Animal Rights, Task Forces & Advisory Committees
by Lee Wallot
Animal Rights, Task Forces & Advisory Committees
by Lee Wallot
In case you have forgotten, Let me remind
you that we are in a war...a war in which each and every battle determines
our future as owners of animals of every kind. You know the animal rights
agenda as printed in the Twelve Steps of the Animals Rights Movement, ANIMALS
AGENDA, Nov., 1987. The goals are not only to end the breeding and keeping
of dogs and cats as pets, it is to also prohibit all use and ownership
of all animals by human beings. You know this is true. They have told us
so in their own words. The animal rights activists do not intend to win
this war in one battle; they are smart enough to know that is impossible.
They are, however, also smart enough to know they might be able to win
it in small, incremental steps... each small victory adding to the stranglehold
of prior small victories until our relationship with animals as we know
it today gradually, finally, ceases to exist.
Their arsenal is manipulation. Manipulate
the facts; manipulate our emotions; manipulate our thinking; manipulate
our laws to accomplish their incremental steps toward our destruction.
To them, the end always justifies the means. They do this through campaigns
designed to gradually change our laws in order to force us into accepting
animal use on their terms. Two of their most effective weapons in this
endeavor are task forces and advisory committees. Ironically, by forming
task forces and animal welfare advisory committees when animal rights issues
are involved, we hand the activists their first victory. By agreeing to
serve on such committees, we have automatically allowed the animal rights
activists to define a problem according to their agenda and we have accepted
their definition of what is right and what is wrong.
TASK FORCES
Let’s take one example - the anti- breeding
laws we are all so familiar with. The progress of such legislation is usually
as follows: Animal rights groups go to a legislator and, with passion and
their own "statistics" (substitute propaganda here), they define
a problem. In this case, they say there is a growing crisis of dogs and
cats being euthanized at shelters and they blame it on overpopulation caused
by too much breeding. The legislator listens and, based on what the activists
have told him, agrees there must be a problem indeed. After all, at this
point, he has received no dissenting information from the other side.
Then the animal rightists helpfully give
him all the information he needs to write a new law (or sometimes even
writes it for him). Shortly thereafter the animal rights activists, through
their very effective propaganda, speed up their campaign to convince the
public and the media that the problem addressed by the ordinance is not
only real but is a growing crisis. If the subsequent uproar of protest
from animal owners is loud enough, the legislator may decide the proposed
legislation might need some modification after all, so the second step
is taken – a task force is suggested to look at the proposed ordinance
and to make changes that would make it "better".
Can you see the victory this becomes for
the animal rights activists? Through their propaganda they have succeeded
in convincing others there must actually be a problem as defined by their
proposed ordinance. Otherwise, why form a task force to fix it? Therein
lies the manipulation. The truth is the so-called problem of "overpopulation"
is not really a problem at all because the euthanasia numbers at shelters
all across the country have been plummeting for over fifteen years without
legislation. Successful solutions were already in place and working long
before the animal rights activists decided to use overpopulation as a cause
to advance their personal agenda. Actually, the overpopulation issue is
not really an issue at all; it is the vehicle used to pass a law that will
further their agenda.
Michell Fox of PAWS (Progressive Animal Welfare
Society) who pushed through the nation’s second anti-breeding ordinance
in, 1992 in King County, Washington is quoted in ANIMAL’S AGENDA, May,
1988: "The animal rights movement will continue to lack credibility
until it confronts pet overpopulation ... Ironically, it may be the easiest
of all forms of animal exploitation to eliminate. In (using this issue),
the movement faces the fewest obstacles, no engrained societal traditions,
no ’experts’ challenging us and no high-powered lobbies to defeat us".
THE FEAR FACTOR
Unfortunately, when confronted with pending
legislation, most people are intimidated and do not understand they have
both a legal and ethical right to say NO. NO – we do not
need this law. NO – we do not need a task force to make a bad law
better. NO – this ordinance is wrong no matter what the animal rights
people say. Those who would be affected by the ordinance are frightened
into believing either they accept the task force or else they will have
a law without any input from their side.
This simply IS NOT TRUE! If we can stand
up to our unfounded fears, we can defeat the proposed legislation by working
closely with the other members of the council or government body. The sponsor
of the proposed legislation is only one person. If we present sound reasons
to the other legislators as to why the legislation is bad, and if they
see there is heavy and legitimate opposition to the bill, THE LEGISLATION
CAN BE DEFEATED. We know this is true because we have been doing it for
the past four years in our state at both the state and local level against
some of the strongest and best funded animal rights organizations in the
country.
HOW ANIMAL RIGHTS GROUPS MOVE PEOPLE TO THEIR SIDE
When anti-breeding legislation is first
introduced, we (animal owners) start out at point (A) and the animal rights
people start out at point (B). We do not agree with their goals and solutions
nor do they agree with ours. (A)~(A- 1) ~(A-2) ~(A-3) ~(B-1) ~(B) However,
once a task force is formed, we have already been moved to point (A-1)
in our thinking, closer to the position of the animal rights movement (B)
because we have accepted their premise that a problem as they define it
needs to be addressed. The task force will appear to be fairly representative
of many diverse groups, all involved in some way with the issue at hand,
i.e. dog and cat breeders, a veterinarian, a representative of the pet
store market, maybe even one or two "ordinary" citizens and,
of course, members of one or more humane societies and/or animal rights
groups.
