Just passing through the house today, I turned on Fox News (a rare event indeed). Saw a story on the attempt by animal rights activists to get the Los Angeles Dodgers to stop selling the eponymous hot dog made by Farmer John; the pigs who are slaughtered to make the franks are kept in tiny cages that are considered more than unusually inhumane.
One Dodger fan was interviewed as he munched on a “dog”; he was entirely unrepentant:
“I’m going to keep on enjoying these”, he said. “Because if you started thinking too much about it, you’d be vegetarian.”
Word, my dear brother, word.
All I ask people to do is think about how what they are eating was made. If they could cheerfully kill and butcher the meat themselves, that’s one thing. But if their enjoyment is contingent upon willful ignorance or denial, that’s something else altogether.
I buy my poultry, dressed, from an Amish farmer.
I co-op on my beef. I buy 3 head a year, pay for the keep and for slaughtering, and stock my freezers with it as needed. I am there for the slaughtering, as I take the hides to my Amish farmer, he tans them and keeps one.
I buy my pork from the store. Too much trouble to keep pigs.
I raise lambs for wool and eating. I butcher them myself. Same deal with the hides.
You’d be horrified at the drinking horns I carve from the cow and ram horns or I’d send you one; I also make war horns and black powder horns.
I hunt deer, rabbit, and wild fowl, and I fish.
And I don’t buy processed meat, as I make a lot of it myself - sausages, etc.
I get my hands “dirty.”
Which is why, Gonz, as a vegan I have a grudging respect for folks like you. I’ve got more respect for hunters who do understand what’s involved than for folks who shudder and say “I’d rather not know where my burger comes from.”
*sigh* Hugo, I really don’t care what your diet is. Keep kosher if it pleases you. Eat raw vegetables if you want. Run it through a juicer and stick in in an IV bag if it keeps body and soul together.
I don’t know of too many carnivores at all who’d force you to eat meat - may say “Feed yourself then, or hit the salad bar” and not care if you’re peckish for salad that night. I know enough vegetarians who get d*mned sick of the “We have a salad so Lizzie is covered” routine. And I feel for you. I do have vegetarian friends - and believe it or not, I cook for them, and set a wicked table. As a Leo, even though we Leo’s don’t believe in Astrology, I take it very personally if someone leaves my board hungry. It’s that old Northern European “hospitality” ethic. If you showed up on my doorstep, you’d be fed, and fed vegan.
But there are a hell of a lot of zealots in the vegan camp, and we’re talking people who would have me on trial for murder for eating a chicken leg, and who declare right out “If my child depended on medicine derived from animal research, I’d rather she’d die!” I have heard these people. You have heard them. We all know who they are - so please don’t make me jump through the “cite please” hoop, you know I can. This is WHY people believe the worst about the “Death by Veganism” couple.
And these people scare me, to the point where I serious wonder if one day I will have to defend my right to feed myself with a tool I’d hoped to ONLY use to feed myself.
Don’t become one of these, please?
As I mentioned in the other recent vegan thread, my roommate one year was one of the top people at EarthSave Chicago, one of the largest vegan organisations in the city. He protested fur downtown every other week, the group had bought and fitted a van designed for protesting fast food restaurants, and other members of the group refused to vaccinate their children because of concerns about animal testing and autism. I’ve spent a lot of time hanging out with progressives and leftists in Chicago, Seattle, and San Francisco, and my flatmate’s group was the largest and most radical group of vegans activists I’ve ever met.
And none of them thought eating meat should be illegal, or that medical research using non-human animal test subjects was anything less than a serious ethical dilemma.
I’m sorry that you’ve had some nasty experiences with zealots, gonz, but those experiences are profoundly unrepresentative of vegans as a whole.
It’s funny how one man’s obvious logic is another man’s reductio ad absurdum.
I’m sorry that you’ve had some nasty experiences with zealots, gonz, but those experiences are profoundly unrepresentative of vegans as a whole.
Check out PETA sometime - what is “Meat is murder?” Just some joshing around?
