate-animal-rights

The Examiner. 26 August 2009

Steve Best, Gary Francione to debate animal rights

Twitter has been buzzing lately about September's debate

between Prof. Steve Best of the University of Texas at El Paso

and Prof. Gary Francione of Rutgers School of Law-Newark.

Best and Francione both defend their respective animal rights

ideologies which oppose most noticeably by each's view on

violence and pacifism in the animal rights movement.

About the opponents

Prof. Steve Best

Dr. Steven Best is an Associate Professor of Humanities and

Philosophy at the University of Texas, El Paso. Best's

theory of animal rights argues for the abolition of animal use

and considers animal welfarism as inherently speciesist. Best

defends the intentional breaking of laws by means of property

destruction, trespassing, and verbal threats as a means of

animal liberation but rejects any infliction of physical harm

to sentient beings including humans. Best defends and has

spoken on behalf of the Animal Liberation Front (ALF) Best's

works include co-editing Terrorists Or Freedom Fighters?

Reflections on the Liberation of Animals and Igniting a

Revolution: Voices in Defense of the Earth.

Prof. Gary L. Francione

Prof. Gary L. Francione is the Distinguished Professor of Law

and Nicholas deB. Katzenbach Scholar of Law & Philosophy at

Rutgers School of Law-Newark.

Francione's theory of animal rights argues animal welfarism

does not provide significant protection to animals. In

Francione's model, the abolition of animal use rather than the

regulation of the treatment of animals is prescribed and is

based on sentience and no other cognitive characteristic.

Francione's position demands the animal rights movement is

strictly non-violent and lawful in its campaigns. Francione

therefore rejects campaigns of groups such as the ALF.

Francione's works include Animals As Persons: Essays on the

Abolition of Animal Exploitation, Introduction to Animal

Rights: Your Child or the Dog?, Rain without Thunder: The

Ideology of the Animal Rights Movement, Animals, Property and

the Law, and is the co-author of Vivisection and Dissection in

the Classroom: A Guide to Conscientious Objection.

The debate will be held on September 18th shortly thereafter

appearing on the Animal Voices talk show. Originally, the

debate was to feature three additional persons; Prof. Bob

Torres, author of Vegan Freaks and co-host of Vegan Freak

Radio as a third opponent, Host Anthony Marr as moderator, and

Vegan News host Adam Kochanowicz as co-moderator. The debate

was to be ordered with specific questions and alternating time

slots for each professor's respective points. However Best

and Francione have recently agreed to simplify the debate to

only themselves in an unmoderated debate with Marr

introducing.

September 3, 2009

Shub, sounds more like WW Wrestling or something you would find on

Debate.org. But hard to tell, the original page posted is gone, and doing a

search on the correct keywords on the Examiner site comes up with this, for

days now:

Article Not Ready

This article is currently being published.

It should be available for viewing in 5 minutes.

Thanks,

The Examiner.com Team

But HERE is a great analysis of the debate that NEVER happened:

http://gloomyvegan.wordpress.com/2009/08/22/prof-gary-francione-vs-dr-steve-best\

/

There u will find the ï¿½This is the Trance Offï¿½ dance and a response from

Steven Best himself. It seems these two schoolyard boys are having a tiff

and just wasting our time, unless WW Animal Rights Wrestling is your form of

entertainment.

Besides, the two are just splitting hairs. It comes down to this: is there a

war, or not? When two camps of simians have a disagreement there is a lot of

chest beating and feces flinging. I donï¿½t see anything different here;

wounds are minor but dominance is established. In the world of animal

research, the alpha laboratory males have established dominance, and run the

labs with iron fists, and use other tactics such as misinformation and a

twisting of the legal system to preserve their dominance over the less

senior animal rights activist. Any fece flinging is dealt with severely, and

all thatï¿½s left is chest beating and hair-bristling, combined with a hasty

retreat.

In modern human warfare there has always been an escalation of weaponry that

is tit for tat. If the CIA is running animal experiments using high tech

security systems to protect their work, then the logical response from

animal rights activists is to use high tech hackery to subvert these systems

and then gain access and then cause mayhem. This of course would be labelled

as Terrorism and then prosecuted under the Patriot Act, where the hacker

will never be seen or heard from again.

The idea that a plea to Congress will stop this behaviour is nothing more

then a fantasy on the part of the dominated activist, as torture there (for

all beings) is just

standard operating procedure, and has been SOP for decades.

Silverbacks are famous for chest beating and hooting, but will use their

teeth and will kill each other. I donï¿½t expect anything less from animal

abusers and animal activists when thrown in the ring.

Jigs in Nepal

Wed, 2 Sep 2009 09:25:05 -0700

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Animal Rights and Terrorism : Steve Best versus Gary

Francione