"Rat & Swan" > wrote in message
...
>
>
> Susan Kennedy wrote:
>
> > "Rat & Swan" > wrote in message
>
> <snip>
> >>Not keeping "pets" (or actually, companion animals) is a long-term goal,
> >>not anything that is going to happen any time soon. But this shows the
> >>poverty of imagination non-ARAs have: you can only imagine humans
> >>interacting with animals in ways that dominate and control them. I can
> >>think of many ways to interact with animals on terms of mutual freedom.
> >>So can PETA (of which I am a long-term member, since 1984).
>
> > Where, exactly, do you propose these domestic animals live, if not with
us?
>
> Where they please.
>
> Anytime AR people start talking about ending domestication of animals,
> both as "pets" and as livestock, the kind of glib question you pose
> here is the anti-AR retort. However anti-ARAs seldom wait for an

Hey, give me a break. I'm totally new to this particular argument. All I
know about PeTA is what I read in the papers, and I live in a rural area.
Believe me, around here, it does not get good press. In fact, most of the
time, they sound like fools, and it's hard to tell how much of that is them,
and how much is the press.

> answer. AR does not require that companion animals and livestock be
> shooed into the streets and abandoned; that would violate the obligation
> we have toward them, one which we have because we have made them
> helpless and dependent on us. Many breeds cannot now survive on their
> own; no domestic-born animal has much of a chance on his/her own, even
> if suitable wild habitat existed now. However, every domestic animal
> once had wild ancestors, animals who were perfectly capable of
> surviving on their own. Most domestic animals have some less overbred
> breeds which are close enough to the original that they could be
> successfully reintroduced into the wild, or if not (like, perhaps,
> sheep) some close wild cousin which could successfully fill the
> ecological niche of the domestic animal in a wild ecology (say, red
> sheep, Dall sheep, Barbary sheep, bighorns, and so on.) Feral cats,
> dogs, pigs, goats, burros, horses, etc., (semi) feral chickens,
> cattle, etc., show how easily many domestic animals may establish
> feral populations. So, the process of returning domestic animals

Ok, now you're contradicting yourself. First you tell me that we've made
them totally dependent on us, then you start talking about feral animals and
how they prove most domesticated species could easily be reintroduced to the
wild. Or do you really think feral cats and dogs are actually wild animals?
They're not. They are dogs and cats that have been mistreated and dumped in
the wild. They survive because they are still equipped to do so. In fact,
dogs dumped in the same area have been known to pack and even interbreed
with coyotes, and become a real problem for farmers because they aren't
afraid of humans.

At any rate, you can't have it both ways. Either they are totally dependent
on us, or they aren't.

> to the wild would involve reintroducing populations to suitable
> habitat, helping to extend such suitable habitat, encouraging a
> balance of vegetable, prey, and predator species so you don't get
> the rabbits-in-Australia situation, and encouraging a strong
> ecological awareness in humans so that they curb their run-away
> population explosion and give the rest of the species some room to
> survive. As I say, it would not happen overnight. But it could
> certainly happen, if AR became accepted. Then all that would be
> required would be not to breed the domestic stock, but to let those
> animals live out their lives with humans in peace, and let their
> line end with them.

Personally, I don't see that AR will ever become that accepted. First of
all, if you're going to give them rights - you have to include the right to
breed. And that means the last part never happens. Second, if animals can
choose, many of them will choose to continue to live with humans, because
pets are not just something that belongs to you. They are friends in ways
people who have never had one cannot understand.

>
> > And BTW, my cat is no more controlled than my children were. In fact,
she
> > even comes and wants attention when I'm on the phone, rather like my 3
year
> > old grandson.
>
> And will your grandson be neutered and kept indoors?

You miss the point. If I were to let my cat do whatever she wanted, she
would have been dead years ago, much as my three year old grandson would be
dead if his mother let him do whatever he wanted. The world is a
complicated and dangerous place.

And if she weren't neutered, I'd be up to my ears in kittens I didn't want
and would have to find homes for. Of course, I could let them go wild, but
the county would likely frown on that. :P And that's if they lived.

>
> > In point of fact, by insisting that other people follow your beliefs,
aren't
> > *you* the ones who wants control?
>
> I present my beliefs; I do believe they are correct and others should
> follow them, but I do not impose them by force. Is that not true of
> every person with strong ethical convictions? If you believe murder is
> wrong, or theft is wrong, do you not "insist" that others should
> follow that belief? I suspect, unless you are an anarchist, you would
> even impose such beliefs with force ( police, Army, etc.) If I believe
> meat is murder, should I not try to convince others? The remarkable
> thing is that most ARAs do NOT try to "impose" their beliefs; they try
> only to persuade.
>
> <snip>
> Rat
>