Their crusade is one of a fight for rights for animals.  But if you stop and think about affording rights to animals, the concept is ludicrous.  “Rights” is a concept, and man is the only species on earth with the intellect to grasp concepts.  The most important concepts people think about concern morality and ethics, questions of “right and wrong.”  Man’s unique ability to ask ethical questions and make moral choices (rather than be ruled by instinct) makes us moral agents.

Rights are the boundaries between moral agents.  In order to possess rights, we must accept responsibilities to respect others’ rights.  We are justified in demanding our rights so long as we do not violate the rights of another moral agent.

Because animals act instinctively, they cannot even conceive of responsibilities.  When a cat kills a canary, you and I may be upset, but we also understand that the nature of cats is to kill birds.  We recognize that the cat has committed no moral violation.  The same is true even when a lion or a chimpanzee kills another member of its own species.  We
understand that nature has endowed animals with certain features that sometimes seem cruel.  But, quite properly, we do not judge animals on a moral scale.

On the other hand, a person who torments a cat to death the way a cat might torment a mouse deserves our moral condemnation – not because cats have rights, but because people have responsibilities.  Likewise, we insist it is wrong for people to burn books, deface a masterpiece, or desecrate a church – not because these things have rights, but because people have responsibilities. 

Rights are a serious business.  They are the linchpin of a free society.  Without them, people would not be able to go about their business free from arbitrary interference by government.  Rights offer a people freedom to convince others of different points of view without having to resort to violence and the resulting breakdown of civilization.

The animal rights movement would allow people no more rights than rats or cockroaches.  The real agenda of this movement is not to give rights to animals but to take rights from people – to dictate our food, clothing, work, recreation, and whether we will discover new medications or die. 

Even if the use of animals in biomedical research were to produce a cure for AIDS, says PETA’s Ingrid Newkirk, “we’d be against it.”  The reason? Mankind has “grown like a cancer.  We’re the biggest problem on the face of the Earth.”  But most disturbing of all was her quote, “Six million people died in concentration camps, but six billion broiler chickens will die this year in slaughterhouses. ”The inevitable consequences of her ideology were revealed by Hermann Goering, who was head of the German Humane Society and Environmental Minister for the Third Reich.  In a radio broadcast he announced “an absolute and permanent ban on vivisection.”  For violation of his ban, he said, any “culprit shall be lodged in a concentration camp.” By pretending to extend rights to animals, which by nature are incapable of moral cognition, the Nazis ultimately annihilated the very concept of “rights.” And just as the dogma of animal rights led to the
destruction of human rights under Nazism, it leads to the destruction of human rights today.

So if animals cannot even conceive of rights or responsibilities, and the animal rights movement and PETA realize this, then what is their goal?

I think the warped motivation behind this warped ideology is best expressed by Newkirk herself: “I am not a morose person, but I would rather not be here.  I don’t have any reverence for life, only for the entities themselves.  I would rather see a blank space where I am.  This will sound like fruitcake stuff again, but at least I wouldn’t be harming anything.” 

If you don’t have the answer yet to what animal rightists want, how about this quote from Michael W. Fox of the Humane Society, “Man is the most dangerous, destructive, selfish, and unethical animal on earth.”  Enough?  Do you get their anti-human message?  Or do you need one more quote from Wild Earth, “If you haven’t given voluntary human extinction much thought before, the idea of a world with no people in it may seem strange.  But, if you give it a chance, I think you might agree that the extinction of Homo sapiens would mean survival for millions, if not billions, of Earth-dwelling species. . .  Phasing out the human race will solve every problem on earth, social and environmental.”

Yes, they are using a fight for rights for animals to attack the human race.  Can anyone in their right mind believe in this? Pat Buchanan has always stood for the right of the individual.  His voice is strong and powerful for the forces of freedom.  For PETA to usurp it for its own warped agenda is a tragedy for reason and a victory for the dark side.

Kathleen Marquardt is the Vice President of the American Policy Center, founder of Putting People First, and author of the bestselling book, Animal Scam, The Beastly Abuse of Human Rights.