Animal Rights Disproving Itself

The Batlord · 10-31-2014, 10:51 PM

You Missed My Vulva?

~~Lord Larehip~~ · 11-01-2014, 11:27 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by John Wilkes Booth

as for eating animals... to me it is really quite simple. if you believe that kicking a cat is cruel and should be punished yet you buy meat that was raised on factory farms which cause 1000x as much suffering in animals then you are a hypocrite. there is no ethical principle being defended if you arbitrarily decide which animals can legally suffer and the circumstances under which this can happen.

Bulls-hit. First, you're setting up a straw man argument. It assumes that animals raised as food really suffer "1000x" worse than an animal being abused. Where's your proof? I don't think you've ever seen true cases of animal abuse. I've seen people do things to animals that would make you puke. Moreover, where's your proof that the lives of livestock would be effectively easier if they lived in the wild where they would assuredly live no longer of a life? Would you rather be killed fairly quickly in a slaughterhouse or ripped apart by a pack of dogs or a bunch of crocodiles? I'm sure you've seen it on TV, it's f-ucking brutal to watch. The bottom line is that they are going to be food for something or someone--no getting around it.

That raises the next issue of if we stop eating cows, what do we do with them all? Turn 'em loose? Vegans, anti-hunters and ban-all-guns fanatics apparently have no idea how many whitetail deer there are and how fast they multiply. Without a hunting season most wooded areas would be overgrazed resulting in mass starvation without the culling of deer. And, to me, if you kill an animal--you eat it.

Some animals make good companions, some make good hamburger. I see nothing hypocritical in making that distinction. In fact, failure to make that distinction is something we do at our own peril.

Chula Vista · 11-01-2014, 11:53 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lord Larehip

Bulls-hit. Without a hunting season most wooded areas would be overgrazed resulting in mass starvation without the culling of deer. And, to me, if you kill an animal--you eat it.

Some animals make good companions, some make good hamburger. I see nothing hypocritical in making that distinction. In fact, failure to make that distinction is something we do at our own peril.

Nailed it.

~~John Wilkes Booth~~ · 11-01-2014, 06:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lord Larehip

Bulls-hit.

you're asking a lot of questions at once. some call this the shotgun method of making an argument. luckily this is a written forum so i can answer them one by one for your convenience, friend.

1. First, you're setting up a straw man argument. It assumes that animals raised as food really suffer "1000x" worse than an animal being abused. Where's your proof? I don't think you've ever seen true cases of animal abuse. I've seen people do things to animals that would make you puke.
actually, you're setting up a straw man argument. what i said was that animals in factory farms suffer 1000x worse than that one specific cat that got kicked. now you're talking about other cases of animal abuse that have nothing to do with anything i said and apparently would 'make me puke.' ****in ironic that you resort to the internet cliche of pointing out a fallacy by its name and then commit that very fallacy within the same thought. proof? i don't have "proof," you can call it a subjective claim. i can show you some videos of factory farms that will make me cringe way worse than the cat kicker video is all i'll say.

2. Moreover, where's your proof that the lives of livestock would be effectively easier if they lived in the wild where they would assuredly live no longer of a life?
when did i ever make this claim and how is it relevant?

3. Would you rather be killed fairly quickly in a slaughterhouse or ripped apart by a pack of dogs or a bunch of crocodiles?
why are you assuming that the method of execution is what i think is inhumane here?

I'm sure you've seen it on TV, it's f-ucking brutal to watch. The bottom line is that they are going to be food for something or someone--no getting around it.
actually they wouldn't even exist if we didn't breed them specifically for the purpose of consumption.

4. That raises the next issue of if we stop eating cows, what do we do with them all? Turn 'em loose? Vegans, anti-hunters and ban-all-guns fanatics apparently have no idea how many whitetail deer there are and how fast they multiply. Without a hunting season most wooded areas would be overgrazed resulting in mass starvation without the culling of deer. And, to me, if you kill an animal--you eat it.
why are you creating false dilemmas? we could kill off the ones we already have and process them as we are already doing and stop breeding new ones. this would effectively bring their existence to an end.

