Damn PETA is Stupid

I've just read some of the latest idiocy from PETA. They're asking American ice cream giant Ben & Jerry's to stop using cow milk and replace it instead with human milk. This is a terrible idea for so many reasons.

First, there's the sheer scale of the endeavor. America alone eats six and a half billion liters of ice cream each year. With about 80 million women of milk producing age, each woman would need to produce 100 liters of milk a year. This is not an unreasonable rate of production given that a baby drinks about 750 ml a day when breastfeeding, but for most of the female population to do this all year round is not so feasible. Then of course we have the difficulties of collection and distribution, and of course we'll need a lot more breast milk to make all the cheese, yogurt, drinking milk and every other form of dairy produce. We also need to consider can human milk be made into tasty treats like cheese and ice cream (edit 25/2/2011 Apparently it can).

This idea is also blatantly biased towards protecting mammals, and does nothing to protect non-mammalian species. The recipe for vanilla ice cream I found in addition to four cups of cream called for three eggs and half a cup of honey. How many chickens must be sacrificed and how many bees must slave away flying from flower to flower for us to enjoy our breast milk ice cream?

But these are not the main problem with this whole scheme. The big problem with this idea is that PETA are suggesting that to stop the forced perpetual lactation of cows we instead implement the forced perpetual lactation of women. PETA's solution to stopping the difference in treatment between animals and humans is to treat humans as animals. The way to solve injustice is not to be unjust to all. It might be equal but it's still unjust.

PETA's credo that animals deserve the exact same rights and treatment as people is naive, ignores fundamental facts about nature and our society. The basic fact is, animals are not the same as people. I've dealt with people and I've dealt with a variety of animals, and there is no way to mistake the two, and you would never treat one exactly the same way as the other. I will agree with them that unnecessary cruelty to animals is wrong and should be prevented, but see nothing wrong with chowing down on a delicious steak. They could achieve more if they realized this and started trying to do sensible things. Comparing factory farming to the holocaust or a bus killing just make people think you're crazy. Their extremism makes it harder for them to achieve a more realistic and sensible outcome.

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