Bravo! I applaud that decision!

You are all mentally deranged fascists!  There is absolutely no rational basis for "animal rights", which in reality violate human rights and place almost limitless power in the hands of the government.  Thugs who impose their arbitrary emotions on others deserve to fall victim to the same - how would you feel if someone forced you to wear a veil or pray to Allah five times a day?!

This is exactly why I didn't go vegan sooner, and the reason why millions of people would rather die 20 years early than go vegan - because they don't want to be associated with people like you!

>:(

ANY irrational attribution of "rights" on the basis of subjective emotions is going too far.  Rights are an economic concept which has absolutely nothing to do with cuteness or the capacity to manipulate your emotions (i.e. pity), as most animals have evolved to do for their interest.  Animals are not "rational economic actors", they are a "natural resource", and people should be allowed to own them and use their own property however they see fit, even if it includes putting them in a blender for their momentary amusement.  You are free to ostracize such people, as would I, but you are not free to initiate aggression against them any more than anyone who disagrees with you has a right to initiate aggression against you.

All government programs to enforce animal regulations do tremendous damage to the economy as a whole, not just the people you're prosecuting directly.  Pet regulations lead to fewer people choosing to enslave themselves to pets, which only reduces their numbers.  Those regulations cost tremendous amounts of tax-victim money to enforce.  They discourage productivity by reducing the value of money (i.e. "why work full-time / over-time when I can't use the extra money to make myself happy").  They cause a flight of brains and capital to jurisdictions with fewer regulations, which makes them economically unsustainable ("the problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of productive people to tax").  Perhaps most harmful of all is how "animal rights" regulations raise the cost of medical research, which could make a difference between you dying in your 70s or living to see ever-accelerating medical advances to keep you alive indefinitely!

You need to recognize the fact that human beings have conquered this planet, and animals are allowed to live here only because we allow them to.  No amount of your emotions is going to change this fact.  Human stewardship of this planet has increased its agricultural productivity by a factor of thousands already, thus allowing animal populations to exist in far greater quantities than they ever could without our help.  There will someday be animals transported from earth to thousands of terraformed planets, moons, and space stations - all thanks to man!

While you are right that you can't base rights on subjective emotions, rights are not an economic concept either.

Yes, Natural Rights are an economic concept based on empirical scientific observations of how independently-thinking "rational economic actors" function in groups.  Natural Rights come from the principle of competitive advantage: a society that violates Natural Rights the least would have an empirically-observable materialistic advantage over other societies that violate them more. It's almost as clear-cut as penicillin, except of course you can't observe human societies through a microscope, and the lenses of history are blurred by pro-government bias that funds and controls most knowledge-related institutions.

A society that tolerates murder has never made it out of the hunter-gatherer phase of human development. A society that tolerates theft is very unlikely to build a successful and stable economy. A society that believes in a false construct called "animal rights" (which violates actual Natural Rights of humans) wouldn't advance as well scientifically, due to the necessity of using animals for lab experiments.  A society that believes in various false constructs called "positive rights" (ex. right to free food, healthcare, unicorns, etc) will discourage economic productivity, experience flight of brains and capital, higher taxes, and it will eventually simply run out of competent people to tax (read Ayn Rand). Etc.

Well there are lots of laws that infringe on what someone may consider to be their rights.

I do not recognize any government-imposed laws, only Natural Laws, including the rights of property owners, parents' rights, and contractual obligations.  If the government told you to turn in run-away slaves, snitch on your neighbors for political thought-crimes, or help invade a foreign land, would you do it?

Animal rights aside, people who mistreat animals are dangerous in our society.

Prove it.  Individuals are innocent until proven guilty of a specific crime, which means violating another rational economic actor's Natural Rights.  Falling into a statistical pattern that correlates with criminal behavior is not in of itself a crime.  (Yes, I believe "kiddy porn" should be decriminalized as well.)

When people learn to ignore their emotions and harm a living thing intentionally for their own "momentary amusement," they rarely if ever stop there.

There is a very big difference between hurting an animal, hurting a simulation of a human being, and hurting an actual human being in real life.  Engaging in the first two might be sufficient cause to ostracize a person, but is not is of itself a crime.  Sane people should be expected to understand this difference and to be aware of the gravity and the consequences of these actions.  People who are incapable of this distinction should not be treated as self-owning adults but as children or mentally handicapped individuals and have their freedoms restricted.

Most serial killers, serial rapests, etc. start out this way.

A lot of boys are cruel to animals, and about 95% of the population subsidizes substantial amounts of what you'd call "animal cruelty" by eating meat and drinking milk.  It's not even a correlation, which wouldn't have implied a causation even if it was!  In fact, thanks to "Animal Liberation Front" extremists, veganism now has a pretty strong correlation with terrorism.  Do you believe that all vegans should be thrown in jail due to this statistical anomaly?  I certainly don't!

Your arguements about animal regulations harming the economy don't hold water unless these regulations are taken to extreme.

All regulations harm the economy by introducing needless enforcement costs, encouraging black market activity (which in turn encourages crime), taking otherwise-productive individuals and throwing them in prison at tax-victim expense, etc, etc, etc - as well as stifling a culture of nonviolent (i.e. non-governmental) solutions to those problems (ex. ostracism).

Not all aminmal rights activists lean towards socialism in anyway.

