• About the Author
  • Books
  • Vinyl
  • What the critics say about Jeff

Jeff Halperin

Jeff Halperin

Tag Archives: animal rights

The stink of vegan hypocrisy

15 Monday Oct 2012

Posted by jdhalperin in Comedy

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

animal rights, human rights, Macleans, vegan hypocrites, vegans

[Going through my computer I found an old unpublished piece that was undeservedly buried, so I polished it and present it now.]

I read an issue of Maclean’s containing a hilarious article wherein Martin Mersereau, the director of emergency response for PETA, states, “Any vegan restaurant that kills rodents is absolutely hypocritical. If you’re going to exercise such conscientiousness in the cuisine that you prepare, then why not bring that same heart and soul to managing your little unwanted visitors? [glue traps and poison] should be avoided like the plague.” Even if the little unwanted visitor in question carried the plague, I expect Mersereau would demonstrate for the rodent his superhuman compassion. He imagines that his position is the most magnanimous, but he is wrong.

The vegan must go further than not killing animals. Vegan’s prime directive is animal rights. If all you do is not kill people then you’re not a murderer, but you’re not an advocate for human rights either. For starters, that would entail actively opposing and protesting against murder. Yet Mersereau watches the animal holocaust at a distance, his silence enabling the ceaseless slaughter to continue. To stay consistent, he ought to prosecute people who eat or kill animals. A passive vegan, like Mersereau, who looks the other way while all his animal friends are being killed isn’t doing anything to save the animals. He’s just clearing his conscious.

But a real vegan would go further still, as humans aren’t the only ones who violate animal rights. In the pursuit of justice, a devoted vegan of Martin Mersereau’s stature ought to condemn animals who harm animals. It doesn’t make a lick of a difference to the animal being exploited whether the exploiter is a human or a fellow animal. Dead is dead. A real vegan ought to be concerned with all the blood that’s spilled, not just the blood on his hands. Until Mersereau demonstrates consistency by policing forests worldwide and trying to arrest me for barbecuing, he is a hypocrite.

Personhood: should all persons, including dolphin people, legally be persons?

23 Thursday Feb 2012

Posted by jdhalperin in Statements

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

animal rights, Corporations are people, Dolphins are people, Mitt Romney, National Post

The past couple days the National Post has reported that animal rights activists in the States are trying to get dolphins, and other cetaceans, to legally be called “persons” under the law. According to Emory University neuroscientist Lori Marino, “their basic needs are very much like humans–to be able to stay alive, not to be confined, to make choices and travel, and perhaps foremost to engage in social interaction.”

I laughed at this because I can’t hear the words cetacean and Marino without thinking about Ace Ventura, but her quote got me thinking. Doesn’t her criterion apply to every animal? I know dolphins are really smart, but find me an animal that prefers to die, to be confined, and to remain dormant and isolated from its own kind.

Last year I joked that one day, at the current rate magnanimous human persons bestow rights ever outward, owning a dog will be considered vile and archaic. Consider: we order them around, exert dominance by actually keeping them tethered to a chain around their neck in public, we feed them after they perform tricks, and, worst of all, if it suits us, we cut off their balls. One might say that dogs seem happy in human homes, but it’s just centuries of Stockholm syndrome. Domesticated…what a horrible euphemism for slavery.

Is SeaWorld a concentration camp? It used to be a fun place to take your kids. Ahh, the times are changing. Tasha Kheiriddin from the Post insists the problem with bestowing human rights to animals is they cannot possibly enter into the social contract: “an animal bears no responsibility, legal or otherwise, for its actions. You cannot sue a dolphin if it bites you or wrecks your boat.”

If the dolphin manages to acquire personhood under the law, while at the same time managing to avoid all obligations of the social contract, perhaps they really are smarter than humans. If I bite someone or wreck their boat I’m in trouble. Well played, cetacean.

It’s funny to consider that this discussion is taking place while in the States Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney believes corporations are people. By this he must mean that, just like with human people and with cetacean people, it is incorporations’ nature to stay alive, to not be confined, to make choices and travel, and to engage in social interaction. Well, let’s examine: no corporation wants to die, globalisation is anything but confined, decisions are made, business class is even its own travel designation, and corporations do hold social events like family barbecues and golf tournaments. So corporations are persons too. But since corporation people are made up of human people who can comprehend the social contract, they will be made to uphold it: if a corporation bites you or wrecks your boat, you can sue. Corporations are no cetaceans.

But there is a problem: according to the definition of persons that dolphins and companies have successfully met, human people no longer qualify as people. Consider: increasingly humans have become fatally overweight and cancer-prone, remain confined in office cubicles and 500 sq. foot condos, choice remains elusive as our social systems act upon us, we travel albeit on broken public transit systems and inadequate bike lanes, and anyone who’s seen the zombies on their iPhones in public agrees we are no longer a social species.

So there you have it. Dolphins and companies are people, unlike human beings.

Twitter

Follow @JDhalperin
Tweet

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 1,343 other subscribers

Essential sites

  • Grateful Dead Chords/Tabs
  • Neil Young Chords/Tabs

My Writing

  • Huffington Post
  • Maclean's
  • Music Writing
  • The Star
  • the Walrus Laughs
  • Toronto Review of Books
  • Toronto Standard
  • World Is One News

Topics

  • Comedy (18)
  • Literature (10)
  • Politics (24)
  • Sports (15)
  • Statements (35)
  • Uncategorized (20)

Blog at WordPress.com.

Privacy & Cookies: This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this website, you agree to their use.
To find out more, including how to control cookies, see here: Cookie Policy
  • Follow Following
    • Jeff Halperin
    • Join 48 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • Jeff Halperin
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar