Posted 04 August 2011 - 10:55 PM
There are several things I want to say...
First of all, zoos are double edged swords. On one hand, most zoos do not adequately accommodate animals and on principle alone, it is degrading wildlife into objects worth gawking at. On the other hand, it lets people appreciate animals and wildlife in general because you get to experience the wonder in person. It's hard to say whether I'm for or against zoos, since.... people can pretty much almost get the same experience from watching those animal documentaries.
Second of all, I don't quite understand what the quote is getting at. Because animals are, on a daily basis, always living in constant fear and a struggle to survive, that there is no freedom in that? Is that supposed to be in comparison to humans who, in developed countries anyway, generally never have to worry about food or shelter? To be honest, I think animals are infinitely more free than humans. Humans are slaves to their own delusions. Animals live their life through instinct and their senses, while most humans (again in developed countries) live by imagination alone. I mean, just look at us on the internet. We think we can substitute fulfillment through gaining success on a gaming website such as neopets. Freedom is completely relative.
As for animal testing, I can understand why it is necessary. We can't experiment on humans, so in order to further science, we have to experiment on animals. Though I think this is hypocrisy. If we really wanted to save lives, we should do testing on humans and not animals. Because of our sense of moral obligation, we can trick ourselves into thinking that it's okay to experiment on animals instead. Newsflash, humanity's half-assed guilt isn't helping anyone. Countless animals have to suffer for these experiments while we take baby steps in science. If we just experimented on humans, we would A)save more people and B)have less senseless animal cruelty. Theoretically, this is the best option, but like I said, humans are too wrapped up in their own sense of morals that it would never happen.
As for eating meat yet being a avid supporter of animal rights... once again hypocrisy. At least, in America, most of our meat is produced in a factory where animals get tortured daily. Even so called "organic" farms are not exactly cruelty-free. So really, unless you personally check the place your meat is coming from yourself, that chicken you were eating probably suffered a great deal before it died. However, we're too lazy for all that, it's much easier to debate about it on the internet and never actually go check for ourselves. Most people don't even care to check if their food had been tortured (a simple google search for example), let alone actually do anything to prevent it.
Anyway, this post is already tl;dr, which just further proves that people can talk all they like about animal cruelty, but no one actually gives a crap in the first place, not even to read a long post about it.