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Do Animals Have Natural Rights? · Stuff You Should Know

0:00
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from House Stuff Works
0:04
Speaker 1: dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark.
0:13
Speaker 1: There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant and Jerry and this is
0:17
Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know, Part two about animals rare sweet. Yeah,
0:24
Speaker 1: good one. And you wrote this for your buddies at
0:27
Speaker 1: Primer Yeah. Yeah, let's give a little shout out to
0:30
Speaker 1: Primer Stories. Um So, Primer Stories are basically doing for
0:36
Speaker 1: uh the interactive medium, the same thing that podcast did
0:40
Speaker 1: for radio and Ted Talks did for speaking engagements. And
0:44
Speaker 1: I wrote an essay for him for season four and
0:46
Speaker 1: you can check it out at Primer Stories dot com
0:49
Speaker 1: slash s y s K go go check it out.
0:52
Speaker 1: It's pretty neat, but it ties into animal rights and
0:56
Speaker 1: uh humans. But you you did put this together, right.
1:00
Speaker 1: I've put together this episode and then I wrote a
1:02
Speaker 1: separate essay based on my research that, um is, it's different. Nice.
1:08
Speaker 1: I'm Josh Clark and I did my book report on Yeah.
1:12
Speaker 1: Luckily the primary dudes, Joe and Tim kept it from
1:16
Speaker 1: devolving into that. Well, this was fantastic. I just want
1:19
Speaker 1: to say that, thanks man, I appreciate it. Uh So,
1:22
Speaker 1: I guess we don't need to set anything up. If
1:24
Speaker 1: you haven't listened to the one on animal testing, yes,
1:26
Speaker 1: stop right here, Yeah, just go do that and then
1:30
Speaker 1: welcome to part two. Yeah, how awkward was that? I
1:34
Speaker 1: thought it was pretty succinct. Okay, not awkward. Uh. So
1:39
Speaker 1: tell me a little bit about your buddy Aristotle. So Aristotle,
1:43
Speaker 1: we mentioned him in the last episode. We're gonna say
1:45
Speaker 1: that a lot. But Aristotle was one of the first
1:48
Speaker 1: dudes to experiment on animals. I think I called him
1:50
Speaker 1: a big dummy, you did, and as a joke, Yeah,
1:55
Speaker 1: and yeah, no, he's fine. Yeah he Uh. He was
2:01
Speaker 1: a smart dude, he was. But one of the things
2:05
Speaker 1: that he did not only um experimenting on animals, he
2:08
Speaker 1: also came up with a hierarchy of animals based on
2:12
Speaker 1: the souls he anticipated each possessed. He said, kitty got
2:16
Speaker 1: pretty good, dog much better? What is that? Is he? Checkoslovakia?
2:21
Speaker 1: I have no idea, No, I guess it'll just be
2:23
Speaker 1: check now. Yeah, I don't know what that was unless
2:26
Speaker 1: he's from like the fifties. It was It was not
2:29
Speaker 1: Greco Roman? Uh, maybe Albanian. Okay, So Aristotle the Albanian
2:37
Speaker 1: comes up with this hierarchy UM. And at the top
2:40
Speaker 1: of the hierarchy, guess who humans And humans have all
2:45
Speaker 1: three kinds of souls, the vegetative soul, the sensitive soul,
2:48
Speaker 1: and the rational soul. We possess all three of those souls. Therefore,
2:52
Speaker 1: we're at the top of the hierarchy of all the
2:55
Speaker 1: organisms on planet Earth. Below us are animals, and they've
3:00
Speaker 1: got the first two. They've got the vegetative soul and
3:03
Speaker 1: the sensitive soul, which means that like they like to
3:06
Speaker 1: lay around and read UM romance novels, that's right. And
3:11
Speaker 1: then you've got plants, and plants obviously have the vegetative soul.
3:14
Speaker 1: So what he's describing are the different um I guess
3:17
Speaker 1: life forces that he expected UM organisms to have. And
3:24
Speaker 1: because of that, there was a hierarchy that was established.
3:27
Speaker 1: And because of that hierarchy that Aristotle came up with,
3:30
Speaker 1: we still view animals in a certain way today, like
3:33
Speaker 1: we still basically follow that same hierarchy that he made,
3:38
Speaker 1: uh hundred years ago or so. Yeah, And and the
3:42
Speaker 1: whole kind of point of this episode is kind of
3:45
Speaker 1: based on that whether or not animals have a soul
3:48
Speaker 1: and where they rank or maybe should rank, and UM
3:52
Speaker 1: it's sort of that's sort of going down the rabbit
3:55
Speaker 1: hole myself of what a soul is and human even Well,
4:00
Speaker 1: you're not the first to do that, of course, Um,
4:04
Speaker 1: would you come up with? Would you come up with?
4:06
Speaker 1: Everyone wants to hear, including me and Jerry? Nah, I don't.
4:09
Speaker 1: I don't know. I'm still struggling with what I believe,
4:12
Speaker 1: even at my advanced stage, and I think I will
4:14
Speaker 1: till the day I die and become worm dirt. Right.
4:18
Speaker 1: So that's one indication of what I believe. Your last
4:21
Speaker 1: words are oh no, Um, But that that idea whether
4:26
Speaker 1: or not animals do have a souls is nothing new. Um.
4:30
Speaker 1: You point out very astutely that, Um, Judeo Christian wise,
4:35
Speaker 1: they do not think that animals have souls and have
4:39
Speaker 1: long held kind of a brutal attitude toward animals, like,
4:44
Speaker 1: forget animals, just kick them in the face. I don't care.
4:47
Speaker 1: That's a little harsh. But um, there the idea that
4:51
Speaker 1: humans have dominion over animals very much a part of
4:54
Speaker 1: the Judeo Christian ethic. Yeah, and should have dominion yea.
4:57
Speaker 1: And that animals don't have souls, and that's reason what's
4:59
Speaker 1: one reason why humans have dominion. That's right. It turns
5:02
Speaker 1: out the Mormons actually are one of the few groups
5:05
Speaker 1: in the West religiously speaking, that do believe that animals
5:10
Speaker 1: survive into the afterlife. Mormons and then um seeks Muslims, Hindus,
5:17
Speaker 1: big time Hindus, and Jane's Jainists. Um. They believe that
5:23
Speaker 1: the best way to to um save your soul is
5:26
Speaker 1: to protect other souls. So like you'll see a jainistum
5:29
Speaker 1: with a little they they have little brooms and they'll
5:32
Speaker 1: like wipe down or they'll they'll brush off a seat
5:36
Speaker 1: before they sit on it because they don't want to
5:37
Speaker 1: accidentally sit on any bug and take its life. Well
5:40
Speaker 1: that's nice, that's uh. That's protection of other souls for sure.
5:44
Speaker 1: Not like the cockroach, right, they'll still kill a kukara.
5:48
Speaker 1: Oh man, I had a funny cockroach that incident last night.
5:52
Speaker 1: Like I laugh, belly laughed for ten minutes. What did
5:56
Speaker 1: the cock roads laugh? Well, there was a cockroach in
5:58
Speaker 1: the room at some point that got away and um.
6:02
Speaker 1: Later on that night, Emily and I were in bed
6:05
Speaker 1: and I was on my computer and she was reading
6:07
Speaker 1: or something, and she looked up and on the ceiling
6:09
Speaker 1: it was right above her and she, oh, there's that cockroach,
6:12
Speaker 1: which I was shocked that she was that lazy fair
6:15
Speaker 1: about it. I went, why are you not freaking out?
6:17
Speaker 1: I was like, that thing's about to fall on you?
6:19
Speaker 1: And right when I said you, he moved and fell
6:23
Speaker 1: right on her. And it's so funny, like she's she
6:27
Speaker 1: shrieked like a small child and jumped off the bed
6:31
Speaker 1: quicker than I've ever seen her move. She scared my dogs.
6:34
Speaker 1: I jumped and ran, but I didn't shriek, which I
6:37
Speaker 1: just thought was very interesting dichotomy. Um and I killed it.
6:42
Speaker 1: And it was just very very funny that she was
6:44
Speaker 1: just like, oh, there's that cockroach, Like who are you?
6:48
Speaker 1: You're not the Emily I know exactly, Like why aren't
6:50
Speaker 1: you running? And she's super tired or something she was,
6:54
Speaker 1: But yeah, it's just very strange. I think she learned
6:57
Speaker 1: the lesson that a cockroach on the ceiling is not
7:00
Speaker 1: on the ceiling for long means you roll out of bed, yeah, immediately.
7:04
Speaker 1: So anyway, that's my cocorad story. Uh. Judaism they believe that,
7:10
Speaker 1: um well, it's a lot of debating in the Jewish community.
