The anti-whaling terrorist Paul Watson presents an interesting case study in the absence of logic in the animal rights movement.
A little history first:
Paul Watson allegedly co-founded Greenpeace, an organization from which he was expelled for his failure to adhere to that organization’s policy of nonviolence.
He claims to have sunk ten whaling ships. He claims to have been shot at by the Japanese Coast Guard – a claim almost universally regarded an incredible, perhaps because Paul Watson not only lies, but recommends that others do so as well to promote the cause.
Watson advises readers to make up facts and figures when they need to, and to deliver them to reporters confidently, “as Ronald Reagan did.” Watson possesses Reagan’s intuitive grasp of the media, and, like Reagan, at times he seems astray in the labyrinth of his own illusions.
Paul Watson- he forces his morality on others
Paul Watson, if you watch enough of his media, loves to contradict himself. One minute he claims to be concerned about the lives of the fishermen he endangers; the next, he is disparaging Canadian sealers who died when their ships sunk as “sadistic baby killers”. One minute he’s claiming to be non-violent and accusing the Japanese Coast Guard of violence in the form of throwing “grenades” (actually, flash grenades); the next, his own crew is throwing flash grenades at Canadian fishermen.
Paul Watson wants the human population drastically reduced, saying “no human community should be larger than 20,000 people.” He wants human populations confined to “parks” and human breeding subject to restriction. “Sea transportation should be by sail.”
“We need to stop flying, stop driving cars, and jetting around on marine recreational vehicles. The Mennonites survive without cars and so can the rest of us.”
“Curing a body of cancer requires radical and invasive therapy, and therefore, curing the biosphere of the human virus will also require a radical and invasive approach.
It won’t be easy but then it’s better than the alternative.”
In other words, Paul Watson demands a totalitarianism that would make North Korea look like a hippie free-for-all. And, Paul, if you think humans are a virus, do your part and stop making kids.
And he has supporters.
Brigitte Bardot, Martin Sheen, Terri Irwin, Daryl Hannah and other mindless celebrities line up to hypocritically support Paul Watson’s Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, while eating animals, driving cars and even reproducing without authorization.
The problem with animal rights is the same problem we find in the “natural rights” theories. There are no natural rights. As Jeremy Bentham famously put it:
“natural rights is simple nonsense: natural and imprescriptible rights, rhetorical nonsense,—nonsense upon stilts.”
Natural rights do not exist amongst humans. One human can kill another without lightning striking him dead. The only punishment he may receive, if at all, is fabricated by society.
The same is true in the animal world. Animals kill one another with impunity all the time. Humans, being animals, do the same.
Rights are created, not by nature, but by contracts. In the case of the rights of man, rights are the product of the social contract. The social contract gives the right to protection from aggression in consideration of the party’s pledge to protect the freedom of others.
Insofar as nonhuman animals cannot be a party to the social contract, they cannot be imagined to have any rights.
What Paul Watson is attempting to do is to use force to impose his morality on others. Legitimate law is restricted to protecting individual freedom. Legitimate law does not legislate morality, despite what Paul Watson thinks law should be.
Now, if Paul Watson wants to stop people from eating whale meat, he is entirely free to go out and campaign against it. If Paul Watson really wanted people to stop eating whale meat, surely he knows he could campaign against it in the Japanese media; if the consumers stopped demanding whale meat, the whalers would stop hunting whales.
But Paul Watson doesn’t do that. He would lose millions of dollars in support if whalers stopped whaling. Most likely, he prays every night that more countries start whaling. It would make him a very rich man.
One has to wonder, though, why this man and all his supporters – mostly white – get their jollies attacking Japanese whaling? If they are so concerned with animals being killed, why not start in the obvious place: your own back yard. Oh, I’m sorry, is attacking beef eaters not profitable? My bad.
Some links you really ought to visit:
Penn and Teller – PETA Bullshit
