Tag Archives: animal rights
A rat in the house
Well, it came uninvited, and it continues to come inside uninvited, but a brown rat has frequented the house (both beneath and inside our living space) for the last two or three weeks. It scurries away when it detects movement or is frightened (and I can be similarly startled in return), but it has already aroused Mom’s ire after it did a number on a pack of soy sauce in the pantry.
So we’ve battened down the hatches in the kitchen over the week, and we haven’t seen it (him?) inside that particular area since, but now it comes inside through an unenclosed space in the bathroom closet behind the shower. I’ve swept up its pellets from that area, but I’m still reluctant to have Mom sic a peanut-buttery trap on him. It seems inhumane, IMO, even if he is an undesired guest.
I’m going for a live trap, or even this DIY idea, instead.
EDIT: This is a rather dandy website (in Russian).
Green libertarianism
An ideology that has no representing organizations and an emerging body of thought, but already has its own Wikipedia article.
Hilarious.
Considering that there’s no caucus in either the U.S. Green Party or the U.S. Libertarian Party, its kinda sad that the only organization that dares combines the terms “green” and “libertarian” is the Libertarian Green National Socialist Party, also known as the Libertarian Green Nazis.
Furthermore, Greens and Libertarians tend to hold intersecting, rather than parallel, views and interests. Greens tend to ally with the social Left (i.e., disenchanted progressives from the Democratic Party); in the U.S., Libertarians are presented as being more to the political right in comparison to the Republicans (attracting political paleoconservatives, though not as many social paleoconservatives as the Constitution Party).
Thus, the Greens are more concerned with social policies, while the Libertarians tend to be more concerned with political structure. The two could mesh, except that Libertarians will likely be somewhat turned off by the Greens’ advocacy for government restrictions on environmental waste and global warming, while the Greens will likely be somewhat turned off by the Libertarians’ advocacy of “laissez faire” (let the market sort out its own problems) economical liberalism. Plus, some social conservatives in the Libertarian party will find the Greens’ advocacy of such touchy progressive issues as abortion and same-sex marriage as going against their own moral or religious beliefs, while some social liberals in the Green Party will, in turn, find the Libertarians’ advocacy of limited government intervention as far as natural disaster relief and lower-class disparities to be a bit repugnant, selfish and middle-class-centric.
There might be hope for this ideology, however:
OK, nevermind…its kinda fucked right now.
Green libertarianism, if the Wikipedia definition is something to go off of, will advocate an ecologist, socially progressive approach to the environment without much support from government and more support from a laissez faire-driven economy.
This might be an ideology that is perfectly fitting for those who focus on the promotion of Green technology in business (currently the rage in media, corporate and government outlets right now, given the current limitations forced by the lesser amount of oil and natural gas being exported in the world recently) but are also pro-lesser-government and pro-free-speech/expression, including “geeks”.
I don’t think that Green libertarianism is equatable with Green anarchism, however. Green anarchism, according to the article, focuses on the detrimental, opressive uses of technology, and is more aligned with techno-primitivism (think “Neo-Luddite“, but going way, way back); it is also very pro-animal rights/justice, and I seriously doubt that Green libertarianism, or its preceding general ideologies, have as much of a lock or medium of expression on the animal rights issue as do the Green anarchists. At best, I think that those who may be inclined toward Green libertarianism may or may not include those who are inclined toward the defense of animal rights.