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June 11, 2006
Spain to Grant Human Rights to Monkeys
Progressives frequently prove themselves incapable of morally distinguishing between humans and animals, so it should come as no surprise that the socialists running Spain are advancing a law that would give great apes (chimpanzees, gorillas, orangutans, etc.) the same fundamental rights as humans.
Apes could no longer be owned, but would be placed under the "moral guardianship" of the bureaucracy, like orphans and people with severe handicaps. They would be moved from zoos to special state-built sanctuaries, where presumably they could sit around playing board games and drinking warm gin like Winston Smith at the end of 1984.
Spain's parliament was evidently greatly moved when they heard testimony from the Seattle-based Great Ape Project (GAP), which strives to create a "community of equals" including people and apes. They've issued a declaration demanding that apes be allowed to wander around loose unless a court finds them guilty of being a threat to the community. Naturally the apes would get lawyers and a right of appeal.
Apparently it needs to be pointed out that apes are wild animals, and can be extremely dangerous. Even a chimpanzee is three times as strong as a man. Chimps have been known to bite off people's body parts, including genitals. But that's just monkey business next to what a gorilla could do.
Not all Spaniards agree that they are morally equal to apes. Fernando Sebastian, Archbishop of Pamplona and Tudela, observes that only a "ridiculous or distorted society" could come up with the law being proposed. As he notes,
We don't give rights to some people — such as unborn children, human embryos, and we are going to give them to apes.
Maybe they could make the law more fair by aborting baby apes. As it is, Pedro Pozas, Secretary-General of the Spanish branch of GAP, is calling for sterilization to prevent apes from being born that would have to be separated from their families.
Posted by Van Helsing at June 11, 2006 12:45 PM
Comments
LOL too funny *wiping eyes
Posted by: Mickey at June 11, 2006 2:34 PM
I have a suspicion that there's an ulterior motive behind this. This will take a few lines to explain, so bear with me...
Quite some time ago, a tiny part of southern spain and the islands in between spain and morocco were anexxed by England, probably in one of our many wars with the spanish. We made it a colony and called it Gibraltar, and now we have a military base there.
The thing is, the spaniards have been demanding that Gibraltar be returned to them for years, and they spend an inordinate amount of time blockading the place and being complete loons. They've been to the European Court about it, and got a symbolic ruling in their favour as I recall, and there was some shenanigans following the elections to the toy parliament a few years back; nevertheless, the Gibraltans want to stay British. A generation ago they were quite open to the possibilty of becoming Spanish, but the spaniards started blockading them and putting up all kidns of customs barriers, so that quickly cooled Gibraltar to the idea...
Now, here's the thing. Gibraltar is crawling with apes, absolutely crawling with them. There's thousands of the things. Accurately speaking they're Barbarry Macaques, but they don't have tails so most people fail to see the distinction. They roam freely, after a fashion, but only in two very small areas.
There's a tradition that if the apes ever leave Gibraltar, the British will go with them. If Spain somehow convinces the EU to "repatriate" the apes to Algeria (not, of course, taking in to account the "rights" of these poor immigrant apes), or convinces them that the apes are being held against their "will", and get them forced to live all across the colony there'll be hell to pay. That being the case, they'd be using the EU in the way it seems to have been concieved: as a tool to enforce their will on their neighbours without any repercussions. France has been playing that game for years...
At the very least they might try and get the apes recognised as voters. Given enough time, a few thousand apes banging pencils on a voting slip will produce a vote in favour of Gibraltar becoming part of spain...
Posted by: Archonix at June 11, 2006 3:12 PM
Thanks Archonix...thorough summary.
Politics as usual.
*pic was funnier than a barrel of uh...you know
Posted by: Jae at June 11, 2006 6:35 PM
You can't abort apes! PETA would protest!
I have often thought that some people acted like baboons but I have never thought baboons were people.
Posted by: chsw10605 at June 11, 2006 11:50 PM
Whats next? When one ape kills another the ape killer will be put on trial? With the those in attendance moaning "Ape has killed Ape...Ape has killed Ape" then its not long before our decendants will be worshipping a nuclear missile in the radiaoactive ruins of New York City!
Posted by: General Jack D. Ripper at June 12, 2006 7:56 AM
