Of course we both know that mice are in charge. :)

I think though, what this shows is that there is the potential for a very interesting and lively debate as to how far something like "non-human person" extends. If we don't hold them liable to any kind of responsibility for particular extensions of rights beyond what we'd show any other animal, then are we not just treating them like another animal -- and thus the new classification as a "non-human person" is simply superfluous?

I think your right about that (besides the mice being in charge, which we take as given).

The funny thing here is that this is all fine and good as long as we're dealing with inferior intellects, wait what happens if a superior intelligence should come across us and decides to capture and domesticate us and treat us like food.

I'm pretty sure we'd be arguing for equal rights for animals :)

I really don't remember the title of the story, I think it was a short story in an anthology, it read as a 'care and feeding of your khod' or something like that.

The basic idea was that the story was told from the viewpoint of an alien species that kept the obviously non-intelligent khod as a food stock. Lots of rules were laid down about how you should treat your khod if you wanted to get the most mileage out of them.

Particular care should be taken when slaughtering the khod, never do this in front of other khod that you do not intend to slaughter right away.

Only at the end of the story you realize the khod are captive humans.