Rather than hijack an alredy hijacked thread, let’s put it here:
Is killing wild animals better or worse than killing animals raised, caged, and injected for broad consumer consumption?
Don’t waste your time. I’ve heard Stoid’s arguement from a few other people as well. She isn’t against killing animals for food she’s just against people who enjoy doing it. If you enjoy hunting then in her book, and many others, you’re a sicko. (Yeah, read her post in that other thread about having a boner and tell me she doesn’t think hunters are sick.) But I may as well do my best to explain.
This might surprise some of you but hunting isn’t just about killing. Hey, quit laughing you animal folks I’m serious, thanks. There’s a whole lot of things one does on a hunting trip besides killing.
But I admit it when I take down an elk I’m rather happy about it. I do take some pleasure in the killing of other animals because all my efforts put into hunting have paid off and I’ll get to eat the damn thing. Pleasure is not derived from killing simply for the sake of killing.
Everybody who enjoys eating meat is taking pleasure in the death of another animal. Why one’s soul is cleaner if they never partake in the killing is beyong me.
Marc
has helpfully answered it for me.
Animals raised for food should be treated humanely, allowed to live a relatively normal and comfortable life, with room to roam. The killing should be as fast and painless as possible.
I’ve already said, Mr. Z, and you read it for yourself, and MGibson said it here again: why you would take pleasure in the act of killing is beyond me to understand. Yes, I think it’s disgusting, repulsive and weird to enjoy that.
Someone around here tried to tell me that they enjoyed the nature, the camping, the blah blah blah…which is ridiculous. You can enjoy all the peripherals to hunting without killing anything. Why not just go camping? There must be something about causing the death of something else that you enjoy or you wouldn’t do it, and no, I don’t appreciate that, even a little. Even intellectually. Yuck.
stoid
Camping: You go somewhere, you plop down on your butt for a couple days, and you down a few beers. If you’re lucky, you see a rabbit.
Hunting: Pitting human reason and ingenuity with the wiliness and instinct of nature. Kind of like football, where one side has sentience and the other has better senses.
“Why not just go camping” indeed. That’s like saying “Why drive a car when you can just walk or ride a bike?”
First question: Could someone please post a link to the original thread you’re discussing. Thanks.
Fair enough Stoidela, you have your point of view. I can accept that. Yes I enjoy hunting. Yes it’s human instinct. I find it sick and weird that anyone could not accept hunting as a natural drive in a naturally hunting species. To me the attitude is as indicative of mental dysfunction as the attitudes of people who find other normal human functions weird and disgusting, such as people who cannot enter enclosed dwellings, cannot stand to wear clothes or who fear fire. All are ingrained human behaviours that have according to all respected authorities contributed materially the advancement of the human race.
Do you find the hunting drive in dogs, cats or duckbilled platypi disgusting, repulsive and weird? If so you appear to be making emotional calls on animals of dubious emotional ability. If not is it because you assume humans should over-ride all our instincts? If this is so firstly why do you believe this, and secondly do you also find it sick, disgusting and weird that people enjoy gardening, which without a doubt has led to the slow and painful deaths of more animals than hunting ever has? Do you find it sick weird and disgusting that people still engage in sex despite a total lack of biological need, even when sexual acts lead to the slow painful deaths of human beings, including children? Do you find it sick weird and disgusting that people utilise make-up to make themselves more socially successful, even when this is not necessary for survival and also contributes to the slow painful deaths of animals? Or people accumulating wealth for reasons other than out-and out survival, which has also led to the slow deaths of countless animals? If you do find these things disgusting then I assume you live in the minimum possible standard of housing in your area, use only human-powered transport except for emergencies and have the minimum level of assets. Is this the case?
If you do not find the abovementioned behaviours disgusting could you please explain the difference, because I’m blowed if I can see what makes hunting different? People enjoy hunting, it kills animals, sometimes slowly. People enjoy gardening, it kills animals, mostly slowly. Both types of enjoyment stem from a deep human desire to garner food and modify their environment. Neither pastime is necessary for in excess of 85% of the population of industrialised nations. People can also enjoy all the peripherals to gardening or asset acquisition without killing animals but don’t. Could you also explain why you distinguish between hunting and the accumulation of assets, use of cosmetics and engaging in sexual activities?
