Well, it looks like President Obama really stepped in it this time. He was callous and cruel, with the whole world watching. At least that’s how that the nutjobs at People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals see it.
In case you haven’t seen it, the president swatted a fly on national television. When the PETArds witnessed this on-air murder, they chided Obama and released this statement:
“We support compassion even for the most curious, smallest and least sympathetic animals. We believe that people, where they can be compassionate, should be for all animals.”
I realize the PETA folks like to blur the distinctions between various life-forms, but flies aren’t animals. They’re insects. They don’t plan for their futures, they don’t fall in love, and they don’t miss their cousin Boo-Boo if he has an unfortunate encounter with a presidential hand. A fly is probably about as intelligent as a medium-sized potato – and therefore only slightly more intelligent than a medium-sized PETA volunteer.
PETA was probably also upset that Obama referred to the fly as a “little sucker.” As anyone who’s at least my age knows, “little sucker” was used to denigrate insects for much of this country’s blemished history – especially back in the days when insects weren’t allowed to sit at the counter at Denny’s. Waitresses and customers alike yelled, “Get out of here, you little sucker!” It’s only been in recent, more enlightened times that the public has been trained to refer insects as “differently-structured animals.”
Hoping to rehabilitate the president, PETA also announced they’re sending Obama a “humane flytrap” that would allow him to capture a fly and then release it outdoors. This is stupid for a couple of reasons. For one, catching and releasing flies is not a good use of Obama’s time. He’s the president, not a border guard. For another, catching and releasing a fly isn’t any fun. But squashing a fly is great fun.
In fact, one of the few things I’ve enjoyed about living in Southern California is the relatively slow reflexes of the flies. I don’t know if they’re a different breed out here or if too much sun just makes them lazy, but for whatever reason, they lack the quickness of their Midwestern cousins.
In Chicago, you need a turbo-charged, spring-loaded flyswatter to splatter a fly on your kitchen counter – and even then, you have to disguise yourself as a houseplant and sneak up on it. One over-eager step, and the fly will launch into a series of evasive maneuvers that Luke Skywalker would envy, then settle on a wall across the room and give you the finger with one of his legs.
But here in La-La-Land, I don’t even need a flyswatter. I can literally walk up to a fly and smack it with my hand. Most of the time, they don’t even move – although once, just before impact, I heard one mumble, “Bummer.”
PETA refers to a fly-smacker like me as a “speciesist.” The “ist” suffix is intended to put the word in the same emotional category as sexist and racist … you know, as if I’m some kind of bigot who believes certain species are inherently superior.
Well, they’ve got me on that one. I do believe my species is superior. If I’m interviewing a human and an antelope for the same engineering job, I’m going to assume the human is more intelligent and the better candidate. I may not even listen to the antelope’s replies – and if I can determine the antelope’s species from his job application, I won’t even interview him. Likewise, if I owned an apartment, I would rather rent to a human than a pig – although if I were a landlord in a college town, I might change my mind on that one.
If the PETArds merely believed in avoiding needless cruelty to animals, I wouldn’t mind them. I might even support them. But that’s not what they believe. They believe humans and animals – and insects, apparently – are all equals and should be afforded the same rights. They actually spout nonsense such as, “A pig is a dog is a boy.”
A couple of years ago, I heard Dennis Prager interview one of the PETArds on his radio show. After several minutes of sparring over animals rights, Prager said, “I’m going to ask you a question, even though I already know the answer: do you have any children?” The PETArd tried to dance his way out of answering, but Prager was insistent. And of course, the answer was no — as everyone listening knew it would be.
If you have kids (and you’re sane), you can’t possibly believe they’re the existential equivalent of rats and pigs. But the childless PETArd insisted that’s what he believes. So Prager asked a clarifying question: If you see a dog and a child both drowning, which do you save?
The PETArd tried dancing out of that one by replying, “I’m a vegetarian, so I’m strong enough to save both of them.” Yeah, right. If avoiding meat was the key to superior strength, the NFL, the NBA, the NHL and the major leagues would be overwhelmingly vegetarian. Pro athletes will do almost anything to gain an edge.
Here’s my answer to Prager’s question: I’d save the child, even if the dog was the schnauzer I loved as a boy and the child was the bully who used to torment my sister. (The bully was also the only human I’ve ever intentionally harmed, and I felt bad about it later, even though he deserved every punch.)
