Rat = Pig = Dog = Boy = Moral Nonsense
Original ArticleMy friend, Wesley J. Smith, has a new, long-anticipated book critiquing the animal rights movement. It takes its title from an infamous statement by Ingrid Newkirk, head of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals: A Rat Is a Pig Is a Dog Is a Boy.
Animal rights, like environmentalism, sounds like something that every well-meaning person should support. But it’s not. In reality, the movement is deeply anti-human. And in just three decades, Smith argues, it has seeped into every nook and cranny of Western culture.
It is dangerous, not because it advocates kindness to animals, but because it denies any intrinsic moral difference between animals and human beings. It may seem counterintuitive to say so, but to ascribe rights to animals is to strike at a core truth on which Western civilization is built: human exceptionalism. The animal rights movement has deserved a detailed exposé for a long time, and Wesley Smith is just the person to deliver it.