Appearances, however, can be deceiving. These
days, the veterinarian could possibly be a member of AVAR (Association
of Veterinarians for Animal Rights). Surprised? Check it out. The ordinary
citizens may or may not be a member of an animal rights group but will
most certainly be sympathetic, compassionate and, therefore, easily
influenced by animal rights propaganda. Finally, one or more of the
humane societies we always thought of as moderate and mainstream may already
have adopted much of the animal rights philosophy without our even knowing
it. Most important of all is the fact that
all of the task force members, except the animal rights people, will be
thinking about how necessary it is for them to come up with ideas that
will be a compromise satisfactory to all. After all, isn’t that the democratic
way? But look what happens. Nothing has changed with the thinking of the
animal rights members of the task force; they are still at point (B). But
the other committee members, because of their acceptance of the concept
of compromise, have now been moved from point (A-1) to (A-2).
It is important to remember that the animal
rights people will always open their campaign with horrific demands that
they don’t really expect to get in the real world, i.e. total breeding
bans or long moratoriums; absurd license fee differentials; a big breeding
license fee; regulations for kenneling, feeding, vet care; prohibitions
on selling and certain types of advertising; the list is varied and endless.
There may even be one or two points that we agree with in some way; these
are carrots on a stick they hold out to us.
THE FINAL BILL
The concerns are addressed and some are
modified by the task force but, always, what finally comes out as recommendations
are some changes to the proposed ordinance but retention of its basic tenants
of higher fees, prohibitions, and more regulations. The animal rights people
may have moved to point (B-1) by modifying a few of their original demands
but the resulting proposed legislation will most assuredly be closer to
point (A-3). The animal activists have won.
At this point, it is almost impossible to
defeat the proposed ordinance or even change it further in any meaningful
way even in the forum of a public hearing. It can be done (we did it last
year in our county) but it is extremely difficult. Within a few weeks the
ani mal rights movement will be proudly advertising their latest victory
all across the country and using it to influence other legislative bodies.
THE RADICAL FLANK EFFECT
Please take a moment and go back and
reread the last two sections. You are reading about how the Radical Flank
Effect works. It is a process that combines threat (severe restrictions)
and persuasive manipulation (the carrots on a stick) to gradually move
an opponent closer toward acceptance of your goals. It is a process that
has been used since the beginning of time by social and ideological movements
to advance their cause. It is the basis of how the entire animal rights
movement works and the only way to avoid the trap at the end is to refuse
to negotiate in the beginning.
ADVISORY COMMITTEES
Next we turn to the newest and most dangerous
committee: the more permanent vehicle of the animal rights movement, the
animal welfare advisory committee. This committee is set up to study animal-related
issues and to formulate legislation on those issues. Its members will be
of a similar makeup as the task force – once again, already a strike against
anyone fighting the animals rights movement. What is even more dangerous,
however, is that while the task force operated only briefly and under the
bright light of publicity and scrutiny from interested parties, the advisory
committee is designed for long term operation.
An advisory committee works much more in
the back-ground and, after a year or two, sometimes even gets forgotten
by the general public. As time passes, ordinary citizens on the committee
get bored or decide they want to do other things with their life and they
are gradually replaced with members who have been carefully chosen from
within the animal rights community. Soon those few members opposing the
animal rights philosophy are hopelessly outnumbered. Some may continue
to fight for what they feel is right but eventually the relentlessness
of the animal rights activists and the lack of support and understanding
from their own people will force even the staunchest anti-animal rights
people to resign.
This leaves the advisory committee 100% in
the hands of the animal rights groups and is exactly the way they have
taken over hundreds of moderate humane societies all across the country
in the last 15 years, turning them into the animal rights organizations
they now are. This now leaves the advisory committee free to expand its
agenda, without opposition, wherever it wants to go: toward even more restrictive
legislation for dog and cat owners but also restrictive legislation pertaining
to ALL animal groups. What started out as an advisory group for dog and
cat legislation, ends up as an advisory group for legislation that now
includes horses, research animals, animals in circuses, zoos and aquariums,
animals in farming...the list goes on...because they are after all, by
definition, an ANIMAL welfare advisory committee.
Those of you shaking your heads and saying
"No way. That’s just playing "chicken little, the sky is falling"
had best open your eyes and look up. We are already on the road under that
sky and such advisory committees are being proposed both at the state and
local levels, usually as a hidden part of other animal legislation. READ
THE BILLS BEING PROPOSED THESE DAYS. Don’t just accept the animal
rights propaganda of what the bills will do. Determine the truth for yourself.
The Sky may not be falling quite yet but if you look carefully you just
might finally see the mile-wide asteroid that is headed straight for you.
(reprinted with permission from Canine Chronicle)