Animals: Why They Must Not Be Brutalized

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    Information that most readers are to much in a hurry to perceive and digest.

    Information with revolutionary implications in a world where
                "custom is often the law of fools." 

Revolutionary Truth

There can be no denying the difficulties encountered in trying to be just, or as noted above, the disparity between justice in the abstract and concrete realities, or the paucity of justice in relation to need and demand. But such facts have failed to place a moratorium on either the quest, or realiza­tion of what was and is perceived as justice, and such facts do not militate against the ultimate universal realization of Partisan Justice. Global Partisan justice would ensure by law that the most savage and protracted abuse of power could no longer be tolerated, and as with all statutory rules of conduct, be subject to sanctions, as determined by law

An idealistic outlook? Yes, and it can't be discredited by a strong dose of realism. But no illusions should be em­braced entailing the universal attainment of this social ideal in the near future. In the absence of a monolithic human condition, and the diversity that that entails, there must be accommodation to ageless realities if the world is to eventually achieve what cannot be accomplished at once. One of various situations demanding accommodation is subsistence hunting and fishing by indigenous cultures. It would be absurd, and downright immoral, to expect Eskimoan people to starve in the name of an alien Partisan justice.

At the time of this writing, no less than the time when many Americans opposed the freeing of slaves, many Americans oppose the threat to their entrenched slaughterhouse ethos. It may be therefore argued that the concept of Partisan justice is utopian because one's pet or herd of cattle is considered to be one's property in a context of inviolable property rights. I would have to disagree. It doesn't follow from the fact that millions of animals are classified as human property, that the concept of Partisan justice is utopian. How we classify depends, by and large, upon our purpose. Slaves in the antebellum south were classified as property because they could then be bought, sold, and exploited with impunity, and it is for the same reason that animals were classified as mere property. That that classification is still a reality may be attributable to widespread ignorance of its implications. To classify living flesh, blood, and bones as mere property, whether human or animal, is to condemn sentient life to real world hell, and that is what Mr. Homo Sapiens has been up to, but not without misgivings.

Exhibiting aversion toward the injustice, and tribal custom of their time, the framers of the U.S. Constitution excluded the word slavery, because as James Madison observed, "they did not choose to admit the right of property in man." They were influenced no doubt by the astute English philosopher, John Locke. Locke invented the expression liberation, which inspired and influenced the architects of the American Revolution, Declaration of Independence, and U.S. Constitution. It was Locke who perceived and postulated that "every man has a property in his own person; this nobody has a right to but himself" Was Locke's thesis valid?

If a man's home is his inviolate castle, can his own person be less inviolate? My hands that are typing this text are a part of my arms that are part of my body that constitute a person that is formulating concepts. The overarching interest that I share with others is life itself, which is a necessary condition of everything else. Thus I hold myself, as I should, and do hold others, to be an inviolate organism, not to be banished to the sphere of property, or brutally exploited, or unjustly incarcerated, or deprived of life except under exceptional circumstances such as a capital violation, as stipulated by the statutory laws of society. Laws are formulated to maintain order, protect life, and punish vice: or more specifically, to selectively punish vice.

The cat that I shared my home with, and cared for, did not indignantly say "you stepped on my tail" when I inadvertently did so, but with a shattering yowl conveyed that message. To say that the cat's tail is not the cat's tail and property, would be as absurd and fallacious as sayⁱng that everything that constitutes the cat is not the cat's property.

The word property derives from the Latin proprietors, the noun form of the Latin proprius, meaning one's own. Everything that constitutes the cat is the cat's own property. By extension, every sentient creature has a property in itself which should, if we are to abide by our own principle of justice, prohibit human ownership and brutal exploitation of animals as it prohibits ownership and exploitation of humans.

It could be objected that my thesis is mistaken, because of the many animals enjoying a good life as human property. We need to substitute the word slaves for the word animals, to perceive how silly that rebuttal would be. That many slaves had kind masters, did not justify slavery and its unspeakable cruelties. And the fact that many animals have kind masters and good homes, can't justify the classification of animals as human property and its unspeakable cruelties. However kind masters and good homes are a good portent for a new just world for animals.

By one definition, to liberate is "to set free, as from oppression, confinement, or from foreign control." It seems, then, that a necessary condition of liberation as defined, will be the demise of the animal as human property enterprise, which will be, regrettably, a slow death.

Persistent and prudent Partisan effort has engendered various reforms, and must continue to do so, because such effort and success are the step by step preliminaries to the demise of mankinds most egregious custom. Reforms notwithstanding, there are on this inhumane day, as there was yesterday, and will be tomorrow, millions of doomed animal on humanity's death rows for its living animal property.

Such is the reality behind a facade of benign religiosity and sophisticated modernity, in a world in which John Van Brugh believed that "custom is the law of fools." Custom is not everyone's authoritarian boss. There are other masters, such as the internal world of feeling and reflection, without which we would not be what we are, and would not be moved to non-violent action. Thus there will not be another Gettysburg on behalf of animals...

 J. B. Suconik November 12, 2008