What would you say if I told you that any proposed ag-gag laws that actually made it onto the books would be a good thing for the animal advocacy movement, and not something we should be scared of?
By encouraging and not resisting these so-called ag-gag laws, we will be helping the animal advocacy movement to grow, and in turn, help those who ‘we’ are supposed to be advocating for.
The Animals.
Both Sides Need To Harden Up
Is Australia a bunch of sooks now where the group that whinges the most gets the best treatment?
What ever happened to the Australia where we all just put our heads down and got the job done?
If farmers don’t want these activists tramping all over their farms, learn to lock the friggin doors to keep them out. If you don’t want to do that, pay a security company to wander around the property shaking doors to make sure they are secured.
Or better yet, give them what they want, and install your own cameras in the buildings. This footage could then be livestreamed to a website where we can all see just how well your animals are ‘treated’. Any farm that doesn’t can be by default labeled as one that is mistreating the commodities that they are seeking to profit from, as they haven’t shown us that they don’t.
What I find interesting is that the only groups that are complaining about the possibility of “ag-gag” laws coming onto the books, are those who use the footage to further their own brand. I am tired of seeing ‘expose’ after ‘expose’ where these groups are complaining about how these animals are ‘treated’, yet don’t actually say that we shouldn’t be using them in the first place.
This continual focus on the ‘treatment’ rather than their ‘use’ is allowing the industry to label those who do treat those animals in an unacceptable way as ‘rouges’ and absolves themselves of all guilt. We have even seen the MLA come out with their ‘bettertarian‘ campaign as a way to reinforce the belief that other animals are treated ‘nicely’ before they are killed.
Time To Put Up Or Shut Up
If all these groups really do want to see the use of other animals actually stopped, and not use their mistreatment as a way to get publicity/donations/increase membership, then it is time that they actually said it.
Regardless of whether these laws come in or not, it is time to draw a line in the sand and say that other animals should not be used for food, entertainment, clothing, research, and so on.
[GARD]The sad reality is that we will never have a ‘cruelty free’ animal agricultural system, because ‘cruelty’ is such a subjective term. What may seem ‘cruel’ to one group of people, could be common practice and widely accepted by another.
Whilst ‘animal advocacy’ or ‘animal liberation’ groups continue to focus on the way that they are ‘treated’, we won’t hear the question of why we are using them in the first place being asked.
It is only when this question is asked that we will see any sort of marked improvement in the status of other animals, and that is something that we should all be focusing on.
This article was written by the founder of VeganPolice.com.au, Cameron Blewett.
Cameron is a long term vegan (30+yrs), and is passionate about veganism, and helping people to understand more about it and giving other animals equal consideration.
You can find Cameron’s other rants on his website, CameronBlewett.blog
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