Quote:

Some animals make good companions, some make good hamburger. I see nothing hypocritical in making that distinction. In fact, failure to make that distinction is something we do at our own peril.

deep.

DwnWthVwls · 11-01-2014, 06:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by John Wilkes Booth

I'm sure you've seen it on TV, it's f-ucking brutal to watch. The bottom line is that they are going to be food for something or someone--no getting around it.
actually they wouldn't even exist if we didn't breed them specifically for the purpose of consumption.

That's a bogus claim assuming we didn't run them out of their natural habitat. Grazing animals of all sorts live normal wild lives throughout the entire world. A cows miserable existence was purposefully created by humans for the sake of consumption as part of the solution for feeding the nation. The only animals that will ever need humans are the ones WE forced into human reliance. I suppose you could also make an argument for the ones we have made efforts to save from extinction, but I think in most cases we are to blame for the cause of their decreasing populus and extinction happens as part of the natural system (only time will tell if we manage to escape the inevitable changes the planet makes every x1000 years).

Quote:

Originally Posted by John Wilkes Booth

4. That raises the next issue of if we stop eating cows, what do we do with them all? Turn 'em loose? Vegans, anti-hunters and ban-all-guns fanatics apparently have no idea how many whitetail deer there are and how fast they multiply. Without a hunting season most wooded areas would be overgrazed resulting in mass starvation without the culling of deer. And, to me, if you kill an animal--you eat it.

why are you creating false dilemmas? we could kill off the ones we already have and process them as we are already doing and stop breeding new ones. this would effectively bring their existence to an end.

This is the bigger problem. We have developed the country in such a way making changes like this is near impossible. I'm all for a vegetarian lifestyle, organic farming, and all other things that hold the environment/wildlife near the top. The problem is creating realistic solutions to undo the last 100+ years of development. You can't just expect the majority of America to change over night. If we ever get there it will take some insane technological advances or a ****load of time and energy redefining American culture as we know it.

~~John Wilkes Booth~~ · 11-01-2014, 07:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DwnWthVwls

That's a bogus claim assuming we didn't run them out of their natural habitat. Grazing animals of all sorts live normal wild lives throughout the entire world. A cows miserable existence was purposefully created by humans for the sake of consumption as part of the solution for feeding the nation. The only animals that will ever need humans are the ones WE forced into human reliance. I suppose you could also make an argument for the ones we have made efforts to save from extinction, but I think in most cases we are to blame for the cause of their decreasing populus and extinction happens as part of the natural system (only time will tell if we manage to escape the inevitable changes the planet makes every x1000 years).

i'm not necessarily talking about the species, i'm talking about the millions/billions of individual animals that are born, raised and slaughtered for consumption. you can't just assume the natural world would have birthed all these animals regardless of our interference

Quote:

This is the bigger problem. We have developed the country in such a way making changes like this is near impossible. I'm all for a vegetarian lifestyle, organic farming, and all other things that hold the environment/wildlife near the top. The problem is creating realistic solutions to undo the last 100+ years of development. You can't just expect the majority of America to change over night. If we ever get there it will take some insane technological advances or a ****load of time and energy redefining American culture as we know it.

i'm not saying i do expect said changes. i'm a meat eater. i'm saying stop ignoring the fact that we are willing to look the other way when animals suffer and stop making dumb laws based on your instinct to protect cute ****.

The Batlord · 11-01-2014, 08:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by John Wilkes Booth

i'm not necessarily talking about the species, i'm talking about the millions/billions of individual animals that are born, raised and slaughtered for consumption. you can't just assume the natural world would have birthed all these animals regardless of our interference

I could be wrong, but I think that at least with that particular point DwnWthVwls might have been responding to Larehip's post that you were quoting. At least it would make more sense if he was.