I’ve had this discussion with several people who were against hunting. None has ever given me a clear answer any of these questions. I think in most cases the answer lies in the idea that somehow killing an animal is removing something sacred from the world akin to taking a human life, and that that is evil. If someone honestly cannot differentiate at both the base emotional and highest intellectual levels between the taking of a human life and the killing of an animal then that to me is truly sick, weird and disgusting, and frankly scary.
Stoidela’s arguement is just more unsupported PC mindcontrol. It is the right opinion…
…just because it is.
Actually I think the drive behind it is just another attack on gun ownership. So many people try to justify gun ownership by citing hunting. So hunting became a natural target on the way to banning guns.
Of course this misses the fact that hunting has nothing whatsoever to do with the 2nd Amendment.
I don’t think I “enjoy” shooting a deer or a wild turkey any more than I “enjoy” pulling an ear of corn off the stalk. In my mind, both are just different forms of harvesting a crop.
Never raised anywhere near guns, hunting, etc. Not my thing at all. But viewing the whole thing on a somewhat impartial perspective, I have to say that I really don’t see a whole lot wrong with it.
If you want to drag the whole baggage into the debate of “yeah, but what’s your true MOTIVATION for killing? that’s just not natural” , well, then, I think we’re beyond the realm of logical arguement. Because it’s a pretty small leap from hunting individually and raising animals for slaughter. The latter is a logical extension/evolution of the former. It’s pretty hard to label these activities right and wrong based solely on the motivations one ascribes to the hunter.
If there should be some sort of division drawn between hunting for sport (whether you eat your kill or not) and hunting out of necessity (you eat your kill for survival), well, that’s perhaps an extension to this debate; but a somewhat artificial one at that, IMHO.
Additionally, arguing for or against hunting based on arguements that have more to do with species endangerment and environmental impact, now THERE’S where the meat of this (har) should lie for the anti-hunting contingency. Any thoughts along these lines, Stoid?
spooje does not hunt. He does not enjoy hunting. It is not because he some sort of superior attitude or thinks it is immoral. It is becasue he is ‘squeamish’.
I remember watching ‘Politically Incorrect’ when Ted Nugent was on, and he was being assailed on all sides for his pro hunting stance. I’m not a fan of Ted, but I thought he was right. He hunted the way our ancestors did, the way the indians did{except for the steel crossbow and all).
Ted would surely agree with this sentiment.
Here we are equating ‘relatively normal and comfortable’ with captivity. And as far as ‘room to roam’, well if you’ve ever experienced the wonder of a stockyard…
Hunting is an instinct, one which I lack. It is the way the world is set up, either by God or Mother Nature. One of 'em made fulfilling the instinct enjoyable. If it wasn’t, we probably wouldn’t do it.
It has nothing to do with should or shouldn’t. It has to do with how I feel about it. I have never even intimated that hunting should be outlawed (although, in fact, I strongly support all current regulations on hunting, and I think that the “hunters” who “hunt” animals trapped for that purpose are bordering on sub-human and that revolting practice should absolutely be outlawed if it isn’t already). I expressed my opinion of the matter: people who hunt when they do not have to are doing it because they take pleasure in it. People who take pleasure in the act of killing are just not my kinda people, ok? And all attempts to portray it as something other than killing because you enjoy it are disingenuous. It is what it is, if you enjoy it, terrific. Have at it. But don’t deny that what you are enjoying is killing animals. And if you feel the need to try and call it something else, maybe you have more of an issue with it than you are willing to admit? Why resist the accurate description that you enjoy killing? You do, no need to be ashamed of it or deny it or try to prettify it.
It is very interesting that you bring gardening up. Although I’m not sure how gardening leads to slow and painful death of animals, it certainly never did when I was doing it. (Except perhaps for insects, and I assure you that for every one I killed, I ended up feeding a thousand others. Sigh. I sucked at gardening.) What it did lead to, though, was my acceptance of my carnivorous nature. I raised my plants from seed…and then I killed them to eat them. It was a little sad, I was kinda attached to my plants. But it is, after all, the way the system was designed. Living things have to eat other living things. *But they do not have to turn the practice of killing the other living things into a ritualized amusement. *
I believe I’ve made it quite clear what I object to. You can debate or argue with what I have said if you like, but keep in mind that I am not all the other people you have argued this with - their reasons and attitudes are not mine.