But the PETArd simply refused to answer — because he couldn’t, at least not without looking like a fool. If he answers, “the dog,” he exposes his organization as a bunch of kooks. If he answers, “the child,” he proves he’s a hypocrite.
But course, the PETA folks are hypocrites. It came out in the news some months ago that a PETA chapter in North Carolina relieved the over-crowding in one of their shelters by removing some cats and dogs and killing them. After they were caught dumping the corpses, they said they were very sorry, but they just couldn’t find homes for their little furry friends and had no choice.
Now, try to imagine those same PETA people offering this explanation for a slightly different scenario: “We’re very sorry about the homeless men we euthanized. The homeless shelter was very crowded, and we tried to find families to adopt the men, but people these days don’t have the proper sympathy for alcoholics and schizophrenics, so we really had no choice except to put them out of their misery.”
If they would never, ever do that (which I hope is true), then they’re hypocrites. If they would do that, they belong in an institution – preferably one that only serves pork.
As far as I’m concerned, the PETArds are hypocrites every time they sit down for a nice, yummy, insulin-spiking meal of whole-grain goodness. One of my best friends grew up on a farm. As we were watching the corn being harvested one day, I was stunned at the number of squirming insects and insect parts. (Yes, some of the parts will still squirming.) My friend just laughed at me and explained that all crops end up with insects in them. The FDA even has standards about how many insect parts are allowed in our food.
So if it’s murder to kill an insect, vegetarians are the chief customers and financial supporters of the insect world’s Pol Pots. I just hope they enjoy the extra flavor provided by all those little suckers.
p.s. – some months ago I wrote a little poem in a comment on Mike Eade’s blog:
PETA, PETA, Pumpkin eater,
Had a wife but served no meat her.
Fed her corn and pasta shells,
And only killed her beta cells.
If you enjoy my posts, please consider a small donation to the Fat Head Kids GoFundMe campaign.
I’m a member of the original PETA…
People
Eating
Tasty
Animals
I saw a t-shirt online like that: People for the Edible Treatment of Animals. Or as a comic I heard said (can’t remember his name) .. “Animals have two purposes: To be delicious and to fit well.”
peta = NOVA: Nasty Obnoxious Villains for Animals
People Eating Tasty Animals: Ruining everything to do with animal rights since 1980
These vegan and PETA loons (they often are the same) should see what damage to animal life the normal wheat, corn, cereal crops do. I’ve personaly seen how a little deer was caught in a harvester, ‘t wasn’t pretty.
They don’t seem to have a grip on reality, or on nature. We kill, animals kill. Chimps hunt other animals. Gorillas eat leaves, but chomp on a lot of bugs in the process, which is partly where they get their protein. There are 6 billion people on the planet, and we can’t feed them without killing other creatures.
I laughed. Then I raged. Then I laughed again.
By the way, I got GCBC. I’ve read it once, and I’d like to read it again and get my hands on some of the studies cited. So far, my opinion was as I expected — the stuff on the bad low-fat science is interesting and completely believable; his theories on carbs, the jury’s still out.
Glad you got the book. Did you see the lecture I posted? (Nothing there that isn’t in the book, of course.)
Oh yeah? If we should not eat animals, why are they made out of meat?
If they are going to stand up for animal rights, why aren’t they picketing in Africa? Buffalo, gazelle, zebra, etc… don’t have too peaceful of a life, what with the threat of being eaten every day. How can a fly be more important?
They probably figure all the work of dodging lions would cause protein cravings. And then what would they do?
Brian
They probably know the Africans would kill them.
I half paid attention to this on the news last night. Quite rediculous. I have better things to waste my time on than listening to PETA nonsense.
Funny story: I went to high school in Alberta, Canada. Anyone who knows Alberta knows cattle. I remember PETA came to convince us to be vegetarians. Funny. Then there was a question period.
See, the basis of the argument was that a human needs 10 bags of grain per year to survive, while a cow needs 100 per year. Okay. So I asked, “how many people do you figure a coew can feed?” Realistically, in a year, I figured about 8 to 10 people, as part of a decent diet.
As you can imagine, they started getting uncomfortable with this line of questioning, you know – logic.
I then asked, if we all switch to vegan, how much land will be needed to feed everyone? Quick to answer- they pointed out that 10 bags was far less than the cow.
