MILLER –
Only to those who post as if they can’t read. And, so we’re clear, what bothered me about your post was you saying I “directly support the torture and death of thousands of animals for [my] personal enjoyment.” I mean, what’s up with that? How can you possibly take that from anything I’ve said? You can’t. It was posted by someone who is either a total idiot, or who can’t read. I give you the benefit of the doubt. Frankly, my other considered option was to tell you to go fuck yourself, but I refrained. Oh, and I’m desolate that my “material” bores you, but I’ll try to carry on, just as you must do if I fail to change my posting style at your request.
Well, color me abashed. Sorry I confused you, let me try again. The torture of an animal is never okay unless absolutely necessary. I cannot think of a case in which it is absolutely necessary. Therefore, AFAIK or can hypothesize, torture of animals is never okay. Clearer?
Oh, I don’t know. As I said, I can’t think of any.
Livestock farming does not involve the intentional torture of animals. Bullfighting does. Really, this isn’t that hard. If you want to talk about the value of livestock farming in a way that indicates you’ve grasped that, I’ll be happy to do discuss it. Otherwise, there’s no real point in attempting to “defend” something I never said. And if you don’t grasp the difference between the quick death of an animal as a food source and the agonizing death of an animal for entertainment, there’s nothing I could possibly say to turn that lightbulb on for you.
You are making the same arguments you made before, but you’re not directly yourself to the substance of what I have already said in response to them: Even if eating meat is a sin akin to sleeping with your sister, that does not explain why bullfighting is morally defensible. In your mind, does one egregious practice (as you apparently paint it) mean that another practice becomes less egregious by comparison? How does that work?
It is delightfully consistent, as it of course would be from a person who does not distinguish between torturing animals and humanely killing animals, and whose ability to even make that distinction is in serious question. I mean, a person who believes “humanely killing them” is a definitional impossibility, or a person who believes we have no right to do so anyway – that person I can respect. But what am I to do with someone who defends the torture of animals by saying “It’s a cow! Who gives a shit how it feels?” I don’t find that “nice,” “enlightened,” or “moral.” I also don’t find it particularly smart, at least so long as you persist in acting like there is no difference between a quick death and torture. I find your post to be, in fact, a nice 'n enlightened reinforcer of my general opinion that people who defend the “sport” of bullfighting are not-overly-bright knuckle-dragging cretins. (I leave out of that opinion people who are raised in the culture of bullfighting and therefore have social indoctrination to justify their defense of it. AFAIK, that does not include you.)
MYTHOS –
Of course the vast majority of animals are sentient. “Sentient: Having sense perception; conscious; experiencing sensation or feeling.” Dictionary.com. On what basis do you assert animals are not sentient?
Wait a minute. You just said that moral imperatives are “entirely secondary to property rights.” Right up there, see? So if slavery were legal and people were property, why would the torture of people be “not okay?” Which is it?
Your “moral system” does not appear to reflect any actual morals, at least so far as this subject is concerned. Rather, it appaparently exhalts property rights at the expense of morality and thereby makes morality optional. That appears to me to be pretty close to definitionally “amoral.”
And MUFFIN, I appreicated your post. I know you’d don’t agree with me entirely (or perhaps even much), but it was nice to see someone who is willing to admit that this is not an all-or-nothing proposition, despite the pro-bullfighting people who continue to attempt to paint it as one.