Here again I need to whip out my very favorite statement in the world about animals, with which I agree completely:
“We need another and a wiser and perhaps a more mystical concept of animals. Remote from universal nature, and living by complicated artifice, man in civilization surveys the creatures through the glass of his knowledge and sees thereby a feather magnified and the whole image in distortion. We patronize them for their incompleteness, for their tragic fate of having taken form so far below ourselves. And therein we err, we greatly err. For the animals shall not be measure by man. In a world older and more complete, gifted with extension of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear. They are not brethren, they are not underlings. They are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendour and travail of the earth.” – Henry Beston
I recognize and accept, because I pretty much have no choice, that animals of all kinds are going to suffer because of us.
There is a huge spectrum of attitude regarding our relationship to animals. On one end, we have the religious sect in India, I believe it is, which reveres all life so highly that they gently sweep the ground in front of them as they walk so as to avoid accidentally stepping on an insect. These same people are the keepers of the Rat Temple, I believe, a religious building that houses millions of rats.
At the other end of the spectrum, you have sadistic fucks that come up with completely insane and useless “experiments” to perform on animals, such as tying down a live and conscious pig and blowtorching it to see …well, shit, I have no idea WHAT they were trying to prove, actually. But I saw it with my own eyes, along with lots of other horrifying things.
The key is to find where on the spectrum we can live with ourselves and the animals can live, too.
I never wish for any higher life form (I’m not going to get excited about cockroaches, we all draw lines and I have mine.) to ever suffer physically or psychologically any more than the absolute minimum possible in order to serve only our most pressing needs. In other words, yes, we can raise catlle and pigs and chickens and turkeys to eat, but we must not torment them in life (and we DO) and we must make their deaths fast and as pain-free as we can. (which, by the way, makes their meat better anyway, so it is in our interest to do so.)
In very rare cases, I can assent to using animals for medical research. Most of the time, animal models do not apply to humans. But if it must be so, then those animals must not be made to suffer in the process, and they must have decent living arrangements. This is particularly crucial for our fellow primates, whose psyches are really not so different from our own, and who can experience confinement and separation from family as the same emotional torture that we do.
Beyond this, I think there are no good reasons to cause the death and suffering of animals. I think it is our job, as the rulers of the planet, to protect the “other nations” that share it with us. It is an astonishing and marvelous place, this planet of ours, and shame on us for treating it so shabbily as we have up to now. We must do better.
So. Have I answered your questions?
But Stoidela, these “other nations” constantly kill, maim, hurt and drive into extinction their fellow creatures. Why should we act any differently?
If we’re a part of nature, the same rules apply to us as apply to other species - meaning, none at all.
A long time ago, people were hunters and gatherers, they survived as long as there was game to hunt and forage available. The population increased and the need for more game and forage to support the population increased. Man contended with the increased needs by domesticating some animals and raising crops. Man destroyed natural wildlife sustaining areas and natural forage areas turning the land into farm and ranch lands. Man continues to destroy natural wildlife and forage areas, just take a look at the suburbs, malls, ski areas and resorts that are being placed in natural migration routes.
Man continues to hunt and gather, examples would include deer and elk hunting and gathering of huckleberries, gooseberries and morel mushrooms. I enjoy hunting, fishing and picking berries and searching out the delicious morel mushrooms. I do not feel the hunting of game animals is cruel, take a trip to a slaughter house and observe what happens inside the closed doors.
I support the local deer, elk and big horn sheep herds by volunteering considerable time and labor manning feeding stations, tagging and observing, collecting DNA and a multitude of other activities. I have seen the results of what can happen to game animals left to the devices of mother nature, it is not a pretty sight. In all the thousands of hours I have been doing volunteer work for the game animals, I have never seen an animals rights person.
We do have non-hunters that volunteer but they are not anti-hunting, we all join together to support and sustain our wildlife and their habitats.
Stoid writes:
Have you ever seen a cat play with a mouse? We could discuss all the evolutionary benefit the cat gets from torturing the mouse, such as honing its reflexes,trainig paw-eye coordination, etc. But it sure looks to me like the cat is trying to have fun.
you guys want to have it both ways.
On the one hand, we are supposedly “better” and “more important” than all the other animals on earth. That’s why it is supposedly ok for us to use animals for reseach, make them perform in circuses, and stare at them in zoos. Well, why is that? Because we’re smarter? Because we are able to rise above our base instincts and ** think **? Because we have something more on our minds than what’s for dinner?
