But if your frothing rant is anything to go by, they're certainly a bunch of wankers.

Swastika armbands indeed! Get over yourself and have a bacon sandwich you tosser.

And then maybe you'd like to persuade a hungry wolf to become vegan?

Or a Venus Fly Trap? (Big problem for the fluffy bunnies brigade - a VEGETABLE that eats MEAT. Tricky.)

If you ALFers want to eat real vegetables, try munching each other.

“The world only goes forward because of those who oppose it.” Goethe

I support the Animal Liberation Front (ALF). I support property destruction against industries that massacre animals and rape the planet. Since when do implements of death and devastation fall outside the range of legitimate attack? I do not believe that property destruction is violence, but even if it is, violence is defensible in certain cases and I will always defend the lesser over the greater violence.

Origins and Philosophy of the ALF

“We are a non-violent guerilla organisation, dedicated to the liberation of animals from all forms of cruelty and persecution at the hands of mankind.” Ronnie Lee, ALF founder

“Not to hurt our humble brethren is our first duty to them, but to stop there is not enough. We have a higher mission — to be of service to them whenever they require it.” St. Francis of Assisi

The ALF grew out of the hunt saboteur movement in England in 1970s. Activists turned from legal tactics of hunt disruption to illegal tactics of sabotage when they grew weary of being assaulted and jailed and sought more effective tactics. A hunt sab group known as the Band of Mercy broadened the focus to target other animal exploitation industries such as vivisection and began to use arson as a potent tool of property destruction. Two of its leaders were arrested in 1974 and released a year later. One turned snitch and left the movement, the other, Ronnie Lee, deepened his convictions and began a new ultra-militant group he called the Animal Liberation Front that would forever change the face of direct action struggle. The ALF migrated to U.S. in the early 1980s and is now an international movement in over twenty countries.

The ALF is a loosely associated collection of cells of people who go underground and violate the law on behalf of animals. They break into and enter prison compounds (euphemistically referred to as “research laboratories” and the like) to rescue animals, and they also destroy property in order to prevent further harm done to animals and to weaken exploitation industries economically. Official ALF guidelines are: (1) to liberate animals from places of abuse; (2) to inflict economic damage to industries that profit from animal exploitation; (3) to reveal the horrors and atrocities committed against animals behind locked doors, and (4) to take all necessary precautions against harming any human or nonhuman animals. Anyone who follows these guidelines – and who is vegan -- belongs to the ALF.

Despite the incriminations of animal exploitation industries, the state, and the mass media, the ALF is not a terrorist organization; rather they are a counter-terrorist outfit and the newest form of freedom fighters. They are best understood not by comparing them to the Al Qaeda or Saddam Hussein’s republican guard, but instead to the Underground Railroad, the Jewish anti-Nazi resistance fighters, or current peace and justice movements. By providing veterinary care and homes for many of the animals that they liberate (vs. those like mink that they release back from cages into the wild), the ALF models itself after the U.S. Underground Railroad movement that helped fugitive slaves reach Free states and Canada. ALF members pattern themselves after freedom fighters in Nazi Germany who liberated war prisoners and Holocaust victims and destroyed equipment such as gas ovens which the Nazis used to torture and kill their victims. Similarly, the ALF has important similarities with some of the great freedom fighters of the past two centuries, and are akin to contemporary peace and justice movements in their quest to end bloodshed and violence toward life and to bring justice to all species.

There are indeed real terrorists in today’s world, but they are not the ALF. The most violent and dangerous criminals occupy the top positions of U.S. corporate and state office; they are the ones most responsible for the exploitation of people, the massacre of animals, and the rape of the planet.

A Tale of Two Systems

"Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will" Frederick Douglass

“Even voting for the right thing is doing nothing for it. It is only expressing to men feebly your desire that it should prevail. A wise man will not leave the right to the mercy of chance, nor wish it to prevail through the power of the majority.” Henry David Thoreau

American history has two main political traditions. First, there is the “indirect” system of “representative democracy” whereby citizens express their needs and will to elected local and state officials whose sole function is to “represent” them in the political and legal system. The system’s “output” – laws – reflects the “input” – the peoples’ will and interests. This cartoon image of liberal democracy, faithfully reproduced in generation after generation of textbooks and in the discourse of state apologists and the media, is falsified by the fact that powerful economic and political forces co-opt elected officials who represent the interests of the powerful instead of the powerless.

From the realization that the state is hardly a neutral arbiter of competing interests but rather exists to advance the interests of economic and political elites, and that “pluralist democracy” is the best system that money can buy, a second political tradition of direct action has emerged.

Direct action advocates argue that the indirect system of representative democracy is irredeemably corrupted by money, power, cronyism, and privilege. Appealing to the lessons of history, direct activists insist that one cannot win liberation struggles through education, moral persuasion, political campaigns, demonstrations, or any form of aboveground, mainstream, or legal action alone. Direct action movements therefore bypass efforts to influence the state in order to immediately confront the figures of social power and oppression they are challenging.

