Cruelty to animals

[Terxpahseyton]

@G-Max
Cool, so lets make it really simple so we can focus on what is essential:
People die. Hence it is okay if I kill people?

 

[emzie]

Hey, it was a murderer....

Yeah, the circus hired a local homeless man to work as the elephant trainer. The trainer attempted to control the elephant by putting a spike through the ear.

Not really murder.

 

[Terxpahseyton]

Hey, it was a murderer....

What I found so obscure is that people went to such length to hang this creature instead of simply shooting it. Like it meant a special pleasure to them.

 

[G-Max]

@G-Max
Cool, so lets make it really simple so we can focus on what is essential:
People die. Hence it is okay if I kill people?

It's only okay to kill the ones whose right to die cannot be exercised and whose right to live cannot be protected, and it's only okay to do so if you plan on putting their carcass to better use than whatever would otherwise happen to it. You bring me to a conclusion that I had not anticipated, but which I accept as logical: How is going to a forest, shooting a deer, and eating venison for a few months afterward any morally different from going to Somalia, shooting one of the humans there, and feasting on human brains like a zombie? The difference is that the Somali can exercise the right to die at any time, whereas the deer does not understand the concept of suicide and therefore cannot exercise that same right. How is going to a forest, shooting a deer, and eating venison for a few months any morally different from going to a farm, slaughtering a cow, and feasting on beef for months? The cow's right to life can be protected, whereas the deer's cannot. How is going to a forest, shooting a deer, and eating venison for a few months any morally different from going to the same forest, shooting the same deer, and not making use of it? You're denying some other animal the chance to eat the deer, which is now more likely to rot and go to waste.

 

[aelf]

Cruelty to animals is a symbol; people eating animals is a symbol; people disgust towards inflicting unnecessary harm on animals is also a symbol.

In the end, we are just cruel to symbols... or are we?

 

[Samson]

I'm not against meat for food. But I do think that it should be handled without unnecessary cruelty.

The question is what does is "necessary" cruelty? We could treat our farm animals as well as possible, something like Kobe Beef. This would raise the cost of meat to above what most people would be able to afford. Is anything less than this unnecessary cruelty?

 

[kochman]

What is your view about this issue?

Also (since i expect most or all are against it) where do you base this position?

Recently some person i had to take out of my facebook feed kept posting image after image of animal abuse. By this i do not mean abuse of domestic/stray pets, but the killing of animals which are used for food.

I think that most people are against cruelty to pets, but in favor/neutral of exploiting farm animals. Again i would like to ask how you justify that.

This issue has come up periodically in this forum, but maybe this time it can lead to some better discussion without flaming

As for me, i am not against the killing of farm animals, and their general exploitation, as long as it remains as humane as possible. I am well-aware that this is not always the case though, but think that it is the lesser of two evils, to keep using those animals for human benefit.
As for pets, i am against cruelty towards them, although i do not really agree that people who damage those creatures are bound to graduate to harming other humans.

I'll eat the animals that I don't pet.
I don't pet cows, pigs, lamb, goat, chickens, turkeys...

I pet horses, dogs, cats.

That's pretty much how I decide anyhow...

I also don't eat vital organs (hearts, liver, etc). No good reason for it, I suppose.

 

[Cutlass]

The question is what does is "necessary" cruelty? We could treat our farm animals as well as possible, something like Kobe Beef. This would raise the cost of meat to above what most people would be able to afford. Is anything less than this unnecessary cruelty?

I think there has to be a medium someplace. Some way of having the animals not suffer unduly, but still a cost effective way of producing food. I don't know exactly how to work that out. But I do think there is likely a way.

 

[duckstab]

What I found so obscure is that people went to such length to hang this creature instead of simply shooting it. Like it meant a special pleasure to them.

When I saw this stomach-turning picture it immediately made me think of a certain 1920s postcard. It featured the lynching of a black man that took place up the road in Waco, with the white vigilantes proudly posing around the swinging body. The fact that such things happened so shamelessly that somebody actually had no second thoughts about putting it on a postcard just boggles my mind.

