"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for
good men [and women] to do nothing." -- Edmund Burke (1729-1797)
"Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they
do it from religious conviction." -- Blaise Pascal (1623-1662)
"But for the sake of some little mouthful of flesh we deprive
a soul of the sun and light,
and of that proportion of life and time it had been born into
the world to enjoy." -- Plutarch (46-120) more
"One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics
is that you end up being governed by your inferiors." --
Plato (427BC-347BC)
"The soul is the same in all living creatures, although the
body of each is different." -- Hippocrates (460BC-377BC)
"Only if we understand can we care. Only if we care
will we help. Only if we help shall all be saved."
-- Dr. Jane Goodall
"If anyone wants to save the planet, all they have to do
is just stop eating meat. That's the single most important
thing you could do...
Vegetarianism takes care of so many things in one shot: ecology,
famine, cruelty." -- Sir Paul McCartney more
"There are viable (and usually better) alternatives to the use of
animals for food, sport, clothing, and experimentation.
I beg you to discontinue any actions that might cause or condone animal
torture, abuse, or destruction.
If you look at the course of western history you'll see that we're
slowly granting basic rights to everyone.
A long time ago only kings had rights. Then rights were
extended to property-owning white men. Then all men.
Then women. Then children. Then the mentally
retarded. Now we're agonizing over the extension of basic rights
to homosexuals and animals. We need to finally accept that
all sentient creatures are deserving of basic rights.
I define basic rights as this: the ability to pursue life without
having someone else's will involuntarily forced upon you.
Or, as the framers of the constitution put it, the ability to have
'life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.'
By what criteria can you justify denying basic rights to any living
thing? Realize that by whatever criteria you employ
someone could deny basic rights to you if they objected to your
species, sexual preferences, color, religion, ideology, etc.
Would you eat your housecat, or force a mentally retarded child to
ingest oven cleaner? If not, then why is it ok
to eat cows and test products on sentient animals? I believe
that to knowingly commit actions that cause or condone
suffering is reprehensible in the extreme. I call upon you to
be compassionate and treat others as you want to be treated.
If you don't want to be beaten, imprisoned, mutilated, killed, or
tortured then you shouldn't condone
such behavior towards anyone, be they human or not." -- Moby