Zoos - it is wrong to use animals for 'education' or 'entertainment'

I want your feedback and help to improve this text that I wrote to comment on a thread in an event promoting an aquarium:

Animals are sentient beings. They have the right not to be exploited, not to be killed, not to get their family torn away from them, and it is morally wrong for anyone of us to disregard their interests.

Breeding up an animal for entertainment or "education" is neglecting their fundamental interests, such as their interest of freedom. It is also neglecting their fundamental interest of not being bred up to be property under the law [1], which gives the owner of the animal the opportunity and often the right to kill and exploit him/her for any reason. This is also frequently done in aquariums, zoos, and other institutions of animal use where "domesticated animals" are killed for any reason, including being exploited to become food for another imprisoned and exploited animal. Many animals are killed in zoos when the owners of the zoo decides that the animal should be replaced by another animal for "education" or "entertainment".

If we care about animals, we don't use them as property, and we don't exploit them for entertainment, education, pleasure, convenience, tradition, or any other reason.
This includes that we eat and thrive on a healthy plantbased diet without any animal foods, don't use animals as clothes, for entertainment, for companionsip, or any other purpose. For more information I refer to www.vegankit.com and https://www.facebook.com/ThoughtsPicturesPoems

1. http://law.bepress.com/rutgersnewarklwps/art21/

But vegans use electricity, which destroy the environment and exploit people. Thus, I can eat animals.

Reply to: "But vegans use electricity, which destroy the environment and exploit people. Thus, I can eat animals."



I believe that the only way you can justify electronics given the environmental pollution and often exploitation involved to produce it,is using it in the following ways (not an all-covering list):


1/ Necessary in order for fighting exploitation towards humans and nonhumans.
2/ Necessary for your survival, e.g. you need it for your work.
3/ Staying in touch with people - necessary to accomplish 1/ and 2/.
4/ Studying and practising nonduality. I believe necessary in order for people to act from awareness instead of their separate self in all situations, and reaching a world without exploitation and harm: http://non-duality.rupertspira.com/home



Every electronical device has a limited life span. How many electronical devices have stopped working earlier than they needed to just because it was used for lots of entertainment and for other activities that we don't need; and how can we justify that people get exploited, just so that we can watch entertainment. We can't. Just like we can't justify attending circuses, zoos or paying for trafficking in order to get "entertained". I truly believe that this is something everyone need to consider in our culture which relies so much on entertainment, without considering what was required in order to produce the entertainment.

Exploitation involved in manufacturing a computer, many mobile phones, etc.: http://bloganders.blogspot.no/2014/03/slavery-involved-in-producing.html

The exploitation involved in electronics is still of course not justified, it would just be used since it is needed to stop all exploitation in the world. The worse alternative morally would be just to ignore the violence and to not use internet effectively to stop all exploitation. In a world with no exploitation we wouldn’t need any electricity.

I believe we should strive to be able to live in a self-sustained community where we plant using vegan permaculture, minimize electricity use and get electricity from solar panels and heating from burning wood we cut down ourselves: http://bloganders.blogspot.no/2014/04/vision-for-nonviolent-vegan.html

This is a sustainable way of living where we still can interact with the world and stop all exploitation involved in the world.

That being said: There is an enormous difference between using electricity in order to stop exploitation compared to using an animal in order to gain pleasure or convenience. If we choose to kill an animal for food despite that we are able to get our nutrition from plant foods, we are engaging in violence compared to the violence involved in dog fighting and bullfightig. While they may psychologically be different, there is no moral difference in gaining pleasure by watching a dog fight compared to gaining pleasure by eating a steak, drinking a glass of milk, eating an egg, buying leather or attending a circus show with animals.

Reply to more excuses: http://bloganders.blogspot.no/2013/08/arguments-for-veganism-and-counter.html