I don't entirely disagree. I'm not ready to draw a straight line between the two. But I think a mean society that puts a low value on the feelings and suffering of animals will tend to encourage more of that. When you are willing to brutalize some animals...it is a gateway to brutalizing others and a beginning of desensitizing people to greater brutality. Soon the same people think it's okay to kill off "criminals" and foreigners in countries we don't like as well. The only cure for this sort of thing is to a change in culture, where we begin to have empathy for all suffering and stop sanctioning any brutality.
I'd make the point that neglect and all-out torture are quite different. Plus, please realize that this person more than likely has never seen a cow or chicken tortured unless he grew up on a livestock farm or one of his relatives worked on a farm or slaughterhouse. I'd daresay 95% of the meat-eating population hasn't a freakin' clue where thier meat comes from or how it's treated beyond the market they bought it from. It's not like raising livestock is a gateway to ritual animal torture and mutilation.
No, that wasn't my point. She was making it sound like the horrible way we treat our cows and chickens is the reason that people torture kittens. That one leads to the other. I was pointing out that the argument is not supported.
People have been eating meat for 20,000 years or more.
People have not been tormenting animals for pleasure for 20,000 years.
Eating meat doesn't make one indifferent or disrespect life.
Someone stunning (i.e. - putting an electrified steel bolt through the brain of) and then butchering a cow is not the same thing as throwing a live, unsedated kitten on a grill.
The people that work at the beef factory did not torture that kitten. The people that are butchering animals for food aren't inherently disrespectful and indifferent. One very FUCKED UP piece of shit tortured that cat FOR THE SOLE PURPOSE OF BEING A JACKASS, and don't blame the death of cows, pigs, chickens, goats, buffalo, deer, quail, or what have you that are killed and butchered in as humane a way as possible on the torment of that kitten.
You are effectively trying to say that because humans can walk, there is water on Mars.
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timeasmymeasure
Re: Well...
Date: 2002-07-17 03:35 pm (UTC)When you are willing to brutalize some animals...it is a gateway to brutalizing others and a beginning of desensitizing people to greater brutality. Soon the same people think it's okay to kill off "criminals" and foreigners in countries we don't like as well.
The only cure for this sort of thing is to a change in culture, where we begin to have empathy for all suffering and stop sanctioning any brutality.
Re: Well...
Date: 2002-07-17 04:40 pm (UTC)Re: Well...
Date: 2002-07-17 05:15 pm (UTC)Both are bad, but the correlation ends there.
Re: Well...
Date: 2002-07-17 06:07 pm (UTC)Re: Well...
Date: 2002-07-17 06:36 pm (UTC)Re: Well...
Date: 2002-07-17 06:57 pm (UTC)if we can buther a cow? or squash a spider...why stop there?
Re: Well...
Date: 2002-07-17 10:49 pm (UTC)People have not been tormenting animals for pleasure for 20,000 years.
Eating meat doesn't make one indifferent or disrespect life.
Someone stunning (i.e. - putting an electrified steel bolt through the brain of) and then butchering a cow is not the same thing as throwing a live, unsedated kitten on a grill.
The people that work at the beef factory did not torture that kitten. The people that are butchering animals for food aren't inherently disrespectful and indifferent. One very FUCKED UP piece of shit tortured that cat FOR THE SOLE PURPOSE OF BEING A JACKASS, and don't blame the death of cows, pigs, chickens, goats, buffalo, deer, quail, or what have you that are killed and butchered in as humane a way as possible on the torment of that kitten.
You are effectively trying to say that because humans can walk, there is water on Mars.