You just knew it was coming: At the request of the Swiss government, an ethics panel has weighed in on the "dignity" of plants and opined that the arbitrary killing of flora is morally wrong. This is no hoax. The concept of what could be called "plant rights" is being seriously debated. I guess we'll be seeing more "Keep Off The Grass" signs.
A few years ago the Swiss added to their national constitution a provision requiring "account to be taken of the dignity of creation when handling animals, plants and other organisms." No one knew exactly what it meant, so they asked the Swiss Federal Ethics Committee on Non-Human Biotechnology to figure it out. The resulting report, "The Dignity of Living Beings with Regard to Plants," is enough to short circuit the brain.
A "clear majority" of the panel adopted what it called a "biocentric" moral view, meaning that "living organisms should be considered morally for their own sake because they are alive." Thus, the panel determined that we cannot claim "absolute ownership" over plants and, moreover, that "individual plants have an inherent worth." This means that "we may not use them just as we please, even if the plant community is not in danger, or if our actions do not endanger the species, or if we are not acting arbitrarily." There go the Vegans. Now we have nothing to eat. Soylent Green, anyone?
The committee offered this illustration: A farmer mows his field (apparently an acceptable action, perhaps because the hay is intended to feed the farmer's herd--the report doesn't say). But then, while walking home, he casually "decapitates" some wildflowers with his scythe. The panel decries this act as immoral, though its members can't agree why. The report states, opaquely: Because WE say so! Neener-neener!
At this point it remains unclear whether this action is condemned because it expresses a particular moral stance of the farmer toward other organisms or because something bad is being done to the flowers themselves.
What is clear, however, is that Switzerland's enshrining of "plant dignity" is a symptom of a cultural disease that has infected Western civilization, causing us to lose the ability to think critically and distinguish serious from frivolous ethical concerns. It also reflects the triumph of a radical anthropomorphism that views elements of the natural world as morally equivalent to people.
Why is this happening? Our accelerating rejection of the Judeo-Christian world view, which upholds the unique dignity and moral worth of human beings, is driving us crazy. Once we knocked our species off its pedestal, it was only logical that we would come to see fauna and flora as entitled to rights. The Rise of Arugala! Bean-brains unite!
The intellectual elites were the first to accept the notion of "species-ism," which condemns as invidious discrimination treating people differently from animals simply because they are human beings. Then ethical criteria were needed for assigning moral worth to individuals, be they human, animal, or now vegetable. Ahhh, the "Intellectual Elites". I new they had a lot in common with vegetables, like bean sprouts for brains. I wonder if this is because of diet? You know, like the plants are slowly taking over their pea-brains?Is it the Pod People?
Rising to the task, leading bioethicists argue that for a human, value comes from possessing sufficient cognitive abilities to be deemed a "person." This excludes the unborn, the newborn, and those with significant cognitive impairments, who, personhood theorists believe, do not possess the right to life or bodily integrity. This thinking has led to the advocacy in prestigious medical and bioethical journals of using profoundly brain impaired patients in medical experimentation or as sources of organs. This is a very dangerous road to follow. This is also why abortion is so readily accepted now. Euthanasia of "non-persons" is the next step. More at the link.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
05/04/2008 10:09 ||
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The Lemming Gene:
No wonder the Caliphate Islamics are so sure of themselves..
#2
These people are sufficiently mentally ill that no truly humane society should allow them to vote.
Does that sound harsh? Tough. This mental illness that devalues and deconstructs humanity's place on this planet, if allowed to go unchecked much further, will be the death of our species, which would probably make the po-mo leftist crowd happy.
We should take all of the animal rights crazies, the philosophers who say that a newborn isn't fully sentient, and the "environmentalists" who say that humans should not thrive, and do the right thing. Have the balls to mark them as being insane, and deny them plebiscite.
The consequences of not doing so could mean the end of humanity.
Posted by: no mo uro ||
05/04/2008 15:48 Comments ||
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Pagan fatwas are the fastest growing Swiss industry.
Posted by: ed ||
05/04/2008 16:44 Comments ||
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You'll need a permit to murder the grass, and then buy those chlorophyll offset credits at the algore booth? Who's running this planet anyway?
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/04/2008 21:24 Comments ||
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Say a prayer to the wheat god before you harvest the field. Oh, wait, there's no wheat god. Well, plants have rights, we think.
Animals either eat other creatures, or they die. It's that simple. If you object, go die quietly somewhere.
The rest is an evolving argument about needless waste and reduction of suffering when you do the necessary thing. At what point do these actions become criminal? Is is possible to commit a crime terminating a plant, as it is when terminating an animal? Should horse racing be banned to avoid unpleasant, possibly criminal, eventualities? PETA thinks so. An abberation or the wave of the future?
