Animal Crackers

Ancient pagans at least worshipped a golden calf; their modern counterparts in the animal-rights movement cherish crustaceans.

Recently PETA – People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals – bought six lobsters from a Chinese restaurant in Maryland to prevent their being "killed, dismembered, and eaten." PETA then flew the "liberated lobsters' to the Maine coast, where they were released into the Atlantic. (And where, we can hope, they made a nice meal for sea bass and other natural predators.)

That sort of harmless if loony activity affects only donors to PETA's $6 million budget. But the animal liberationists have a more ambitious agenda: they want to outlaw any use of animals in food, research, or clothing. And they don't hesitate to use violence to bring this about.

After all, says Ingrid Newkirk, director of PETA: "A rat is a pig is a dog is a boy." Adds Alex Pacheco, PETA's chairman, "We feel that animals have the same rights as a retarded human child."

Such a view, especially in the 20th century, has consequences. Animal Abu Nidals have bombed medical research labs, torched fried-chicken restaurants, burned down fur stores, burglarized turkey farms, stolen medical records, assaulted zoo employees, and vandalized butcher shops.

To animal rightists, it's a matter of simple justice. All are "acceptable crimes" if they save the lives of animals, says PETA's Pacheco. Vicki Miller, head of the Canadian Animal Rights Network, even looks forward to the prospect of "a vivisector shot in the street."

As long as the rotten RICO law is on the books, why doesn't the Justice Department stop persecuting innocent stockbrokers and indict the organized crimes of these bloodthirsty vegetarians? If they want to eat bean sprouts and wear plastic shoes, fine, but they should leave the rest of us alone.

The animal rights philosophy holds that bug or bird, manatee or man, we are all equally valuable to Mother Nature's eco-sphere. But this is paganism. The Judeo-Christian tradition teaches us that God created the earth and all its creatures for mankind. They are ours to eat, wear, use, and enjoy.

What I want to know is why, if animals have the right to life, animal activists aren't out making citizens arrests of natural predators? Why aren't they interposing themselves between, say, a Kodiak bear and a salmon?

For some reason, intra-animal eating doesn't bother them. Only we aren't allowed to eat fish or meat. If these pantheists get their way, prepare to carve a 20 lb. roast tofu next Thanksgiving.

The Humane Society, which used to be relatively moderate, now says bacon and eggs are the "Breakfast of Cruelty." PETA calls McDonald's "McDeath" for serving cheeseburgers, and activists scrawl that epithet on restaurant walls.

Along with outlawing the use of cows for their meat and leather, or even raising them for milk and cheese, animal rightists want to ban the eating of fish, chicken, and even snails. Eating "our fellow creatures is cannibalism," one told me. They also want to forbid the sale of goosedown pillows, wool suits, and silk blouses, for geese are plucked, sheep are sometimes nicked when sheared, and the occasional silkworm is "boiled to death."

Silkworms are not the only insects favored by the crusaders against "speciesism," the "vicious belief that humans are the master race," an activist told me. A bug-free kitchen is also out. Cockroaches too "have a right to live," and serve the environment by being "efficient little garbage collectors."

Next on the agenda: microbe rights. A Canadian activist told the Toronto Globe and Mail that "viruses such as smallpox should be reintroduced as part of the earth's natural ecosystem."

Naturally, the animal ideologues such as PETA oppose the use of rabbits to test cosmetics, even if it means skin problems or eye disease for women. And, says Pacheco, animal tests must be banned in medicine too. Human welfare should take a back seat to the lab-rat, as modern research against cancer, Alzheimer's, strokes, and heart disease is forbidden. "It is not a large price to pay," a PETA employee told me.

At this time of the year, the greatest ire is reserved for fur. Steve Siegal, director of Trans- Species Unlimited, even advocates spray painting any woman with a fur coat in imitation of Swedish anti-furrists. Others use razor blades to slice up fur coats on display. And PETA also advocates chanting "fur is dead" at women in fur coats, who presumably think otherwise.

Mink, foxes, and other fur-bearing creatures are raised in "animal Auschwitzes," a PETA aide told me. These animals are "maltreated while alive, killed cruelly, and worn in savagery." Morally, this is no different from Ilse Koch, "the Buchenwald commandant who made a lampshade out of human skin."

Aside from the nature of this rhetoric, which offers an interesting glimpse into the animal-rightist soul, this is disinformation. Fur ranchers must treat their animals well. If they don't, they will have sick animals, and as any pet owner knows, that means unattractive fur.

Even though most fur coats are made from commercially grown animals, trapping is also used. This is necessary for animal husbandry, but it also serves other purposes. Bears destroy bee hives; coyotes kill livestock; beavers flood farmland and roads; and foxes, mink, and weasels attack poultry.

Thanks to violence and propaganda, fur sales have been in a recession in the U.S. for three years. In Northern Europe, fur sales also fell, but they have since bounced back. May the same happen here, especially as the glorious pelts from the arctic areas of the Soviet Union become more available under perestroika.

For Christmas, PETA urged us to sing carols to zoo animals "to draw attention to their imprisonment." I have a better idea. To aid a beleaguered industry, we should give fur. We can make another human happy and at the same time outrage the animal idolators.

What a warming thought as we sit down to slice our nice rare roast beef (N.B: A version of this article appeared in the Orange County Register. It was also the subject of a recent appearance by Lew Rockwell on CNN's Crossfire show with Pat Buchanan.)