Direct action tactics can vary widely, ranging from sit-ins, strikes, boycotts, and tree sits to hacking web-sites, email and phone harassment, home demonstrations, and arson. Direct action can be legal as with home demonstrations against a vivisector, or illegal, in the case of the civil disobedience tactics of Mohandas Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Illegal direct action, moreover, can be nonviolent or violent; it can respect private property or destroy it.

Whereas indirect action can promote passivity and dependence on others for change, direct action tends to be more involving and empowering. In the words of nineteenth century anarchist Voltairine de Cleyre, “The evil of pinning faith to indirect action is far greater than any minor results. The main evil is that it destroys initiative, quenches the individual rebellious spirit, and teaches people to rely on someone else to do for them what they should do for themselves. People must learn that their power does not lie in their voting strength, that their power lies in their ability to stop production.”

Anyone quick to condemn the tactics of the ALF needs a lesson in history and a logical consistency check. As writer James Goodman points out, “The entire edifice of western liberal democracy – from democratic rights, to representative parliament, to freedom of speech – rests on previous acts of civil disobedience. The American anti-colonialists in the 1770s asserting ‘no taxation without representation’; the French revolutionaries in the 1780s demanding ‘liberty equality fraternity’; the English Chartists in the 1830s demanding a ‘People's Charter’; the Suffragettes of the 1900s demanding ‘votes for women’; the Gandhian disobedience movement from the 1920s calling for ‘Swaraj’/self-government; all of these were movements of civil disobedience, and have shaped the political traditions that we live with today.”

From the Boston Tea Party to the Underground Railroad, from the Suffragettes to the Civil Rights Movement; from Vietnam War resistance to the Battle of Seattle, key struggles and movements in U.S. history employed illegal direct action tactics to advance human rights and freedoms. Rather than being a rupture in some bucolic tradition of Natural Law guiding the Reason of modern men and women to the Good and bringing Justice down to Earth in a peaceful and gradual drizzle, the contemporary movements for animal and Earth liberation are a continuation of the American tradition of rights, democracy, civil disobedience, and direct action, as they expand the struggle to a far broader constituency.
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Moral progress does not work through gentle nudges or ethical persuasion alone. Society is inherently conservative, and change is blocked either by the corruption of the powerful or the apathy of the powerless. Sometimes society has to be pushed into the future, and justice has to be forced past the barricades of ignorance and complacency by the most enlightened people of the time. Within this framework, direct action and civil disobedience are key catalysts of progressive change.

The Rationale of Resistance

“The Earth Liberation Front realizes the profit motive caused and reinforced by the capitalist society is destroying all life on this planet. The only way, at this point in time, to stop that continued destruction of life is to by any means necessary take the profit motive out of killing.” ELF website
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“We’re very dangerous philosophically. Part of the danger is that we don’t buy into the illusion that property is worth more than life. We bring that insane priority into the light, which is something the system cannot survive.” David Barbarash, former spokesman for the ALF

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. referred to direct action as the “marvelous new militancy” of the civil rights movement in the U.S. In his celebrated 1963 “I Have a Dream” speech, he blasted the “tranquilizing drug of gradualism” and urged immediate and forceful non-violent direct action. Having been assailed so many times with the label of “extremist,” King learned to wear it as a badge of honor, turning the tables on his accusers and proclaiming himself an extremist in love and a passion for justice.

The defense of direct action and civil disobedience rests on the distinction between what is legal and what is ethical, between the Law and the Right. There are textbook cases where legal codes violate codes of ethics and justice: Nazi Germany, U.S. slavery, and South African apartheid. In such situations, not only is it legitimate to break the law, it is obligatory. In the words of Dr. King, “I became convinced that non-cooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good.”

The true forces of ethics and justice have involved groups such as the Jewish Resistance, Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad, Gandhi and the Indian independence movement, the Suffragettes, Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement, and Nelson Mandela and the African National Congress. All of them broke the law, destroyed the enemy’s property, or committed violence; they were beaten, jailed, killed, and denounced as extremists or something like terrorists.

Yet who will argue that their actions were wrong? Today we lionize Nelson Mandela as a great hero, but he and the ANC used violence to win their freedom. People forget that the much-heralded Suffragettes in England and the U.S. used arson and bombs to help win the emancipation of women. No movement for social change has succeeded without a radical fringe, without civil disobedience, property destruction, and even violence -- so why should one expect it to be any different with the animal liberation struggle?

Following the nonviolent philosophy of Gandhi and the U.S. civil rights movement, the ALF believes there is a higher law than that created by and for the corporate-state complex, a moral law that transcends the corrupt and biased statues of the U.S. political system. When the law is wrong, the right thing to do is to break it. This is often how moral progress is made in history, from defiance of American slavery and Hitler’s anti-Semitism to sit-ins at “whites only” lunch counters in Alabama. By destroying the property of animal oppressors, the ALF helps to prevent future destruction to life as it weakens – and in some cases, eliminates – industries by making their bloodletting more costly.

