Issue Position: Animal Rights

Issue Position

Animal Rights

Proverbs 12:10 A righteous man has regard for the life of his beast, but the mercy of the wiked is cruel." (rsv)

The Humane Society of the United States is an umbrella organization that can give you links to many organizations that protect your pets and other animals from human abuse and cruely. Please visit their website at; http://www.humanesociety.org/

The Human Society also keeps track of how members of Congress vote on issues that protect animals including your pets. I am sorry to report that our incumbent Congressman Tom Rooney only scored 12% out of 100% on their rating. Unfortunately that was the average score of all Republicans in the House of Representative. By comparison, Democrats averaged 88%. It seems compassion for animals and people are found in the same places.

You can find Congressional Scorecard on these issues at the link below.
http://www.hslf.org/our-work/humane-scorecard.html

Let's protect our pets and animals from cruelty by electing a Congress that cares about these issues. I care. Won't you help us?

Also PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals ) is the largest animal rights organization and has great information on its website: www.Peta.org.

Below are some excerpts

Why Animal Rights?

Almost all of us grew up eating meat, wearing leather, and going to circuses and zoos. Many of us bought our beloved "pets" at pet shops, had guinea pigs, and kept beautiful birds in cages. We wore wool and silk, ate McDonald's burgers, and fished. We never considered the impact of these actions on the animals involved. For whatever reason, you are now asking the question: Why should animals have rights?

In his book Animal Liberation, Peter Singer states that the basic principle of equality does not require equal or identical treatment; it requires equal consideration. This is an important distinction when talking about animal rights. People often ask if animals should have rights, and quite simply, the answer is "Yes!" Animals surely deserve to live their lives free from suffering and exploitation. Jeremy Bentham, the founder of the reforming utilitarian school of moral philosophy, stated that when deciding on a being's rights, "The question is not "Can they reason?' nor "Can they talk?' but "Can they suffer?'" In that passage, Bentham points to the capacity for suffering as the vital characteristic that gives a being the right to equal consideration. The capacity for suffering is not just another characteristic like the capacity for language or higher mathematics. All animals have the ability to suffer in the same way and to the same degree that humans do. They feel pain, pleasure, fear, frustration, loneliness, and motherly love. Whenever we consider doing something that would interfere with their needs, we are morally obligated to take them into account.

Supporters of animal rights believe that animals have an inherent worth--a value completely separate from their usefulness to humans. We believe that every creature with a will to live has a right to live free from pain and suffering. Animal rights is not just a philosophy--it is a social movement that challenges society's traditional view that all nonhuman animals exist solely for human use. As PETA founder Ingrid Newkirk has said, "When it comes to pain, love, joy, loneliness, and fear, a rat is a pig is a dog is a boy. Each one values his or her life and fights the knife."

Only prejudice allows us to deny others the rights that we expect to have for ourselves. Whether it's based on race, gender, sexual orientation, or species, prejudice is morally unacceptable. If you wouldn't eat a dog, why eat a pig? Dogs and pigs have the same capacity to feel pain, but it is prejudice based on species that allows us to think of one animal as a companion and the other as dinner.
The PETA Practical Guide to Animal Rights

Take vital steps to cut thoughtless cruelty to animals out of your life and to educate others around you. Check out the most comprehensive book on animal rights available today! In The PETA Practical Guide to Animal Rights, PETA president Ingrid E. Newkirk provides hundreds of tips, stories, and resources. It's PETA's must-have guide to animal rights. Also available for the Kindle!

Read more: http://www.peta.org/about-peta/why-peta/why-animal-rights/#ixzz35nzh15Bn

If elected, I intend to sponsor and vote for legislation to fund additional supervision of factory farms to insure the humane treatment of animals.

In Barry C. Lynn's excellent book Cornered, subtitled The New Monopoly Capitalism and the Economics of Destruction, he outlines the dangers of America becoming a corportist state with little competition in almost every area of our lives.

In one segment he describes the situtation in 2007 with Menu Foods which produces most of the pet food sold in America and how their use of wheat gluten from one supplier in China had poisoned pet food that killed many household pets eating Menu Foods products sold under an incredible 150 different labels including 5 of the top 6 brands. Many wonderful pets died or were seriously ill before the recall emptied Walmart and other supermarket shelves of most of their pet foods.

Sometimes the lowest price is not the best price, and consolidation of retailers of food for both humans and animals can expose the public to serious threats to their health and safety. That is why I actively support all efforts to grow and eat locally produced foods that meet organic standards, especially when it comes to the untested and unlabelled dangers of genetically modified crops and the animals that eat them. For instance, aproximately 90% of corn and soy are genetically modified, for the main purpose of providing financial benefits to companies like Monsanto who claim them as "intellectual property." High fructose corn syrup, a major ingredient in most "store bought" food is genetically modified and linked to the obesity and diabetes epidemics in the U.S.

As a member of Congress I will do all that I can to see that anti-trust laws are reinstated and enforced so that Americans are not dependent on only a few suppliers of their basic needs. This concept must also be applied to banking, communications, retailing, and oither key sectors, not only for safety but to insure the existence of true free market capitalism.

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