This sweet soul was thrown out of a car window. Now in rescue.
Friday, April 30, 2010
Thursday, April 29, 2010
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Until Every Cage Is Empty
As animal rights activists and advocates, the words and concept of Regan's animal rights manifesto, is like the air we breath, the thoughts, words that fill our soul and color our spirit, and propel all action we take!
Until Every Cage is Empty!
The other animals humans eat, use in science, hunt, trap, and exploit in a variety of ways, have a life of their own that is of importance to them apart from their utility to us. They are not only in the world, they are aware of it. What happens to them matters to them. Each has a life that fares better or worse for the one whose life it is.
That life includes a variety of biological, individual, and social needs. The satisfaction of these needs is a source of pleasure, their frustration or abuse, a source of pain. In these fundamental ways, the nonhuman animals in labs and on farms, for example, are the same as human beings. And so it is that the ethics of our dealings with them, and with one another, must acknowledge the same fundamental moral principles.
At its deepest level, human ethics is based on the independent value of the individual: The moral worth of any one human being is not to be measured by how useful that person is in advancing the interest of other human beings. To treat human beings in ways that do not honor their independent value is to violate that most basic of human rights: the right of each person to be treated with respect.
The philosophy of animal rights demands only that logic be respected. For any argument that plausibly explains the independent value of human beings implies that other animals have this same value, and have it equally. And any argument that plausibly explains the right of humans to be treated with respect, also implies that these other animals have this same right, and have it equally, too.
It is true, therefore, that women do not exist to serve men, blacks to serve whites, the poor to serve the rich, or the weak to serve the strong. The philosophy of animal rights not only accepts these truths, it insists upon and justifies them.
But this philosophy goes further. By insisting upon and justifying the independent value and rights of other animals, it gives scientifically informed and morally impartial reasons for denying that these animals exist to serve us.
Once this truth is acknowledged, it is easy to understand why the philosophy of animal rights is uncompromising in its response to each and every injustice other animals are made to suffer.
It is not larger, cleaner cages that justice demands in the case of animals used in science, for example, but empty cages: not "traditional" animal agriculture, but a complete end to all commerce in the flesh of dead animals; not "more humane" hunting and trapping, but the total eradication of these barbarous practices.
For when an injustice is absolute, one must oppose it absolutely. It was not "reformed" slavery that justice demanded, not "reformed" child labor, not "reformed" subjugation of women. In each of these cases, abolition was the only moral answer. Merely to reform injustice is to prolong injustice.
The philosophy of animal rights demands this same answer—abolition—in response to the unjust exploitation of other animals. It is not the details of unjust exploitation that must be changed. It is the unjust exploitation itself that must be ended, whether on the farm, in the lab, or among the wild, for example. The philosophy of animal rights asks for nothing more, but neither will it be satisfied with anything less."
- Tom Regan
Until Every Cage is Empty!
The other animals humans eat, use in science, hunt, trap, and exploit in a variety of ways, have a life of their own that is of importance to them apart from their utility to us. They are not only in the world, they are aware of it. What happens to them matters to them. Each has a life that fares better or worse for the one whose life it is.
That life includes a variety of biological, individual, and social needs. The satisfaction of these needs is a source of pleasure, their frustration or abuse, a source of pain. In these fundamental ways, the nonhuman animals in labs and on farms, for example, are the same as human beings. And so it is that the ethics of our dealings with them, and with one another, must acknowledge the same fundamental moral principles.
At its deepest level, human ethics is based on the independent value of the individual: The moral worth of any one human being is not to be measured by how useful that person is in advancing the interest of other human beings. To treat human beings in ways that do not honor their independent value is to violate that most basic of human rights: the right of each person to be treated with respect.
The philosophy of animal rights demands only that logic be respected. For any argument that plausibly explains the independent value of human beings implies that other animals have this same value, and have it equally. And any argument that plausibly explains the right of humans to be treated with respect, also implies that these other animals have this same right, and have it equally, too.
