Did a thread disappear?

[red dog]

Someone posted a long-winded argument saying (nonhuman) animals don't have rights because they can't come up with great inventions, or something like that. I didn't have time to reply, but is there some reason the thread was removed? I thought it was more common for a thread to be locked if the person hadn't read the FAQs.

[Chenli]

I presume annb removed it because it was bordering troll territory...last I saw he said something like this:

"If someone is so overly sensative that the death a commpanion animal can keep them from doing their job, they have a bigger problem than a dead animal. Companion animals are toys, or pest control at best. I would be more distrought over a car breaking down than a dead dog."

[annb]

The gist of a personal response to "Snacks" to explain the thread removal was:

You were not arguing against the AR position. You were misrepresenting the AR position and arguing against your representation, which is a straw man argument. Nobody is disagreeing with your representation, i.e. that nobody has inate rights. You were forcing the debate to be WHAT IS the AR philosophy. Since it is well documented it can't lead to enlightenment.

Furthermore, the AR philosophy is documented in the AR FAQs and our forum guidelines state that we won't re-answer those FAQs because it would be repetitious (and it keeps us from answering questions for those too lazy to read). You either ignored the forum guidelines or did not read them.

Debate on the forum is encouraged. But we want to debate AR philosophy, not what someone else claims is the AR philosophy. If/when you read published articles about the AR philosophy and want to debate that philosophy, let us know.

If you want to give your opinion, that is fine. Any thread that falsely states the AR position will be corrected once, but if the false position is re-stated then the thread serves only to waste time.

[red dog]

Thanks for the explanation ... I was a bit surprised because many other trollish comments have been allowed to stand. While I agree that it would have been a waste of time to respond to Snacks point by point, I wanted to point out that he seemed to be confusing moral rights with legal rights and also seemed to be confusing self-interest (or perceived self-interest) with morality. It's disturbing if he was serious (which is unlikely, I know).

[Chenli]

If you see a 'trollish' comment please report it and it'll be looked at as soon as.

[annb]

Originally Posted by red dog

Thanks for the explanation ... I was a bit surprised because many other trollish comments have been allowed to stand. While I agree that it would have been a waste of time to respond to Snacks point by point, I wanted to point out that he seemed to be confusing moral rights with legal rights and also seemed to be confusing self-interest (or perceived self-interest) with morality. It's disturbing if he was serious (which is unlikely, I know).

You are correct. Trolls are dismissed quickly. Being that a troll is someone who is deliberately trying to mess up a discussion I don't believe Snacks was a troll. Snacks was not rudely interjecting comments into other threads and did not seem to be deliberately thick. He/she was just another person who preferred not to read or listen about the AR philosophy before giving an opinion about it. We don't expect visitors to understand AR philosophy when they join the forum, but we do expect them to listen or read about what is AR philosophy so that we can debate relevant topics. As you say above, Snacks kept arguing that animals have no legal rights and insisting that it was just the opinion of ARAs that they should have legal rights, which is not a compelling or relevant argument since ALL legal rights are only (at best) a reflection of a moral opinion of the masses.

I could have made equal sense by arguing back to him that the moon is not made from cheese and that it was only his opinion.

Personal sidebar: the final straw for me was when I addressed his/her concern (although I disagreed with the concern) that legal rights should benefit humans with documented facts from John Robbins' Diet for a New America (facts that not even the meat / dairy industry disputed) and he/she dismissed them. At that point I felt I had more than fairly engaged the poster and that he/she had no intention of listening or reading or exchanging ideas.

[red dog]

Good points, AnnB. Chenli, what I meant is that sometimes it's hard to be sure who's serious and who's not on a message board.

[annb]

If you actually want to make laws to enact animal rights, you had better give people a materialistic reason to do so. Giving animals rights does not increase the efficiency of our society in the same way that giving humans rights does.

This is an simple obvious fallacy for many reasons that have been listed repeatedly. There is no benefit to repeating them to someone who has no intention of responding to them.