Yuummmm...  Ben & Juggys.

Ah once more PETA demonstrates the fundamental flaw in their organisation, namely that they are willing to put their own humans through torment rather than torment some poor little animal that doesn't even understand what's going on in the first place.

Don't get me wrong, I'm heartily against animal abuse when unnecessary, but this idea is retarded. A random store in Switzerland can do this because its small and there's likely no demand for Human Breast Milk at all, thus letting them buy it cheap. Make everyone do that and Jacob Cordingley's scenario is the only possible way to achieve it. And all of the flaws of the dairy industry carry over. Humans only produce milk when pregnant too, does that mean that women will now be forcefully impregnated?

Stupid PETA.

Of course it won't work. These people are idiots. That's the whole point. PETA is like the animal-rights equivalent of Tom Green. They do these things for shock value and to attract attention to the organization. The "Holocaust on your plate" campaign had this in mind.

Frankly, I can't understand why anyone would employ a marketing strategy knowingly resulting in overwhelming hatred by a great many people.

Yeah, but Ben & Juggy's kinda has a ring to it. Albeit, a nipple ring.

Agree, retarded... and PETA comes up with quite a few goofy ideas but any group willing to take on Oklahoma Senator James Inhofe ( and not let up, as I understand they've been at him for over 6 years now) gets five stars, at least for that, in my book.

Exactly. I think that is their intention with this ploy.

That is actually incorrect. A human female may only start to produce milk when pregnant, but once it has been produced, it can be for the rest of her life as long as she continues to breastfeed. Many women throughout the ages have devoted their breasts to the feeding of children who are not their own. Mostly amongst rich and uneducated cultures of the past, but to some extent it continues today.

That aside, PETA is disgusting. It shocks me just how many people believe they do nothing but good. And just how hard it is to show them the truth. PETA is worse than the Christians.

Great, now I want some milk and cookies.

 ... anyway, while kissing on a milk filled breast, I made the surprising discovery that it's quite tasty and sweet, better than cow's milk. No , I didnt then start sucking out the milk. I've heard of fathers using it in a pinch in their coffee .... Girls are amazing.

Yeah Matt, some moms milk themselves into baby bottles so the baby sitter can feed the baby breast milk, while mom is away. I once saw a friend of mine use it in his coffee. It did freak me out a bit.  Yrs later I accidentally got a taste and "milk" had a new meaning.   

This.

I actually quite like the speciesism argument. We do have to look at how we treat animals, but based upon objectivity rather than emotivism. Formerly oppressed human minorities have no relevant differences to us, there is no scientific evidence to say that their capacity for reason, morality or ability to live and contribute to society, cut them and they will still feel pain. The only differences are skin colour and some minor anatomical differences, which should not affect their ability to be as good as any other human. Cows are mammals, and are sentient beings, in that they can feel pain, and probably some emotional suffering but they will not have the capacity to think "this farmer is being cruel to us, maybe we should band together and run away to freedom", they are more likely to think "yum grass!". When they are taken to the abertoire they aren't thinking "oh shit I'm going to die" and if they're killed peacefully they'll probably never know. I'm honestly not sure what they feel when they are milked but the fact that they're usually compliant suggests that it isn't greatly distressful to them.

'How can we meaningfully bestow rights on entities that cannot meaningfully understand and evaluate them. Should I go up to a savage and inform him that he now has Greek-granted rights? No. Surely this is nonsense. The savage will simply spear and kill me.'

Perhaps this is a bit of an exaggeration, but the point no doubt came across:

Because there is a tremendous barrier in communication and culture between humans and animals, and we want to exploit them, we feel we are above them and use this emotional judgement to guide & justify our actions.

The notion that some animals are oblivious to their fate when being corralled in a slaughterhouse is born from ignorance; as someone who lived in a town that essentially sprung-up around a Fletcher's meat processing plant, made an attempt to work there himself and had a father who worked there for several years, I can assure you that pigs are well aware of what sort of fate awaits them on the kill floor (they are anything but cooperative with the prod-wielding lads whose job it is to prevent their escape).