It is true, therefore, that women do not exist to serve men, blacks to serve whites, the poor to serve the rich, or the weak to serve the strong. The philosophy of animal rights not only accepts these truths, it insists upon and justifies them.
But this philosophy goes further. By insisting upon and justifying the independent value and rights of other animals, it gives scientifically informed and morally impartial reasons for denying that these animals exist to serve us.
Once this truth is acknowledged, it is easy to understand why the philosophy of animal rights is uncompromising in its response to each and every injustice other animals are made to suffer.
It is not larger, cleaner cages that justice demands in the case of animals used in science, for example, but empty cages: not "traditional" animal agriculture, but a complete end to all commerce in the flesh of dead animals; not "more humane" hunting and trapping, but the total eradication of these barbarous practices.
For when an injustice is absolute, one must oppose it absolutely. It was not "reformed" slavery that justice demanded, not "reformed" child labor, not "reformed" subjugation of women. In each of these cases, abolition was the only moral answer. Merely to reform injustice is to prolong injustice.
The philosophy of animal rights demands this same answer—abolition—in response to the unjust exploitation of other animals. It is not the details of unjust exploitation that must be changed. It is the unjust exploitation itself that must be ended, whether on the farm, in the lab, or among the wild, for example. The philosophy of animal rights asks for nothing more, but neither will it be satisfied with anything less."
- Tom Regan
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Until Every Cage Is Empty
Thursday, April 22, 2010
Friday, April 16, 2010
Rescued Dog
RESCUED DOG
>
> Once I was a lonely dog,
> Just looking for a home.
> I had no place to go,
> No one to call my own.
> I wandered up and down the street,
> In rain in heat and snow.
> I ate what ever I could find,
> I was always on the go.
>
> My skin would itch, my feet were sore,
> My body ached with pain.
> And no one stopped to give a pat
> Or a gently say my name.
> I never saw a loving glance,
> I was always on the run.
> For people thought that hurting me
> Was really lots of fun.
>
> And then one day I heard a voice
> So gentle, kind and sweet,
> And arms so soft reached down to me
> And took me off my feet.
> “No one again will hurt you”
> Was whispered in my ear.
> “You’ll have a home to call your own
> Where you will know no fear.”
>
> “You will be dry, you will be warm,
> You’ll have enough to eat”
> “And rest assured that when you sleep,
> Your dreams will all be sweet.”
> I was afraid I must admit,
> I’ve lived so long in fear.
> I can’t remember when I let
> A human come so near.
>
> And as she tended to my wounds
> And bathed and brushed my fur
> She told me bout the Rescue Group
> And what it meant to her.
> She said, “We are a circle,
> A line that never ends.”
> “And in the center there is YOU
> Protected by new friends.”
>
> “And all around you are
> The ones that check the pounds,
> And those that share their home
> After you’ve been found.”
> “And all the other folk
> Are searching near and far.
> To find the perfect home for you,
> Where you can be a star.”
>
> She said, “There is a family,
> That’s waiting patiently,
> And pretty soon we’ll find them,
> Just you wait and see.”
> “And then they’ll join our circle
> They’ll help to make it grow,
> So there’ll be room for more like you,
> Who have no place to go.”
>
> I waited very patiently,
> The days they came and went.
> Today’s the day I thought,
> My family will be sent.
> Then just when I began to think
> It wasn’t meant to be,
> There were people standing there
> Just gazing down at me.
>
> I knew them in a heartbeat,
> I could tell they felt it too.
> They said, “We have been waiting
> For a special dog like you.”
> Now every night I say a prayer
> To all the gods that be.
> “Thank you for the life I live
> And all you’ve given me.
>
> But most of all protect the dogs
> In the pound and on the street.
> And send a Rescue Person
> To lift them off their feet”
>
> --
> Jan Nickerson
> Gulf Coast Sheltie & Collie Rescue, Inc
> www.petfinder.com/shelters/FL384.html
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Rescued Dog