7:12
Speaker 1: Some scholars say that they do have souls. Yeah, lately
7:16
Speaker 1: they've been saying that, but only here while they're alive,
7:19
Speaker 1: and they don't carry into the afterlife. Big work around. Yeah,
7:22
Speaker 1: uh it is Uh. Pope John Paul the Second said, yeah,
7:27
Speaker 1: you probably you you probably are going to see your
7:31
Speaker 1: your little dog in the afterlife. Maybe it's possible. I'm
7:35
Speaker 1: Pope John Paul. Everybody loves me. Would you like my autograph? Right? Me?
7:40
Speaker 1: Gorby and Ronald Reagan rule the world? Uh. During the Enlightenment,
7:44
Speaker 1: things change a little bit from the religious aspects to
7:47
Speaker 1: more of a uh science based or philosophical and our
7:52
Speaker 1: old buddy Descartes said animals have no internal experience, which
7:58
Speaker 1: is very cold way of putting it. Yeah, he called
8:01
Speaker 1: them automatons kind of famously actually, and he said that, um,
8:05
Speaker 1: they are capable of ex of responding to pain, but
8:13
Speaker 1: because they don't have any internal experience, they can't actually
8:18
Speaker 1: experience the pain. Therefore, when you, um are cutting open
8:23
Speaker 1: a live dog and you're seeing it squirm and and
8:27
Speaker 1: wrythe and agony strictly responding to a stimulus, it's not
8:32
Speaker 1: actually going on. Like when Lucas testing out his new
8:35
Speaker 1: hand and he's poking the like the different nerves or
8:41
Speaker 1: the artificial nerves or whatever making the fingers move. He's
8:44
Speaker 1: getting poked on the finger, but he doesn't feel that.
8:46
Speaker 1: It's just a response to a stimuli. Yeah, I guess
8:48
Speaker 1: very much like that. It's the same thing as like
8:51
Speaker 1: with robots too. Yeah. I mean that's that's how essentially
8:56
Speaker 1: they cart decreed that animals were And that's some thing
9:00
Speaker 1: that stuck out to me, like throughout researching this whole thing.
9:04
Speaker 1: Humans have long just decreed that things are a certain way,
9:08
Speaker 1: and that those decrees tend to fit whatever the human
9:11
Speaker 1: wants to do to an animal at that time of course, right, Yeah,
9:16
Speaker 1: that idea is sort of the basis was and still
9:18
Speaker 1: kind of is for for scientists who experiment on animals.
9:22
Speaker 1: They're trained to um to detach themselves emotionally and just say, no,
9:28
Speaker 1: this is just a stimuli reaction. This is not an
9:31
Speaker 1: animal that's actually feeling pain. Dogs don't have that. Dogs
9:35
Speaker 1: don't have internal experience or internal lives, so you can't really,
9:40
Speaker 1: I can't really feel pain or suffering. It's not true. Uh.
9:45
Speaker 1: Jeremy Bentham was a philosopher in England. Correct, Yeah, a
9:49
Speaker 1: big one and actually he's still around. They bring his
9:53
Speaker 1: mummified body out for um dinners of the the guys
9:58
Speaker 1: who run the college what, every once a year, and
10:01
Speaker 1: he sits at the head of the table and his
10:03
Speaker 1: head has actually been separated from his body, and they
10:06
Speaker 1: bring that out too. It's in a case. It's pretty cool.
10:09
Speaker 1: Holy cow. Yeah, as far as philosophers go, it's pretty neat.
10:13
Speaker 1: So he had a pretty neat idea, which was, um,
10:16
Speaker 1: you know what, it's not just about whether you can
10:18
Speaker 1: reason with an animal, but can they suffer? He's he's
10:21
Speaker 1: the one that kind of brought about this idea of
10:24
Speaker 1: animals suffering in the same way that a human might,
10:27
Speaker 1: which is a huge change. It was a big sea
10:31
Speaker 1: change in the way that we saw animals, because up
10:33
Speaker 1: to that point, the idea was that animals couldn't suffer,
10:37
Speaker 1: and even if they could suffer, nobody was taking that
10:39
Speaker 1: into account. But they couldn't suffer because they couldn't talk
10:43
Speaker 1: or they couldn't rationalize. And he said, no, we I
10:46
Speaker 1: think they can suffer. And he used his um philosific calculus,
10:50
Speaker 1: which takes into account all of the suffering and all
10:53
Speaker 1: of the happiness or pleasure produced by an event and
10:58
Speaker 1: you weighed against one another and it's really involved. Actually,
11:02
Speaker 1: but if you carry out Bentham's calculations, uh, you can
11:07
Speaker 1: take any any event, any action, and determine whether it's
11:11
Speaker 1: ethically like, morally correct or morally repugnant. And uh, he
11:17
Speaker 1: came to the conclusion that experimenting on animals was morally
11:22
Speaker 1: repugnant because animal suffering wasn't taken into account. And he
11:25
Speaker 1: took it into account, and it wasn't just a one
11:28
Speaker 1: off where he wrote an essay about it like this
11:30
Speaker 1: is a well he went back to a lot and
11:32
Speaker 1: was kind of an agitator for animal welfare early on. Well,
11:36
Speaker 1: there's a lot of money in it, right. Uh So
11:40
Speaker 1: moving on to and I think you make a very
11:44
Speaker 1: good point here that the protectionism for animals really starts
11:49
Speaker 1: around the time where we made the transition um in
11:54
Speaker 1: in farming and how we raised in eight animals. Yeah,
11:58
Speaker 1: because you sue like you be like I feel like
12:01
Speaker 1: some beef for dinner. I'm gonna go kill old Bessie
12:03
Speaker 1: r Cow. Yeah, And you love Bessie, and your little
12:06
Speaker 1: boy or a little girl might cry about Bessie, but
12:09
Speaker 1: then the parents would explain that you know, We raised Bessie,
12:11
Speaker 1: and we loved and cared for Bessie, treated Bessie very nicely. UM.
12:15
Speaker 1: And the reason Bessie is here so Bessie can eventually
12:18
Speaker 1: feed us, and we should um honor that in every
12:23
Speaker 1: way possible by using as much of this animal as
12:26
Speaker 1: we can and honor the life that she led. You know,
12:31
Speaker 1: or if you had a bad parent, they just kind
12:33
Speaker 1: of wheeled that cleaver in your direction and shut up
12:36
Speaker 1: just as fast. This could be you. But that was
12:39
Speaker 1: a huge sea change when things started to change and
12:42
Speaker 1: industrialization took off, UH, and people were no longer connected
12:47
Speaker 1: to the animal on their farm that they ate. It
12:49
Speaker 1: was a sea change and how people I mean it
12:53
Speaker 1: directly coincided with how people felt about animals. When you
12:56
Speaker 1: could buy something in the store that looked nothing like
12:58
Speaker 1: that animal. Yeah, it's not even called pig, it's called
13:00
Speaker 1: pork or bacon or ham. Um. And then not only
13:03
Speaker 1: that chuck something I left out here that came across later. Um.
13:07
Speaker 1: This is at the same time when people move from
13:09
Speaker 1: the farm to the factory, from rural um in interactions
13:13
Speaker 1: with animals to UH to urban settings without animals. This
13:18
Speaker 1: is when people started to keep pets. Yeah, you know,
13:21
Speaker 1: I never realized what you just said there about pork
13:25
Speaker 1: and beef. That never really dawned on me. It's never
13:27
Speaker 1: called pick that. If it said ground cow, right instead
13:30
Speaker 1: of ground beef, people would be like, reveal, yeah, some
13:35
Speaker 1: baby cow, ground baby cow. Yeah, yeah, that makes total sense.
13:39
Speaker 1: And such a dummy that that never occurred to me, Like,
13:43
Speaker 1: is that where that came from? Calling them different names?
13:45
Speaker 1: I would guess veal is probably like Latin for baby
13:50
Speaker 1: calf or something. I don't think it was a purposeful obfuscation.
13:54
Speaker 1: I don't know, would not surprise me. This is before
13:57
Speaker 1: the advent of pr, so I think much more innocent,
14:01
Speaker 1: naive back then. Chicken is but who gives? Who cares
14:05
Speaker 1: about chicken? I was saying that, Um, this is also
14:09
Speaker 1: the time when people began keeping pets around the house,
14:12
Speaker 1: so animals, so we're removed from food production, and we're
14:18
Speaker 1: we were starting to see animals not as commodities but
14:21
Speaker 1: as sweet little things that we want to care for
14:23
Speaker 1: and protect and like give food to and like let's
14:26
Speaker 1: sleep in the bed with us. And it developed this
14:29
Speaker 1: dichotomy of how we view animals today, which is, um,
14:33
Speaker 1: animals are to be protected by humans, but we can
14:38
Speaker 1: also eat them. It's totally cool. Uh. And that's a
14:42
Speaker 1: really if you step back and look at it. It's
14:44
Speaker 1: so easy to take for granted because that's how almost everybody,
14:47
Speaker 1: except for vegans um view animals. It's really easy to
14:53
Speaker 1: take it for granted. But if you step back and
14:54
Speaker 1: look at it, it's a very bizarre contradictory um paradigm. Yeah,
15:01
Speaker 1: it's sort of a deal people have made with themselves mfortually,
15:04
Speaker 1: I think, and society is made with itself too. All right, Well,
15:07
Speaker 1: we're gonna take a break and we're gonna come back
15:09
Speaker 1: and talk a little bit about the fact that, as
15:10
Speaker 1: of yet, there were still no laws on the books
15:13
Speaker 1: about protecting animals. All right, before we left, I teased
15:37
Speaker 1: about the laws of the land and while things were
15:41
Speaker 1: changing maybe attitude in le Uh. In England. You point
15:46
Speaker 1: out in the mid nineteenth century, it was still legal
15:50
Speaker 1: to beat your horse to death if he was tired,
15:53
Speaker 1: or to kill your cow if it didn't produce milk.
