Your daddy KILLS animals!

[Toxic]

*WARNING: RANT*

I am one of those crazed vegetarians who won't eat meat because I think killing animals is wrong, I certainly wouldn't want to be eaten simply because I'm delicious. I also think that animals do have rights and are certainly not our property. I also think that meat is not a need but rather a luxory for most of us, as their are plenty of people who have survived by not eating meat. In my own opinion, I think that people who say they are uncomfortable watching animals die but eat meat anyway are hypocrites.

Also, I never really liked the taste of meat anyway.

On another note, I think the ultimate vegetarian "propaganda" was the episode of The Twilight Zone, "To Serve Man", which shows that while we think it's okay to eat inferior lifeforms, when it happens to us it's suddenly a horrific travesty.

[TheSuburbanLetdown]

My bio professor said that anyone that does not believe in animal testing of any sort should not be allowed to partake in any recent medical advances like cold medicine and surgery.

[Warren]

Now I want to dangle candy in front of children again.

[McDuffies]

I am an advocate of the eating of animals and the using animals for scientific research, but i do believe that these animals should be killed as humanely as possible.

I side with this. Animal has to be killed to give us meat, but there is no reason to keep it locked in a tiny cage where it can't even stand straight all it's live. If you have to kill a hen, let her walk freely 'round the yard for a few years at least.
As for animal testing, I think it's not particulary human, but it's justified by it's cause. As long as it's not cosmetics or something like that. Or would someone rather have medications tested on human?

Animals have no rights. None. Period. They are property, our property, and should be treated as such.

That's completely wrong. How do you argue that they're our property? He're just a bit higher on evolutionary stage, that doesn't make everything less evolved our property. In fact, when it comes to that, I don't think that it's even correct to use the term "property". "Property" is strictly an economical category, created by human to define some things in his social surrounding. When we're talking about biology, namely evolution and ecology, there is no such thing as property, it simply doesn't mean anything in these fields.

It's something completely different: compassion. It's wrong to hurt. Animals feel, thus it's wrong to hurt them, torture them or to kill them with more pain than it's neccessary, simply because they are capable of feeling that hurt, torture, pain. However, animals (we presume) don't have enough intelligence to be capable of grasping their destiny. Pigs aren't capable of knowing that they're going to be slaughtered one day. So they live a short happy life in ignorance, if they're held in humane condition.

[Rkolter]

Vegetarians, IMHO, encounter two big difficulties when trying to change people like me over from eating meat.

1) For the vast most part, alternatives to meat simply aren't as tasty as real meat, or do not have the same texture as real meat. That goes for fake meats, spaghetti sauce with meat alternatives, tofu chicken breasts, etcetera.

2) Those few products that really DO taste good (I had some delicious fake chicken nuggets twice now) are much more expensive than meat. Not to be cheap about it, but if you add up the meat I buy and change it to fake meat products, my grocery bill would climb greatly.

If the vegetarians out there want to court me effectively, they will work very hard to produce a product that genuinely tastes good, doesn't have the texture of mush, and is priced reasonably enough for me to put down the meat product and pick up the non-meat one.

If they did that, I'd do my part and give it a shot.

[Toxic]

My bio professor said that anyone that does not believe in animal testing of any sort should not be allowed to partake in any recent medical advances like cold medicine and surgery.

That's not entirely true, as a lot of practical medical knowledge on humans was obtained from testing on dead/executed criminals.

[Warren]

Vegetarians, IMHO, encounter two big difficulties when trying to change people like me over from eating meat.

1) For the vast most part, alternatives to meat simply aren't as tasty as real meat, or do not have the same texture as real meat. That goes for fake meats, spaghetti sauce with meat alternatives, tofu chicken breasts, etcetera.

2) Those few products that really DO taste good (I had some delicious fake chicken nuggets twice now) are much more expensive than meat. Not to be cheap about it, but if you add up the meat I buy and change it to fake meat products, my grocery bill would climb greatly.