Socialism promotes a feel-good top-down Utopian vision of society at the expense of rationally-established Natural Rights, which is what free market capitalism is based on.  Belief in the irrational construct you call "animal rights" violates Natural Rights for precisely the same reasons.  I don't see how it is possible for you to violate Michael Vick's rights to own dogs and use them for his pleasure (which is still a better life than most animals have in the wild) and not use the same arbitrary power to violate anyone else's rights for any other subjective reason.  This is precisely why the most totalitarian regimes (ex. Nazism, Islam, etc) have typically been major champions of "animal rights" as well.

I notice that people always call out the name socialist at people who are trying to pass laws they don't like, but of course things are different when it comes to their favorite issues.

It's funny how some "right-wing" socialists think that only "left-wing" socialists are socialist.  Anarcho-Capitalists like myself are not guilty of this hypocrisy.

As to your arguement about animal research, there is a lot of controversy about how useful said research is, and much of it is repetitive and done only to satisfy law that should be changed.  There have been several harmful drugs put on the market because they were safe in animal trials, and the oppisite is true as well.  Animal testingilimitations are just frequently used as another reason to justify high drug prices by many companies.

I didn't claim that animal testing was 100% accurate all in of itself and that no lab animal has ever suffered in vain, but it remains an essential component of modern medicine, and will likely remain vital for many decades or even centuries to come.  The corrupt inherently-inefficient one-size-fits-all government monopoly of drug quality assurance has much to do with the fallibility of the current testing procedures, and the stifling of free market competition has much to do with the inflated drug prices, but these are complicated subject matters that are not directly related to this thread.

Yes humans have conquered the planet.
You are right that we could destroy whatever we want if we chose to.

I only said the former.  I doubt that the latter is technically true, but that's beside the point.

The question is would that be good for the human race.

There is no such thing as a good of a "race".  A "race" is not a sentient being that is capable of collective self-awareness, it is comprised of individual human beings that are each capable of individual thought, individual action, and of reaping the individual consequences of their actions.  Therefore it is each competent individual that has individual rights and liberties, not a "race" as a whole, and it is up to each individual to decide for him or herself what is "good" and how to attain it, as long as they don't harm the rights of other human beings (or any other "rational economic actors", but no other species on this planet currently fits that criteria).

I would have to research it further, but I have a feeling you are incorrect about human stewardship increasing animal populations, unless you are speaking of things like pets, household pets, etc.

Yes, and in fact there are >400 million dogs in the world - far more than wild canines, and that ratio will only continue to increase.  The agricultural productivity of wild earth is very low - the vast majority of plants we eat today are a result of human interference in their natural selection, proliferating traits that result in bigger fruits, tastier leaves, and more nutritious grains.  Modern apple orchards can produce 23.6 million calories per acre, potato fields 9.2, maize 7.5, rice 7.4, carrots 5.8, wheat 3.0, soybeans 2.8, etc.  Wild plants with inconsistent irrigation, inconsistent fertilization, inedible poisonous species getting in the way, etc produce hundreds of times less, and wild animals have no way of efficiently eating all those wild plants before they go bad.

Whether they stay here or are transported is irrelavent to the subject at hand.

It was a bit of hyperbole on my part, but only to highlight my point about animals still existing only as a consequence of human leniency.  They cannot even till the soil and plant corn on this planet, much less independently settle any other planets in this vast vast universe.

There is a pediphile in my family that uses most of the same arguments to defend his "habit."

A pedophile commits the crime in violation of a specific human victim's Natural Rights, who should be able to press charges against him (or her), now or in the future, and the victims' parents / guardians should also be able to press charges on their behalf.  Likewise, a person who violates an animal owner's rights commits a crime against the human animal owner, but a person harming his or her own animals is within his right to do so.  Those animals are incapable of functioning in the human society - they cannot pull their own economic weight, they cannot understand and respect the rights of others, they cannot be reasoned with, etc.  In fact most animals would simply rip your guts out if you were small enough and they were hungry; therefore animals cannot have rights.  Those animals are allowed to live, breed, and eat as the result of their owner, who pulls their economic weight for them, and must be allowed to do so on his own terms.

I know that DCFS goes too far some times, but their are times such an organization is needed, and more child protection laws are needed.

No government intervention in family life is ever justified.  I've written much about the "right to emancipation" and other Anarcho-Capitalist positions on this issue elsewhere.

They used to call child labor laws socialism too.

What do you mean "used to"?  They remain socialist, and they remain economically devastating to millions of children in the third world who are forced into even greater poverty, black market employment (ex. prostitution or slavery), and even death because of such laws.

Alex I think you need to look up the definition of Facisim.  One of the main tenents of such a system is valuing property rights over basic human rights.  It also promotes class inequality and prevents individuals from having a say in their government.

I would like to know were you get your information.  It seems that you follow no real economic school of thought or any clear social science theory.

You are all mentally deranged fascists!

Being a right winger myself, I find this a bit harsh.  I have no problem with labels, ie liberal/conservative/etc., but using the insulting type will never win over an argument but instead make the person more defensive.  I love to scrape my brains together for a good intellectual debate now and then, but I know if I go too over the top, I start reeking of elitism. 

We're all human, we all bleed red ('cept those freakin' Vulcans), and we can all have a conversation...even a strong one...as long as we treat each other as being of incredible worth and value simply because of what Jesus has done for us (that's right, I said Jesus...you may now go to DEFCON 1).