15:57
Speaker 1: There were no laws in place or like a your
16:00
Speaker 1: dog did something you didn't like, you could kick it
16:01
Speaker 1: to death. Like It's just some people did that. I
16:05
Speaker 1: think some people are still like that today, but are
16:08
Speaker 1: restrained by laws that developed out of this era, out
16:12
Speaker 1: of the nineteenth century, and where before there weren't any laws.
16:16
Speaker 1: So if you were in impulsive puts, you could kick
16:20
Speaker 1: a dog to death. You know. I can't even go
16:23
Speaker 1: there with those stories that happened today, but that happened
16:27
Speaker 1: even more then. That's a very important point though, is
16:31
Speaker 1: like society as a whole wasn't just beating horses and
16:36
Speaker 1: dogs to death. UM for the most part, right, I
16:40
Speaker 1: think it was sociopath back then, and I think it
16:42
Speaker 1: still is now, you know. UM, for the most part,
16:45
Speaker 1: people did not do that, and people didn't even like
16:48
Speaker 1: they didn't necessarily even turn a blind eye too it.
16:51
Speaker 1: I think they did more because there wasn't a lot
16:53
Speaker 1: you could do. UM. But it's probably along the lines
16:57
Speaker 1: of where if you, UM don't agree with spanking your kid,
17:02
Speaker 1: and you see somebody in the store like grab their
17:04
Speaker 1: kids and spank them, you might want to say something,
17:06
Speaker 1: but at the same time, you probably won't because you
17:09
Speaker 1: don't know if that's a crazy person and or whatever.
17:12
Speaker 1: You don't get involved. For the most part, most people don't.
17:16
Speaker 1: I think that was probably very much the same lines
17:18
Speaker 1: like where you um, you might see something like that happening,
17:22
Speaker 1: but you weren't gonna say anything. I think that was
17:25
Speaker 1: the social status quo at the time. But that said, if, if,
17:29
Speaker 1: if the circumstances were right in the act was particularly egregious,
17:33
Speaker 1: some someone might say something. There was a guy in
17:36
Speaker 1: eighteen thirty four who in the middle of Washington, d c.
17:39
Speaker 1: Beat his cow to death, and he was arrested and
17:44
Speaker 1: charged with um not beating the cow to death because
17:47
Speaker 1: again there was no law protecting that cow, but um
17:50
Speaker 1: with creating a public nuisance because he subjected all the
17:54
Speaker 1: passers by to the site of his cow being beaten
17:57
Speaker 1: to death, and people objected to it. So even even
18:01
Speaker 1: at the time when there wasn't any legal protection for animals,
18:04
Speaker 1: there was still there was a line that was drawn.
18:08
Speaker 1: You know, people weren't cool with it, you know. Interesting, So,
18:13
Speaker 1: legislatively speaking, it was about the turn of the nineteenth
18:15
Speaker 1: century in England when Lords Erskine and Morton got together
18:21
Speaker 1: and they a bunch of times to try and actually
18:24
Speaker 1: amend the code, the legal code and UH. One of
18:27
Speaker 1: the first things they tried to outlaw with something called
18:30
Speaker 1: bull baiting UH and I imagine bear baiting, which was
18:35
Speaker 1: also a thing. And we'll get to this in a second,
18:38
Speaker 1: but it's like Roman gladiator stuff. Yeah. It's when they
18:42
Speaker 1: put a bull or a bear and they chain them
18:45
Speaker 1: to a steak and a pit. Yeah, and put dogs
18:48
Speaker 1: in there to fight and kill. Yeah. And bulldogs used
18:52
Speaker 1: to be way, way more vicious and aggressive than they
18:56
Speaker 1: are today. They actually had that stuff bred out of
18:59
Speaker 1: them and they looked a lot different to um. But
19:02
Speaker 1: that's where they got their name from. Bulldogs. Bear baiting
19:06
Speaker 1: is still going on in Pakistan. Yeah, it's it's disgusting,
19:11
Speaker 1: it's um there's a big push to stop it now.
19:13
Speaker 1: There's a group called World Animal Protection International and that's
19:17
Speaker 1: one of their big causes is to stop bear baiting
19:19
Speaker 1: in Pakistan. But UM, I would encourage you not to
19:22
Speaker 1: look that up and and look at pictures and stuff
19:25
Speaker 1: un once you want your heartbroken. But um, it's amazing
19:28
Speaker 1: that in s that's still going on in the world
19:30
Speaker 1: at all. But it is uh and then Uh Martin
19:35
Speaker 1: and Uh Martin and Erskin the great comedy duo was
19:40
Speaker 1: going to say, too, what is it is? Because of
19:42
Speaker 1: Martin Rohan and Martin is that where I'm thinking Uh,
19:45
Speaker 1: in eighteen twenty two they actually were enabled to get
19:48
Speaker 1: the first law pass in the West that made it
19:51
Speaker 1: a criminal act to abuse animals, called Martin's Act after
19:54
Speaker 1: Martin and Uh it was the technical name was an
19:57
Speaker 1: act to prevent the cruel and improper treatment of battle
20:01
Speaker 1: and it was specifically for livestock. And it was a
20:04
Speaker 1: ten shilling fine three months in the pokey if you
20:07
Speaker 1: didn't pay the fine. But what it did was set
20:10
Speaker 1: a precedent for the future. It was very important it did.
20:12
Speaker 1: It was only there was a law, right, there was
20:14
Speaker 1: a law in the books protecting animals. And again, like
20:16
Speaker 1: you said, it was pretty specific and technically there have
20:19
Speaker 1: been a law in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. The Puritans
20:23
Speaker 1: had a law in their Body of Liberties, but apparently
20:26
Speaker 1: it wasn't ever enforced. But this is the first real law. UM.
20:30
Speaker 1: And UH. The fact that Parliament was responding to this
20:37
Speaker 1: um kind of aroused the public. Uh. We talked about
20:40
Speaker 1: in the animal animal Testing episode the last one. UM.
20:45
Speaker 1: How I think in eight seventy six there was a
20:48
Speaker 1: law that passed that was passed like protecting animals during
20:51
Speaker 1: experimentation thanks to Charles Darwin Um, that that came fifty
20:57
Speaker 1: years after the first animal protection laws in the UK.
21:00
Speaker 1: So they've been there have been niche people. Groups who
21:03
Speaker 1: had been agitating for this got actually the parliament involved,
21:10
Speaker 1: and then the public became involved, which is usually the
21:13
Speaker 1: opposite rum. Usually it's like these groups agitate, get the
21:17
Speaker 1: public involved, and then the public get government to do something.
21:20
Speaker 1: This actually kind of went out of order a little bit.
21:23
Speaker 1: But the people who were agitating, these niche people were
21:26
Speaker 1: usually very interesting people like Henry Berg is a really
21:29
Speaker 1: good example. Boy, I love this guy. Yeah, you talked
21:32
Speaker 1: about an agitator. He founded the created the A s
21:35
Speaker 1: p C A, and um, he was a little rich
21:39
Speaker 1: kid and he basically said, you know what, I'm gonna
21:41
Speaker 1: kind of dedicate my life too walking the streets because
21:46
Speaker 1: one of the things in eight sixty six when the
21:49
Speaker 1: SPC A SPC I was founded was in New York.
21:53
Speaker 1: They said, you know what, you have the power to
21:55
Speaker 1: go out and police these things. We're not really enforcing it,
21:58
Speaker 1: but you can do so, and great, I'll do it. Yeah.
