PETA Shot Down

A recent Virginian-Pilot letter to the editor by a Norfolk-based PETA employee decrying the practice of fishing on Norfolk bay beaches elicited this smart smackdown from Virginia Beach insurance manager Eric Potter (not available on line, partially reproduced below):

The organization's argument is that animals are "sentient" creatures, capable of thoughts, feelings, and emotions.

Because humans are also "sentient" animals, suddenly the moral playing field is even and humans lose any right to participate in the food chain. A lion doesn't have a moral right to exploit a zebra, but that doesn't seem to enter into nature's equation. A shark may fish but a man may not?

Having effectively dismantled the "moral equivalence of food" argument, Potter goes on to make the final slapdown:

If PETA has its way we would ban hunting, fishing, beef, pork, and poultry farming, animal-derived clothing, zoos, circuses, animal experimentation in drug, medical, and cosmetic research, and the exploitation of animals as pets and companions.

This would result in a return to that idyllic time when we all scraped a living from the land on "organic" farms, and died early deaths, while a few enlightened individuals governened. We've tried that - it was called serfdom.

OUCH! A well-deserved smack upside the head, well delivered. I anxiously await PETA's comeback.