Opponents of direct action, typically those with vested interests in the status quo, believe that illegal actions undermine the rule of law and they view civil disobedience as a threat to social order. Among other things, this perspective presupposes that the system in question is legitimate or that it cannot be improved upon. It also misrepresents direct activists as people who disrespect the law, when arguably they have a higher regard for the spirit of law and its relation to justice than those who fetishize political order for its own sake. Champions of direct action renounce uncritical allegiance to a legal system. To paraphrase Karl Marx, the law is the opiate of the people, and blind obedience to laws and social decorum led millions of German Jews to their death with almost no resistance. All too often, the legal system is a structure to absorb opposition and induce paralysis by delay.

Thus, it is important to recognize that direct action is not a carte blanche for political “anarchy” in the stereotyped sense of complete lawlessness and disorder. Thoreau’s maxim that one ought to obey one’s own conscience rather than an unjust law is a good start toward critical thinking and autonomy, but it can also provide a formula for violence and legitimate killing for a cause. The ALF is guided by the belief that however righteous their anger, no human being must ever be harmed in the struggle for liberation of others; rather, only property is to be damaged as a necessary means to the end of animal liberation. Despite zeal for its cause, the ALF is quite unlike radical anti-abortionists who kill their opponents and the differences should never be conflated.

Let’s be honest: the real lawbreakers are corporations such as Enron and the U.S. government itself, which not only breaks particular laws, but is now in the process of shredding the Constitution itself in the name of Homeland Security. For those seeking to uncover contemporary currents of anti-Americanism, turn away from the ALF and look toward the highest legal brokers of the land -- Attorney General John Ashcroft and President George W. Bush.

Direct Action and the ALF

"The pump don’t work 'cause the vandals took the handles." Bob Dylan, “Subterranean Homesick Blues”

Activists from the ALF and ELF draw from and expand the noble traditions of direct action and property destruction in U.S. struggles for freedom and democracy. In addition to anti-globalization forces, the hottest battles today are over the politics of the natural world. There is new social turmoil in the U.S. because the animal rights and environmental movements have found their own “marvelous new militancy."

The new direct action movements have emerged because of an ever-worsening situation for animals and the Earth, in addition to dynamics of increasing radicalism within the animal and environmental movements. In the animal advocacy community, one sees a movement from welfare to rights to the ALF; in the environmental movement, there is a path from reforms to radical ecology to the ELF. Moreover, new factions are developing in each movement that now openly advocate violence, as we saw in the 2003 bombings of Chiron and Shaklee corporations by the Revolutionary Cells who warned that “this is the endgame for animal killers, there will be no more quarter given, no more half-measures taken.”

We are witnessing the dawn of a new civil war between those who will kill every last living thing for power and profit, and those prepared to fight these omnicidal maniacs tooth and nail. This is a guerilla war, fought by ecowarriors who go underground, don masks and balaclavas, operate at night, and strike through sabotage. As evident by the Vietnam War and the current war in Iraq, it is not a war that the U.S. government knows how to fight and perhaps one it cannot win. Through guerilla warfare, David can defeat Goliath.

The ALF argues that animals have rights, and these rights trump property rights. Hence, the ALF does not “steal” animals from laboratories because they never were anyone’s to own. The true theft occurs when exploiters steal their freedom and lives from them, whereas the ALF rescues, restores, and liberates. The ALF does not commit a wrong; it rights a wrong against life. For the ALF, whenever property is used to injure or take a life, it is legitimate to destroy the property in order to protect that life. This is not vandalism or hooliganism because it has a high moral purpose -- it is ethical sabotage.

For the ALF, life has more value than property, whereas in the capitalist worldview property is sacred and life is profane. Animal and Earth exploitation industries can massacre billions of animals and tear down the rainforests as respectable businessmen, yet anyone who challenges their right to do this is vilified as a terrorist. Throughout the nation, new laws are being created to make videotaping animal abuse in laboratories or factory farms a felony crime, but legislators find barbaric cruelty to animals perfectly acceptable and defend the right of industries to torture and murder their living “property.”

According to official FBI definition, “Eco-terrorism is a crime committed to save nature.” It speaks volumes about capitalist society and its domineering mindset that actions to “save nature” are classified as criminal actions while those that destroy nature are sanctified by God and Flag.

On the grounds that animals have rights and these rights trump property rights, I argue that the ALF are not the terrorists that are demonized by animal exploitation industries, the state, and mass media, but rather counter-terrorists and the newest form of freedom fighters. Like the Nazi resistance movement, they destroy equipment used to torture and kill; like the Underground Railroad, they rescue slaves and transport them to freedom. Like any current human rights struggle, they seek peace and justice.

Whereas white abolitionists reached across race lines in empathy and solidarity, so the ALF reaches across species lines. Because of entrenched institutions of exploitation and speciesism, this will be the most difficult liberation struggle ever fought. But it is unquestionably the most important one because the stakes transcend specific group interests to involve all species and the future of life on this planet.

