Is a perfect world one without people?

The St. Catharines Standard - Saturday, June 27, 2009

Re: Abolish violence, don't regulate it (June 16).

I read with great interest Daniel Wilson's column in which he found the organization known as PeTA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) to be not committed (or extreme) enough for his liking. Remember folks, PeTA is the group that advocates making ice cream out of human breast milk in order to ease the suffering of cows.

The scary thing about people who take animal rights to the extreme is that their vision of an ideal world is one in which there are no humans, only other animals. In Wilson's paradise, wolves don't eat deer. Instead, they frolic happily together under a rainbow. Get a grip.

Derek Witlib, Fonthill
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And my response:

Dear Derek,

Don't you know it's not nice to put words in other people's mouths? I never said PeTA wasn't extreme enough for me; I simply wrote that they're heading down the wrong road, as your human breast milk ice-cream example illustrates.

If you'd read my earlier columns, you'd know that I'm not advocating for a world without humans, but for a world where humans don't exploit and kill those that are weaker than them.

And although your description of my "paradise" sounds exactly like Isaiah's vision of heaven, I wouldn't expect a wolf to become vegetarian. What makes us different from other animals is that we have a choice - they don't.

If you don't have to cause an animal to suffer and die, then you shouldn't. I'm sorry you consider this extreme.

Dan