PETA’s Lack of Sensitivity is Icing on the Cake
Karen Bune
Victimology Contributor
Officer.com
Passengers aboard a Canadian Greyhound bus were subjected to a grisly scene when they witnessed a passenger, Vince Weiguang Li, suddenly and wildly attacking Tim McLean, another passenger, by repeatedly stabbing and, ultimately, decapitating him. Exiting the bus as rapidly as they could, the other passengers wanted to secure their own safety and escape from the chaotic events that surrounded them. For the witnesses and all the passengers on the bus, the impact was traumatic and the aftermath of that event will linger over time with recurring memories that will, undoubtedly, invoke trauma and unrelenting emotional distress.
The family of the victim suffers greatly not only in learning of their loved one’s death but the manner in which he died. Moreover, hearing news that the offender allegedly had pieces of McLean’s body in his pocket, that may have included his ear, nose, and mouth, and that he may have eaten some of the body parts, augment the shocking impact of his death and the devastating effects on the family.
And, if that is not all bad enough, the group, People For The Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) has put the icing on the cake by their desire to place an ad in a Canadian newspaper, The Portage Daily Graphic, which refused to print it, that compares the killing of animals for food to the depraved actions of the murderer involved in the bus incident. The ad depicts a human being’s throat being slit. ’“By juxtaposing the shocking details of the murder with the fate of animals whose bodies are causally hacked apart to end up between two slices of bread, some good will come,” states PETA on their website.
The PETA group is obviously lacking a substantial degree of sensitivity and good judgment along with fundamental common sense. The group seemingly has no comprehension—or just doesn’t care– of the tremendous amount of distress the survivors and family members are experiencing and the suffering that has engulfed their lives to an overwhelming degree. Though PETA issued a statement on their blog in which they profess their horror by stating, “Yes, of course, we were horrified (who wouldn’t be) when we heard the details of this barbaric, incomprehensible killing. And, obviously, everyone’s good thoughts go out to anyone affected by this violent act,” the PETA group seems to be laden with selfish motives for their own interests.
If PETA was genuinely “horrified,” it would be fair to assume they would not have even thought of such an ad, much less developed one, which would be so insensitive to the family of the victims and the witnesses to the tragic event. The proof is in the pudding that PETA is apparently ignorant of the bona fide impact of criminal victimization on human beings. PETA’s strategy of placing similarities between the bus incident and the act of killing animals for food is beyond the standard reach of reasonable comprehension and intrinsic compassion.
I just returned from Holden Beach, NC, where sea turtles hatched during that timeframe I was there. It came to me while reading your article just how blunted Americans have become to violence to humans as opposed to animals.
At Holden Beach, if a person walked up to any person, struck them with their hands, kept them from leaving their home, and destroyed their home, that person could be charged with the crime of destruction of property, felony, abduction, and assault. Two felonies and a misdemeanor, in which maximum time given for a first offense would be somewhat less than 2 years. If that same person did that exact thing to a sea turtle - that is prevented it from getting to the sea, destroyed it’s nest and picked it up….all the same crime….the jail time is 15 YEARS on the first offense!!!
I thought the Bible said that animals were made for the use of man….not the other way ’round.
It seems strange to me that PETA and other animal “rights” groups are perfectly happy with bears, coyotes, wolves, dogs, cats, dingos and other predators kill other animals, but believe that it somehow violates the “rights” of animals when people kill them for food, shelter, clothing, including shoes and other leather goods, in some cases all three. They should be consistent at least.
Our Founding Fathers declared to the world in 1776, among other things, “…We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal and are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, and that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness…” People were created in God’s image and endowed with rights by our Creator, not animals.
Mankind was given dominion over the earth including the animals living on it. With dominion (stewardship) comes the responsibility to use earth’s resources wisely, including animal resources.
There is no similarity between someone murdering another person and someone killing an animal for food, clothing or shelter. For someone to make such an analogy shows just how radical they are.
PETA is, has been, and seemingly will continue to be a group of ignorant, radical, self serving and self righteous party of eco-terrorists. The action they attempted to take in the Canadian paper easily fits the text book description of terrorism. It wasn’t meant to be informative, rather it was designed to shock, disrupt and instill fear in the citizens of Canada.
If it is wrong to kill and eat animals, then why are they made out of meat and taste so good? Just a thought…
More to the point Jason, if it is somehow “wrong” for us to eat animals, why isn’t it “wrong” for animals to eat other animals, including man? If they have the “right” to do that, then we have the “right” to kill them. Animals do not have rights, people do. It’s as simple as that. One of PETA’s even more radical cousins ALF, Animal Liberation Front, is classified as a terrorist organization by the F.B.I.’s Joint Terrorism Task Force. They are responsible for far more domestic terrorism than any other group. Another “Green” terrorist organization is the ELF, Earth Liberation Front. The people who make up these groups are truly demented. For example, the ALF frequently kills hunting dogs in protest of hunting. The ELF frequently spikes trees to injure loggers who’re harvesting them, they attempt to justify their actions by claiming that they’re “Saving the Trees” even though the spikes they use damage and often kill the same trees that they claim to be protecting.
They don’t think a thing in the world about blowing up laboratories, that use laboratory animals, often killing man and beast alike. I guess that, using their “logic”, that SWAT teams should kill all of the hostages along with as many of the bad guys as possible to “save” the hostages? I wouldn’t want to have anything to do with an operation like that, nor do I believe that any sane individual would.
I still like the PETA story where 2 PETA employees offer to temporarily house healthy, young cats and dogs for future adoptions and then take them behind a shopping mall, kill, and toss their bodies into a dumpster so that they won’t have to live as slaves. PETA actually supported the actions of these 2 idiots, by appointing legal counsel for them. I’m not surprised they think the murder of a human is the same as the “murder” of a chicken. These people are complete idiots.