On Violence and Terrorism

“It’s a strange kind of terrorist organization that hasn’t killed anyone.” The Observer

“A man that should call everything by its right name would hardly pass the streets without being knocked down as a common enemy.” George Savile, first Marquess of Halifax

But isn’t the ALF a violent organization? Doesn’t it in fact perpetuate terrorism? The terms “violence” and “terrorism” are almost never defined by ALF critics, and when they specify their meaning to any degree, the definitions are blatantly biased and self-serving, such that the real violence and true terrorism – acts committed and supported by the corporate-state complex— are ruled out of consideration by shabby semantic tricks.

If violence is the intentional infliction of bodily harm against another person, then how can one “hurt,” “abuse,” or “injure” a nonsentient thing that does not feel pain or have awareness of any sort? How can one be “violent” toward a van or be a “terrorist” toward brick and mortar? How does one harm or terrorize a laboratory or fur farm with spray paint or a firebomb?

One simply does not – unless someone owning or associated with the property is adversely affected. People whose homes, cars, or offices are damaged suffer fear, anxiety, and trauma. Their business, livelihood, research, or careers may be ruined, and they are harmed psychologically, economically, professionally, and in other ways.

Admittedly, none of this is good from the point of view of an ALF victim such as a vivisector, foie gras chef, or fur farmer. But is it sound to call sabotage “violence”? Perhaps, if one relied on a general psychological definition involving something like “mental trauma,” but one could just as well argue that sabotage is the lesser violence compared to what it tries to prevent, that it simply is not violence, or that violence, including physical attacks against human persons, is acceptable and legitimate in a war against the warmongers.

If any definition of violence is warranted, it should be in our understanding of a “person” – any being that is sentient and the “subject of a life.” Since animals are not only sentient, but also psychologically and socially complex beings, they are subjects in every significant way human beings are. Thus, every injury to an animal ought to be considered injury to a person, and hence violence.

Like the term “communism” in the 1950s, “terrorism” is the most abused word in the English vocabulary today. In the era of the Patriot Act where all forms of dissent are denounced as terrorism, and terrorism is defined as an attempt to intimidate or influence government, the term is in danger of losing any meaning whatsoever. Objectively defined, terrorism involves three key conditions; there is: (1) an intentional act of physical violence (2) directed against innocent civilians, non-combatants, or “persons” (both human and nonhuman) (3) for ideological, political, or economic purposes.

Typically, those who vilify saboteurs as “violent” leap to the conclusion that they are “terrorists,” failing to realize that there is an important difference insofar as one can use violence in morally legitimate ways in conditions ranging from self-defense to a “just war.” The ALF is not a terrorist organization because (1) they never physically injure people, and (2) they never target anyone but those directly involved in the war against animals.

Truth be told, one can use violence in morally legitimate ways in conditions ranging from self-defense to a “just war.” One could plausibly argue that the ALF are acting in defense of the defenseless, that they are combatants in a just war, and that animal exploiters are legitimate military targets. Pacifist arguments assume that nonviolent methods of resistance can solve all major social conflicts (they cannot) and that a human life has absolute value (it does not). Philosophically speaking, one has to wonder what kind of absolute value is attached to the life of a vicious killer such as a member of the infamous Safari Club who wins prizes for “bagging” endangered species in comparison to the life of the rare elephants, lions, and gorillas the bastard kills. Why ought the human “right” to kill be protected over an animal’s right to live through a code of nonviolence?

Regardless, the corporate-state complex uses terms such as “violence” and “terrorist” as smokescreens, so that they can mask the real violence and terrorism directed from their headquarters and legitimate their war against dissent. Once the state captures its target in the semantic crosshairs, they can pull the trigger of political repression.

Against Hypocrisy

“In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible.” George Orwell

“The question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kinds of extremists we will be. The nation and the world are in dire need of creative extremists.” Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Crimes of enormous proportion are committed against animals that the legal system ignores and only so much good can be accomplished through education and legislation. The ALF exists because peaceful dialogue alone does not work to bring about needed social change; they are people who distrust the system, who hurt when life hurts, and who feel the urgency of the crisis and want immediate effect and change.

Would you be content to write letters to your congressperson or newspaper if your family members were locked up and tortured in a laboratory? Would you not break in and free them if you could and destroy the property so that others would not be tortured? Would you not liberate your neighbor’s dog if it was being abused and the local police were indifferent? Would you not seize and destroy traps set by a local sadist who was killing cats for pleasure? Are you truly opposed to Paul Watson’s destruction of miles of driftnet used to kill everything in the sea including dolphins?

Do you want to find fault with the Jewish resistance fighters who killed every Nazi and destroyed every gas oven they could? If you support that kind of struggle and property destruction, why do you not support the ALF? Is it because that was the 1940s and this is now? Is it because that was Germany and we are the U.S.? Or is it because those acts defended human persons while the ALF defends nonhuman persons? Is it because you are a speciesist who privileges human interests over nonhuman interests without any logical grounds for doing so? Is it the tactics you really disagree with – or the species that is defended?

