Editorial: Harming humans won’t help animals

Someone would have to be crazy to endorse ethical treatment of
animals and unethical treatment of humans ““ who, for the
record, are also animals.

The Animal Liberation Front, for the record, is crazy. That is
to say, they endorse the ethical treatment of animals, which is by
no means a crackpot belief. They also endorse ““ and claim
responsibility for ““ an attempt to set off a crude incendiary
device at a UCLA researcher’s home.

The Molotov cocktail failed to ignite, according to an FBI
statement, and it was left at the wrong house ““ on the
doorstep of the target’s 70-year-old neighbor. This level of
incompetence speaks volumes about the organization, but the failed
arson attempt points at a much more basic failing of the group.

An organization that fights for the rights of some lives by
endangering other lives is self-defeating. When you get into the
fine balancing act between the rights of animals and people,
reasonable people can reasonably disagree.

But when unreasonable people such as the ones in the Animal
Liberation Front take on the issue, it becomes completely
unproductive and their actions unforgivable.

The group claims it wants to protect the freedom and ethical
treatment of animals, such as those used for research purposes at
universities. At the same time, the Animal Liberation Front causes
destruction and endangers human lives to further that end. That
just doesn’t add up.

In its earlier years, the organization centered its efforts on
nonviolent resistance such as releasing test subjects from
laboratories. But their tactics have grown to include
fire-bombings, vandalism and physical attacks. They have threatened
people connected to animal testing.

The Animal Liberation Front has been widely labeled a terrorist
group, including by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security in
January 2005. The FBI has connected them to bombings and vandalism
totaling millions of dollars in damage, according to the Los
Angeles Times.

An eye for an eye is certainly not the best solution to the
problem the Animal Liberation Front seeks to resolve.

Time and time again, violence, militancy and fear are the
methods that groups employ to get their message across, to win
support for their side.

Even if the Animal Liberation Front had been successful in its
recent fire-bombing attempt, would its target’s research
subjects have been any better off? How does injuring or killing a
scientist or researcher signify a victory in the name of animal
rights?

But rather than engage in productive and nonviolent activities
““ such as lobbying, protesting, spreading information or even
just directly and tangibly improving the lives of research animals
or negotiating their release or retirement ““ the Animal
Liberation Front chooses violence against the human animal.

When a group like the Animal Liberation Front conducts terrorism
at the same time as it befuddles the message it is trying to get
across, its supposedly political actions become nothing more than
pure destruction.

It may be an understatement to say that the Animal Liberation
Front ““ and organizations like it ““ care a lot about
animals. By performing illegal acts and conducting their own forms
of terrorism, these people show they’re willing to risk their
own freedom for animals’ freedom.

Yet it’s hard to understand how someone can have so much
devotion to some animals and yet so much animosity toward the lives
of others.