Spay/neuter too convenient?

We know for sure that the HSUS does not want the average citizen to gain anything without paying the HSUS either directly or indirectly. The coin may be emotional or moral, too.

The "we prefer not to breed" attitude is one of the most cowardly ways to cater to "human convenience" and when it's for that reason you can see the ARs playing both ends against the middle. I think that it is also firmly established that we will love animals to death if we follow the AR pattern. This would be along the path that Peter Singer encourages humans to follow using the directions written up by David Benatar.

Have we always left it up to the worst people to design what passes for our morality? That's what it always looks like to me. What I think of as negative utilitarianism, or negative functionalism, or destructivism, this is a bad reflection of reality, attempting to remove that which is "wrong" or "tainted" rather than attempting to capitalize on what is good. You can look back at David Benatar's book and see a striking difference between a personality that discounts or neutralizes the joy of life rather than considering each small pleasure to have been worth the fuss. You can also look at Peter Laufer's book and see that emptiness that attempts to suck at the soul. Those are "Better Never to Have Been" and "Forbidden Creatures", respectively. I would much rather deal with an honest to God villain than emotional black hole people (black holes suck).

I have experienced joys that have filled me in ways that I still feel joyful sixteen years later, and even longer. I have had a dog who gave me so much joy that when she died I was glad she had lived and it was hard to really miss her because it was like she never left. The way that she treated me was like she wanted to make me happy forever, knew how to do that, and enjoyed every second of it. This is what I want the human race to have. This is what will make decent people of us.

Feeling that it is too inconvenient to be at least a bystander to the creation of a new life is a kind of negativity that I am familiar with. In moderation, using some kind of intelligent sense to decide when not to, this is OK. Obviously that negativity has bled way outside of its decent boundaries and has set a fire that will be difficult to put out. I love the convenience of having animals that don't reproduce very often, and there is something restful about not having to deal with their sexuality. But that's kicking life to the curb for my convenience and it's a pernicious habit. It's hard to stop catering to the "sterilize everything" crowd when it is in some ways emotionally rewarding and convenient.

If they do an about-face and tell us that they have just discovered that the natural way is for nature to produce many many animal babies and kill off a bunch of them, then we all suddenly have to be midwives to kiss up to the animal rights activists, I think I will seek one out and beat him with my fists for a few minutes. Don't even really have to hurt him. I would just need a punching bag. They started us on an emotional descent into Hell using "principles" and when they feel like putting us in a particular place, they just mutate their "principles." They want us to go through Hell, go through Purgatory, then go through Paradise, a thrill ride over the bodies of our friends, feeding them every bit of money they can contrive to grab from our wallets, and lead us right back around to where we started. Then we begin the cycle of self-torture again, as directed by "authorities" who have been sucking our blood for thousands of years.