22:02
Speaker 1: He was a true believer for sure. Um. I think
22:05
Speaker 1: the first instance, as the legend goes, he saw he
22:08
Speaker 1: was a Russian diplomat or a diplomat to Russian American
22:11
Speaker 1: diplomat in Russia. Um, during the reign of the Tsar still,
22:16
Speaker 1: he saw a Russian peasant beating his horse, and he
22:20
Speaker 1: threatened to beat the man, and the guy responded very
22:26
Speaker 1: in in a way that Henry Berg was like, oh,
22:28
Speaker 1: I'm going to do this all the time. Now he
22:31
Speaker 1: was like, I'm so sorry. Apparently the guy started crying
22:33
Speaker 1: he was being talked down to by someone of a
22:36
Speaker 1: higher station. Then when Henry Bird got back to America
22:38
Speaker 1: and tried it, he found that people of the middle
22:42
Speaker 1: or lower classes beneath him socially did not respond the
22:46
Speaker 1: way the Russian peasantry did. They said, this is New York,
22:49
Speaker 1: so he had to kind of So he would um
22:52
Speaker 1: sometimes actually follow through on his threats and like beat
22:56
Speaker 1: people he saw beating their horses. Um, I have no
22:59
Speaker 1: problem with that. Yeah, I think most people didn't. But
23:02
Speaker 1: he would also he'd go and break up like underground
23:05
Speaker 1: bullfight or underground bull baiting that underground bullfight to both
23:11
Speaker 1: going a uh. And he is buried in Greenwood Cemetery
23:15
Speaker 1: in Brooklyn. If you want to go by and uh
23:17
Speaker 1: lay some flowers at his grave and pay your respects.
23:20
Speaker 1: I think I might do that next time in New York. Yeah,
23:22
Speaker 1: and I mean even if you're not in the animal rights.
23:24
Speaker 1: He was also a huge children's crusader, and he very
23:27
Speaker 1: wisely never allowed, uh, the children's organizations that he funded
23:33
Speaker 1: and supported, to merge with the animal organizations, because he
23:36
Speaker 1: knew full well that the little children would take the
23:40
Speaker 1: wheel and they would very quickly overwhelmed the sentiments in
23:46
Speaker 1: the UM. The efforts on behalf of the animals. Yeah,
23:50
Speaker 1: it was. It was pretty smart to keep it uh separate.
23:52
Speaker 1: You got to keep them separated. You point out in
23:56
Speaker 1: this article very astutely that um abusing an animal is
24:02
Speaker 1: it could be an indicator of violence toward humans. And
24:04
Speaker 1: I know that. You know, uh a lot of serial
24:08
Speaker 1: killers started out like killing animals first as their first try.
24:12
Speaker 1: That is, from what I can tell, most likely a
24:16
Speaker 1: pop psychology urban legend, what that they did that. Yeah,
24:22
Speaker 1: I mean there's Jeffrey Dahmer did for sure. There's okay, yes,
24:24
Speaker 1: but that the idea that it's a predictor of future
24:27
Speaker 1: serial killing. Oh yeah, yeah. The triad of evil, which
24:32
Speaker 1: is bed wedding, harming, farming animals, and setting fires. If
24:37
Speaker 1: you have your kid doing those three things allegedly under
24:41
Speaker 1: this triad of evil, you can bet that there's a
24:43
Speaker 1: pretty good chance they're going to grow up to harm humans.
24:46
Speaker 1: I went to bed. I uh, I didn't set harmful fires,
24:53
Speaker 1: but I did play with fire a little bit. I
24:55
Speaker 1: think this is more like you're intentionally setting fires like
24:58
Speaker 1: harmiting or burning burned down the woods. No, I didn't
25:01
Speaker 1: do that. Um. And then you know, my dog died
25:04
Speaker 1: and I sat in his doghouse for two days and cried.
25:07
Speaker 1: So I was it's not harming animals, clearly not. I
25:10
Speaker 1: was on the other side of the coin from early
25:12
Speaker 1: on when Huggy Bear died. But that whether or not
25:15
Speaker 1: that's true that that's been used. The Huggy Bear, Yeah,
25:18
Speaker 1: that was my German Shepherd. Great name for a dog. Yeah,
25:21
Speaker 1: that was like the first dog that I really bonded with.
25:24
Speaker 1: That was the dude from the like the street Wise
25:27
Speaker 1: start from start, right, Huggy Bear. That's great. Yeah, he
25:32
Speaker 1: was awesome. I get a little sad thing about him today,
25:35
Speaker 1: which Huggy Bear not the TV show. Okay, I just
25:40
Speaker 1: remember my mom literally came home from work and like
25:43
Speaker 1: I was in the doghouse crying, like laying down and crying.
25:46
Speaker 1: That is sweet. You know, I was such a little boss.
25:51
Speaker 1: How old? How long was Huggy Bear around? Uh? You know,
25:54
Speaker 1: I don't remember, like your whole life. Was he alive
25:57
Speaker 1: when you were born, not when I was born? His
26:00
Speaker 1: mom Daisy was And then Daisy died when I was
26:03
Speaker 1: really young, so it didn't have a super big impact.
26:06
Speaker 1: But then Huggy Bear was one of the puppies we kept.
26:08
Speaker 1: How old were you when he died? I want to
26:11
Speaker 1: say I was like eight or nine maybe, Oh, yeah,
26:16
Speaker 1: that's right there. Yeah, first big loss. You know. Um
26:21
Speaker 1: r I p Huggy Bear. Yeah, I appreciate that. Yeah,
26:24
Speaker 1: we'll drink one in your honor tonight. Hb uh. But anyway, Yeah,
26:29
Speaker 1: you're right. It doesn't hold up to scrutiny all the time.
26:31
Speaker 1: But if you're torturing and killing animals, it's it's not
26:35
Speaker 1: a good sign. No, And and the people who have
26:39
Speaker 1: agitated for animal rights have long used this. Whether it's
26:42
Speaker 1: true or not, people think it's true. So the whole,
26:46
Speaker 1: the whole premise for a lot of people has been
26:49
Speaker 1: if a human harms an animal, there's a good chance
26:52
Speaker 1: they're gonna harm a human. So if you protect animals
26:55
Speaker 1: and prevent people from harming animals, you're preventing somebody from
26:59
Speaker 1: possibly harming human. I'm fine with that line of thought.
27:01
Speaker 1: Or you're also by drawing a line before animals, you're
27:06
Speaker 1: rooting out people who might harm humans down the road
27:11
Speaker 1: by having them exposed themselves as harmers of animals. That
27:15
Speaker 1: one's a little morally trickier. If harming animals doesn't lead
27:20
Speaker 1: to harming humans. If you assume that it doesn't treat
27:23
Speaker 1: the person like that like, oh, you're a serial killer
27:26
Speaker 1: because you just certifire Peter Pants and Ate bit the
27:30
Speaker 1: head off a chipmunk. Actually, you'd probably be right if
27:37
Speaker 1: especially if you did all three at once. At the
27:40
Speaker 1: very least, I wouldn't leave them alone with your child.
27:44
Speaker 1: Uh So, a lot of progress is being made, and
27:46
Speaker 1: by nineteen o seven all the states in the United
27:49
Speaker 1: States had some kind of anti cruelty law going on,
27:53
Speaker 1: and it started to become just sort of the mindset. Yeah,
27:58
Speaker 1: that was kind of the tradition, Like the states oversaw
28:01
Speaker 1: a protection of animals until the mid sixties when the
28:06
Speaker 1: federal government got involved and created the Animal Welfare Act
28:10
Speaker 1: and the Animal Welfare Act. Um. Again, this kind of
28:13
Speaker 1: follows that thing where some people agitate for changes to
28:17
Speaker 1: the law, changes to our way of thinking, and get
28:20
Speaker 1: the public aroused, and then the public say Congress or
28:23
Speaker 1: government do something. The same thing happened here. UM Sports
28:27
Speaker 1: Illustrated in Life Magazine both came out with articles about
28:32
Speaker 1: how people's family pets are being stolen and used as
28:36
Speaker 1: what are called random sourced animals that are sold to labs.
28:41
Speaker 1: And that really would get the public going right, because
28:43
Speaker 1: the idea that Huggy Bear could be stolen from your yard,
28:47
Speaker 1: sold to Johns Hopkins University's Head Trauma Center, and then
28:51
Speaker 1: have his head beaten open with a bat. See what happens.
