Breaking news from our time-traveling reporters, recently returned from a special assignment for The Genesis Tattler and World Report:
The 26th verse of the 1st chapter of Genesis (NIV) declares animal rights alienable, subservient to the inalienable rights of mankind (the ones created in His image and likeness). In a single sentence, a sentencing I say, the English translation describes
- the creation of mankind,
- the wild creatures in the sea,
- in the sky,
- on the land,
- and the livestock.
So farmed animals get exiled from wild animals in one fell swath.
Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”
How about this logical leap: encaging every living being from tapeworm to giraffe between two commas — declaring the deed done in fewer than seven words. …Let us make mankind in our image
,in our likeness,
so that they may rule over…
I’m assigning another time-traveling team to the gates of Eden to report on the couple caught trafficking forbidden fruit: advice of a snake-oil-sales demon guised as a serpent, possibly a slitherer subservient (subserpient?) to the inalienably privileged pair. The devil is in the details.
Bill, if you don’t have anything good to say, don’t say anything at all.
It’s not really what I say that counts, it’s what I do. I DO VEGAN.
Speaking of saying something good, is it even possible to be a good person, to eat peas, live long and prosper? Not only to prosper, but to thrive without executing the calf and hardening the arteries, those tubes hat flow lifeblood into and out of your heart, possibly to head off an extinction event named after its instigator. While researching this article I happened upon a quite fascinating site that speaks to a potential extinction event : Misanthropocene
A few thoughts for future posts:
The hegemony of man as misogynist.
Where do humans fit on the scale running from sadism to masochism?
Are humans a selfish specie?
One self-adoring philosopher, Ayn Rand, is my choice for single most influential human responsible for stoking the boilers of the Anthropocene Express. Git ‘er done, Ayn. Here is a Rand quote from 1974:
They (Native Americans) didn’t have any rights to the land, and there was no reason for anyone to grant them rights which they had not conceived and were not using. What was it that they were fighting for, when they opposed white men on this continent? For their wish to continue a primitive existence, their ‘right’ to keep part of the earth untouched, unused and not even as property, but just keep everybody out so that you will live practically like an animal, or a few caves above it. Any white person who brings the element of civilization has the right to take over this continent.
— Q and A session following her address to the graduating class of The United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, March 6, 1974 – found in Endgame: Resistance, by Derrick Jensen, Seven Stories Press, 2006, pg 220
I sign off with the words of Anthony Douglas Williams:
When I look into the eyes of an animal, I do not see an animal, I see a living being, I see a friend, I feel a Soul.
The eyes have it.
Thanks for reading.
billziegler1947 
Thanks Bill, I enjoyed reading your post and the article linked to. I must say (well, no, I mustn’t, but I will), that I do feel the rising engagement in misanthropy to be a peculiarly self-flagellating, pernicious and purposeless exercise. Our capacity to symbolically represent ourselves (in self-awareness, possessing adaptive self-constructs, and so forth) permits this indulgence of self-hatred, yet to what end? Perhaps we should eat ourselves, if there can’t be peas in our time?
LikeLiked by 1 person
Gracious thanks, Hariod. Sadism and masochism become as one do they not? Two sides of a Möbius strip? Jeff Bezos of the Amazon has just become the first 100 billion-dollar man — reading that headline instantly recalled an observation I made in a high school civics class on the US federal budget: it was 100 billion dollars at the time, so the pie chart diagram showing the allotments for each sector automatically presented their respective percent values. Speaking of pea-pie peace in our time, Pi Day is only 5 days away 🙂
https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=7074
LikeLiked by 1 person
Wonderful post! So many wise things you said, but I especially liked this one, “It’s not really what I say that counts, it’s what I do. I do vegan.” I DO VEGAN!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you from my chakra, Spunky. I’ve just done a quick search for “I DO VEGAN” and find that it’s not a common expression — fun when that happens 🙂
Have a very veganly weekend, my friend!
LikeLike
Another post well executed. Pardon the expression.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Hello Peter. Pardon gratefully accepted 🙂
This one kept thrashing my brain and punishing my ancient knuckles/thumbs until one of my thumbs twitched momentarily upward — an involuntary spasm but enough approval to warrant pushing the publish button. The other thumb was too weary to disagree, it fell asleep on the spacebar 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
What a scary quote by Ayn Rand. She embodies the problem of the “Tragedy of the Commons”
LikeLiked by 1 person
Hello jkaybay, Thanks so much for your reply. Ayn Rand does indeed incarnate that tragedy with distinction — the shadow she cast continues to lengthen, you have inspired me to write about that connection in another post.
Garrett Hardin wrote about the phenomenon in 1968, it is yet considered a definitive work, here’s a link for those who wish to learn more about the “Tragedy of the Commons:
http://science.sciencemag.org/content/162/3859/1243.full
My gratitude is heartfelt, kind sir.
LikeLike