That being said, let me make clear that I am not a supporter of extremism or wholehearted embrace of a specific interest group’s agenda. I am against dog fighting and other unnecessary cruelty to animals, but do not support all of PETA’s extreme beliefs. Because these groups are paid and supported by people who feel strongly about a specific subject, they often become over zealous and stray from the golden mean, if you will.

I also believe that one can believe in a certain limit of rights to a certain group without going down a slippery slope, as described in Rick’s paragraph talking of no logical limit to the rights we would have to give to animals. Just because one believes that animals should be treated fairly when used recreationally doesn’t mean that they also believe that animals shouldn’t be eaten or used for medical purposes. It would be like saying that if one supports anti-abuse laws, then they would be against any form of touching another person because it could be seen as abuse. Just because murder has been outlawed doesn’t mean there are no exceptions, such as self-defense or accidental murder. I find very rarely are laws black white and limits are established to give order to the gray area in between.

That is what the current laws against animal abuse entail, outlines between the black of no regard for animals at all and the white of animals having every right as we do. Animals are used to serve humans through food, through medical purposes and through labor. But laws have defined that cruelty such as neglect, physical abuse and life and death competition has been deemed unnecessary. Dog fighting hardly benefits man and seems inherently unfair to the animal, not to mention the reflective consequences on humans, such as a tendency towards serial murder. As with every law, there has to be limits and outlines, and I feel that laws regarding animal rights are, for the most part, correct and justifiable.

Regarding the rights of individuals, in a utopian society all individuals have identical rights. There is no such thing as women’s rights, gay rights, disabled-person’s rights, or any other kind of rights because all rights are universal. America has made some steps forward and some steps backward in this regard. Women’s suffrage was a giant step forward, but affirmative action was a giant step backward. The main point here is to recognize that whenever someone speaks of “fill_in_the_blank rights”, you are probably dealing with some special interest group seeking to gain political advantage. Case in point: the recent controversy over illegal immigrant “rights” (this, in my opinion, is only slightly less bizarre than the notion of animal rights.) It is clear that the goal here is to provide a specific population (illegal immigrants) with special privileges (free health care, free food, free eduation for their children, safe passage, etc) that only members of this group are to enjoy.

The same can be said of the animal rights movement. What we have here is a group of political activists seeking power for their cause. Their goal is to provide an arbitrary group of organisms (which they reserve the right to define) with political power. This political power comes not only at the expense of my property rights (sofa vs. dog), but also from my freedom to pursue happiness (hunting and fishing), a means of livelihood (draft animals), my health (research animals) and my family’s safety and well-being (pest extermination).

Once we start granting rights to nonhumans, there is no logical limit to potential claims for rights. Should all animals be deserving of rights? How do we decide which animals are deserving of rights and which are not? Is there any logical reason why rights should not be extended to non-mammals? Should swatting a fly be considered an act of murder? Then, ultimately, comes the question, why not extend rights to members of the plant kingdom? Many believe that they are also sentient beings, that respond to loving attention much as any non-human animal does. Believe it or not, there is even a movement underway to grant legal rights to robots (just google rights of robots to see what I mean).

I think it is important draw a distinction between rights and privileges. True rights, such as those enshrined in the Bill of Rights, are universal — your freedom of religion does not infringe upon my freedom of religion. However, political privilege is often shrewdly couched in the language of “rights” to make them more palatable to the masses. They always come at the cost of exchanging the freedom of the many for the power of a few.

In your issue of “responsibilities are not mandatory for a right”, it is true that many people have rights that they are not responsible for. The key point that you might have missed, is that people are punished for being irresponsible. Not having a license or paying child support has it’s consequences, usually jail. If you are a misinformed voter, the consequence is a poor democracy (perhaps with poor leadership). It is true you have freedom to act, just not freedom of action.

I think you are misreading some of what Rick said. This is what I understood reading his statement. His argument is “all rights are retained by individuals”. He is not against women voting, but against the concept that people, as a group, demand/have their own “special” set of rights that are enforced on the individual. What happens is that we, as individuals, lose rights and gain responsibility. The question remains, what responsibilities do these groups (particularlly non-human) have? What defines unique property and property?

As an individual, you should have the utmost freedom. What is happening is that the individual is losing freedom, because the individual is put at the “end of the chain”. The reverse ends up happening: the more special-interest groups that you are a part of, the more rights you have. The horrible thing is that most people support losing their rights. It is very easy to see that in the comments of the numerous online petitions wanting Mr. Vick to be “hanged, shot, electrocuted, (etc)”.

Perhaps what Vick did was immoral, but I believe the individual should be the only factor in determining if his/her actions were “right” or “wrong”, unless against another individual. If America is free, why delegate a group to enforce morality? As you said, you feel it is immoral, personally. What people want, is it to be immoral legally.