28:56
Speaker 1: I'm sorry I used Huggy Bear. Now that I'm I'm
28:58
Speaker 1: making this this far forty years later, that still cuts
29:02
Speaker 1: the uh so, Snoopy Snoopy is stolen from your yard
29:07
Speaker 1: and experimented on the idea that this could happen just
29:12
Speaker 1: scared an outraged America, and UM it created very quickly
29:17
Speaker 1: the Animal Welfare Act. Yeah, and that originally just protected
29:21
Speaker 1: lab use, but then over the following decades, you know,
29:23
Speaker 1: it really expanded. UM and today it protects all warm
29:28
Speaker 1: blooded animals in lab experience except three birds sadly uh,
29:34
Speaker 1: the rattus genus rats, and the muss genus mice and
29:39
Speaker 1: uh not Coincidentally, they those three makeup of research animals
29:44
Speaker 1: in the US, along with the other cold blooded animals
29:46
Speaker 1: that are used like fish and reptiles. So of the
29:51
Speaker 1: animals used in lab experiments are not covered by the
29:57
Speaker 1: Animal of Welfare Act. But it's not to say that
30:00
Speaker 1: other animals can't be used in animal experiments. It just
30:04
Speaker 1: means that if you do experiment on a guinea pig
30:08
Speaker 1: or a macaque monkey or something like that, you have
30:11
Speaker 1: to follow these guidelines. But even then the guidelines are
30:15
Speaker 1: pretty slouchy. Actually, they're huge loopholes, and basically they amount
30:19
Speaker 1: to um you. Especially originally in like nineteen sixty six,
30:25
Speaker 1: you just have to reduce unnecessary suffering. Who's to say
30:29
Speaker 1: what's necessary or unnecessary? Certainly the law didn't, and they
30:33
Speaker 1: left it up to the researchers to decide what was
30:36
Speaker 1: necessary or unnecessary. What's crazy is Chuck is it has
30:40
Speaker 1: been expanded and amended, It's also been narrowed. There was
30:44
Speaker 1: an amendment made I think in the seventies that extended
30:47
Speaker 1: the protections, which again are loose and almost toothless, to
30:52
Speaker 1: all animals warm and cold blooded. And then in two
30:55
Speaker 1: thousand two they dialed it back to what it is
30:58
Speaker 1: now and what it was originally, whichard's warm blooded animals
31:02
Speaker 1: except rats and mice, and the cold blooded animals and
31:06
Speaker 1: the birds and the birds and the bees in the
31:09
Speaker 1: sycamore trees. All right, well, let's take a break here
31:12
Speaker 1: and we're gonna come back and talk about the kind
31:14
Speaker 1: of the two categories for animal protection, animal welfarest and
31:17
Speaker 1: animal rightest's what I call them, all right, right after this, Okay,
31:45
Speaker 1: we're back, Chuck, and you teased um the different types
31:49
Speaker 1: of approaches to protecting animals, right there is like a
31:54
Speaker 1: whole contingent of people. And I think most people on
31:57
Speaker 1: the street, if you stopped them said do animals deserve
32:01
Speaker 1: protection from harm or suffering? I would guess most people
32:05
Speaker 1: would say yes. And I'm sure there's surveys out there.
32:07
Speaker 1: I didn't find one, Um, but if you drill a
32:10
Speaker 1: little deeper into it, to adopt a little corporate buzz speak, um,
32:16
Speaker 1: low hanging fruit, yeah, you would find that there's really
32:19
Speaker 1: kind of two threads to this, like, and they're they're
32:22
Speaker 1: based on just how far you feel that protection should go. Right,
32:27
Speaker 1: So the first is animal welfare. So and that's the
32:30
Speaker 1: current accepted paradigm of how we approach treating animals protecting animals. Yeah,
32:37
Speaker 1: and they generally think, uh, and these are you know, generalizations,
32:41
Speaker 1: but it's if you're going to fit people into two groups,
32:43
Speaker 1: you got to do that. They generally think that, you know,
32:46
Speaker 1: what we're doing now works pretty well, but we need
32:49
Speaker 1: to enforce it more. We agree with John Locke and
32:52
Speaker 1: Emmanuel Kant that you should protect animals from cruelty, but
32:58
Speaker 1: not because like they have moral standing necessarily, but because
33:02
Speaker 1: that is a sign of a bad person that makes
33:05
Speaker 1: us look bad, which you know that's valid. Um. But
33:11
Speaker 1: they balance that out with we treat animals humanely, but
33:15
Speaker 1: we can still use them for food and labor. Right,
33:18
Speaker 1: So animals deserve protection from humans harming them, um, But
33:25
Speaker 1: they're also our property, like we can we can do
33:27
Speaker 1: what we want with them, so long is there isn't
33:29
Speaker 1: any unjustified suffering, right and uh, not suffer needlessly, which
33:35
Speaker 1: you pointed out earlier, but more so here that that's
33:39
Speaker 1: a needlessly what does that mean it's very open to interpretation. Yeah,
33:43
Speaker 1: because if you look at what happens to animals in
33:46
Speaker 1: animal experiments, there's um I mean it runs the gamut,
33:50
Speaker 1: like and everything from withholding food and water to um
33:55
Speaker 1: uh burning skin with blow torches or to making a
34:01
Speaker 1: monkey obese on purpose and making sure they don't exercise.
34:06
Speaker 1: So you can study what lap band surgery does, right,
34:10
Speaker 1: I mean there's damaging their brains, maiming on blinding them, um,
34:16
Speaker 1: just doing invasive surgical procedures for for practice like just um.
34:23
Speaker 1: The idea of what is justified is extremely subjective, but
34:30
Speaker 1: as a society we've all generally agreed that hey, as
34:33
Speaker 1: long as science is being advanced, as long as human
34:37
Speaker 1: uh humanity is is being in some way advanced or
34:41
Speaker 1: developed or protected, then it's justified. Um or And then
34:46
Speaker 1: with food, right, like, is it those animals don't die
34:50
Speaker 1: of old age? Is it? Is it a needless death
34:54
Speaker 1: to eat a cow uh and kill the cow before
34:58
Speaker 1: it's time? Yeah? And so most people, I think who
35:01
Speaker 1: believe in the hierarchy of humans at the top of
35:04
Speaker 1: all organisms here on earth would say, well, yeah, that's
35:07
Speaker 1: a useful a useful um use of an animal feeding
35:14
Speaker 1: a human, right, right, So that's the idea of animal welfare.
35:18
Speaker 1: Protect them from harm, but yeah, we can eat them
35:21
Speaker 1: and and and a good example is making sure a
35:24
Speaker 1: cow has a good life while it's alive, it's not
35:28
Speaker 1: suffering while alive, it's not scared when it dies, and
35:32
Speaker 1: then you can eat it totally fine. That's the animal
35:35
Speaker 1: welfares view, and that's the generally accepted view in in
35:39
Speaker 1: the West. Animal rights or rightists. Uh. They think generally
35:48
Speaker 1: that the system we have is flawed and that um,
35:51
Speaker 1: animals have these rights they or they should have rights
35:56
Speaker 1: kind of along the same lines that humans do. Um.
35:58
Speaker 1: They should have legal protection just like we do under
36:01
Speaker 1: the law. And we are a long way from where
36:04
Speaker 1: we need to be when it comes to protecting animals
36:07
Speaker 1: from humans. Right. Um. The idea of the animal rightists
36:12
Speaker 1: is that animals have an inherent moral value. Um. And
36:18
Speaker 1: the idea behind that is if if they have an
36:22
Speaker 1: inherent more moral value like humans do, then they deserve
36:27
Speaker 1: legal protections that humans enjoy, which is a radically different
36:31
Speaker 1: approach to protecting uh animals. Um. And the idea is that, um, well,
36:38
Speaker 1: it all kind of came from this guy named Peter Singer,
36:41
Speaker 1: and he wrote a book in nineteen called Animal Liberation,
36:46
Speaker 1: and he basically started off the modern animal rights movement,
36:52
Speaker 1: especially the radical version of it. He said in it
36:55
Speaker 1: that um that you, if you use Bentham's philocific calculus,
37:02
Speaker 1: but include animals right to happiness, not just their suffering.
37:06
Speaker 1: He added a little cherry on top, right, you just
37:08
Speaker 1: blow the concept of using animals for human means out
37:14
Speaker 1: of the water, like it's just not justifiable. Is an
37:18
Speaker 1: animal a moral agent? And a moral agent is a
37:20
Speaker 1: being that is capable of making decisions based on right
37:25
Speaker 1: or wrong. And moral behavior comes in all sorts of forms.
37:28
Speaker 1: We think of it as like, um, helping a little
37:31
Speaker 1: lady across the street, or not stealing even though you
37:34
Speaker 1: totally could and get away with it. Um, But it's
37:37
Speaker 1: it's even more. It's even broader than that. And some
37:39
Speaker 1: people say animals do demonstrate moral behavior like loyalty or
37:44
Speaker 1: showing concern for someone that's or a person that's injured,
37:48
Speaker 1: or something like that, and so therefore an animal can
37:50
Speaker 1: be a moral agent. Other people say, no, an animal
37:53
Speaker 1: can't rationalize, it can't think about the future, it can't
37:56
Speaker 1: want to keep living. Therefore, it couldn't possibly be a
38:00
Speaker 1: moral agent. And Peter Singer really made a lot of
38:02
Speaker 1: waves when he said, he said, well, then if you're
38:06
Speaker 1: going to experiment on animals because they're not moral agents,
38:09
Speaker 1: you might as well go ahead and experiment on people
38:11
Speaker 1: in vegetative states and infants because they're not moral agents
38:15
Speaker 1: under that definition either. Yeah, he says, you know what, else,
38:18
Speaker 1: can't rationalize your baby? Yeah, so go ahead and do
38:21
Speaker 1: some horrible experiments on your baby. Yeah. And I'm sure,
38:25
Speaker 1: I mean, the other side of the argument was probably like,
38:28
Speaker 1: oh god, and he dropped that Mike, and everything is
38:32
Speaker 1: the rubbing in our faces. Uh. Another guy came along
38:37
Speaker 1: named Tom Reagan, and uh. He wrote a book called
38:40
Speaker 1: The Case for Animal Rights. He argued favorably, the animals
38:45
Speaker 1: do have moral rights, and he had a little thing
38:47
Speaker 1: that he liked to call subjects of a life. He said,
38:51
Speaker 1: humans and animals are both subjects of a life, which
38:55
Speaker 1: means we have you know, animals have that inner experience
38:58
Speaker 1: that is called haveing a life like we do. Right,
39:01
Speaker 1: So some of the ones that have higher moral, higher
39:04
Speaker 1: faculties up. Yeah, yeah, it's not all animals in his
39:08
Speaker 1: his uh, in his um view, it was like ones
39:12
Speaker 1: that are capable of reasoning, because some people say humans
39:17
Speaker 1: are the only rational beings on the planet and therefore
39:20
Speaker 1: everything else is is open season. Um, these guys like
39:25
Speaker 1: Tom Reagan said, no, there are certain animals out there
39:28
Speaker 1: that can reason and therefore can be moral agents. Yeah.
