PETA's Sea Kittens.

A friend recently told me about PETA's Sea Kitten campaign. PETA's idea is... kittens are cute, so people do not want to kill them. So let's rename fish as "sea kittens" - so that people will not want to kill fish.

There are several problems with the campaign. PETA says...

"Given the drastic situation for this country's sea kittens—who are often the victims of many major threats to their welfare and ways of life—it's high time that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) stop allowing our little sea kitten friends to be tortured and killed. Who'd want to hurt a sea kitten anyway?!

Sea kittens are just as intelligent (not to mention adorable) as dogs and cats, and they feel pain just as all animals do. "

Do we really want to make decisions regarding whether or not a creature is killed/harvested/conserved based on cuteness? Really? So is PETA essentially endorsing the view that "physical attractiveness" = "value of life"?

Alternatively, PETA says that sea kittens are just as intelligent as dogs and cats - which also endorses the view that "intelligence" = "value of life".

Under that world view - a human being who has been diagnosed with profound mental retardation (IQ < 20), arguably has less intrinsic value than someone at the statistical mean (IQ = 100). It also implies that a highly intelligent functioning dolphin is more valuable than a human diagnosed with mental retardation.

I once watched a PETA documentary, which was intended to promote the organization. However, instead of promoting the organization, the co-founder, Ingrid Newkirk just came across as a loony.

In one particular moment, Ingrid and her colleagues "found" an animal that they claimed was being sent to slaughter. They brought it back to their office, placed it in a confined office, then turned on the radio to play it some music, and closed the door.

I had an awakening. I think that particular moment captured Ingrid's problem. She suffers from a lack of empathy. You might be surprised at this conclusion, but hear me out.

Empathy is the ability to share and understand another individual's emotion and feelings. Empathy is not compassion or sympathy (which Ingrid has plenty of). An individual may have a high capacity for empathy for another, but still not have compassion or sympathy (for other reasons).

Crudely put - empathy is one's ability to understand another's thought process/emotion. Great communicators have a high degree of empathy. They implicitly understand another individual's through process/emotions, and can tailor their method of communication accordingly.

Ingrid assumes that the animal would appreciate classical music blasting loudly from the radio. She had no way of knowing whether or not the animal in fact appreciated her intervention, but if Ingrid thought it is better for the animal (absent of any facts), it was better for the animal.

It is this incapacity for empathy, that leads PETA to kill more domesticated dogs and cats annually than they save. PETA does not dispute the fact that they kill these animals (just search their website). PETA insists that the animals are un-adoptable, and that their killings constitute an act of mercy.

In 2003, Ingrid wrote a letter to Yasser Arafat to protest the use a donkey in a bomb attack against Israeli nationals. Ingrid did not really care about the potential innocents in either the Israeli or Palestinian sides of the conflict - she took a stance against the bombing because of the donkey. I wonder what Arafat thought when he read the faxed letter.

In 2005, several PETA employees were arrested and charged with animal cruelty in North Carolina, after being caught dumpling dead bodies of dogs and cats at a supermarket dumpster. PETA had apparently been soliciting local animal shelters for the animals, telling the shelters that they would find homes for the animals. Instead? They were "put out of their misery" and dumped at a dumpster.

PETA members have also been known to "rescue" animals from labs. In addition to committing criminal trespass, burglary, ruining years of research and potentially voiding the sacrifice of other animals, and creating potential public health threats, when PETA "rescues" animals from research facilities, if the organization does not have the funds to keep the animals alive, it "puts them out of their misery."

So will I hurt a sea-kitten? Yes. I will hurt a sea-kitten incidental to control their overpopulation (usually occurs when humans erroneously introduce them to new ecosystems). I will also hurt a sea-kitten, incidental to me wanting some yummy protein.

I will consume sea-kittens not because I'm particularly evil (I may be - but I promise I'm not doing it out of evilness in this instance), but because I refuse to differentiate between the intrinsic value of different animals and plants. I am homosapien, I have eight incisors and four canines. Regardless of whether an intelligent almighty created my kind out of dirt, or whether I evolved from other mammals, humans are part of the environment and developed as a part of the ecosystem (for example, cockroaches and rodents have developed around homosapien ecosystems).

I need protein to survive - it can come from fields of crop that displace other animals, or from animals. Either way - my human existence is going to harm the interests of another animal.

Thus, I will eat anything that is sustainable, tastes good and/or beneficial to my health.