Quote:

i'm not saying i do expect said changes. i'm a meat eater. i'm saying stop ignoring the fact that we are willing to look the other way when animals suffer and stop making dumb laws based on your instinct to protect cute ****.

I think we may have covered this a while back when we had a similar discussion in another thread, but would you be averse to laws that treated "pet" animals differently to "food" animals, if they were more logically consistent?

I agree with you about giving animals rights based on their ability to contribute to society. I've seen this discussion in other forms over the years before, and I know that the specifics are pretty hard, if not impossible, to get straight, just as it's difficult with discussions of what does and does not constitute sentience in animals, or at least sentience worth giving at least partial legal rights to (such as with chimpanzees and dolphins). But the basic argument is sound. The entire logical, evolutionary justification for morality and laws is that they make it possible for humans to coexist in society, and passing laws that don't match up to our current sense of morality may lead to confusion and inconsistency, which can affect other areas of society, at least indirectly. Basically, like the long-term, unintended consequences of a legal precedent decided upon short-term logic.

But at the same time, even if pet animals aren't aware of the social contract that humans knowingly abide by, they still provide a service to society---through emotional fulfillment to their owners that isn't likewise provided by food animals---that would be undermined if there were not laws to protect them. So, even if the logic is tenuous and at times contradictory, there is still a viable reason to give them at least some protection that doesn't necessarily extend to food animals.

DwnWthVwls · 11-01-2014, 08:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by John Wilkes Booth

i'm not necessarily talking about the species, i'm talking about the millions/billions of individual animals that are born, raised and slaughtered for consumption. you can't just assume the natural world would have birthed all these animals regardless of our interference.

i'm not saying i do expect said changes. i'm a meat eater. i'm saying stop ignoring the fact that we are willing to look the other way when animals suffer and stop making dumb laws based on your instinct to protect cute ****.

Gotcha. I thought you meant cows in general, but I see what you were saying.

I actually agree with you on the second point, I understood what you meant. I was adding there is no easy way to handle the situation. The ends may justify the means to some, but losing all those animals to revolutionize American food practices would not be reasonable for a lot of people who are currently unhappy with the system.

~~John Wilkes Booth~~ · 11-01-2014, 08:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Batlord

I think we may have covered this a while back when we had a similar discussion in another thread, but would you be averse to laws that treated "pet" animals differently to "food" animals, if they were more logically consistent?

well i do think things we enforce should be logically consistent but ultimately the way i really judge it is whether it is logically consistent given the overall goal we are trying to achieve by having laws in the first place. so i'm not saying by definition we can't play favorites with animals. i'm saying is this manifestation of that really in our best interests? are we doing something beneficial by locking this guy up or are we wasting our time or worse, acting directly against our own interests for the sake of some misguided moral outrage?

DwnWthVwls · 11-01-2014, 08:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Batlord

But at the same time, even if pet animals aren't aware of the social contract that humans knowingly abide by, they still provide a service to society---through emotional fulfillment to their owners that isn't likewise provided by food animals---that would be undermined if there were not laws to protect them. So, even if the logic is tenuous and at times contradictory, there is still a viable reason to give them at least some protection that doesn't necessarily extend to food animals.

Food is a large part of every culture in the world. To say(indirectly) there is no emotional attachment to food is an absurd reason for justifying different treatment of food animals vs pet animals. If anything food animals should be more valued by your logic (you know, like the appreciation shown by the Natives), regardless I view them as another living thing and I want a system that harms as few living things as possible and protects as many as it can. Also, there a **** ton of "pet" animals (Lizards, fish, spiders, etc) that don't provide a whole lot of emotion or help to society, do we afford them the same luxuries as dogs and cats?

I agree with JWB that the laws should be there as a guide to meet long term goals and suit our best interests, but I am sure our ways of defining those two things are much different.