Factory Farming

 Scully begins by addressing that most conservatives dislike all animal-rights groups because they are liberal. He then begins to address reasons why conservatives should be against animal cruelty and how their conservative values relate to the need for laws against it. Scully compliments conservatives on their ability to make distinctions between “moderation and excess, freedom and license, moral goods and material goods, and rightful power and the abuse of power”. He also brings up the point that conservatives focus on our obligations as humans and Scully emphasizes that compassion towards animals is not only an obligation but a moral duty by religious standards as well. Animal rights activists anger conservatives by talking about the “rights of animals”; rights that conservatives believe only belong to human beings. Scully quotes a conservative commentator who sums this view up by saying “we have a moral duty to respect the animal world as God’s handiwork, treating animals with the mercy of our Maker’…but mercy and respect for animals are completely different from rights for animals and we should never confuse the two”. Scully believes that conservatives should take the same approach to animal cruelty that they do to abortion. The bible says that animals are our companions in creation and conservatives should speak up for animals that have no voices just as they do for fetuses on the issue of abortion. Conservatives revere tradition and therefore should recognize that factory farming of animals “has no tradition, no rules, no codes of honor”, nothing they value. Conservatives are also concerned with money and taxes so Scully points out that it costs taxpayers billions of dollars to clean up the damage to land, water, and air that factory farms cause. He describes factory farming as a “predatory enterprise, absorbing profit and externalizing costs”. Finally, Scully attempts to reason with conservatives by addressing their belief that humans are above animals. He says that “if reason and morality are what set human beings apart from animals, then reason and morality must always guide us in how we treat them” and explains that by not doing so humans are degrading themselves. Conservatives should act on animal cruelty because it is their obligation as humans, for religious reasons, because of their traditional values, for economic reasons, and to prevent the degradation of human beings.