OAO takes on the world - Ed. 1: Animal Rights

[The One and Only...]

OAO takes on the world is intended to be a series of rants, created in various forms, about whatever is pissing me off lately. Many of them may be written in a Maddox-esque style, others satirical, and some in a completely different direction. And yes, the title is a pun; OAO takes on the world, as in, I'm taking on the world, but also as in the views are unique.

Ed. 1: Animal Rights

Animals as citizens?

Animals rights activists in the Washington, D.C. area are launching an initiative to have animals be considered citizens.

"Our current system isn't right," says Jane Dumbass, one of the first to join the effort. "Animals are living creatures, too, and they deserve just as much respect as people. We have to strike at the root if we want to get rid of meat food products and domestication. Plus, withholding citizenship from them is nothing but pure discrimination."

The activists recognize that they can never get Congress to pass legislation in the near future, so their main goal is to get large amounts of funding in order to support a number of lawsuits aimed at getting equal rights for animals. In many of these cases, the victim is an animal who is purportedly not being granted their constitutional rights.

"The key is in understanding what our founding fathers meant by terms like men," says lawyer Max Manybucks. "We intend to argue that men should and can be used to refer to all living creatures, rather than just humanity, along with a few other key points."

The activists feel that along with full citizenship (which includes animal suffrage), animals should benefit from Affirmative Action.

"Let face it," says McCormick, "animals are an extreme minority in the workplace. This is nothing but sheer bigotry on the part of corporate America."

Critics of the animal rights movement have said little in response to this initiative, saying that it speaks for itself.