I think anyone who's capable of cold-blooded cruelty to a non-human animal is likely capable of doing the same to a person - the mindset is exactly the same. It never surprises me when I read that some sadistic killer's first victims were animals.

 

[Leonel]

If one cannot show simple mercy and love to one of God's smallest and lowest creatures, how can one be expected to do the same with a human being?

 

[Formaldehyde]

When I saw this stomach-turning picture it immediately made me think of a certain 1920s postcard. It featured the lynching of a black man that took place up the road in Waco, with the white vigilantes proudly posing around the swinging body. The fact that such things happened so shamelessly that somebody actually had no second thoughts about putting it on a postcard just boggles my mind.

I think anyone who's capable of cold-blooded cruelty to a non-human animal is likely capable of doing the same to a person - the mindset is exactly the same. It never surprises me when I read that some sadistic killer's first victims were animals.

The similarities go far beyond that:

http://blueridgecountry.com/archive/mary-the-elephant/page-2.html

There is a final irony clinging to the story of Murderous Mary, one that firmly places Mary's murder in a time and place. In an article published in the March 1971 issue of the Tennessee Folklore Society Bulletin, author Thomas Burton reports that some local residents recall "two Negro keepers" being hung alongside Mary, and that others remember Mary's corpse being burned on a pile of crossties. "This belief," Burton writes, "may stem from a fusion of the hanging with another incident that occurred in Erwin, the burning on a pile of crossties of a Negro who allegedly abducted a white girl."

The murder of an elephant: a spectacle. The murder of "a Negro": another spectacle.

It was 1916 -- a good year for scapegoats in America.

 

[Samson]

I think there has to be a medium someplace. Some way of having the animals not suffer unduly, but still a cost effective way of producing food. I don't know exactly how to work that out. But I do think there is likely a way.

I quite agree. My point was that where the "right" place is is difficult to determine, and one cannot simply say undue or unnesasery suffering.

 

[Terxpahseyton]

@G-Max
All your rationalizing doesn't change the fact that by shooting the deer you steal from it precious life time for no good reason. Your notion of the inevitability of a unpleasant death doesn't account for the dimension of time, but rests on a morally unconvincing premise of "it happens anyway".
Likewise, you don't kill humans even though humans die anyway because they will die later.

 

[MantaRevan]

Manta rays. Oh, yeah, and manta rays.

 

[emzie]

@G-Max
All your rationalizing doesn't change the fact that by shooting the deer you steal from it precious life time for no good reason. Your notion of the inevitability of a unpleasant death doesn't account for the dimension of time, but rests on a morally unconvincing premise of "it happens anyway".
Likewise, you don't kill humans even though humans die anyway because they will die later.

Assuming you eat grain, you're complicit in the deaths of millions of small rodents every year.

 

[Terxpahseyton]

You don't even need to bother with that. I am not a veggie. But I also don't engage in hypocritical or inconsistent rationalizations to justify the evilness I am a part of.

 

[Flying Pig]

I'll eat the animals that I don't pet.
I don't pet cows, pigs, lamb, goat, chickens, turkeys...

I pet horses, dogs, cats.

That's pretty much how I decide anyhow...

I also don't eat vital organs (hearts, liver, etc). No good reason for it, I suppose.

I always thought that it was to do with not eating carnivores, which risks all sorts of nasty diseases (BSE, for example). And if you don't eat liver, you're missing out.

 

[rugbyLEAGUEfan]

I also don't eat vital organs (hearts, liver, etc). No good reason for it, I suppose.

I'd consider flesh fairly vital

 

[kochman]

I'd consider flesh fairly vital

Muscles are important, but you can lose some and not die... you can't lose a part of your heart! Vital organs may not have been the best term...
Let me rephrase... anything that isn't muscle, forget it, and I won't eat all muscles either (heart, tongue, etc).

 

[rugbyLEAGUEfan]

Muscles are important, but you can lose some and not die... you can't lose a part of your heart! Vital organs may not have been the best term...
Let me rephrase... anything that isn't muscle, forget it, and I won't eat all muscles either (heart, tongue, etc).

I was more meaning skin, the largest organ in the human body and definitely vital. But actually you're use of "vital organs" is definitely the best term and I knew what you meant. I was just bored.