If I have a nice 24 inch maple, is it criminal to burn it instead of making furniture? What if it's a black walnut? What if it's blocking my view? My neighbor's view? My solar panel?
Maybe a license is needed every time you terminate something; that's the modern way. Rocks have rights, too. After all, they've been around a long time.
Is it ethical to destroy a fossil? A Ford Pinto? A Ferrari Barchetta?
Four score and seven years ago No, wait, my mistake. Two score and seven or eight days ago, Barack Obama gave the greatest speech since the Gettysburg Address, or FDRs First Inaugural, or JFKs religion speech, or (if like Garry Wills in The New York Review of Books, you find those comparisons drearily obvious) Lincolns Cooper Union speech of 1860. And, of course, the Senators speech does share one quality with Cooper Union, Gettysburg, the FDR Inaugural, Henry V at Agincourt, Socratess Apology, etc: Its history. He said, apropos the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, that I could no more disown him than I can disown my white grandmother. But last week he did disown him. So, great-speech-wise, its a bit like Churchill promising to fight them on the beaches and never surrender, and then surrendering a month and a half later, and on a beach he decided not to fight on. . . .
Go read it all.
Posted by: Mike ||
05/04/2008 08:12 ||
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The 'first' speech by Obama was a grace saving way for Rev. Wright to 'meld quietly into the background'! Since he didn't accept the 'hint' and thus STFU, Obama had no choice but to excise the 'cancer'!
#4
... apropos the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, that I could no more disown him than I can disown my white grandmother. But last week he did disown him. So, great-speech-wise, its a bit like Churchill promising to fight them on the beaches and never surrender, and then surrendering a month and a half later, and on a beach he decided not to fight on. . . .
It was never a great speech. It was a simulacrum [sic An unreal or vague semblance] of a great speech written to flatter gullible pundits into hailing it as the real deal. It should be required reading in classrooms, said Bob Herbert in the New York Times; it was extraordinary and rhetorical magic, said Joe Klein in Time - which gets closer to the truth: As with most magic, it was merely a trick of redirection. Obama appeared to have made Jeremiah Wright vanish into thin air, but it turned out he was just under the heavily draped table waiting to pop up again. The speech was designed to take a very specific problem the fact that Barack Obama, the Great Uniter, had sat in the pews of a neo-segregationist huckster for 20 years and generalize it into some grand meditation on race in America. Senator Obama looked America in the face and said: Who ya gonna believe? My rhetorical magic or your lyin eyes?
Thats an easy choice for the swooning bobbysoxers of the media. With less impressionable types, such as voters, Senator Obama is having a tougher time. The Philly speech is emblematic of his most pressing problem: the gap indeed, full-sized canyon thats opening up between the rhetorical magic and the reality. Thats the difference between a simulacrum and a genuinely great speech. The gaseous platitudes of hope and change and unity no longer seem to fit the choices of Obamas adult life. Oddly enough, the shrewdest appraisal of the Senators speechifying magic came from Jeremiah Wright himself. Hes a politician, said the Reverend. He says what he has to say as a politician He does what politicians do.
A couple of months ago I linked to a post by Michael Goldfarb about Excalibur asking if we really need that kind of precision system when we have JDAMS and other aircraft-launched, precision munitions. I remember a comment on a soldier's website that basically said 'You don't want to trust the flyboys and have them not come through for you.'
In that vein, I was really interested to see Michael Fabey's article in today's Aerospace Daily & Defense Report: Army colonel says enemies see GMLRS as 'hand of Allah'.
U.S. Army commanders and troops have come to view the Army's Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System (GMLRS) as their "70-kilometer sniper rifle," but enemy forces in Iraq see the weapon in a starker light. "The enemy is calling it the 'Hand of Allah,'" said Col. David Rice, Army program manager - Precision Fires Rockets & Missile Systems.
For enemy forces, the rockets seemingly come from nowhere, Rice said Aug. 1 during a press briefing on the program.
And one more excerpt:
With their vertical trajectory, ability to cover 70 kilometers (43 miles) in 82 seconds and close-combat precision, GMLRS rockets are becoming the rockets of choice, even when other more traditional missiles or other bombs are available.
Army officials say many requests for the rockets to be used instead of aircraft-launched missiles are coming from the Air Force.
Of the estimated 273 missions in which GMLRS rockets have been used in theater, about 83 percent were accomplished in urban environments and 69 percent were done with troops in close proximity, Rice said. Not that GMLRS is Excalibur. My point is the Army seems to have at least one very effective precision munition of its own.