What does conferring legal personhood on animals - which is a popular and common goal articulated by all kinds of groups - mean, then? That these AR groups support legal cannibalism?
You don’t even have plausible deniability here.
My ex-girlfriend’s mother refused to watch a PETA video on the fur industry for the same reason…she knew it would make her feel too guilty about wearing her fur, so she simply made the conscious choice to remain ignorant.
regarding tps12’s comment: should guilty be the factor that changes a person’s opinion on a subject? or in this case, their moral ground on whether wearing fur is “good” or “bad”? i would like to hope not. submission of one’s opinion by guilt seems moot.
Noumena: “I’m sorry that you’ve had some nasty experiences with zealots, gonz, but those experiences are profoundly unrepresentative of vegans as a whole.”
Don’t know if that will always be the case. If I may presume to speak for Gonz (and Gonz, correct me if I’m wrong), I think his concern is that too many vegans are going to follow the three-step track of most liberal thinking.
1) This is a good idea for me.
2) This is a good idea for me and all the unwashed masses who aren’t as smart or compassionate as I am.
3) The unwashed masses won’t go along with my idea? Let’s make a law.
I believe in a post a few weeks back Hugo said something to the effect of “I’m not YET ready to use the power of government to prevent the use of animals for food.” So even Hugo, a reasonable, moderate voice compared to the psychos in ALF and ELF, is already at stage two and flirting with stage three.
There are parallels between this and the gun control question. A lot of liberals have pretty much given up on victim disarmament, in part because they realize it’s an excercise in futility that has hurt their cause more than it’s helped, in part because they (rightly) fear that many gun owners would (justifiably) rise up in violent revolt if the government tried to seize privately owned weapons. There are a lot more people who enjoy meat than enjoy shooting, and a lot more people who make a living off of ranching, processing, selling or serving meat than who make money off of firearms. And a lot of the people who make a living in the meat industry are the same people who have a gun or two in their homes.
In other words, many of us feel that “you’ll take my chicken wing when you pry it from my cold, dead fingers.”
A far better parallel, Chief, is to abortion rights. Both vegan animal rights activists and zealous opponents of abortion are concerned about protecting a class of beings (animals, fetuses) who are denied full personhood under the law. Both pro-lifers and animal rights activists seek to change hearts and minds to convince those who support abortion rights, or who eat meat, that they ought to think more deeply about the value and worth of what is being destroyed/terminated/consumed.
I’m not a pro-lifer, but I see our causes as analagous. I’m trying to get folks to see the fundamental worth and dignity of a hog, a chinchilla, a cow — and to convince those folks that that hog, chinchilla, or cow deserves to live out a natural life span. Pro-lifers try and do the same danged thing with what most folks see as a cluster of cells.
Now, there are relatively few folks who feel exactly the same way about both issues — the perfectly consistent-life position does, but that’s very rare. But having been in the pro-life movement, and now in the animal rights movement, I know just how similar the reasoning is that we all employ.
By this logic, if you drive a car you should feel compelled to voluntarily work in an iron (and/or aluminum) mine to dig the ore, work in a foundry to refine it, work in a factory to fabricate the metal parts, and labor on an assembly line to build the car you drive. (Note: I have done all of the above except dig for ore) Otherwise you’re just as much of a hypocrite as the person eating the hotdog.
Lots of people and groups take things way too far, and IMO PETA is right up at the top of that list.
I’m not really a PETA fan, but I also don’t get the cheap moral relativism behind the “don’t tell me what I can or can’t eat” argument. Unless you’re willing to say that animals, as sentient beings, have no moral considerability whatsoever, then, in principle, the door is open to laws that aim to prevent cruelty to animals.
In fact, the laws against cruelty to animals currently on the books would rule out most factory farming practices if there weren’t arbitrary exceptions for animals raised as food. Why isn’t it perfectly fair game for people concerned about animal well-being to make moral arguments and try to persuade their fellow citizens to support legislation - isn’t that how democracy is supposed to work?
