{"id":756638,"date":"2019-03-25T09:12:45","date_gmt":"2019-03-25T13:12:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/animalrightswatch.us\/?p=756638"},"modified":"2019-03-25T09:22:50","modified_gmt":"2019-03-25T13:22:50","slug":"why-animal-rights-is-the-new-frontier-for-the-left-and-right-and-center","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/animalrightswatch.us\/?p=756638","title":{"rendered":"Why Animal Rights is the New Frontier for the Left (and Right and Center)"},"content":{"rendered":"\t
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Last December, PETA's Tweet enumerating the linguistic sins of \u201cspeciesism\u201d set off a full-fledged media furor. The ensuing backlash was so uniform and so heavy that any onlooker might have thought that the derogation of animal rights is one of the last issues on which Democrats, Republicans, and independents agree.<\/p>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/blockquote>\n\n

EMILY ATKIN:<\/strong> ‘Last December, the Twitter account for the animal-rights group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) set off a full-fledged media furor. The tweet in question set out to enumerate the linguistic sins of \u201cspeciesism\u201d\u2014the practice of discriminating against living things based on their species affiliation… Cue the furor. The ensuing backlash was so uniform and so heavy that any onlooker might have thought that the derogation of animal rights is one of the last issues on which Democrats, Republicans, and independents agree. The Washington Post dedicated a mocking 700-word article to the uproar, suggesting that PETA was on a \u201cwild juice chase.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Conservative culture warriors relished the chance to lay into another example of the language-correcting excesses of the left. Liberals meanwhile argued that PETA was minimizing racism, sexism, and homophobia by equating those social justice causes with the fight against speciesism. Many people\u2014myself included\u2014just thought the whole thing was silly. Bringing home the bagels? Okay, PETA \u2014 we\u2019ll think about it over a bacon cheeseburger. But as so often happens when the discussion turns to animal rights, it was impossible to dispel a vague sense of unease. Even PETA\u2019s botched attempt to raise awareness about animal abuse\u2014something so ingrained in our workaday world that it lurks largely unremarked in many of our most common phrases\u2014had touched a sore spot…<\/em><\/p>\n

But if the last few years have shown us anything, it\u2019s that the assumptions that once undergirded American politics \u2014 about what voters want, about the supremacy of the free market, about the very foundations of liberal democracy\u2014are now open to fresh interrogation. The left has seized that opportunity to push the boundaries of debate on a host of subjects, from the economy to the environment to movement-based crusades for social justice. In so doing they have made certain implicit promises. Taken to their logical ends, their proposals suggest the outlines of a broad, holistic case for humans eating much less meat\u2014a case that includes aspects of animal welfare and animal rights’.<\/em> SOURCE…<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

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