Aha, he was trapped see:
I told him fine, but meat is more filling than veggies, so you have to eat more veggies, therefore, if we all switched to vegan, we would need to cut down EVEN more forest and damage more environment.
As you can imagine, he just told me I was wrong.
I finally told him that at least eating meat is humane.. You kill it, it is dead. Take a carrot. You pluck it, it is still alive! Indeed it will even sprout.
They told me that plants are not sentient. Funny, I had just come from Bio class. We had learned about the response trees put out to infestation, cutting limbs etc. I told him about this, and how that carrot is silently screaming in the drawer of the fridge…
See, they have straw man arguments. It like a religion, so it is futile to use logic with these people.
If I was Obama, I woulda shown the camera what I did, so he could see how good I was. LOL. After all, he is the prez, he should be the top dude!
I believe they’ve moved on to the “cows cause global warming” argument recently. Maybe you got them confused.
Having a child for most sane people should be the cure for holding animals in such high regard. We used to love our dogs but once we had a child, these dogs are just nuisances. I mean, we still care about them, but it’s the difference between having a remote controlled car that you like and then getting a Ferrari. Okay, not the best example, but it’s early.
The biggest problem I have with PETA is that they, just like many environmentalists, believe that humans are a plague on this planet and not a part of it. Most all of the animals that are extinct now did so before we arrived. This planet’s climate has changed time and time again, well before we even discovered fire.
How is this kind of thinking not been labeled a mental disorder? Maybe when someone invents a drug for it we’ll see that happen. Misanthropic Autophobia or something.
“I used to think that ants were the same as people. Now I realize how dumb that sound, thanks to Humanol.”
They do have a mental disorder. They’re anti-human, as you noted. I’m actually glad they went off about the fly incident, because it makes them look like goofballs … which they are.
I’m waiting on the day they start complaining about the senseless and selfish slaughter of one animal by other animals. “These meat eating tigers… they must be stopped! Those antelope have rights too!”
A catch and release fly trap? You might as well just release them back into your house! They’ll be back inside within minutes anyway. Could you just see Obama using that thing? He’d spend all day catching and releasing the same fly. Maybe he should just get a cat. My cat is great at catching flies. She enjoys batting them around, biting off the wings… and I enjoy watching because I hate flies. I’m a hater. That’s just how I am. “These fly killing cats! They must be stopped!” You know the drill….
I’ve been trying to catch up on an animated series called “The Goode Family,” who live by the motto “What Would Al Gore Do?” (I can’t believe a show poking fun at leftists is on ABC … there’s hope for Hollywood.) They’re vegans, and their dog is a vegan — they think. When they’re not watching him, he eats neighborhood animals.
Flies carry diseases. They love to live on fecal matter (that’s why you’ll see them around manure piles and the little presents your neighbors’ dogs leave on your lawn). They settle on your nice vegetarian plate, you eat it, you get intestinal upset, perhaps bad enough to take an antibiotic, but wait! You’re a vegan, you can’t kill those bacteria! They’re living creatures! If you take that antibiotic, you’re killing microscopic living things! Better you die than those poor, defenseless critters.
I hadn’t thought of that. If big bugs are sacred, so are little bugs.
This sounds like something straight out of a Monty Python skit. But honestly, I don’t think the even Monty Python guys could come up with some of the bizarro stupidity that seems so routine these days.
My comedian friend Tim Slagle and I had a conversation about that topic some years ago, when we were producing radio show: the problem with using exaggeration to poke fun at the oh-so-serious activists is that sooner or later, they catch up. Then you’re not exaggerating anymore.
Vegans are strange. The whole notion of not killing anything is self-defeating. But you can take it even further by becoming a Fruitarian, who eats only fruit and there is even a group of people who only eat fruit that has fallen off the tree voluntarily. I don’t know if there is a name for them, but it must be a small group as people like that don’t make it very far in life, I guess. There is a nice clip by George Carlin on “the sanctity of life” on youtube, which makes me laugh real hard everytime I see it. I just started watching “The Goode Family”. I love the dog – and the look on their face when they adopted a *white* African kid. This is so politically incorrect – You just have to love it.
I’ll still stunned that The Goode Family was even produced. Normally Hollywood is perfectly okay with satirizing conservatives and (especially) Christians, but if you make fun of greenies and lefists, you’re labeled a “hatemonger.”
