“The assumption that animals are without rights and the
illusion that our treatment of them has no moral significance is a positively
outrageous example of Western crudity and barbarity. Universal compassion is
the only guarantee of morality.” – Arthur Schopenhauer
Rights are bullshit - there, I said it. They’re an illusion,
a pie-in-the-sky ideal. More like “wouldn’t it be nice if things were this way”
rather than the way things actually are. They’re principles, propositions and
beliefs, not carved-in-stone laws. Sometimes they’re called natural rights and
sometimes they’re called inalienable rights, like the right to life. But
they’re still all bullshit.
If we all have the right to an education and clean water,
why are so many of us without either? And doesn’t a child have the right to go
to school without being murdered by a gun-wielding maniac? But it happens. Without respect for another person’s life, what good are rights?
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| Aerial shot of protest and blockade at Pelham Road entrance |
And then there are those whose rights seem to carry more
weight than the rights of others. Take the First Nations deer hunt in Short
Hills Provincial Park a few weeks ago. According to the Ministry of Natural
Resources, the native deer hunt in Short Hills was “a traditional hunt by First
Nations exercising their treaty rights.”
Because the First Nations wanted to exercise their treaty
rights, my rights – including the right to enjoy a public park I help maintain
– were not only secondary to the natives’ treaty rights, but for the first two
weekends in January, were actually taken away.
Why didn’t I have the right to enter a provincial park funded
in part by my tax dollars? My “right” to hike through a provincial park was
suspended so a group of natives who don’t even live in the area could exercise
their treaty rights. Their “rights” trumped mine.
And why were the native hunters allowed to drive their
trucks and suburban assault vehicles into the heart of a provincial park when
non-native hunters, during their hunting season, are not?
On the second Saturday and Sunday of the hunt, Niagara
Regional Police shut down Pelham Road, stopping any vehicular traffic from driving
past the Pelham Road entrance to Short Hills where the protesters were set up.
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| Niagara Regional Police shut down Pelham Road |
This effectively killed any chance the protesters had to
educate passersby about the deer hunt at Short Hills. Sure, the protesters
still had the “right” to assemble peacefully, and they still had the “right” to
exercise their freedom of speech. Unfortunately, the only ones around to listen
to their message were a couple of pigeons sitting on the telephone line across
the street.
The police said they shut down the road because they were
concerned about public safety (somebody being hit by a car because they might
stand too close to the road was the reason given). Then why wasn’t the deer
hunt shut down when the police learned that several groups of protesters were
inside the park? So much for public safety…
Because of the political tension surrounding the hunt and out
of a fear of being labeled racists, the police ignored the rights of one group of
citizens to accommodate the rights of another.
And what about the rights of the animals not to
be hunted
down and killed? What gives anyone the right to take the life of
another?
Whether you’re native or non-native, if you kill other animals when you
don’t
have to (meaning the human body doesn't require animal flesh to maintain
good health or nutrition), saying you respect those animals is just
more bullshit.
When killing becomes a “right”, perhaps it’s time to say
that certain “rights” are wrong. Instead of the Idle No More movement, I’d like to see a Killing
No More movement. Extending our circle of compassion to include the animals is the first step.