Just as carnivores pay the slaughterhouse workers to do their dirty work for them, animal rights activists have the ALF doing the dangerous work for them. The ALF ought to be respected and appreciated for the brave soldiers they are.

Meaningful social change will not result from the use of one or a few tactics alone -- all strategies and tactics are needed. The animal rights movement needs people to write letters, work with local and state “representatives,” educate students, do vegan outreach, demonstrate and protest, and so on. And it also needs underground direct action.

If you care about animals; if you care about the values of peace, freedom, and justice; if you care about human moral progress; if you value logical consistency, you should support the ALF.

Dr. Steven Best
Associate Professor of Philosophy and Humanities and Chair of Philosophy
University of Texas, El Paso

To learn more about Dr Steve Best go to:  http://utminers.utep.edu/best/

Or visit:  http://www.cala-online.org/

what i am saying comes from the heart. I think instead of replyin wit a wealth of explitives-u actually had something to base your argument on!
Like i said earlier, it is hard not to preach.
And also, what a wonderful world we have when people have their heads firmly up their own backsides.
You call them a bunch of wankers because of what I say??!! Your very easily led by others aren't you?-my opinions are mine alone and if you reflect on the earlier argument, i was attempting to state that the ALF were not terrorists; a statement you agreed with.
Therefore, I dont give a crap if you belief factory farming is natural-or the animals we slaughter in mass are natural. I use this as a medium to announce my ideas-something which I feel as a duty. If your sole purpose is to mock this instead of havin a decent discussion-then shouldn't you be questioning who is the 'wanker'?
When we we discuss murder, there would be outcry. The truth to ME is that this is murder! I also included that animal liberation includes those human and non, is this something you disagree on?
So mock all you want-it wouldn't be a first but you will never kill the spirit of the myself, the ALF, everyone fighting for the innocent around the globe and those actually considering the effects of their acions-for it is these actions which define us.

Anything more to say?-i will be happy to reply.

Explanation of the swastika subject;
it is hard now to understand were some lie on the subject of freedom and dignity. All animals share one thing-and thats life. To deny this right is no different to deny the rights of ethnic minorities because some may feel that they are not worthy of such rights. If my history is correct-wasn't Hitler who said that Jews were 'untermention' (or there abouts) and weren't human. As a result, the Jews along with other minorities suffered the wrath of ignorance and hatred. The world was horrified to learn that the skin of a Jew was used to make a lamp shade-is this any different to the use of cow hide to make shoes, seating and many other consumer products?
Would our understanding be any different if they ate them?!
The reference to a swastika may be harsh but i felt it essential to reflect the influence or neo-nazi/fascism ideology of those that defend the consumption of meat and the abuse of all animals (human and non) around the globe.
We cannot give cattle minimum wage-(all animals are equal but some are more equal than others) but every creature shares life.
I see a death camp rather than an abatoir.

Any sensible views?

well i thought i wrote alot-i will try and read it all
it looks dam good!

that person who was tellin folk t go have a bacon sandwich etc, etc, have you sought help from yr doctor? or are you just yet another ignorant, ill informed, misinformed, gulloble, thoughtless, self medicating, witless, no life person who is to lacking in perception and or scared to see reality and challenge the things that are wrong with this society.
if you would like to discuss these issues of yours further you can go to your g.p. and they should be able to refer you on to some councelling or you can contact me at my e mail and i'll try to help you though i think you may need a professional, or someone with more experience than i.
if you want to meet face to face thats ok as well. would i be looking out for someone in a burbery cap an keks tucked into socks? or am i insulting scallys by associating them with you?

Any organisation that lets mink out into the countryside does not think. The ALF have caused so much environmental damage while claiming the moral high ground, I'm all for a tightening on controlls on animal experementation, the removal of fur farms etc, but as far as I'm concerned the ALF are a bunch of stupid untinking thugs, tho I agree, in no way are they terrorists.

It is organisations like this that get the rest of us who are trying to get things changed in trouble. It is organisations like this that get put on a proscribed list first. Then they come for rest of us, like RTS or Critical Mass. Then before we know it Amnesty will be on the list too!

vegan, devastated by vivisection & slaughter, totally agrees ALF way out of order on loads of issues - from releasing mink (thanks to freed mink only one duck remains on our local river & that has the air of a duck soon expecting to be pulled under) to the use of arson - how can you guarantee no-one will be hurt in a random attack? You can't. Plus bombs (as demonstrated by Robin Webb) plus vicious razor blade postings - animals wouldn't behave this why, why do people feel free to just because they call themselves by an acronym & seem jolly hard? End animal suffering. End human hate. Keep liberating sensibly & humanely (let's reclaim that word). And well done to everyone who does.

I agree, if you go by the ALF mision statement, that they are not terrorists. However, I have big problems with their claim to non-violence and quoting of Gandhi. One can be violent with out physically hurting someone. If you take a group of people and stand outside an executive of an organisation which tests on animals and shout abuse at him, harass him, hand out his number so people can call up and abuse him etc in my opinion that is not non-violent, and not something at all that Gandhi would want his name associated with. The only way to achieve changes and improve animal welfare (or any cause) is by embodying the values and ideals (eg peace, freedom, fear from intimidation) we fight for in the manner in which we fight.