Then again, the show was created by Mike Judge, who already made gazoodles of money with Beavis ‘n’ Butthead and King of the Hill, so I’m guess some TV executives set aside their politics to go for the kind of green they really love.
PETArds LOL, that’s a fab name for them. We’re not exempt from these eejits here either. Much as I love animals, and I’m all for treating them well (selectively – my cats get treated incredibly well, a mouse in the house probably wouldn’t be treated as kindly – by me or the cats), PETA totally lost me when they decided domestic carnivores should (or even could) survive on a vegan diet. Total nutjobs.
There were a few on the telly the other morning, wearing skimpy outfits made out of cabbages (http://www.stuff.co.nz/entertainment/photos/2494847/Peta-protest), to try to save the planet by promoting vegetarianism. It’s winter here, btw. Here’s hoping natural selection will do it’s thing….
That’s what is so fascinating about these loons: they claim to love nature, but then they’ll try to make a dog into a vegan — which is completely unnatural and will end up making the dog ill.
It’s a shame that PETA gets press for being so extreme and unreasonable. They COULD be fighting the whole factory farm system that prodices sick animals that make sick meat that produces sick people but instead they’re carrying on about flies. Life is precious but we all exist at the expense of other life. I don’t approve of cruelty to anything! Getting meat, dairy and eggs from an ethical, small, private organic farm means I never have to worry that the meat-giving animals were treated poorly.
Very good point. If we care about animals — not to mention our own health — the focus should be on raising animals who can roam around and eat their natural diet. I hope consumer demand for real food eventually pushes the industry in that direction.
Bravo, Tom! I, too, am glad they came out with nonsense. It shows just how radical they are! “Sea kittens”, protection of flies, what next?
On a less important point, I wonder if you meant to say that flies aren’t mammals or vertebrate animals. Insects actually *are* animals (http://tolweb.org/Animals/2374).
Sorry, but as a systematist of fungi on arthropods (mostly insects), I just cannot let that kind of taxonomic error slide. 😉 Arthropods (the containing group for insects, spiders, crustaceans and such) as a whole comprise about 70-75% of animal species on earth, while vertebrates constitute a very small portion of described animal species, only around 4-5%, possibly less. Mammals are a truly minute portion of Kingdom Animalia as a whole, around 0.3% of animal species described so far. (As we continue to discover new species, that proportion will no doubt get even smaller.) Vertebrates don’t really characterize the animal kingdom as a whole since the vast majority of species are invertebrates.
Maybe a point some will see as unimportant, but nevertheless it does bug (no pun intended) the taxonomists among us. 😉
PETA’s main errors are philosophical. They are also biological, I guess, to the extent that they don’t understand the mechanism of survival for other animals and humans. But the main philosophical error is that they think any animals have rights, whether furry or not. Their beliefs go far beyond wishing to see animals treated humanely. They want to see any human influence in the animal kingdom abolished altogether. Their goals are way more radical, and as a group (as opposed to some of the individuals in the animal rights movement) actually do not even include, humane treatment. See some of these quotes: http://www.fa-rm.org/blog/2009/03/cow-tax-and-petas-dishonesty.html
Good catch; “mammals” would have been the correct term. Cow tax, eh? These taxes and subsidies are equally ridiculous. I was born in Decatur, IL, home of Archer Daniels Midland — one of the biggest corporate welfare queens in the country. They make millions, but receive generous subsidies courtesy of our tax dollars because they’re in the “farm” business. Scottie Pippen, millionaire retired basketball player, receives taxpayer subsidies because he owns a little farm. It’s all nuts.
Indeed! I wrote an article on farm policy recently, though I’ve a lot more to learn and write. You can read it here: http://www.theobjectivestandard.com/issues/2009-summer/us-farm-policy.asp
Good article. I haven’t heard of the magazine before, but it looks like one I’d enjoy.
Now that the Great Depression of the 1930s is over, I guess we’ll be getting rid of all those emergency subsidies …
I believe in the ethical treatment of animals, I am also an enthusiastic eater of meat and I hope I am not a petard! Like Lisa above I think it’s a great shame that PETA doesn’t devote it’s energies toward fighting the sick factory farm big business. Every year I raise my own lambs for slaughter, I also have a share in a couple of pigs being reared by a neighbour. When the time comes for my animals to be slaughtered and butchered I will know that I have done my best by them and I can eat my roast lamb with a clear conscience. I am not sentimental about my animals but I think they deserve the best treatment I can give them.
