unfairfriend

Hey mate, just thought I'd chime in and say good on you for speaking up about the issues you saw. Animal rights is a pretty big part of my life, I do a lot of activism and research and believe me when I say over 95% of the people who are criticizing you are engaged in various forms of animal cruelty.

There are many people who slit hundreds of animal throats per day and won't speak up when they aren't properly rendered unconscious beforehand. These are grown men and women engaging in brutal torture, not 16 year olds who work in pet shops. It's very hard for people to face these issues when everybody around them considers it part of the norm. It's encouraging to see you take the high ground, I hope you consider staying involved in the movement.

So even if you don't buy from something terrible like a puppy farm and use a reputable breeder, a dog dies for each one purchased. This is because there is a vast overpopulation of dogs and animal shelters are overrun with them. Most of these dogs will die of exposure, starvation or attack by other animals/people if left alone, so the only thing most shelters can do is euthanize them.

I recognise pet stores are such a normalised part of people's lives that this issue is almost completely unknown to everybody, but the sad truth is rescuing a dog is the humane thing to do. There are also serious problems with 'pure-breed' dogs, they are often forced to breed with their own parents and siblings in order to satisfy human desires for cuteness. This is an interesting video, and quite accurate.

I'm not sure I've ever met a genuine Neo-Nazi, but plenty of people over the years who were sympathetic. It seemed to me most of them were racist towards black, Asian or Islamic people, although that may just be because of the low Jewish population in Australia.

Do you think the Nazi ideology was co-opted by other racist groups, or always going to turn violent towards any 'non-aryans?'