39:31
Speaker 1: I mean when you see behavior of some of these
39:32
Speaker 1: animals like that elephants, well then people would be like,
39:36
Speaker 1: that's anthropomorphizing, anthropomorphizing burn him. Yeah, you know, you try
39:41
Speaker 1: and burning can't can't be can't be, can't be proven.
39:45
Speaker 1: So therefore Descartes ghost exists. And then Tom Reagan also
39:49
Speaker 1: made waves chucked by saying, um, if if an animal
39:53
Speaker 1: is a subject of a life, meaning it can think
39:55
Speaker 1: about its own life and want to live, therefore, um,
40:00
Speaker 1: I sound like Miss South Carolina. Therefore, um, that animal
40:05
Speaker 1: deserves at least one basic freedom, which is the freedom
40:09
Speaker 1: from being property, which in and of itself would radically
40:14
Speaker 1: alter our relationship humans relationship with animals. So these guys
40:18
Speaker 1: are like kind of putting these ideas out there, and
40:22
Speaker 1: as we'll see, they got some response, but it was
40:24
Speaker 1: typically um among hardcore animal rights people rather than the
40:29
Speaker 1: general public. Up to this point, and then the final
40:31
Speaker 1: dude in the trifecta, the triad of Evil, of Evil,
40:38
Speaker 1: of good. I know, I'm just teasing Gary franc Uh.
40:43
Speaker 1: He was a guy that came along and said, you
40:45
Speaker 1: know what, we need to abolish our domination over animals period. Outright,
40:50
Speaker 1: it is slavery and we should treat it as such,
40:53
Speaker 1: get rid of it. And he said, we didn't get
40:56
Speaker 1: rid of slavery by making slavery more humane. We got
40:59
Speaker 1: rid of slavery by getting rid of slavery. That's what
41:02
Speaker 1: you do. And he's saying, it's the same thing here. Yeah,
41:04
Speaker 1: pretty radical ideas at the time. Yeah, it's um and
41:08
Speaker 1: radical is a pretty good word because these these ideas
41:11
Speaker 1: really caught the attention of some people who did become
41:13
Speaker 1: I guess radicalized by them. Like the the animal rights
41:17
Speaker 1: movement has had long had a militant arm to it,
41:22
Speaker 1: for sure. Yes, it started actually before even Peter Singer's
41:26
Speaker 1: book Animal Liberation, from as far back as nineteen sixty two,
41:30
Speaker 1: there was a group in the UK called the Hunt
41:33
Speaker 1: Saboteurs Association. This is the most polite saboteurs organization name
41:39
Speaker 1: you can come up with, probably, so they um, they
41:43
Speaker 1: sort of laid the groundwork for for the Animal Liberation Front,
41:46
Speaker 1: who was got a lot of press, and then another
41:49
Speaker 1: group called the Band of Mercy Um. The Band of
41:52
Speaker 1: Mercy was named for the Victorian era British SPC A
41:57
Speaker 1: with their children's wing. Yeah, that's what in the cute Yeah,
42:01
Speaker 1: totally cute, the Band of Mercy Um And they were
42:05
Speaker 1: the actual the first people to liberate animals when they
42:09
Speaker 1: broke into a laboratory that used uh or a farm
42:14
Speaker 1: that that sold guinea pigs, two labs, and freed six
42:17
Speaker 1: guinea pigs. Yeah, they made off with six, but I
42:20
Speaker 1: mean there were six guinea pigs lives that uh that
42:23
Speaker 1: otherwise would have been um subject to experimentation. So it
42:27
Speaker 1: was a big success and they ended up eating the
42:29
Speaker 1: guinea pigs to celebrate, No, they didn't. Uh. And the
42:33
Speaker 1: actually the lady who ran the farm though, she was
42:35
Speaker 1: really shaken up and she actually shut down her guinea
42:38
Speaker 1: pig selling business because of that because she was I
42:41
Speaker 1: mean some some people had broken into her house at
42:44
Speaker 1: night and she thought twice Yeah, she was like this
42:47
Speaker 1: is I don't want this to happen again. And I
42:50
Speaker 1: mean this is depending on your viewpoint, this is deeply
42:56
Speaker 1: uncool of these people, like they used in imidation. They
43:01
Speaker 1: would make death threats, they would make bomb threats. Um.
43:04
Speaker 1: They would threaten people's family. Yeah, they would set fires.
43:07
Speaker 1: People who were running legitimate labs were threatened. Um, people
43:12
Speaker 1: who were legitimately supplying the labs were threatened. Yeah, they
43:14
Speaker 1: would set fires. Um. And then there were other ones
43:17
Speaker 1: where you're just like, yeah, I'm kinda and can kind
43:21
Speaker 1: of get behind that. The point to a lot of
43:24
Speaker 1: these wasn't not wasn't just to get people to um
43:27
Speaker 1: cease their activities or to actually liberate animals. They um
43:32
Speaker 1: were done also to generate publicity. This is a huge
43:36
Speaker 1: aspect of it. These guys were pr masters. They realized
43:39
Speaker 1: that the bigger and the bolder, UM, the more likely
43:43
Speaker 1: it was to get headlines. So guys like the or
43:45
Speaker 1: groups like the Animal Liberation Front or UM the Band
43:50
Speaker 1: of Mercy would agitate, go out and do these these acts,
43:55
Speaker 1: and then Peter like more moderate groups that weren't actually
43:59
Speaker 1: doing us would publicize it and write up press releases
44:02
Speaker 1: and send it out to the press and um maybe
44:05
Speaker 1: set up interviews and stuff like that and try to
44:07
Speaker 1: get the get the word out as much as possible
44:09
Speaker 1: about these One thing Peter did was they would, uh,
44:14
Speaker 1: they would basically turn people. Well sometimes they would send
44:18
Speaker 1: people in undercover to get jobs at these labs so
44:20
Speaker 1: they could make videotapes. And sometimes they would just get
44:23
Speaker 1: in touch with someone there who worked there, turn them
44:25
Speaker 1: as but basically as a double agent, and say you
44:29
Speaker 1: will be our person on the inside and you can
44:31
Speaker 1: do these videos for us. And they got kill the Queen.
44:36
Speaker 1: They got sixty hours worth of audio and video from
44:40
Speaker 1: a lab, cut it down to a about a half
44:43
Speaker 1: an hour documentary called Unnecessary Fuss and released it. And
44:47
Speaker 1: it was a big deal. Like basically experimentation and and
44:54
Speaker 1: in humane treatment on tape for the masses beyond. Like
44:58
Speaker 1: it was about as ugly as you could get. Was
45:00
Speaker 1: that the u PEN Head Trauma Center, UM research lab.
45:04
Speaker 1: That's probably all you need to say. Pretty much. Baboons
45:08
Speaker 1: were involved and they were researching head trauma. Yeah. So um.
45:12
Speaker 1: When this came out, it really got the public going.
45:15
Speaker 1: And just like in the sixties with those two articles
45:17
Speaker 1: about people's pets being stolen and used in lab experiments,
45:21
Speaker 1: this led to an amendment to the Animal Welfare Act.
45:25
Speaker 1: UM directly led to it, and the amendment said that, uh,
45:30
Speaker 1: there needed to be committees that oversaw each lab that
45:33
Speaker 1: was carrying out animal experiments. There needed to be the
45:36
Speaker 1: use of pain relievers and anesthesia uh in in experiments,
45:42
Speaker 1: and there needed to be postoperative care in lab experiments.