If the vegetarians out there want to court me effectively, they will work very hard to produce a product that genuinely tastes good, doesn't have the texture of mush, and is priced reasonably enough for me to put down the meat product and pick up the non-meat one.

If they did that, I'd do my part and give it a shot.

I especially agree with #2 on this one....

[Rkolter]

Animals have no rights. None. Period. They are property, our property, and should be treated as such.

That's completely wrong. How do you argue that they're our property? He're just a bit higher on evolutionary stage, that doesn't make everything less evolved our property.

Ah, that is where we disagree. I believe that humans being on a higher evolutionary stage does in fact allow us to own and control all the resources on the planet. Animals are resources. As for property, keep in mind that the law differs with your assessment - the same countries that pass laws that prevent the cruel treatment of animals also pass laws that protect the ownership of those animals.

It's something completely different: compassion. It's wrong to hurt. Animals feel, thus it's wrong to hurt them, torture them or to kill them with more pain than it's neccessary, simply because they are capable of feeling that hurt, torture, pain.

I don't think I disagreed with you here? I was not saying it's good to hurt animals (I actually agree entirely with what you say here). I was saying that animals do not have any actual "right" not to be hurt; instead that protection is granted to them by the humans that control and own them. You're right - that tendency is called compassion, and it's a wonderful trait humans possess.

[Princess]

I just can't take Peta seriously because of their shitty, frequently offensive advertising campaigns ...they are just terrible!, they must have the worst P.R people in the world.

Animal welfare is much more important then animal rights.

[MERBman]

What about the fact that PETA murders and dumps animals in large numbers themselves?

[Laemkral]

Meat is a ready and easy source of protein. Non-meat sources of protein do exist and are more easily attainable thanks to our modern world and technology.

I like the taste of meat, especially when barbequed. I don't have plans to switch to a non-meat lifestyle. I do think animals have a right to a humane life before being killed to eat, and they deserve a quick and painless death.

I value the existence of my own species above that of all others, and in the example of The Twilight Zone, I'd not hate the aliens for trying to eat us but I'd sure as hell fight back. If the cows, chickens, and other animals ever decide to fight back, I say let them.

[Escushion]

I kill animals by feeding them fast food.


Seriously though; when all the other omnivores and carnivores on the planet decide to stop eating meat, I'll go for the vegan road. Until then, I'm going to continue eating meat.

Animals don't have rights because they don't have minds, but I don't think we as humans have the right to torture them.

[Jackhass]

Hmmmm...

...apparently the folks at PETA are having a hard time telling the difference between a human being and a fish with a brain the size of a grain of salt.

[Toxic]

http://www.fishinghurts.com/feat-newcomic.asp

the good folks at PETA have done it again.

I'm surprised rkolter hasn't pointed out that fish blood isn't red.

[Smight]

I don't buy the "It's wrong to kill animals so I don't eat meat" philosophy. Why is it so much better to kill hundreds of plants instead of a single animal?

Because they don't have a brain? Does the inability to feel pain with nerves make it right to kill something?

Just because you are eating grains doesn't mean you aren't killing as many, if not more, animals

[BrownEyedCat]

I don't believe there's such a thing as 'higher on the evolutionary chain'. Evolution isn't headed to some glorious endpoint - and even if it was, how would we know sentience is the right track? Instead evolution is about adaptation to current surroundings.

If you work with that, you get an argument that sounds dangerously like 'because we can, we should', or even worse, 'because we can, it's morally right'. Which is itself problematic, because humans invented the idea of morals. Kinda makes it hard to apply cross-species.

[JexKerome]

Animals have no rights. None. Period. They are property, our property, and should be treated as such.

That's completely wrong. How do you argue that they're our property? He're just a bit higher on evolutionary stage, that doesn't make everything less evolved our property.

Ah, that is where we disagree. I believe that humans being on a higher evolutionary stage does in fact allow us to own and control all the resources on the planet. Animals are resources. As for property, keep in mind that the law differs with your assessment - the same countries that pass laws that prevent the cruel treatment of animals also pass laws that protect the ownership of those animals.

