For alongside our famous individualism, there's another ingredient in the American saga. A belief that we're all connected as one people. If there is a child on the south side of Chicago who can't read, that matters to me, even if it's not my child. If there's a senior citizen somewhere who can't pay for their prescription drugs, and has to choose between medicine and the rent, that makes my life poorer, even if it’s not my grandparent. If there's an Arab American family being rounded up without benefit of an attorney or due process, that threatens my civil liberties. It is that fundamental belief, it is that fundamental belief, I am my brother's keeper, I am my sister's keeper that makes this country work. It's what allows us to pursue our individual dreams and yet still come together as one American family. [link]

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We ask you today to stop being a pawn used by PETA. For example, some of the TV press coverage today said this is a "KFC videotape investigation." The Courier-Journal today failed to mention that we're just one of the many fast food customers of this facility - the entire article made it look like it was a KFC facility. In fact, almost all the press coverage made it look that way. And the media is not publishing all the facts. This ongoing PETA campaign of distortion, deceit and duplicity is outrageous. Their publicity ploys, like today's call for our CEO to step down, are ludicrous.  PETA has distorted the truth time and time again. Here are just a few examples of mistruths:  

-a fabricated letter by the Dalai Lama;
-claiming Jason Alexander is anti-KFC; 
- claiming a former president of KFC was forced out of the company for meeting with PETA; and most importantly, 
-saying we don't enforce animal welfare standards with our suppliers. In fact, our animal welfare advisory council, made up of some of the world's most-renowned experts in this area like Dr. Temple Grandin, have endorsed our actions as recently as this morning.  

What's more, PETA not only distorts the truth, they have harassed our executives and engaged in a campaign of harassment, invasion of privacy and what I'd call "corporate terrorism."  

Bruce Friedrich, PETA's vegan campaign director, publicly said "all fast food establishments should be bombed, and he would say 'Hallelujah' to anyone who did this.  

That same person was arrested and convicted for criminal trespass at the home of a Senior Executive at Yum! Brands on Christmas Eve, and that's not the first time PETA has invaded our privacy at our homes, church, at work, and with our families, our neighbors and their children.  

According to the FBI, PETA funded the legal defense of an animal liberation front arsonist who was convicted of torching a Michigan State research lab.  

This is not your warm and fuzzy animal rights group. This pressure through intimidation, harassment and invasion of privacy should not be tolerated. It is nothing short of "corporate terrorism."  

We call on the news media and all Louisvillians to tell PETA enough is enough. Tell them their tactics are not welcome in our community. And join us by calling on Congress to strip PETA of their not-for-profit tax-free status. We hope you are equally outraged that taxpayer dollars are being used to fund this campaign of deceit, duplicity and terrorism.

As someone who has debated them for years on college campuses and in the media, I know firsthand that the whole movement is based on a single—invalid—syllogism, namely: men feel pain and have rights; animals feel pain; therefore, animals have rights. This argument is entirely specious, because man's rights do not depend on his ability to feel pain; they depend on his ability to think. 

Rights are ethical principles applicable only to beings capable of reason and choice. There is only one fundamental right: a man's right to his own life. To live successfully, man must use his rational faculty—which is exercised by choice. The choice to think can be negated only by the use of physical force. To survive and prosper, men must be free from the initiation of force by other men—free to use their own minds to guide their choices and actions. Rights protect men against the use of force by other men. 

None of this is relevant to animals. Animals do not survive by rational thought (nor by sign languages allegedly taught to them by psychologists). They survive through inborn reflexes and sensory-perceptual association. They cannot reason. They cannot learn a code of ethics. A lion is not immoral for eating a zebra (or even for attacking a man). Predation is their natural and only means of survival; they do not have the capacity to learn any other. 

Only man has the power to deal with other members of his own species by voluntary means: rational persuasion and a code of morality rather than physical force. To claim that man's use of animals is immoral is to claim that we have no right to our own lives and that we must sacrifice our welfare for the sake of creatures who cannot think or grasp the concept of morality. It is to elevate amoral animals to a moral level higher than ourselves—a flagrant contradiction. Of course, it is proper not to cause animals gratuitous suffering. But this is not the same as inventing a bill of rights for them—at our expense.

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