Well, there ya go. If we’re better because we’re not tied to our instincts (which we are not…at least most of us. Snort), then we have to act accordingly, recognize the value of life on earth, and treat it with the honor it demands. We can’t just cheese out and say “hey man, I’m only a animul myself…hehehehe”
stoid
Its ok for us because we have the power and they don’t. Thats all it ever comes down to.
…and I wondered if she actually knows the regulations and the reasons behind them.
Eh, Gaspode, you want a link? I think it’s this one.
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=50787&pagenumber=2
It’s the “Short-circuiting the illegitimate Bush presidency” thread, and I’m not really sure how it got hijacked onto animal rights. The discussion of politics took a left-hand turn in the middle of page 2, into Alaskan oil drilling, and then into “who owns the wilderness?” and then Stoidela says this:
and Mr.Zambezi responds with this:
Annndd…they’re OFF!! It’s Stoidela in the lead, at the end of page 2, and coming around the clubhouse turn it’s Lemur866 in the lead,
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=50787&pagenumber=3 and then it’s–Zenster! It’s Zenster moving up strongly on the outside, and–oh, heck, the whole thing just turns into a slapfest. But it’s kinda fascinating to watch, you know?
Important to whom?
Nature?
God?
The Invisable Pink Unicorn?
The word “important”, after all, implies intent.
…this is just ridiculous:
You have obviously been going about it completely incorrectly.
Hi everyone, my (board)name is Shayna, and I am a hypocrite.
And I am wont to explain it with any reasonableness whatsoever.
I abhor fishing. Don’t ever invite me out for a day of leisurely sport fishing. I think it’s cruel and unusual punishment and I cannot bear to watch a poor, defenseless creature struggle for its life with a hook in its mouth. {{shiver}} I also maintain an aquarium with pet tropical fish. I would never dream of dropping a hook into their water and luring one of my fishies to their death.
However, I enjoy eating seafood and I never ran screaming in protest from the restaurants in Mexico when I lived there, where the fresh catch of the day was truly the fresh catch of the day, caught by a fisherman who’d hooked the little critter in the bay just hours before I enjoyed it draped in garlic butter.
I loathe the idea of hunting. The thought of gunning down an innocent creature that’s just out minding its own business sickens me. Marisa Tomei’s character in My Cousin Vinny summed up my feelings pretty well when she said, “Imagine you’re a deer. You’re prancing around. You get thirsty. You spot a little brook. You put your little deer lips down to the clear water, and - BAM! A fuckin’ bullet rips off part of your head! Your brains are lying on the ground in little bloody pieces. Now I ask you, do you give a fuck what kind of pants the son-of-a-bitch who shot you was wearing?!”
The idea that someone could actually enjoy inflicting this kind of harm to an animal is mind-boggling to me. That’d be like someone coming into my house and shooting my sweet kitty cat, AFAIC.
I am also careful to buy products that are manufactured by companies that do not do animal testing other than what is required by law (a list of which can be found here), such as Purex laundry detergent (The Dial Corp.), Colgate toothpaste (Colgate-Palmolive) and Almay cosmetics (Revlon). I boycott companies such as Procter & Gamble Co., who continue to test their household products on animals, which is not required by law.
However… I eat meat. And I wear leather. ::GASP!:: I enjoy a good steak, pork chops, hamburger, etc.
I also understand the cruelties that nature can inflict when herds overpopulate and starvation would occur were it not for the hunters who are allowed to “thin the herds” during these times. In those cases I can reconcile myself emotionally that hunting serves a higher purpose than leaving animals to starve to death. I also know that slaughterhouses are not necessarily more humane (and in many cases, probably less so) than the skilled hunter who kills his prey swiftly and cleanly.
So, on an emotional level, I find hunting and fishing, and those who do it, to be cruel. I find myself agreeing with Stoidela on the surface, in that if you enjoy killing animals for the pure sport, that’s kindof sick. But on the other hand, intellectually, I understand that the meat and fish on my plate got killed somehow, and I don’t object to it when its purpose is one I agree with (domesticating animals to feed the population, assisting nature in actually maintaining a balance in the environment).
So what’s a poor hypocrite to do?