It's personal and Political.

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

So, I first saw this as just an amusing macro.
Then I got the book in the pic as a xmas gift. I have been working my way through it. It's not a straight-up case for vegetarianism. It is written by a vegetarian--who admits as much. But from my reading of his work the authors point isn't to convert you, but to inform you and let you decide.

Now, I'm not a vegetarian. But I may become one. This book is making me pause and think.

Also I think I should say this early on: what I am discussing generally applies to the "first world". In places where food choices are not as plentiful as in the US or other industrialized and developed nations, perhaps the "choice" to eat an animal is one that is easily made as it's eat the animal or starve. So, forgive me if this doesn't exactly apply to you: I know we have an international crew here, but hear me out, if you would.

(for the sake of this post, I shall use "animals" to mean non-human animals)

We can all agree that animals have feelings, right?
Any of us who have had dogs or cats as pets know that they can feel pain, e.g. when we accidentally step on their tail, they shriek in pain and we acknowledge that. We use pain to teach our pets: if a dog does something he shouldn't we give him a thwack on the nose (not too hard of course, but enough to let him know: "don't do that!")

We imprison Micheal Vick for his dog-fights, right?

So we all agree animals can feel pain. And if you don't like my stated assumption that will not be contested in this post (looking at you, horse lover) you can ignore my post. There will not be a discussion of if animals feel pain here. It is assumed and accepted that they do.

Now, dogs aren't so different from pigs or chickens. Yes, there is a difference between them, but there's no reason to assume that pigs, turkeys, chickens and cattle don't feel pain.

Now, if you don't know, you should know that 95%+ of the meat eaten in the US is factory farmed. Now, factory farms are quite what you might imagine them to be. Gigantic "farms" that operate like a factory. The humane element has been removed and replaced with cold efficiency. If baby pigs aren't of the proper size, they will be picked up by their hind legs and have their heads smacked into the concrete floor and then tossed down a chute waiting for the truck that collects all the many pigs killed this way.

The horrors of factory farming are nearly too long to list. Not only do they morally mutilate those who must work in such factory farms, but they also cause significant health risks to humans. Factory farmed animals are fed antibiotics before they are sick--because the "farmers" (more appropriate might be: "factory owners") realize the conditions that their animals live in are so atrocious that they are *expecting* them to get sick.

Then there's the environmental damages done due to the billions of pounds of shit these animals produce. Now, usually shit can be useful as manure--right? But this shit is loaded with all sorts of crap (like antibiotics) and is created in such a quantity that it is not so great for the planet.

Then there's the fact that to produce all the meat we eat, we must feed the animals--and there are starving children who would very much like the food we give to our farmed animals. And yet, we don't. We give it to Bessie so we can have a nice big burger later.

So, I am here asking for help. Tell me, how may I order my next bacon cheeseburger without lamenting the utterly cruel treatment that my burger was built from? The expected death and suffering of factory farmed animals is documented and proven. There's an annual % of the animals *expected* to die at the farm, in transport, and an expected % of them who will not be stunned properly before being killed and an expected % of them will be improperly killed and thus suffer longer than needed. These expected percentages are such because the goal of factory farms is to make money: not to produce animal meat that comes from animals that were treated humanly. We treat our animals with no humanity--nor humanely. We speed up the process that animals are raised in by genetically mutating them. Turkeys on factory farms are *incapable* of reproducing on their own. The insanity of it all is just too much.

So yes, help me. I love my bacon cheeseburgers. They taste AMAZING.
But how can I ever order another one?

Is it as easy as:


And again: in places where meat is a needed part of the diet to fend off starvation, this doesn't apply. But in the US and Europe where factory farming is the predominant method of getting animal meat--can we really allow the cruelty to animals to continue? When we buy food at the supermarket for our BBQ aren't we really farming by proxy and thus supporting the inhumane treatment of our factory farmed animals? Do we need laws to prevent the inhumane treatment of animals? or should we all just be vegetarians and reduce the demand for meat so that the industry doesn't need to fit 5000 chickens in a space that could humanely fit 100?

Comments

[mybodymycoffin.livejournal.com]

Vegetarianism is good. Raising, slaughtering, or hunting, and eating animals is good. Mistreatment of animals is bad. All of these are simultaneously correct.

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

It gets messier when you start trying to define exactly what "mistreatment of animals" is, dontcha think?

[mybodymycoffin.livejournal.com]

Some people might say horticulture or even hunting is mistreatment, but I don't see why we should think so. Is it mistreatment for a lion to eat a gazelle? Nah mang, that's life, and it's good.

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

Oh, I'm not talking about hunting.
I'm talking about factory farms.

You live in....Turkey, right? Perhaps factory farms don't operate there as they do here, but how densely can you pack chickens into a shed before it constitutes mistreatment? Is there any limit or is it limitless?

How many painful genetic abnormalities can you expect due to the genetic engineering before it becomes mistreatment?

Which methods of slaughter are inhumane?

[mybodymycoffin.livejournal.com]

I live in the US. You're thinking of midwinterspring. But I agree with you here, the factory farms that cram chickens into those cages, etc., are immoral and should be stopped.

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

Oh, derp. I am thinking of midwinterspring, my bad.

