Highway dog rescuers ignored the public good
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When hundreds of members of an animal rights group descended on a truck they suspected of illegally carrying dogs on the Jingha Highway, they were praised in the media and online forums. A website survey showed 58.2 percent of respondents supported the blockade, which resulted in the foundation and another company buying the dogs for 100,000 yuan.
Many dog-lovers, who feel that dogs are man's best friend and should not be eaten, applauded the action, even though police and animal quarantine officials declared that the dog shipment – wherever it was to – was legal. As a practitioner of law, I have regrets about this incident, in which individual morality overrode another's legal rights. When animal rights activists "loved" the dogs, they ignored public order and the legal rights of the dogs' owner.
In my point of view, the biggest problem of the volunteers who blockaded the shipment is that they only see dogs through their own eyes, not other people's and the public order. Dog-lovers stopped traffic out of their own interests. Stopping others from doing business is not only illegal, but also, in my opinion, even immoral.
The last thing I want to talk about is the so-called animal rights activists actually have one idea on the significance of animal protection. Animal rights activists claim that the origin of protecting animals is that animals are also living creatures and deserve protection on the basis of humanitarianism. Humanitarianism, just as the word implies, is about how to deal with humans, not how to deal with animals. Modern society talks about animal protection, but from the perspective of serving human beings. The extinction of species has no advantage for humans. Thus, the preference for certain animals, such as dogs, has nothing to do with animal protection.
The author is a lawyer in Beijing and popular blogger on Netease.
Opinion articles reflect the views of their authors, not necessarily those of China.org.cn.
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