In defense of PETA

Via Andrew, two activists dressed up as KKK members at an American Kennel Club show to protest pure-breeding, and Macon D vented:

While the point about show dogs is that they're being abused in order to create a favored, but congenitally unhealthy and in some cases freakish "master race," the parallel abuse alluded to by the mock Klan robes is that ... of the KKK by its victims. Thus the implicit, boneheaded comparison that PETA makes here is that of KKK victims, primarily black people, to dogs.

What is boneheaded is to think PETA is comparing only blacks to dogs and thus implying that non-blacks are something better than dogs. This is not the case, PETA is actually comparing the entire human species -- black, white, or whatever -- to dogs. People compare species all the time; there is nothing offensive about drawing parallels between whole species.

Under their comparison, non-whites are like a dog race with some undesirable traits, and whites are like a "pure" dog race with traits the breeders are trying to preserve. Yes this is offensive, but only in the same way the KKK offended in trying to keep human races seperate.

And that's precisely the point: dog race breeders are analogous to the KKK race police. Of course this only matters if -- like PETA -- you are for the ethical treatment of animals. If not, then dog race breeding won't bother you.

Update: I see there's a Digg story with hundreds of shrill comments bashing PETA for this. I'm sure PETA has done plenty of objectionable things, the above objection is illogical hysteria.