A scenario: Tomorrow, extra-terrestrial beings with vastly superior technology materialize their vessels in Earth orbit. Some of their ships descend to the planet, and begin sucking-up human beings along with other animals, plants, etc for their consumption. Communication with these beings is, essentially, impossible: they speak verbally like us, but make no attempt to communicate back or learn our language. They are simply interested in turning us into exotic food stock.

In what way would such malevolent creatures be acting at all differently than us when it comes to the treatment of our animals?

(I should note: I am not a vegetarian, or animal rights lobbyist of any sort. I *have* decided to personally boycott the meat industry, which seems like a fair enough compromise for me at the moment. I just think this is an issue where we are simply choosing to be ethically blind at our own convenience; I've yet to see a justification for treating humans one way and other animals another that is at all logically sound).

After some thought, I’ve come to agree with most of what you are saying, but let me try and clarify some of my previous post. I am not advocating mistreatment of animals or justifying certain actions toward certain animals on the basis of the notion that it has “no rights”. I was questioning how meaningful it would be to extend rights to animals. Suppose we said that we could extend rights we grant to each other to other animals. Suppose we said that certain animals had the right to security from threats just as much as we do. Would we say then, that a lion tearing off the head of a gazelle be violating the gazelle’s human-granted rights? Presumably not. This is where the analogy between the savage and the lion breaks down. A savage who spears and kills me is making a calculated move designed to cause harm to another being which he full well knows is capable of suffering and consciously responding to his actions. A lion hunting, killing, and eating a gazelle is not. Similarly, one could make the case that a gunman who breaks into your house with the intention of robbing you, and then shoots and kills you when you catch him, is violating your rights of security, etc. However, you’d be hard-pressed to argue that a bear who breaks in searching for food and kills the owner is doing the same thing. In other words, rights are not “natural”. They are things that humans extend to each other to dictate those things which humans cannot lawfully take from other humans. So presumably we could take this definition and tweak it slightly to define animal rights as those things which humans cannot lawfully take from certain animals. Would you agree? I say certain animals because for the bulk of the animalia kingdom, experience and neurological capacity is so primitive that you’d be hard-pressed to argue that you are even meaningfully “taking” anything at all. We protect fisheries to prevent overfishing, but this is not an example of “fish rights”, it is an example of ecological conservation.

Let me refer you back to my essay, What Does Sugar Have To Do With Murder?!.  In it, I explain that the word "should" always has to have a referent.  You must make your question more clear if it is to have meaning.  A few possibilities come to mind:

1) What should humans not be lawfully allowed to take from animals IF their populations are to remain stable?

2) IF they are not to go extinct through the direct action of humans?

3) IF they are not to go extinct through direct or indirect action of humans?

4) IF they are never to be treated cruelly?

4a) What is the definition of cruelly?

5) IF they are only to be killed for human need as opposed to human want?

5a) What is the definition of human need?

etc...

Furthermore, which animals are we talking about?  For most practical human purposes, anything that isn't a plant is an animal.  That includes ants and roaches and mice.  Are we allowed to kill roaches if they threaten the sanctity of our home?  Is it ok to kill a roach by stepping on it swiftly (quick and painless) but not by tossing it into the toilet and watching it squirm as it slowly drowns?

Are we only allowed to kill animals that fall below a certain threshold of awareness?  How do we determine it?  What about their capacity to feel pain, or the swiftness of their demise?  Is it bad to kill a horse with a painless drug... worse than killing a deer by shooting it with an arrow and following it until it bleeds to death?  What if a horse is smarter than a deer?

If animals have a "right" to their habitat, unimpeded by human development, at what point do we set the boundary between that right and humans' right to proliferate?  Is it more "good" to preserve a national forest and let babies starve, or is it ok to take some of the national forest since humans are more important than animals?  If so, why, and why are humans more important?

All of these questions need answers, but each of them is missing a crucial element -- the yardstick.  By what measure do we determine the relative worth of non-humans in comparison with humans?

As game theory predicts, we have historically only taken the lives of animals seriously when it affects us negatively to do otherwise.  In other words, animals get rights when we gain something from it on balance.  Even so, there are different measures of human gain -- reduction of suffering, maximum reproductive ability, feelings of kindness and goodness, etc, etc.