Governments are there to protect the basic rights of their citizens.
The basis of human rights is freedom and equality.
We think that we also have to draw a line for people who violate the interests of animals.
Rearing minks for their fur
is an even clearer example of rights violation than what
is happening in intensive cattle farming.
The economic interests of the mink farmer cannot in any
way be classified as a reasonable and just cause. Minks
are robbed of its freedom purely because their furs are
worth money, even though wearing fur is pure luxury. Keeping
minks is therefore an immoral
situation.
Furthermore, the government is keeping intensive cattle
farming in existence with subsidies. This is undemocratic,
because the consumer is basically paying ahead on meat
prices. It is much fairer to pay fewer taxes and a higher
price for meat and dairy. Only then will the consumer
threshold to select alternatives for products from industrial
farming be lowered.
We expect politicians to realize the
soul of their basic assumptions, whether they are Christian,
social or liberal. All these basic assumptions are based
on principles, which at heart also protect the freedom
of individuals. Animals too should get this protection.
We should expect politicians to stick to these principles
in their policies, and put a stop to wrongs that cross
a moral border.
The question is whether politicians
still take this task and their responsibility seriously.
As voters we should once again vote for politicians
who know what morality entails and how this should be
translated into policies. Of course we don't want to
go back to the petty bourgeois (liberty limiting) morality
that characterized our country until the seventies.
We have to reassess that freedom and equality form the
soul of morality and we have to make sure that the conclusion
we take from it does not have a dogmatic character.
We have to dare stand up for what remains. |
