ETHICS are most important when the potential victims of the unethical are most often powerless. At least, that's what I believe. Just think of who are easily and most often abused -- those who are children, mentally-ill, disabled, elderly and animals.
And when people are purposefully cruel in order to make money off the powerless, they are the lowest of the low.
Here's a current example vendors in China are selling live animal key chains, attached to an airtight plastic baggie with a tiny Brazilian turtle or two goldfish -- and very little oxygen for them to breathe.
CRUEL BAUBLES
"The cruel baubles are sold at subway stations and on the street at busy thoroughfares for roughly $5, and are gaining popularity," reports Nine MSN,Australia. "Many who buy them think they will bring 'good luck' and are 'cute, like pets in your pocket that you don't have to feed.' "
There is a Buddhist Prayer from the 14th Dalai Lama that begins:
"May I become at all times, both now and forever, a protector for those without protection."
BUDDIST PROTECTORS OR ABUSERS?
It's interesting that Buddhism is the most popular single religion in China.
"To put a living thing inside a sealed and confined space for profit is immoral and pure animal abuse," Qin Xiaona, director of the NGO Capital Animal Welfare Association, told the China newspaper Global Times.
Animal Equality organization states: "These cases aren't the only ones in which animals are treated as resources, products that we can sell and buy. Non-human animals are sentient beings, who share the same capacity to suffer pain and stress as we do. They are not something, they are someone."
TO SUFFER FOR A KITSCH TRINKET
Calling the keyring ornament a "kitschy trinket," Treehugger.com describes key chains as "perhaps the most useless item you'll ever carry in your pocket or stuff in your purse" which now "can easily be the cruelest too."
"...the animals which have already been sealed in their colorful, transparent tombs -- gasping for the final breath of air they've been packaged with... peer out to a world in which their lives are considered essentially worthless. And in such a dark hour, it's hard not to believe our very humanity awaits a similar fate."
As the Aussies put it: "There's nothing like pulling out a dead turtle in a sack every time you unlock your front door, is there?
"Unfortunately Chinese law only protects endangered species , and as the Brazilian turtle and the kingfish aren't on the brink of extinction, the public is allowed to torture them however they like."
Hey, it's legal. So, why not?
CLICK AND READ: "ANIMAL RIGHTS IN SWITZERLAND -- EVEN FOR GOLDFISH"
by Sharon McEachern
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