Ladieeeees aaaaaaaannnd Gentlemen...

May I present to you, Professor Peter Singer. Ethics department, Princeton University.

Everybody say, "Hiiii Peeete."


The New Yorker calls him "the most influential living philosopher." His critics call him "the most dangerous man in the world." Peter Singer, the De Camp Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University's Center for Human Values, is most widely and controversially known for his view that animals have the same moral status as humans. He is the author of many books, including Practical Ethics (1979), Rethinking Life and Death (1995), and Animal Liberation (1975), which has sold more than 450,000 copies. Recently, Peter published and A Darwinian Left: Politics, Evolution, and Cooperation , which argues that the left must replace Marx with Darwin if it is to remain a viable force.

Singer believes animals have rights because the relevant moral consideration is not whether a being can reason or talk but whether it can suffer. Jettisoning the traditional distinction between humans and non-humans, Singer distinguishes instead between persons and non-persons. Persons are beings that feel, reason, have self-awareness, and look forward to a future. Thus, fetuses and some very impaired human beings are not persons in his view and have a lesser moral status than, say, adult gorillas and chimpanzees.

Singers view on abortion is a bit...shall we say...extreme. Yeah. Extreme. I think that covers it. You see, the fine professor believes that parents - not the state or the government - should have the right to decide the fate of their children. In expanding his views further, it seems professor Singer believes that a family who gives birth to a baby with downs syndrome, for example, should be allowed to euthanize the child up until 2 years after birth.

Yes...I said two years after birth.

In a recent New York Times Magazine essay, he argued that the affluent in developed countries are killing people by not giving away to the poor all of their wealth in excess of their needs. How did he come to this conclusion? "If…allowing someone to die is not intrinsically different from killing someone, it would seem that we are all murderers," he explains in his Practical Ethics class. He calculates that the average American household needs $30,000 per year to avoid murder, anything over that should be given away to the poor. "So a household making $100,000 could cut a yearly check for $70,000," he wrote in the Times.

Pete, Pete, Pete, Pedro, Petey, Peeeeete... What the fuck is WRONG with you?

If a child is born with autism, we should be allowed to murder...uuuuuuh....e-u-t-h-a-n-i-z-e them, but if Lawgirl makes over $30,000 a year and doesn't donate all the excess to the poor, she's a murderer?

I see...and how much are you paid a year? Ohhhhh... it's not YOU you're talking about; it's everyone else. Again, I see your point.

Wait...no I don't, actually.

It's important to note that I can honestly say I've never heard of anyone in my lifetime who ever publicly said such things, but I've read about such people. Joseph Mengele, Herman Ghering, Adolf Hilter and other Nazi theorists obsessed with "Life unworthy of life" come to mind. But the difference between them and you is this, professor:

They [the Nazi's] lived in a time and place where the world would not stand for or tolerate in the slightest such behavior, and millions went to war because of it. But you professor live in 2008 America, where talk of murdering - uhhh euthanizing - disabled children and other "undesirables" is not only accepted, you're given a podium at one of the finest universities in the world. And lets not even talk about the idiotic board of regents at Princeton who thought it was a really good idea to hire this schitz.

For the life of me, I cannot understand what the hell is wrong with the thought processes of this country. No shit. I just can't. I'm frightened more by the fact that this guy is allowed to exist more than the fact that he does exist. Freedom - for all of its glory - is supposed to have limitations. Apparently when it comes to the "Ethics" department at a famous university, it doesn't.

Who needs terrorists? We're crashing it all down without their help.