Just get em' out!

Liberation NOW!

"that person who was tellin folk t go have a bacon sandwich etc, etc, have you sought help from yr doctor? or are you just yet another ignorant, ill informed, misinformed, gulloble, thoughtless, self medicating, witless, no life person who is to lacking in perception and or scared to see reality and challenge the things that are wrong with this society."

Sorry to point this out to you but anyone who is not a vegan is not necessarily wrong. Plenty of animals eat other animals. We're animals and we eat other animals. I think that person was entirely right to be annoyed at being labelled a Nazi just because he eats meat. You're probably the sort of person who would force their pet dog or cat to be vegan (animal cruelty in my book - particularly in the case of cats who require taurine and arachidonic acid in their diets which are only available from meat).

Presumably you're also the sort of person who completely denies that humans are adapted to an omnivorous diet?

If you argued issues and did less personal attacking of people and calling them deluded, self medicating Nazis just because they share a different viewpoint to you, then you might come across as a lot less of a twat and people might be more willing to listen to your point of view (and it is just a point of view unless you can show me the study which proves conclusively that anybody who eats meat and objects to being labelled a Nazi is a gulloble [sic], witless, misinformed person).

Animals eat each other, so why shouldn't we eat them?

1. Even if this were a sound argument, it would not justify rearing animals in inhumane conditions, something that only humans do - it would only justify hunting wild animals. It can take a few minutes for prey to die in a predator's jaws, but the animal at least had a natural life; unconfined, free from boredom, and able to live in family groups. But, this is not a sound argument:

2. Animals usually kill to survive whereas most humans have no need to do so. Some animals do kill when it is not necessary, but this is because animals usually can not understand the moral implications of harming others. Carnivores have evolved to eat other animals - the ones that wouldn't died! It is a very basic instinct for them, and they can not understand the logical arguments against harming others like we can, or that other animals or species can suffer just as they can. Unlike them, we do not have an uncontrollable urge to chase small animals, and unlike them we can think logically about our actions.
"[It is] alleged . . . that the several species of brutes created to prey upon one another affords a kind of analogy to prove that the human were intended to feed upon them . . . the analogy contended for is extremely lame; since brutes have no power to support themselves by any other means, and since we have; for the whole human species might subsist entirely upon fruits, pulse, herbs and roots, as many tribes of Hindus actually do."
--William Paley
(note - it is interesting that this quote, written 218 years ago in 1785, refutes what is still the most common defence of meat-eating; and shows awareness that humans can live on a completely vegetarian diet - something that many people even today are ignorant of or don't want to accept).


3. Just because other animals do something does not mean that we should do it! If another animal jumped off a cliff, would you? :P Many animals eat their young at times too, does this mean that we should? Many animals eat humans if given the chance, does this mean that we should do it? Some humans eat humans, does this mean that we should eat them?
"I hold flesh-food to be unsuited to our species. We err in copying the lower animal world - if we are superior to it."
--Mohatma Gandhi

4. In any case, many animals are vegetarian. Why should we take our example from the carnivorous or omnivorous one? Our closest relatives are vegetarian or almost vegetarian (gorillas and orangutans are vegetarians, and chimpanzees eat a small amount of meat - estimated as about 2% of their diet or about the size of a pea a day), and I can't think of any common Western farm animals that hunt other animals. You can't say "it's ok to eat a cow, because cows hunt other animals".


Basically, we are a mainly vegetarian species who can also make use of meat. This was probably important for cave-men, but today in the Western world we have such a range of plant foods available to us that we have no need for animal products. We are not very well adapted to eating meat, unlike carnivorous species. For instance, carnivores do not get "furred up" arteries from eating too much animal fat - but we do. They have a short digestive tract (three times their body length) - we have a herbivorous sized one (12 times our body length). We also have stomach acid that is 20 times weaker than that of carnivores, as do herbivores.
"Usually, the first thing a country does in the course of economic development is to introduce a lot of livestock. Our data are showing that this is not a very smart move . . . We are basically a vegetarian species and should be eating a wide variety of plant food and minimizing our intake of animal foods . . ."
--T. Colin Campbell, Ph.D., of Cornell University

To those who defend meat-eating by saying that it is natural, and we have always done it -remember that just because we have always done something does not mean that it is right! Rape, murder and child abuse have always been around too, this does not mean that we should all do these things.
(An interesting point is that the person who is so interested in eating "naturally" should, in theory, be opposed to the use of milk, which is unnatural. This is rarely the case, as the person who uses this argument is usually just looking for excuses to defend their current eating habits, and so would be just as opposed to giving up dairy products as they would meat.)
"Once we start appealing to the past as an argument we are being false to the past itself, because we have removed it from the circumstances that gave it logic and integrity and have started recasting it to suit our own very different needs."
--Bishop Richard Holloway



I always think it's funny when people are so enraged by people feeding their pets a vegetarian diet - we should be feeding them meat, it's natural! So feeding your pet cooked food, with added "unnatural" vitamins, made from diseased domestic animals is natural?
The farm animals who get turned into pet food certainly didn't have a natural life, and they were probably fed completely unnatural diets - such as the common practice of feeding fish to chickens or chicken manure to cows. Why is this acceptable, yet feeding your pets on a healthy vegetarian diet is cruel? Dogs certainly have no need for meat, and cats can be fed a vegetarian diet when given supplements more info at  http://www.veggiepets.com/

Animal vivesection has saved some human lives
-much of it has not and is rightly condemed-
but SOME of these experiments are helpful in advancing medical science.

