A book is on the shelves now called, "Animal Liberation," authored by Peter Singer. I am neither familiar with Singer nor the doctrines of animal rights activists, however, reading an article on the book printed in the NYT Magazine, I discovered some of the basis tenents upon which animal rightists base their arguments.

1) Equality is a moral concept: Everyone is born with differing levels of intelligence, creativity, ect.. Therefore the pursuit of equality is not the pursuit for de facto equality, but instead a moral approach to things ensuring fair treatment of all.

2) Because equality is a moral concept, accepting that some are born with different levels of intelligence than others, there is no reason why our moral approach should not include the animals.

3) The higher animals are far more capable of moral and communicative reciprocation than the infant human, why should the infant human receive so much preferrential treatment?

4) Animals kill each other for survival purposes, not for sport of pleasure as humans do.

Now lets examine point four. Both I and the author of the NYT article recognized one thing about domestic cats: They kill for pleasure. I have seen some of the fattest, laziest cats in the world walk out into farm fields, bloated and over-stuffed, only to kill a rodent of some kind and leave it on the back steps for all to enjoy (all the humans, that is).

Now, if I pointed out this fact to some animal rightists, I suspect I would get an answer such as this:

"The cat kills out of a sense of duty to the family. Naturally, being the main provider of food, the human is seen as the dominant leader of the group. Therefore, when the cat kills, it brings the "meal" to the "alpha member" so that s/he may have her/his share before the other members partake. Indeed, all cats exhibit this behavior in the wild."

Ok, now cats dont kill for pleasure, they kill out of instinct and therefore, they cant "help but to kill."

Now, a human who couldnt "help but to kill" in society nowadays would be locked up in some asylum someplace and rightly so. That is, unless YOU want your neighbor to occasionally leave a carcass or two on YOUR porch, be it human or otherwise.

Herein lies the problems with liberal philosophies. Liberals are so LIBERAL with liberties that they extend them to everything. One fantastic point of animal rightists is that, because animals can feel pain, we should be mindful not to inflict pain on them. However, this argument assumes two things: One: A central nervous system is necessary to feel pain. Two: Plants feel no pain whatsoever. Yet plants die, and many of them take days or months do die. If survival is to be preferred over death, would it be a stretch of logic to say that plants may also feel pain? If we someday found that plants indeed did feel it, what then for the animal rightists?

Yes, I conceed, the above is a stretch, but if you ask me, its equally a stretch to assume that someday, if we all work hard enough, we can eliminate pain and suffering in this world and all live utopian lives resplendent with equality.

Life is painful. It is painful for a reason: So that we may know pleasure and actively seek it. It never fails to amaze me how animal rightists will stand on the shoulders of Darwin when it conveniences them to do so, but then betray him when the more brutal aspects of his theories are turned against him. Simply put, in a world of limited resources there will be competition and death. The stonger will survive and the weak will fall by the wayside. It is yet to be determined whether or not, in the end humans are actually the stronger (my money is on cockroaches). But as things stand now, we ARE.

Now Im going to go to breakfast and enjoy some eggs, bacon, sausage, and later I'll probably partake in a hamburger or chicken breast. Not only will I do so without guilt, but I will do so with pleasure.