butthead aka 216

well i eat animals and my only justification is that they taste good and I dont think I need any more than that really. I would like animals for consumption to be killed in more humane ways but that's not realistic and I am not someone who fools themselves into thinking I am doing anything to help out the cause. its not quite as extreme but living in society without any product from animals is similar to trying to live in the US without using any products made in some foreign sweatshop. its just so impractical and impossible. i applaud those who consciously make choices to avoid those things as much as possible but truthfully my life is built around convenience and i am not willing to invest the time and energy to actively seek out non-animal products for the different things in my life.

in response to the 'what makes your dog better than a cow or chicken?' I wonder how far you want to take that argument. What makes a bug less than a cow?? I am sure everyone has killed a bug. Do we constantly look down when walking to avoid trampling ants?? thats kinda extreme but the point i am trying to make is where do you wanna draw the line with this kinda stuff

Scarlett O'Hara

I looked at Peta and they actually had an article about what to do with ants (i.e. don't kill them), it is a pretty extreme concept!

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djchameleon

Oh you too? I feed my babies Science Diet as well. I get them the Oral Care kind to take care of their teeth. Yes, Crazy you do know me well so quickly better than some people that I've supposedly known me for years.

I wouldn't go so far as to torture the chickens or fish that I am going to later eat but I am aware that they are subject to harsh conditions because of all of these shock films that are out. I've already seen other films of the same nature but that's not going to stop me from consuming the diet that I'm currently on. It's not like if I stopped purchasing those products that they will automatically start treating those animals better before shipping them out to other consumers so what's the point?

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Mojo

Wow, so many assumptions and unnecessary ego-stroking in this thread.

Ok, I don't think a thread made where the OP wishes to share a documentary, maybe even present some information, some facts, for the purposes of education is a bad idea or anything that should be bashed. However it's been said already that it doesn't really seem that thats all this thread is about. Theres a difference between presenting information, information a person has the opportunity to take on board on not, and a deliberate attempt to guilt people into thinking the same way you do, and taking what could easily be seen as a moral highground in the process. Do this and people will respond aggressively, regardless of the topic.

This quote:

is why you are receiving a lot of aggressive feedback. Maybe the aggression is warranted, maybe it isn't, I couldn't really care less - but I can certainly see the reasons for it and I also think that because of the aggressive nature of the reaction you received, you overlooked a lot of the content. I consider a lot of it to be valid argument.

What exactly are you trying to say with the comment I highlighted? Is it the torture you are objecting to? Do you think it's important that this is reduced or better policed? Would you think any differently if animals are not being tortured, but still ended up being killed? Is it the killing of the animal you have issue with, or the conditions it is subjected to before it is killed?

Depending on your answers to those questions it seems that you are either:

Concerning yourself with the treatment of animals before they are slaughtered, and where animals are found to be particularly mistreated, kept in poor conditions, or subjected to cruelty and abuse, or

Objecting to the killing of animals for produce altogether, regardless of the conditions preceeding this.

If you are better described as the former, then do you really feel that all meat eaters also don't care about these issues? Judging by your comment, a meat eater is not removing themselves from this equation, therefore they are actively supporting the abuse of animals, and this really is not the case. You can't remove an individuals choice to eat meat, I'm afraid. By eating meat, you aren't supporting the inhumane treatment of the animal.

If you're the latter then you are presuming that all meat eaters dont care about the same issues you do, when in reality they may well do, but they choose to eat meat. And if you're condemning the act of eating meat altogether, regardless of the circumstances, then you really are making yourself oblivious to so many different factors, most of which seem to have already been mentioned here. And also, if this is what you are doing, and you are going to look down on meat eaters in general for their decision to be one, I feel you should prepare yourself for some opposition much stronger than what you have seen in this thread.

I'd liken it, in some ways, to preachers. A preacher can stand on my street corner, or on my local, busy shopping high street, and they can preach to passers by about God. Thats fine, they arent imposing on me and I can respect what they are doing. I can choose to listen to them and I can choose not to. Once they ring my doorbell, at my home, and try to judge me for the choices I have made with my own life - they will have the door closed in their face or worse, and honestly this would be their own decision to subject themselves to that by intruding into peoples lives and questioning decisions they have no right to question.

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Phantom Limb

Ok, to clarify the "If you don't separate yourself from the equation you are actively supporting this kind of torture" statement, it's rather quite simple.

You are financially supporting the kind of acts featured in the film if you choose to buy animal products. It's very black and white, either you do or you don't. I never said it was bad, i never said it was good. Watch Earthlings and decide for yourself.

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Phantom Limb

And just to make sure no one comes in and tries to put words in my mouth again, I am not saying I don't contribute as well.

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butthead aka 216

thats such a loaded thing to say. i am sure you own foreign products from indonesia and china. are you a supporter of child labor? sweatshops?? by your logic, then yes.

Sansa Stark

lmao, right? ^

John Wilkes Booth

The way I look at it most of us actually are implicitly supporting animal abuse, child labor, and exploitation in general. Purchases do carry moral implications. If you buy heroin from Al Qaeda it's fair to say that you are supporting terrorism, even if all you wanted was some heroin.

However, if you're going to use that fact to try to guilt people when it comes to one type of purchase, using tactics like this:
then you have to realize the very same tactic can be applied to any number of other purchases. Since our culture is flooded with products that have iffy moral implications, what you get in response is a general tone of apathy.

Who's willing to stop buying electronics so they know they won't be implicitly supporting the exploitation of children? If not, then you're saying that having some gadget is more important than some African kid having all his limbs.

butthead aka 216

i agree with john in that we indirectly support morally questionable or flat out morally terrible things thru different avenues, whether its the tshirts we wear, things we eat, politicians we supports, etc etc etc. so it sounds stupid for someone like OP to implicate others when he surely supports moral atrocities as well.

my outlook is also that it would be literally impossible in western civ. to not indirectly support some kind of morally questionable things. like literally impossible because our market and system is flooded with it so badly. it helps to not think about it