Posted by: George Smiley ||
05/04/2008 10:07 Comments ||
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These should be made a part of special forces units. Imagine placing this 40 miles from your operation, and calling in the percision attacks against targeted terrorists leaderships.
one report says they've used this 6 times against special groups command and control.
when you combine the necessary Human intel with special forces and or spotter networks like the sons of iraq, a lot of lives can be saved and a lot of collatoral damage eliminated.
The network interfaces of these combinations offer incredible performance advantages.
#5
Can you imagine three of these, with immediate reload capabilities, replacing the turrets of a WWII battleship? Add a launch/recovery system for a UAV, with immediate download to the fire control center, and you've got a weapon system that can cause havoc to ports, harbors, and defenses while staying 35-40 miles out of range of any counter-battery fire. I'm surprised the Marines aren't screaming for something like this.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
05/04/2008 16:21 Comments ||
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The Alabama Is here in Mobile, sitting on the bottom, but still dry in-hull, I'd love to see her re-commissioned, stripped of turrets, nuke-powered, (One or two of those Submarine plants would do it) and back as a missle launcher platform, she'd be damn hard to hurt, fill her with ping-pong balls and unsinkable too.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
05/04/2008 18:08 Comments ||
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Special Forces (Green Berets) communicate and train with locals. Special Operations such a Delta, Seals, Rangers, Spec Ops Marines break things. Please don't confuse the missions (though Centcom and DOD seems to be doing so).
By Hassan Hanizadeh
Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Baraks insistence on continuing the confrontation with Hamas and his rejection of the recent ceasefire proposal prove that the Zionist regime is still following a warmongering policy and wants to continue massacring the innocent people of Gaza.
Through Egyptian mediation, 11 Palestinian factions recently arrived at an agreement to establish a ceasefire with Israel, but it seems the Zionist regime is opposed to any plan that could bring about the establishment of peace in occupied Palestine.
Zionist officials apparently believe that the proposal is a sign of the weakness of the jihadi movements, and especially Hamas, and that the Israeli army should take advantage of the groups compromised situation and destroy Hamas.
Israel has imposed an economic siege on Gaza for over ten months and is implementing its expansionist plans in the region through the recent brutal attacks on the city.
The Zionist regime is attempting to give the impression that it seeks peace by sending peace proposals to Syria, while at the same time it is trying to alter the demography of Palestine through the bombardments of Gaza.
It seems that Israel plans to escalate its air strikes in order to force the residents of the Gaza Strip to migrate to the West Bank and Rafah, Egypt so that the Palestinian Authority government can gain control of all the territories occupied in 1967.
In their new plan, the Zionists intend to expel the Palestinians who live in the territories occupied in 1948 as part of the project to Judaize Palestine.
The current global political climate, the silence of international organizations, and the presidential election campaign in the United States have made Israel even more determined to implement such plans.
The Democratic and Republican presidential candidates competition for the support of the Zionist lobby gives Zionist regime officials the opportunity to demand more ransom for their backing.
Israeli officials are currently pursuing a carrot-and-stick policy in the region. On the one hand, they claim to be prepared to negotiate with Syria, but on the other hand, they refuse to accept the Palestinian groups ceasefire proposal.
Surely, if the Zionist regime continues committing war crimes in Palestine, the jihadi movements will adopt the measures necessary to save the lives of the Gazans, and this will cause an escalation of the violence in the occupied territories.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/04/2008 00:00 ||
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"Hamas ceasefire proposal"
That's PA-speak for Israel should cease fire and Hamas will keep shooting.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
05/04/2008 0:17 Comments ||
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Well, Barb, it could mean that Israel must stop shooting, and Hamas will stop shooting. Of course, Islamic Jihad can continue to shoot. Or Fatah, or any one of the dozen other groups that appear whenever Israel needs to be shot at.
Posted by: Rambler in California ||
05/04/2008 1:23 Comments ||
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It seems the zionist regime has finally understood the meaning of "hudna".
Let's put it this way boys: if YOU were the stronger side, and YOU were winning, and the other side was weaker and was losing, what would YOU do if the other side called for a cease fire? Why, you'd say it was a trick to get a rest, re-arm, and come back stronger.
Now, try to get a clue: THEY KNOW YOU'D SAY THAT, SO THEY'RE TREATING YOU THE WAY YOU WOULD TREAT THEM IF YOU WERE WINNING AND THEY WERE LOSING.
#1
"You don't understand"[channeling the left]"It's not about facts, it's about feelings.""By not signing Kyoto we forfeit the Moral High Ground[tm]clinging to our post-modern sovereignty".
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
A couple of months ago I linked to a post by Michael Goldfarb about Excalibur asking if we really need that kind of precision system when we have JDAMS and other aircraft-launched, precision munitions. I remember a comment on a soldier's website that basically said 'You don't want to trust the flyboys and have them not come through for you.'