Are all these animal lovers vegans? - the dairy industry produces what is essentially waste beef.

Vegitarians are on the whole healthier- and use less resources that omnivories

My pet cat used to be a prolific hunter of small furry and winged creatures, He used to torture the animals that he caught.

My cat was killed by a mink (probably released from captivity by animal rights activists)
That made me sad

I would however of killed my cat in a instant if i thought that it would help another human being to live.

All animals are not equal- human life is worth much more than the life of a cat.

A human life is worth more than the life of a cat? Why? Cos the human's more intelligent? Then you must concede that the life of a "normal" human being is worth more that the life of a mentally retarded human being. Even so,this does not mean that there is nothing wrong with harming/ killing the mentally retarded human for trivial reasons ie they taste good.
All Animals Are Equal? Try reading  http://www.petersingerlinks.com/animals.htm Please, all of you who dismiss the animal liberation movement, read this. The movement has a sound philosophical basis - we are not all morons.

I've posted here before and happen to follow a vegan diet.

'Liberty for some, but not for all' seems to be the attack response from the guilty as ever. Evolution is a bit stuck innit? Bit like a washing machine on repeat programme. Thought this site might have been a saving grace :(




Animal Liberation Now - Human Liberty Now - Organise and Resist.

Put down your wank mags, and turn off your computers.

I don't think I've ever had a bigger laugh in my life, than at the dribble spewed in this thread.

Not a very tolerant bunch are you? Tut, tut, tut - the internet has a habit of breeding imbeciles.

The ALF is sexy, violence is sexy, terrorism is sexy.

Interesting comments from both sides. Some rational some hysterical.

I have one question for the ALF supporters - at my University the Animal Rights supporters were vehemently against and would scream and shout about any animal testing, eating meat and animal deaths in any case but when it came to "Abortion" they were "Wholeheartedly" for it...Why?

All they could tell me was that it was a mother's right to chose to have her own child partially born and then have its skull crushed and sucked out of its own mother's womb.

I know not all Animal Supporters are pro-abortionists but I would esimate a good 80 - 90% are.

And they call us meat-eaters Nazis?....

Mind you saving the bunnies is a trendy leftist cause!

I can't win this argument, so I'll change the subject COMPLETELY

I can't win this argument, so I'll change the subject COMPLETELY to an entirely different ethical issue! Hmm, you animal rights leftie frieaks always support capital punishment don't ya! Therefore you're hypocrites, therefore you're wrong! Thank you, thank you! *takes a bow*

First, just because someone is a hypocrite doesn't mean that all of their arguments are wrong - the statment "breaking people's arms for fun is wrong" is just as true even if it comes out of the mouth of someone who likes to break people's legs! You can't attack a person's argument by ignoring it and attacking another opinion that the person has.

Second, it is ENTIRELY possible to logically be both pro-choice and pro-animal rights. Thinking that the two issues are of a kind shows a clear lack of understanding of the arguments involved - I really wish that people would research things before trying to argue about them.

For example, the two most famous arguments for animal rights both fall down when applied to foetuses - simply put, Peter Singer says that an action is wrong when it causes more pain than it prevents, so factory farming and almost all vivisection are wrong. Aborting a foetus who is not developed enough to feel pain is not wrong, by this argument. Singer believes that killing is only wrong when the victim is conscious - roughly, that they can think about and plan for the future. Hence, killing a "normal" adult human being would be wrong. So would killing a "normal" adult chimpanzee, and probably the other higher mammals as well. Killing a fish painlessly would not be wrong. Painlessly killing a human or non-human's foetus would not be wrong.

Tom Regan's argument says that being have rights if they are "subjects of a life". By his criteria, human and non-human foetuses do not have rights.

Really, people, stop parading your ignorance around on the web! Go and read "animal liberation" and "the case for animal rights" before you try and argue with us!

As fo animal rights being a "trendy" cause - I just wish that people I knew thought that! As it is, people look down on and despise me for caring about animal cruelty. I have lost a lot of friends because animal rights is NOT a cool thing to care about! Animal rights is NOT trendy. At best, we are looked at as weak minded, sentimental idiots, at worst as violent terrorists who just like to cause trouble! Which of those descripions is trendy??