45:47
Speaker 1: Right yeah, and that you couldn't take a single animal
45:49
Speaker 1: and just keep operating on that animal. Okay, Again, all
45:54
Speaker 1: of these things had a very important caveat. Caveat is
45:59
Speaker 1: unless it's necessary. So there was a huge loopholder. If
46:03
Speaker 1: you're testing like pain threshold on a maccaque monkey, while
46:07
Speaker 1: you can't give it pain relievers, you can't give it anesthesia,
46:10
Speaker 1: you need to inflict pain, and well it's part of
46:14
Speaker 1: the experiment, so it's medically necessary. Or we have to
46:16
Speaker 1: see how one maccaque monkey responds to multiple surgeries because
46:22
Speaker 1: we're trying to induce ps PTSD in that monkey, so
46:25
Speaker 1: we can study PTSD drugs. Well, that's medically necessary, and
46:31
Speaker 1: that this this whole loophole, that huge loophole with the
46:35
Speaker 1: idea that advancing science and human understanding and human welfare
46:40
Speaker 1: as long as it's necessary, then you can justify anything
46:44
Speaker 1: you do to an animal that's still around and it's
46:47
Speaker 1: been around for a very long time. So this is
46:50
Speaker 1: all culminated in more recent years with a guy, an
46:53
Speaker 1: attorney named Stephen Wise, who uh depending on who you are,
46:59
Speaker 1: you might this guy is crazy, or you might say
47:04
Speaker 1: he's amazing, a hero and a hero. So he's an
47:07
Speaker 1: animal rights attorney essentially. He wrote a book in two
47:11
Speaker 1: thousand called Rattling the Cage Colon toward Legal Rights for Animals,
47:16
Speaker 1: and he basically put forth a very radical idea, which
47:19
Speaker 1: is that some animals, like the elephant, or the great ape,
47:24
Speaker 1: or the gray parrot African gray parrot, they actually deserve personhood.
47:29
Speaker 1: They deserve legal protection under the law, just as a
47:32
Speaker 1: human being does. And let me uh well, he founded
47:37
Speaker 1: a in two thousand and seven, a group called the
47:40
Speaker 1: Non Human Rights Project Big in Little H Big are
47:43
Speaker 1: Big P and it's a legal defense group that basically said,
47:46
Speaker 1: let's find a sympathetic judge somewhere where we can bring
47:51
Speaker 1: up a case and maybe get something some precedent set,
47:54
Speaker 1: get something on the books. Yeah, all they have to
47:56
Speaker 1: do is get one case heard, get it denied, and
47:59
Speaker 1: that's to motion the appeals process where you can work
48:02
Speaker 1: through the higher courts. Right, um and hopefully get to
48:06
Speaker 1: get some sort of legal ruling. Right. So this guy
48:09
Speaker 1: is sharp and part of the problem that he's facing
48:11
Speaker 1: right now is, as far as law in the United
48:16
Speaker 1: States goes, animals are property. The strictly property, their special
48:21
Speaker 1: property right Like, for example, if you're beating up your
48:24
Speaker 1: microwave and the neighbors aren't going to call the cops,
48:28
Speaker 1: and the cops aren't gonna come. But if you're beating
48:31
Speaker 1: up your dog, the neighbors are probably going to call
48:33
Speaker 1: the cops, and the cops are probably going to come. Right.
48:36
Speaker 1: The thing is is that animals still property, and and
48:40
Speaker 1: as far as the law goes, property cannot possibly have
48:44
Speaker 1: standing in a court. And if it doesn't have standing,
48:47
Speaker 1: then that means that the animal can't sue on its
48:49
Speaker 1: own behalf. You being the neighbor, you can't sue on
48:54
Speaker 1: the dog's behalf because you're just the neighbor who you
48:58
Speaker 1: have no standing in this dog's wealth, are either. So
49:01
Speaker 1: these these animals, any animal is in legal limbo as
49:05
Speaker 1: far as American courts are concerned. Him. Why is trying
49:08
Speaker 1: to figure out a way around that? Yeah, he attempted
49:12
Speaker 1: some lawsuits and his organization did UM in New York
49:16
Speaker 1: on behalf of four chimpanzees. UM, and he said, you
49:20
Speaker 1: know what I'm gonna see on these chimps behalf, I'm
49:22
Speaker 1: gonna try and gain their freedom. He lost all the cases,
49:25
Speaker 1: got a lot of press, but he did have one
49:28
Speaker 1: heard and in one of the cases he even got
49:31
Speaker 1: a judge or not got a judge, but the judge
49:34
Speaker 1: actually issued a writ of habeas corpus, first time ever
49:38
Speaker 1: for an animal, even though the judge reversed that order
49:41
Speaker 1: that same day. It Yeah, what did I just do? Uh?
49:47
Speaker 1: It was a very big deal in the media. Got
49:49
Speaker 1: I mean, I remember hearing about this guy on the
49:51
Speaker 1: news and when you when you wrote this article, is like, oh,
49:53
Speaker 1: I totally know that guy. Yeah. Yeah, there's a really
49:56
Speaker 1: great Boston Globe profile on him and what he's doing
50:00
Speaker 1: UM from a year a couple of years ago that's
50:03
Speaker 1: worth checking out. Yeah, there's a documentary to UM release
50:07
Speaker 1: this year called Unlocking the Cage by the legendary d A.
50:11
Speaker 1: Pinne Baker and his wife and partner Chris. I'm not
50:15
Speaker 1: sure you'd pronounce her name Heddas. Perhaps he's he's the
50:20
Speaker 1: one that did Dylan's don't look back in or. He's
50:25
Speaker 1: very legendary the War Room. I don't know if you
50:28
Speaker 1: ever saw that, the political one. Um, what else because
50:32
Speaker 1: I know the name he's he's a documentary legend, documentary
50:37
Speaker 1: documentary and legend documentary, legend whatever. But he's uh made
50:44
Speaker 1: this movie about Stephen Wise and his group called Unlocking
50:47
Speaker 1: the Cage. I haven't seen it yet, but it's on
50:48
Speaker 1: the list. Um. Yeah, he's a pretty interesting guy. Uh,
50:53
Speaker 1: what's what. Something that struck me that I found in
50:56
Speaker 1: my research was he and Peter don't really see eye
50:59
Speaker 1: the eye. They're not working in conjunction. In a few
51:02
Speaker 1: years back, Peter Um brought a case against Sea World
51:06
Speaker 1: on behalf of the Orcas and said that it was
51:08
Speaker 1: a violation of the Thirteenth Amendment against slavery, and Stephen
51:12
Speaker 1: Wives is like, what are you doing? He saw that
51:15
Speaker 1: they had very very clearly opened the door for the
51:18
Speaker 1: judge to be like, the Constitution doesn't apply to animals
51:22
Speaker 1: because animals aren't people. And once that precedent is set
51:25
Speaker 1: like that, because it's not actually written in law, and
51:33
Speaker 1: no one there hasn't been that precedent, and that really
51:35
Speaker 1: opened the door for it. And he Luckily the judge
51:38
Speaker 1: is just like no, but didn't rule any further. So
51:42
Speaker 1: what why is trying to do is to get somebody
51:44
Speaker 1: to set a different precedent, which is, uh, yeah, well
51:49
Speaker 1: that that actually makes kind of sense. So let's let's
51:52
Speaker 1: go ahead and run this trial through. Yeah, and it's
51:55
Speaker 1: something that could be possible one day. Like you know,
51:58
Speaker 1: there have been courts that have ruled where, uh, this
52:01
Speaker 1: animal was an heir to in a state, and the
52:04
Speaker 1: court made the animal temporary ward of the court and
52:08
Speaker 1: endowed this animal with the inheritance give it a nice lunch. Yeah,
52:11
Speaker 1: they had to kind of work through that. So he's
52:13
Speaker 1: he's kind of he's got a little bit of a
52:16
Speaker 1: leg to stand on and kind of pointing some of
52:17
Speaker 1: these things out right. And plus, corporations are artificial people
52:21
Speaker 1: under the law. Yeah, we did a whole show in
52:23
Speaker 1: that right, right. Um, So, I mean it's not like
52:25
Speaker 1: this is just totally wacky as far as the law goes.
52:29
Speaker 1: I think the problem is this the big challenge he's
52:32
Speaker 1: facing is, Okay, let's say you're successful and all of
52:35
Speaker 1: a sudden, animals have the same rights under the law
52:39
Speaker 1: that humans do. What's that gonna do to the world. Um,
52:44
Speaker 1: And that's a huge that's a huge question that's raised.
