Spoiled Adults Behaving Badly

All of my friends know that I love my pets. I have had dogs and cats and horses that have all gotten the best treatment possible to the point of being spoiled. Guilty as charged! One would think that this makes me a supporter of the Animal Rights movement which I am not. That is not to say that was always the case. At one time I was a member of PeTA. It didn't take long, however, to find out what their real agenda was and when that happened.....

BERKELEY, Calif. (AP) — In the hills above the University of California's Berkeley campus, nine protesters gathered in front of the home of a toxicology professor, their faces covered with scarves and hoods despite the warm spring weather.

One scrawled "killer" in chalk on the scientist's doorstep, while another hurled insults through a bullhorn and announced, "Your neighbor kills animals!" Someone shattered a window.

Borrowing the kind of tactics used by anti-abortion demonstrators, animal rights activists are increasingly taking their rage straight to scientists' front doors.

Over the past couple of years, more and more researchers who experiment on animals have been harassed and terrorized in their own homes, with weapons that include firebombs, flooding and acid.

Scientists say the vandalism and intimidation threaten not just themselves and their families but the future of medical research. Specialists in such fields as addiction, eyesight and the aging brain have been targeted.

I decried those tactics (in Yahoo groups - I was not blogging at that time) when the pro-life groups used them. It is one thing to protest the clinics but it is always another to physically threaten the families of the doctors who provide abortions or do medical research on animals.

However, where the two camps depart is here....

Accompanying the attacks is increasingly tough talk from activists such as Dr. Jerry Vlasak, a spokesman for the Animal Liberation Front press office. In an interview with The Associated Press, he said he is not encouraging anyone to commit murder, but "if you had to hurt somebody or intimidate them or kill them, it would be morally justifiable."

Oh to be sure there were a couple of pro-life extremists who said the same thing. While their names escape me (since they have long been jailed for making terroristic threats) I do remember the interviews. However, Dr. Vlasak is not a lone wacko. Dr. Vlasak is a spokesperson for the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) which is a PeTA affiliate as well as a spokesperson for ALF. It should be noted that the FBI considers ALF to be a domestic terrorist organization because of it's extremist activities. ALF has (for decades) attacked fur stores and farms, medical laboratories and drug companies. It is only in the last two years that they have stepped up their actions - delving into the range of personal threats.

This is what happens when you have adults who just can't handle the fact that the average person in this country has more pressing concerns than their cause. In this case they simply can not understand that the people of this country do care about animal welfare but they also realize that animals do not have "civil rights" (as Dr. Vlasak indicated in an interview with Laura Ingraham this morning) like people do.

Most people love their animals and take excellent care of them - to the point of treating them like "children". They realize that pets fill a spot in our lives that is good, right and natural. The AR movement, under the guise of compassion, wants to release animals that have been domesticated for centuries into the wild where they will starve to death - because they simply can not fend for themselves. They also do not care that this research is where the cures for cancer, AIDS and Alzheimers will some day come from.

ALF has said that they will stop at nothing until they get their way. Sounds to me like a spoiled three year old who, in mid tantrum, yells "I'm gonna hold my breath until I get what I want!" As most parents know...this tactic doesn't work for the toddler and it will not work for these spoiled adults either.