PETA’s definition of “ethics” is just silly. They also conveniently ignore the fact that if we weren’t meat-eaters, most pigs and cows would never be born because we’d have no need for them.
As someone who doesn’t live in the northern U.S., let me just be the first to say that I fully support global warming. For the South, global warming means the North Atlantic Current moves south, preventing the flow of heat farther north and eventually putting the northern half of the country (and the rest of the world about 10 degrees above the Tropic of Cancer and likewise below the Tropic of Capricorn) in a new ice age… but leaving the south with 72-75 degree highs in the summer, and snowy winters. Ahhhhhh.
When that all happens, you’ll probably have a few million new neighbors.
I got into an online argument with some PETA folk recently. They said something along the lines of “We did not evolve to eat meat. We don’t have the sharp teeth for tearing meat like carnivores. One day we’ll look back and be horrified that we caused all this violence and war just so that we could eat another living thing.”
To which I replied:
1: We did evolve to eat meat, it is the only way our brains could develop to their current size.
2: Of course our teeth aren’t like carnivores, because we are omnivores. A bunch of pointed curved teeth wouldn’t be much good for the veges that we should eat. Also, we cook our meat and use tools to cut it, so we rarely need to resort to tearing raw meat off a bone.
3: Please let me know of a war that started because someone ate meat.
4: If animals have all the rights, they should have all the responsibilities that go with them. We need to make sure that no animal anywhere eats meat. Seeing as it appears to be only humans that can see that we shouldn’t be eating meat, we need to spread the message. Seeing as we can’t communicate with animals, I propose we round up every carnivorous/omnivorous animal and put them into captivity. They would eventually resort to cannibalism, so they must all be put into their own cages. As space for these would be at a premium, the cages must be very small.
This caged Facility for the Abolishment of Retrieving Meat (cage FARM) will be the subject of protest from the meat craving masses. Rampant overpopulation of the herbivourous free species due to lack of predation will lead to extensive damage to plant life due to the animals eating more and more. When plant stocks dwindle the animals will resort to carnivorous activity, adding more animals to the list that need to be cage FARMed. The infrastructure required for this will be a drain on the economy, and there will be global economic collapse. The infrastructure will not be maintained and the daily soy rations will not be administered. Mass breakout will result in a feeding frenzy, with all carnivores located in a central location. Almost every animal will end up eaten.
Or we could just continue as is…
Dr. Sears from the film pointed out in our interview that humans don’t need fangs because we developed opposable thumbs and can use weapons. (We also have the brains to conceive of weapons.)
Since the PETA folks love nature so much (wink-wink) you’d think they’d notice that “uncivilized” humans are all hunter-gatherers. That’s obviously our natural inclination.
I occasionally hear one of them try the argument that meat makes us angry and aggressive. To which I reply, “Good thing Hitler and the other prominent Nazis were vegetarians; otherwise they might have ended up hurting people.”
Very funny that PETA got up in arms over this incident. Having said that, I want to correct two inacuracies. First, flies are indeed animals (Kingdom Animalia), second, flies are much more intelligent than a potato. Their nervous system has thousands of neurons organized into ganglia that form intricate circuits. They have complex behavior which includes learning.
I was being sarcastic with potato remark (even in reference to the intelligence of a PETA volunteer).
My bad on excluding insects from the animal kingdom. I was thinking of animals as furry things, i.e. mammals — exactly the sort of exclusionary, bigoted thinking you’d expect from a speciesist.
My high-school biology teacher would be disappointed to know I forgot Kingdom Phylum Class Order Family Genus Species, which he taught us to remember with the mnemonic Keep the Postal Carrier Off the F@#$ing Grass Sir.
First of all I’d like to say that I despise PETA and their agenda. I do, on occasion, go to a PETA-sponsored blog, mostly just to reinforce my poor opinion of the organization and their crazies. In this particular case, although their message was ABSURD, I have to sort of cut them a break…according to the blog, the media came to them asking for a statement, not the other way around. Which actually irritates me WAY more than the message. It’s amazing what passes for “news” these days.
Glad to know PETA didn’t go running to the microphone themselves on this one, but I’d still be more likely to cut them some slack if they’d said something along the lines of “It’s a fly. No big deal.”
