You know PETA’s reaching when it starts enlisting models to pose mostly-nude for their “Become a mindless vegetable, er, vegetarian!” ads.
Randomosity at its randomest
Tag Archive for 'PETA'
PETA is well known for being a mean-spirited group hell-bent on ruining life for anyone who isn’t vegan. But why did they have to expand their propaganda to include circuses? Basically, circuses are cruel. And that means that you’re cruel if you attend one, you foul, elephant-beating person.
Seriously though, there are four reasons there why parents should not take their kids to the circus. Now, not all of them are bad, but it’s the generalizations typical of anything related to PETA that really get me. Take, for instance, reason 1 in the link above: “Circuses chain‚ cage‚ and hurt animals.” This may be true in some cases, but not every circus treats its animals cruelly. And cruelty to animals is certainly no reason to cut out circuses entirely. I mean, it’s not as if there are circuses that don’t have animals. Oh wait! It says right there in one of the random quotes on the sidebar that there are non-animal circuses! What an idea!
The other odd point is number 3, which says that children want more time with their families. The writer of the piece then suggests going to see Dora Live or the Wiggles. How, may I ask, are those events any different than the circus? You’re watching a show. It may not be quality time with the kids, but you are spending time with them. Even at circuses. Point 4 is an obvious one. Other ways to learn about animals? Try the zoo. Wait, zoos are (read: can be and rarely are) cruel, too, so I guess those are out. Forget the useful information they provide about animals and conservation…
This article, fortunately, isn’t the usual stuff you’d expect from PETA. It’s not rabid, it’s not viciously pushing an agenda. It’s a (somewhat) thoughtfully written essay with kids in mind. Reading through it, there’s no place that says “Tell your kids that eating animals is a horrible thing that will make them die really young” or anything like that. The main point here is not supporting animal abuse, an issue I wholeheartedly agree with. But it still makes some huge generalizations. First off, animals are not defenseless. Someone has to go in an animal’s cage at some point, which means that animal has a perfect chance to maul or even kill the person. Lions and tigers are well-known for this, even when they’re treated fairly well. Even elephants can severely injure a person if so provoked. Wild (or even domesticated) animals are never defenseless. Secondly, few modern circuses abuse their animals. It’s bad publicity when people find out. Better to treat animals well and be praised than abuse them and risk losing customers when someone reports it. I’d even say that well-treated animals perform better than abused ones, but that’s a pretty subjective thing to say.
I just wish PETA would leave well enough alone. Yes, it’s good to let people know about animal abuse and how they can prevent it, but telling people (kids even!) not to go to the circus? Now that’s just cruel.
PETA’s done it again, showing me that they’re not above low blows. Now, I’ve never liked PETA. Any organization that vehemently rails against animal euthanasia and encourages protests in front of animal shelters while at the same time euthanizing a sizable amount of animals in their own shelters deserves to be ridiculed. But it’s not just their hypocrisy; it’s also the fact that they seem to think everyone needs to be vegetarian or vegan, and they’ll go to any length to try and convince people.
So, I was walking around my college campus today and I come across a man in a chicken suit. I thought it was pretty funny…until I saw the sign he was wearing. It said “I am not a nugget.” This is actually a popular PETA ad campaign, put forward mainly by their “hip” teen site PETA2. The ads generally feature a cute-looking little baby chicken with the same words. Essentially, it’s a ploy to get people to think, “Oh no! That chicken is cute! I can’t eat it!” which is incredibly low. Of course, this sort of thing is nothing new to PETA, the group that brought you the “Meat causes impotence” commercial, which was (thankfully) turned down by CBS when PETA tried to air it during Super Bowl XXVIII.
Anyways, I am not a nugget? Well, not yet, you aren’t. I have every right to eat animals if I want to, and I’m not going to let PETA tell me otherwise. And while I defend their right to push their vegetarian agenda, I just wish they wouldn’t use unfair tactics to do it. Educate people about animal cruelty, yes, but don’t make it seem as if every farmer on Earth is the Marquis de Sade reincarnated. Seriously, animal cruelty doesn’t happen nearly as much as PETA says it does.
Ah, listen to me go on. I’ll stop now before I got into how PETA supports terrorists (oh, you didn’t know?) and all that other damning stuff. I like my meat perfectly fine, and no one’s going to make me give it up, least of all a man in a chicken suit.
