do you think we need to pay more attention to Animal Rights?

[abstrktion]

Kindness is always a good idea, but it's hard to legislate...

I think it really comes down to your perception of the individuality of an animal. Many tend to think of animals as a group, without individual personalities, preferences, or identities. Thus they think of animals as objects--objectified in the same way groups across history have objectified those humans they considered "other"--we don't have to go too far back in American history to see this.

When I look at an animal, I see an individual looking back at me, a creature as individual as I am, though less developed in the sense that its "consciousness" is not as developed. I see how we must have been before we had evolved the level of "consciousness" we have now.

I once read that we are to the animals as the angels once were to us..."food" for thought...

I just think that life gets more interesting when you reach out in your awareness to fully take in the wonder and uniqueness of other beings and other selves.