Choosing to attack individual people rather that the arguments at hand just shows how strong these arguments are. Of course we have a few idiots in the animal rights movement, as do all movements. That does not mean that what we are fighting for is wrong. Focusing on the few individuals allows you to dismiss us. Focusing on the ethical arguments would mean you would have to join us.

-----------------------------------
 http://www.moralvegetarianism.co.uk

The people I know who are against abortion all eat meat! They think that disposing of a bunch of cells is wrong, but slitting the throat of a sentient animal because we like his/ her taste is okay! So all anti-abortionists are wrong, just supporting a trendy-rightist cause! We must all go and abort as many fetuses as possible, just to piss them off! Hurrah!

Reading the two previous comments - My point's been proven I think!

Plort

Just wanted to say that re-reading your comments Arp I actually think you have compassion within you - I may think you miguided and I also think you are fighting to support an argument you don't really believe in - beng anti-abortion is not about some technological argument but accepting that an unborn child is human and one of us.

As for Alp - there is no compassion...on a long slope to agression and violence I would say.

'Alp' and 'plort' should just piss off from the animal liberation posts and threads on IMC and fanny around on some other sites that might tolerate them.

Animals are used to benefit the human race

They do jobs for us , such as a sled pulling huskie, sniffer dog, blackpool pleasure beach donkey, or a canary in the mines etc

They make a tasty meal, if cooked correctly of course!

They are a sense of amusement, be it in a zoo, as a pet, or on You've been framed!(everyone laughs when the dog runs into the patio door, well maybe only after the first time)

They test makeup, test drugs, make nice coats, jumpers, shoes and hats.

I much prefer having my shoes made of leather than plastic or cardboard thats for sure.
And a nice bacon sandwich goes down well after a skinfull.And i might have scabies or something if it wasnt for a nice chimp having an injection on the behalf of the human race. Cheers monkey!

But this is cruel some might say, its against their rights as a living organism.
Lets free all oppressed animals others may say.

Lets give animals the rights of man.......err no, lets not, they cant talk and they dont clear up their own shit, the dirty little creatures. just imagine, Queen Annie the Ant and her five trillion offspring all on the dole because there just are'nt any jobs for five trillion worker ants, not even in McDonalds.
Then companies might employ Dave the Border Collie instead of a much better qualified human being just to improve their ethnic animal minority employee stats. Never mind that Dave eats the office furniture,dribbles on the keyboard and sniffs the female employees crotch!!

Take a reality check, have a kebab or burger, put on a nice warm fur coat, and realise animals are not the same as people, they are there to be used to help us, because they dont know any better!

Animals can not talk or reason, therefore they have no rights!!

Same with mentally handicapped humans - I can't wait til they start making mongoloid burgers, I bet they'd taste great! Of course you'd get some idiots saying "Oh but it's cruel to keep them crammed in tiny little cages", but these people miss the point - mongoloids aren't smart like us, so it's okay to torture them!
And once we start using them in medical experiments, rather than animals who are way different to us, we'll cure all diseases in no time! Of course you'll get people saying it's wrong to imprison them, put electrodes in their brains, force feed them poisons, put chemicals in their eyes, kill them for food etc but these people are just mongloid huggers who think that mongoloids are cute, ignoring the fact that they can't clean up after themselves, talk, vote etc.
In fact, I think I'll open up the first mongoloid farm, breeding retards for food/ leather/ experiments etc. I bet I'll make a fortune! It's just a shame I'll have to spend loads on security - there'll always be a few sentimental mongoloid lovers wanting to break in and "liberate" them from their cages.

It is a common myth that animal liberation activists are pro-abortion. In fact, in the only comprehensive psychological survey of animal liberation sympathisers that I know of, the authors found that there is no correlation between pro-choice or pro-life positions and an animal liberationist position. This study was published in a peer reviewed journal, and can be downloaded at  http://www.psyeta.org/sa/sa1.2/broida.html.

Singer supports abortion. Such a stance is consistent with his utilitarianist emphasises sentience. Other members of the animal rights movement do not. Regan for example does not advocate abortion because of the slippery slope argument. Linzey takes a Christain approach to the value of human life. My own position, for what it is worth, is that killing of animals and unborn children are both wrong. In both cases, it involves an act of violence by the powerful against the innocent.

Animal liberationists have a diversity of opinions on abortion, and everything else. In fact they are basically an argumentative bunch who find it difficult to agree on anything. This in itself is a good thing because it shows we can think for ourselves and not just in slogans. It does beome counterproductive however when we spend more time slagging off each other than working towards the goal of animal liberation.

I couldnt agree more with this guy his eyes are oviously wide open unlike the majority of people, how can the preach freedom and total liberation for people and not include animals in th equation, after all it the exploitation of animals that leads to the exploitation of people. every form of exploitation was done to animals fist and worse.
untill we liberate the animals we'll never liberate our selves.
meat eaters are nazis as far as im concerned!
for any one readin this that finks were loons then read eternal treblinka or go on www.powerfulbook.com
open ur eyes!
liberation ant just for humans,dont be speciesist.