Let us also not forget that rights are a human construct that has no real power but what mankind brings to it. Rights are nothing but a "quid-pro-quo" agreement between beings that know and understand the agreement and its benefits. "We both can do X as long as doing so doesn't hurt either of us" and "You can't do Y to me nor I to you" are the gist of all rights, but do note that said rights can be trampled by anyone, unless power is applied (or is there to be applied if needed) to make sure they aren't, power which comes in the form of fear for laws that punish the offender AFTER he has broken the quid-pro-quo contract.

Simply look at the way native human tribes were (and are) treated by so-called "superior" civilizations, their lands stolen, their people killed and/or debased, their propery forfeit. Why? because these people lacked enough power to put a stop to it and demand to enter into the quid-pro-quo contract their attackers shared among themselves. As for the attackers, they simply looked for reasons to deny them entry into the contract, things as skin color ("white people are superior"), religion ("non-catholics are heretics and devil-wroshipping pagans") and even culture ("foreign devils"). In most cases, these native people were finally entered into the contract not by their own power, but by the power of others; the natives of current-day US were nearly-wiped out by their Protestant enemies who held them as godless savages only fit for Hell, and were left alone only when it was felt they were no longer a threat, which allowed humanitarian groups, both secular and religious, to bring enough power to bear to stop the slaughter. On the other hand, the slaughter of natives on the rest of the Americas was far more swiftly stopped by the (then) powerful Catholic Church, who viewed the natives as stray sheep that HAD to be brought back into the fold. Had the Church refused to act (like it refused to act in favor of the jews and the gypsies during WWII) the natives, LACKING RIGHTS SINCE THEY COULDN'T ENFORCE THEM, would have suffered pretty much the same fate as their north american counterparts.

So, you're saying, where does that leave the animals? Well, if people who could COMMUNICATE with their offenders and who could also PUT UP A FIGHT TO DEFEND THEMSELVES (witness the Battle of Little Big Horn and Hernan Cortez' defeat in his first battle with the Mexica) can have their so-called "universal rights" trampled, what hope is there for animals who lack the intelligence to communicate and defend themselves from us? Simply put, there is none.

Humanity for all its advances is still simply following the same command as every other lifeform on the planet: expand. Difference is, while the rest of the species are reined in by their needs (can't expand to where you can't survive) and thus they remain in balance, Mankind has managed to escape his needs (or rather, he has ensured that his needs are always met) and thus is free to expand wherever it pleases and take what it wants or needs. So if we want X piece of land, we simply take said piece of land and to Hell with everything else. Animals may not be our property in anything more but a legal sense, but they certainly are subject to our whims and actions, since they can't properly defend themselves from them. Thus, they might as well be considered property, and their value to us carefuly gauged when deciding their fate. Those that we find useful will remain (even if their use is for little more than companionship, like hamsters or cats); the rest of them, you can say goodbye to.

[Rkolter]

Animals may not be our property in anything more but a legal sense, but they certainly are subject to our whims and actions, since they can't properly defend themselves from them. Thus, they might as well be considered property, and their value to us carefuly gauged when deciding their fate. Those that we find useful will remain (even if their use is for little more than companionship, like hamsters or cats); the rest of them, you can say goodbye to.

Ironically, this is the very best reason to consider becoming a vegetarian out there - we truely are depleting the animal resources of our planet faster than they can recover (with limited exceptions for animals we ourselves breed, like cows).

I say ironically because I've yet to see it regularly touted as a reason why humans should eat less meat. If it is regularly touted, the message isn't getting very deep into the public.

[Rkolter]

http://www.fishinghurts.com/feat-newcomic.asp

the good folks at PETA have done it again.

I'm surprised rkolter hasn't pointed out that fish blood isn't red.

That's most likely because fish blood is indeed red. Fish use hemoglobin just like all vertibrates. Hemoglobin is an iron-rich protein in red blood cells that is bright red, and that is what colors our (and fish) blood.

[LibertyCabbage]

what the gay