`Meat is murder’ is a slogan. PETA, and most other vegan activists I’ve encountered, work primarily on boycotts and what used to be called consciousness raising about the treatment of non-human animals in factory farms and slaughterhouses, industrial research, and circuses. Like Hugo, they’re generally more concerned with (what they perceive to be) the most egregious injustices, and not hunting or keeping grass-fed non-human animals for eventual slaughter, where non-human animals generally lead decent lives before being killed in a relatively painless way. The only legislative campaigns I’ve heard of focus on improving the condition of non-human animals in those industrial settings of two sentences ago, not on compulsory vegetarianism. In this respect, Hugo’s analogy with the anti-abortion movement goes quite far.
Trying to damn vegans as a whole based on the likes of ALF is much the same as conflating a typical anti-choice Christian who doesn’t like `partial birth’ abortion with Eric Rudolph.
Mr. Bad, If the reason a person hasn’t done these things is that they can’t face the terrible realities of how a car is built, then yeah, I agree, they should either find out what’s involved or stop driving. But I don’t think most people are afraid to see auto manufacture.
In response to Owbert:
I definitely don’t think that guilt alone should change a person’s opinion. But feeling guilt over our practices should prompt us to examine them using whatever tools we have at our disposal to determine whether the guilt is pointing to a moral wrong. IMO.
I’ve never felt terribly ambivalent about eating meat, per se, because I’ve always known where it came from. My parents made sure when I was, like 2 or 3, I don’t really remember, that I knew exactly what I was eating and where it came from.
I do as a matter of morals refuse to eat factory farmed animal products. I buy my meat, chicken only thanks to the stupidity of the USDA, directly from the farmer who kills it and dresses it in front of me. I also buy our eggs and dairy this way too. At any time, I can wander around and see how these animals are treated.
I do think that we should all eat a limited amount of meat, simply because of the strain that it puts on the ecosystem, especially with the population as it is. It’s one small way that I can contribute to a world in which there is enough for everyone.
I eat the meat I do - well, because it tastes better.
There’s no moral relativism about it. I’m at the same point (oddly) a pro-choicer is on this: It’s not a person. It has no rights.
This is not to say I am for wanton cruelty for its own sake, any more than pro-choicers are for getting pregnant just to have an abortion (Though I have personally known one). But pig insulin - my Uncle living another day - bye bye, Porky. No question. Animal research gets a cure for a disease? I’m down with it.
Taking trophies? No. Killing an endangered species so some weirdo can get an aphrodisiac? No. Cutting off animal limbs to study “healing times?” no. It’s over the top. They serve no useful purpose.
As for “Trying to damn vegans as a whole based on the likes of ALF is much the same as conflating a typical anti-choice Christian who doesn’t like `partial birth’ abortion with Eric Rudolph” the term “anti-choice” says it all. If that’s fair, pro-abortion is a fair term too; I was around in the seventies when the opposite sides of the debate agreed to use “pro-life” and “pro-choice” to stop the debatge from sinking into demonization of each other instead of issues. Apparently, that agreement is off.
And they Animals rights movement has quite a considerable amount of zealots, and ones who are leaders too. If you haven’;t seen it, Nou, you’ve been traveling in such limited circles that “ancedotal” is an insufficient term, or you have your head buried in the sand.
Gonzoman - once you’ve admitted that some things are OK to do to animals and others aren’t, then haven’t you conceded that animals do have inherent moral worth and that we have duties toward them? Whether we talk about “rights” or not is a secondary consideration.
And once you’ve conceded that “wanton cruelty” is wrong, then I think you run smack against the practices of contemporary industrial animal agriculture, which are, I would argue, incredibly hard to justify whether or not eating animals is wrong per se.
Sorry, “Gonzman”! I must have Muppets on the brain.
Tam:
Nice try. Hugo said: “If they could cheerfully kill and butcher the meat themselves, that’s one thing.”
He’s not talking about watching, he’s talking about doing.