Well, so where is the line? How much space is humane treatment and how little is inhumane?

The question of which straw breaks the camels back is an important one, but perhaps more important is: why is the camel carrying straw?

[mybodymycoffin.livejournal.com]

Well, so where is the line? How much space is humane treatment and how little is inhumane?

It's a good question which I don't have an answer to as it's outside my expertise. Now, with chickens, I do have family that has raised them before and they raised them in a wire fenced coop and they seemed to do alright. They'd get out and adventure, of course, so maybe they needed more space than they actually gave. But they didn't drug them up, cram them in inadequately sized cages, or all that.

[chron-job.livejournal.com]

> but I don't see why we should think so. Is it mistreatment for a
> lion to eat a gazelle?

Isn't this the naturalist fallicy? Because it happens in nature, it must be right?

Is it 'immoral' for an avalanche to kill a man by dropping rocks on his head?

I would say no... morality doesn't enter into it.

Is it immoral for me to kill a man by dropping rocks on his head? I would say yes (with possible caveats for conditions).

The lack of moral turpitude of avalanches is not an argument for any similar lack when I drop rocks on people.

And so goes the lion argument.

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

This too.

Although it's funny when anti-gay folk say: "other animals don't do it!" and then they're wrong for two counts, one cause of your argument the other cause, well, some animals do.

I never know which argument to nail them with first.

[spaz-own-joo.livejournal.com]

Generally you can just point out that they're wrong about Teh Naturally Occurring Gay, and once that's out in the open they'll suddenly find the second conclusion (that "naturally occuring" does not imply "good") much more palatable.

[mybodymycoffin.livejournal.com]

No. I didn't say anything about it being essentially moral. I said eating animals isn't an example of mistreatment of animals. Animals need to eat, some animals eat other animals. Humans are animals that eat other animals: there's nothing wrong with that in itself just as there's nothing wrong with any other animal that eats other animals eating other animals.

[chron-job.livejournal.com]

> I didn't say anything about it being essentially moral.

Are you sure?

> I said eating animals isn't an example of mistreatment of animals.

What is meant by "mistreatment", and how is it distinct from causing pain/suffering, and killing? For my part, I would consider being killed (typically a necessary aspect of being eaten) a form of mistreatment. Of the many treatments I might wish to avoid, being killed is near the top of the list.

> Humans are animals that eat other animals: there's nothing wrong
> with that in itself

Now, that sounds pretty much to me like you ARE saying it is 'essentially moral', or, in the least, not immoral.

If your assertion is that it is not immoral because "there is nothing wrong with it", that is tautological. If you assertion is that there is nothing wrong with it, because Lions do it, that is the naturalistic fallacy.

[mybodymycoffin.livejournal.com]

Okay. So, like, animals are living things. And animals need to eat to stay alive. Staying alive is important cause life is awesome and the living tend to like it a whole like. Now, some animals, they eat plants and junk. We call them herbivores. Then there are other kinds of animals and they eat other animals. We call them carnivores. There are still other kinds of animals that eat plants and animals, and we call them omnivores. There's no fallacy going on: there is nothing wrong with herbivores being herbivores, carnivores being carnivores, and omnivores being omnivores. Humans are not biologically special in this regard.

The question that matters is not whether it's okay to eat meat but whether it's okay to treat other living things without respect or dignity. The answer to that being, of course, it is not. Animals that are raised to eventually be slaughtered for food can be treated with care and love.

[chron-job.livejournal.com]

> There's no fallacy going on: there is nothing wrong with
> herbivores being herbivores, carnivores being carnivores,
> and omnivores being omnivores. Humans are not biologically
> special in this regard.

A herbivore does the things a herbivore does because it is natural for it to be that way... but that is a question separate from if it is 'right' to do the things that a herbivore does.


Some requirements of nature are necessary to live... that complicates the moral question because we have to balance one life against another, e.g. killing someone to save yourself complicates the moral question of if it is right to kill another person. But for humans, when killing animals in order to live is not a necessity, the moral complications inherent in necessities do not apply.

Earlier you used Lions hunting gazelles as an illustration of the 'rightness' of humans killing animals for food. However, #1) as stated before, the question of what is moral is separate from the question of what is natural, #2) Lions aren't moral agents, and #3) their nature isn't our nature, and their necessities are not our necessities... so using the fact that Lions prey on gazelle as if it were an argument excusing human actions is irrelevant in three completely distinct, but very important ways.

> The question that matters is not whether it's okay to eat
> meat but whether it's okay to treat other living things
> without respect or dignity

Is it OK for me to kill another man, if I am very polite about it? Or if, up to that point, I have treated him with care and love?

[mybodymycoffin.livejournal.com]

A herbivore does the things a herbivore does because it is natural for it to be that way... but that is a question separate from if it is 'right' to do the things that a herbivore does.

Are you really saying it's 'not right' for an herbivore to be an herbivore? I'm not a nihilist, so I'm just going to have to disagree.

e.g. killing someone to save yourself complicates the moral question of if it is right to kill another person.

Not really. Circumstances are neat little things.

Is it OK for me to kill another man, if I am very polite about it? Or if, up to that point, I have treated him with care and love?

As long as you offer tea and crumpets beforehand, yes.