Much of the news is generated, just as a lot of supposed science is generated. I sometimes wonder if that’s the reason the media doesn’t expose the Center for Science in the Public Interest for what they are, a bunch of vegetarian activists who don’t care much about real science. Perhaps the media doesn’t WANT to discredit CSPI because they’re guaranteed news-generators. You can always count on CSPI for some colorful, over-the-top quotes.
The other possibility is that reporters read their press releases without doing much independent research or critical thinking. I know that happens when they report on studies, or the reporting would be different. As I frequently tell my wife after reading news stories about “new study proves blah-blah-blah,” I can’t decide if certain reporters are intentionally dishonest or just plain incompetent.
While People Eating Tasty Animals is a fun reading of the PETA acronym, I think Poorly Educated Teen Activists is much more accurate.
My parents live in wheat country and I can guarantee that more animal lives are lost harvesting the grain for their pasta and bread than are lost for the steaks and hamburger that I eat. Wheat is murder!
Indeed … poorly educated, or at least ignorant about what truly happens in nature, which is a giant killing zone.
To borrow from the famous quote about socialists, “Anyone who is not a vegan by age 20 has no heart. And anyone who is still a vegan by age 30 has no brain.”
We’re working on our “Wheat Is Murder” t-shirts this week, along with other Fat Head gifts.
Hi Tom,
Any plans to review/comment on the Food, Inc. book or movie? I’d love to hear your take on it.
Thanks!
Paul
I haven’t seen it yet, but will no doubt want to comment on it afterwards. (Frankly, I’m still pissed reviewers are all over this one but mostly ignoring Fat Head.)
I suppose this “humane release” solution will apply to other pests as well, such as roaches, mosquitoes, centipedes, fruit flies, weevils, carpenter ants, termites, lice, bedbugs, and dust mites? Am I being a speciesist if I kill pinworms in my child?
I believe the proper response is that if you were vegetarian, you’d be strong enough to save both of them.
I live in southeastern rural NE, and I saw a great bumper sticker at a McDonald’s drive-thru this past week and thought this an appropriate place to share it: In Large CAPS it read “I LOVE ANIMALS”, then underneath in smaller print, “They taste GREAT!”
Beloved dog and shitty human kid drowning…scenario. Swim out..slap the kid into a ‘pay attention mode’ have her/him wrap their arms around your neck from the back and grab the dog by it’s collar and ta da! All you pissy little haters will be happy that yet another screwed up human is saved to probably go on and create children that it will screw up..ad nauseam. Seems like most of you live in the buy-bull belt…not known for intelligence or compassion.
Don’t bother to rant at me, I, unlike you don’t have the time to hang around listening to macho crap. And since some believe Nature is a killing zone I guess the genocide in Africa doesn’t cause you to lose any sleep. McDonalds huh? Let me guess, huge gut by the time you are 25, coronary by 40 at at the latest.
I have a theory that PETA types dislike humans in general. Thanks for the confirmation. Yes, it’s just so awful when humans go around creating more icky little humans … EEEEEUUUUWWWW!
And I noticed that, as usual, you can’t answer the hypothetical question. It’s not a hard one to wrap your head around, really: you have time to either save the dog or the kid. Pick one. Fantasizing about saving both isn’t an option in the quiz.
Coronary by age 40, huh? Since I’m 50 and my doctor says I’m in outstanding health, I’ll need a time machine to make that prediction come true.
Apparently PETA’s fine and dandy with jackbooted police shooting a Welsh corgi during a police raid.
http://blog.norml.org/2010/05/06/missouri-swat-team-shoots-family-dog-during-raid-over-small-amount-of-marijuana/
Don’t get me started on the “War on Drugs.”
That’s War on Users of Some Drugs (WoUSD)
Sorry could not resist.
If these PETArds believe in anything at all, they should just switch to Nihilism. If they are Christian, Jewish, or any other Pagan religion with gods, they are hypocrits. God is probably a living being, and what right does he have to better than people if people don’t have rights to be better than animals?
For all those Aethiests (Am I spelling this right?) who believe in Reincarnation, what happens if you’re a tree? You could probably say that they’re sentient beings now. So plants have equal rights too, RIGHT?
And if they are Reincarnated, I hope they become trees, turned into paper for a sign that advertises meat. 🙂 (Yes, I’m stealing a joke from Dane Cook.)
-Calvin