52:47
Speaker 1: I mean, like you can just you can come up
52:49
Speaker 1: with a lot of stuff that would happen automatically. Obviously,
52:52
Speaker 1: medical testing has gone. No more zoos, no more circuses
52:56
Speaker 1: for lea circuses with animals, right, it's just flee circuses
53:01
Speaker 1: maybe um the creepiest circus of all. Um. Obviously, there
53:09
Speaker 1: would be no hunting. Veganism would probably just be that's
53:14
Speaker 1: just what we eat. Now. Nugent would just drown himself, Yeah,
53:19
Speaker 1: he really would. Yeah, Ted Nugent would not like a
53:22
Speaker 1: world where animals had the same rights that I think
53:25
Speaker 1: about it. Um, And like pets would would there be
53:30
Speaker 1: pets any longer? There's actually been changes I think somewhere
53:34
Speaker 1: in Colorado and definitely in somewhere in Rhode Island, if
53:37
Speaker 1: not Rhode Island, the state. Um, they they amended the
53:41
Speaker 1: law to include guardian instead of owner or in addition
53:46
Speaker 1: to owner. That's a different thing. It totally is like
53:50
Speaker 1: when you're the legal guardian of your younger brother, you're
53:53
Speaker 1: not their owner. No, I mean you might treat them
53:57
Speaker 1: that way. But uh. And then the lastly, so we
54:01
Speaker 1: talked about animals being moral agents. Right, so if you're
54:04
Speaker 1: a moral agent, you also have moral responsibilities in addition
54:07
Speaker 1: to moral protections. Another can of worms. Yeah right, So
54:10
Speaker 1: like if an animal kills another animal, as are you
54:14
Speaker 1: going to try it and execute it? Yeah? I mean, well,
54:19
Speaker 1: I mean that kind of happens today. You can animals
54:22
Speaker 1: are often put down when they attack other animals. Yeah, okay,
54:25
Speaker 1: so yeah, there would be more of the same. What's
54:28
Speaker 1: weird is apparently back in the Renaissance, in the medieval era,
54:32
Speaker 1: um they used to have trials for animals that did
54:35
Speaker 1: something record. It wasn't I mean like we do it today.
54:40
Speaker 1: Like remember Travis the chimp who um who ripped the
54:44
Speaker 1: woman's face off. He was summarily executed by police and
54:49
Speaker 1: I think had he even been captured they would have
54:51
Speaker 1: put him down. There wouldn't have been a trial. But
54:53
Speaker 1: they used to actually have the trial. And it wasn't
54:56
Speaker 1: because they wanted to give the animal a fair trial.
54:59
Speaker 1: It was for he feeling the the community, you know,
55:02
Speaker 1: to make the humans feel better. If they could draw
55:05
Speaker 1: this out and make this like an actual issue that
55:09
Speaker 1: was resolved in the execution of the of the animal. Interesting,
55:14
Speaker 1: it's yeah, it's pretty way boy, good one, dude. Yeah,
55:18
Speaker 1: nice job. Yeah, thanks you too, buddy. If you want
55:22
Speaker 1: to know more about animal rights, you can type that
55:26
Speaker 1: into the search bar your favorite search engine. And since
55:29
Speaker 1: I said search engine, that means it's time for listener mail. Yes,
55:35
Speaker 1: this is the famous part two from earlier this week
55:39
Speaker 1: with IVON and I promised a list of band names
55:43
Speaker 1: and a list of puns from Josh, because Josh says
55:47
Speaker 1: that he hates puns despite his somewhat regular use of them. Yeah,
55:51
Speaker 1: I again, I take issue with this. If you accidentally
55:55
Speaker 1: make a pun, you're not a punny person. All right, Well,
55:58
Speaker 1: let's just go on this list. Poison IVY episode Josh,
56:01
Speaker 1: let's stop beating around the bush. Accident blood types Josh,
56:06
Speaker 1: I'm sure I take a B blood. I'm positive of it.
56:10
Speaker 1: Hula hoops discussing a pushing a hula hoop with a stick.
56:13
Speaker 1: Hang in there and stick with it. Accident police dogs
56:17
Speaker 1: discussing the current popularity of arson dogs. They're so hot
56:20
Speaker 1: right now. I think that was on purpose. It's possible.
56:23
Speaker 1: Remember that one chili Chili peppers, Josh, it's right for it.
56:29
Speaker 1: Total accident. I don't even think you can include that one.
56:32
Speaker 1: Can you sweat colors? There's this boiling point, I guess
56:36
Speaker 1: talking about how hot it's been in Atlanta. M hm,
56:39
Speaker 1: that's a reach. Yeah, I agree. Strike that one from
56:41
Speaker 1: the record, UM spam, talking about the trouble the maker
56:46
Speaker 1: of spam had one trying to sell spam. He was
56:48
Speaker 1: hamstrung by the name Hormel spice meat. Again. Accident, handwriting analysis,
56:55
Speaker 1: the writings on the wall. I don't even remember that one.
56:59
Speaker 1: I'm not pun though, I'm not copping to any of
57:01
Speaker 1: these purpose. I've got a few more UM casinos. It
57:04
Speaker 1: paid off an aces Nolpe accident. White collar crime. This
57:08
Speaker 1: is something that has woven into history of white collar crime.
57:12
Speaker 1: Total act, disgusting. A wool transporter keeping wolf for his
57:16
Speaker 1: own use. Again accident. I'm just gonna do one more,
57:21
Speaker 1: pick the best of him, chuck uh. This like a letterman,
57:26
Speaker 1: Tom tasteing how it works. After saying it makes you
57:28
Speaker 1: wonder how things we can taste taste, he said, chew
57:31
Speaker 1: on that one. Accident. And now the band names. I'm
57:35
Speaker 1: gonna read through these very quickly and looking at this list,
57:38
Speaker 1: these are great. So if you're out there looking for
57:40
Speaker 1: a band, name, Listen up, listen up, toe thumb uh interest,
57:45
Speaker 1: cytoplasmic sperm injection. Maybe like a prog band. Maggot Therapy
57:51
Speaker 1: that's a metal band. The Static Crush that's total chew gaze,
57:55
Speaker 1: oh yeah, or ima uh disruptive Technology. I don't even know.
58:01
Speaker 1: My Atonic Goats. That's a good one. Yea. The Tennessee
58:04
Speaker 1: Stiff Legs. I love it. That's a blue grass band.
58:08
Speaker 1: A fist full of neurons. Metal uh, force Multiplier, total metal. Yeah,
58:14
Speaker 1: that's pretty cool. Nazis on meth it's metal. Oh yeah,
58:19
Speaker 1: punk that can be good too. Masters of Plastic, nerd Core,
58:25
Speaker 1: colloidal quantum dots, definite nerd core, super critical fluid. That's
58:31
Speaker 1: probably nerd Wore two actually, I guess so. Or a
58:33
Speaker 1: boy band, the Brownie Wise Massacre. That's a indie that's good.
58:45
Speaker 1: Brownie Wise overdrive boy they were two um Snake detection
58:49
Speaker 1: theory up on that one. He's really cracking me up.
58:53
Speaker 1: Extraordinary rendition. That's like a guy just like you. Two
58:57
Speaker 1: guys in Maine that singing a coffee shop. They do
58:59
Speaker 1: all the classics. Ye standards were extraordinary rendition, controlled burn
59:06
Speaker 1: not bad. That's a new metal Poor fred Noonan. That's
59:11
Speaker 1: a band that's destined to break up poop Fusion, same
59:17
Speaker 1: cooperative eye hypothesis. I don't know if that's a good name.
59:21
Speaker 1: After all, I might retract that one. Uh, Flesh on
59:24
Speaker 1: the Chunks, that's a good one. Or that could be
59:27
Speaker 1: the first uh album from poop Fusion. Uh, like a
59:34
Speaker 1: Zappa esque band, the Horny skin Folds. M. I can
59:39
Speaker 1: see that being like, uh, party party rock kind of thing, right, Um?
59:46
Speaker 1: Is that freedom rock? Yeah? Man, turn it up professional
59:50
Speaker 1: mermaid culture. That's not bad. That's very indie though. Yeah,
59:55
Speaker 1: like they go to Columbia University or something. Uh. And
59:59
Speaker 1: then finally too or super Critical CEO two not bad. Okay,
1:00:03
Speaker 1: that's too super critical. So and then finally Frozen poop
1:00:07
Speaker 1: Knife in there. Who did you tell to change their
1:00:11
Speaker 1: name to Frozen poop Knife? Oh? I don't know. Oh
1:00:13
Speaker 1: uh diarrhea Planet. Yeah, and they tweeted back and said
1:00:16
Speaker 1: thanks for the idea, and never did they No way. Yeah,
1:00:22
Speaker 1: that's great. Oh yeah, those guys are good. Yeah, all right,
1:00:26
Speaker 1: that's it. That's it. Everybody von for keeping track of that. Man,
1:00:29
Speaker 1: that's a great lesson. Yeah, and thank you to the
1:00:31
Speaker 1: dudes at primer Stories for posting the essay I wrote.
1:00:35
Speaker 1: Go check it out at primer stories dot com, slash
1:00:37
Speaker 1: s y s K and if you want to hang
1:00:38
Speaker 1: out with us, you can hang out with us on
1:00:40
Speaker 1: Twitter at s y s K podcast. You can join
1:00:42
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1:00:45
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1:00:47
Speaker 1: how stuff Works dot com and has always joined us
1:00:49
Speaker 1: at our home on the web, Stuff you Should Know
1:00:51
Speaker 1: dot com For more on this and thousands of other topics.
1:01:00
Speaker 1: Is it how stuff Works dot com. Mhm