Results 1 to 9 of 9

Thread: Rights of nature

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Sep 2001
    Location
    Wateree, South Carolina
    Posts
    48,810

    Default Rights of nature

    Ecuador’s Highest Court Grants Rights to Wild Animals

    By WESLEY J. SMITH

    April 9, 2022

    The “nature rights” movement is not a benign attempt to improve environmental practices. Rather, it seeks to upend human exceptionalism and elevate animals — and even geological features — to rights-bearing beings or entities.

    Ecuador has instituted the rights of nature into its constitution. Now, the highest court there ruled that making a wild monkey a pet 18 years ago — before nature had rights in Ecuador — violated the monkey’s rights. From the Climate News story (my emphasis):

    Wild animals, the court said, generally have the right “not to be hunted, fished, captured, collected, extracted, kept, retained, trafficked, marketed or exchanged” and the right to the “free development of their animal behavior, which includes the guarantee of not being domesticated and not forced to assimilate human characteristics or appearances.”

    Those rights emanate from animals’ innate and individual value, and not because they are useful to human beings, the court said. That distinction is important because courts typically have interpreted rights of nature laws as applying to entire ecosystems, made up of many animals and inanimate aspects of the biosphere like rivers and forests.

    In other words, nature rights apply to individual animals. And, one would assume, to be consistent, to individual plants, insects, water, and (what the hell) germs too. Why not? Viruses and bacteria are part of nature, after all.


    By the way, Switzerland’s constitution already accepts the dignity of individual plants. The highest court in New York will soon rule whether an elephant is a non-human person entitled to a writ of habeas corpus.

    If current trends continue, humankind will suffer self-inflicted, catastrophic harm. What if fish in the sea, for example, have a right not to be caught and consumed by us? (Seals will be free to continue to eat them.) What if deer have a right not to be hunted?

    And what would keep those same rights from being extended to domesticated animals? The Ecuador court refused to go there. But why not, once one accepts the premise that animals and nature are people too.

    We live in a topsy-turvy world. Anyone who says, “It can’t happen here,” is living in a dream. The time is now — not later — to stop rolling our eyes and impede this movement before it gains any more traction. For a start, Congress and each state should pass laws stating that no animals or elements of nature have any rights or legal standing in courts.

    If we continue to refuse to take this movement as seriously as its adherents do, don’t say I didn’t warn you when the hammer falls.

    https://www.nationalreview.com/corne...-wild-animals/

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Nov 2010
    Location
    Summerville, SC
    Posts
    7,297

    Default

    Shit. I'm going back to bed.

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Jul 2003
    Location
    Moncks Corner
    Posts
    15,556

    Default

    Ecuadorian citizens have almost no rights to start with so putting nature on par with the Ecuadorian people really isn't that big of a deal...
    Ephesians 2 : 8-9



    Charles Barkley: Nobody doesn't like meat.

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Sep 2001
    Location
    Wateree, South Carolina
    Posts
    48,810

    Default

    We live in a topsy-turvy world. Anyone who says, “It can’t happen here,” is living in a dream. The time is now — not later — to stop rolling our eyes and impede this movement before it gains any more traction. For a start, Congress and each state should pass laws stating that no animals or elements of nature have any rights or legal standing in courts.
    .

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Mar 2002
    Location
    Florence
    Posts
    9,025

    Default

    I'm suing for the rights of politicians not to be persecuted.
    Either write things worth reading, or do things worth writing.

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Sep 2017
    Location
    Blythewood
    Posts
    2,088

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Duck Tape View Post
    I'm suing for the rights of politicians not to be persecuted.
    Persecuted? They lucky they arent tar and feathered

  7. #7
    Join Date
    Sep 2001
    Location
    Wateree, South Carolina
    Posts
    48,810

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Duck Tape View Post
    I'm suing for the rights of politicians not to be persecuted.
    Bakari Sellers’ Instagram hit with racial slurs, and stalker is arrested, SC cops say

    BY NOAH FEIT
    APRIL 12, 2022

    A North Carolina man was in a Richland County jail after sending numerous intimidating messages to Bakari Sellers, both the attorney and the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division said Monday. Grant Edward Olson Jr., was charged with stalking and assault or intimidation due to political opinions or exercise of civil rights, SLED said in a news release.
    Arrest warrants show the 48-year-old Asheville resident used Instagram to send about 65 messages to Sellers, a civil rights attorney, CNN analyst, and registered lobbyist.
    If convicted on the felony stalking charge, Olson faces a maximum punishment of five years in prison and a $5,000 fine, according to South Carolina law. A conviction on the misdemeanor intimidation charge carries a maximum sentence of two years behind bars and a $1,000 fine.
    https://www.thestate.com/news/local/...260336570.html

  8. #8
    Join Date
    Jun 2022
    Posts
    1

    Default Rights of nature

    Quote Originally Posted by Frank1 View Post
    Persecuted? They lucky they arent tar and feathered
    Because tarring and feathering was a punishment most often handed down by angry mobs, which aren't exactly known for their restraint

  9. #9
    Join Date
    Sep 2017
    Location
    Blythewood
    Posts
    2,088

    Default

    sometimes restraint isnt appropriate

Bookmarks

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •