RE: Do you agree with Richard Dawkins?
April 17, 2012 at 8:55 pm
(This post was last modified: April 17, 2012 at 9:07 pm by The Grand Nudger.)
Actually ant's don't "appear to be suffering" unless the plant that shrivels from toxins at the root zone "appears to be suffering". They are both merely avoiding further injury. Flora and fauna respond similarly to negative stimuli. You have no way of knowing this objectively, and so rely on the effect. Again, plants exhibit effects. Even so, they can't be said to be "suffering like us". "Sentience" isn;t a very good metric for this anyway. Some human beings are less sentient than others. Do they have fewer "innate rights"? We've been woefully wrong about sentience in the past as well, are you really ready to hitch your wagon to this one? How about the hypothetical trouble of AI or simulated beings. If the effect is what we rely on to assign rights, then at what point would an illusion become so convincing that it was no longer an illusion, but a legitimate effect? Is there any difference? Do androids dream of electric sheep?
This is all beside the point, you're again promoting speciesism as a metric for assigning rights. Are you okay with this? ( I am, and I go one step further, we're the only ones that have any, and only those we grant ourselves and extend to other human beings. If we want to assign rights to other animals we can, and we clearly do and have. None of that makes it innate. There is no condemnation of eating meat in any of that, unless we decide that there is.)
This is all beside the point, you're again promoting speciesism as a metric for assigning rights. Are you okay with this? ( I am, and I go one step further, we're the only ones that have any, and only those we grant ourselves and extend to other human beings. If we want to assign rights to other animals we can, and we clearly do and have. None of that makes it innate. There is no condemnation of eating meat in any of that, unless we decide that there is.)
I am the Infantry. I am my country’s strength in war, her deterrent in peace. I am the heart of the fight… wherever, whenever. I carry America’s faith and honor against her enemies. I am the Queen of Battle. I am what my country expects me to be, the best trained Soldier in the world. In the race for victory, I am swift, determined, and courageous, armed with a fierce will to win. Never will I fail my country’s trust. Always I fight on…through the foe, to the objective, to triumph overall. If necessary, I will fight to my death. By my steadfast courage, I have won more than 200 years of freedom. I yield not to weakness, to hunger, to cowardice, to fatigue, to superior odds, For I am mentally tough, physically strong, and morally straight. I forsake not, my country, my mission, my comrades, my sacred duty. I am relentless. I am always there, now and forever. I AM THE INFANTRY! FOLLOW ME!