Gonzoman - once you’ve admitted that some things are OK to do to animals and others aren’t, then haven’t you conceded that animals do have inherent moral worth and that we have duties toward them?
Not at all. My concern is not for the animal per se, but about the sicko human being who enjoys inflicting pain and suffering, and starts out with animals.
What possible useful purpose would it serve for me to inflict pain on an animal - say a chicken - I am about to slaughter and eat? It won’t make it taste better, the blasted thing might bite me back, and it gives it a chance to escape. And any reasonable human being has better things to do in life than torture chickens.
An animal has what moral worth we assign it; animal rights are granted, and not inalienable. If you kill one of my pets, I will be upset with you because you have killed something I have granted an emotional attachment to. If you kill one of my hunting dogs, or my livestock my ire will be at your destruction of my property.
I treat my working animals well because I want them to co-operate with me instead of in a panic, and because they cost me a lot of money. Same with my livestock - scared and terrified animals who won’t eat and drop weight - pretty self-defeating there.
Whether we talk about “rights” or not is a secondary consideration.
It is of primary consideration. Your camel’s nose is not coming up under my tent. Nice try though. Very subtle rhetoric and argumentum, but still basic textbook.
And once you’ve conceded that “wanton cruelty” is wrong, then I think you run smack against the practices of contemporary industrial animal agriculture, which are, I would argue, incredibly hard to justify whether or not eating animals is wrong per se.
It’s a difference of indifference to enjoyment. The rabbit farmer does not enjoy his rabbits being cooped up because they suffer, he is doing it for efficiency of storage and processing for food.
Again, I don’t eat such things out of some sense of moral outrage, but because free range meat tastes better, and isn’t pumped full of heaven knows what.. I know what is in the sausage I smoked myself. I am very suspicious of what Hillshire Farms puts in theirs.
Sorry, “Gonzman”! I must have Muppets on the brain.
I’m still uncertain whether I got my monniker back in the day from Gonzo the Muppet, or Gonzo Ted Nugent, who I am told I resemble. Only taller.
“enjoyment is contingent upon willful ignorance or denial”
If this is a primary qualification for how one should live, then you’ve pretty much described the entire premise upon which western culture is built and perpetuated. Funnily enuff, you seem to ignore that essential reality, in effect partaking of willfull ignorance of western mass denial (and delusion).
Ironic.
In any event, why should l even bother to continue the facade of self interested rationalisation and the contrived logical constructs my brain invents to feel good about itself. That my friend is DENIAL.
If l choose to eat a hot dog embued with a bunch of psychanalytic political pretence, its because it FEELS good and thats enuff for me.
Modern farming methods kill and displace a lot more living creatures than growing animals for meat.
Many creatures are displaced (and eventually die) due to ground preparation.
Many creatures are killed in combine harvesters.
Many creatures are killed by pesticides.
But, rabbits, rodent and bugs just dont count. they have no moral currency amongst the ‘meat is murder’ contigency.
If meat is murder, then fruits, vegetables, legumes, pulses, grains, etc is genocide. My diet consists largely of this stuff (l own a dried goods produce store… no animal products) with the odd occassional spattering of dead burnt animal flesh.
Oddly enuff, l am confortable with my genocidal ways, afterall, a lot of critters dont seem to count in the nebulous area of public morality.
When l pick fruit from the tree, is that sound the twig makes as it breaks, a cry of pain? Is chopping down a tree muder? You see where this logic takes us… into the realm of absurdism.
Bill’s not mostly a vegetarian because he loves animals; it’s because he obviously hates plants.
FOR THE HUMOR IMPAIRED: Yes, this is a joke.
//By this logic, if you drive a car you should feel compelled to voluntarily work in an iron (and/or aluminum) mine to dig the ore, work in a foundry to refine it, work in a factory to fabricate the metal parts, and labor on an assembly line to build the car you drive.//
Alternately, you could try living in Detroit, where the car companies and their troubles have ruined the state economy. Better yet, try Flint, the town that GM forgot.
Just the bitter ex-Michigander in me talking, sorry.