Dogs shouldn’t be left in hot cars with the window rolled up. Your other stuff about trapping, hunting with dogs, or meat industry is totally absurd. Your support of legislation attacking both is an act of outright cultural bigotry AFAIC.
Unregistered Bull, I’m getting tired of animal rights debates, so I think I’m going to sit this thread out. But, just so you don’t feel like you’re getting ganged up on, I will say that I’m sympathetic to your position (even though I’d probably give animals slightly more extensive rights then you). Have fun arguing it. 
Now, I’m off to cook me some foie gras stuffed veal cutlets steamed in the tears of beaten children.
I agree, but why not? My answer is because there should be some legally enforcable threshold (howver vague) of cruelty which this behaviour crosses. What is your answer?
Is it not that I have simply placed my threshold at a somewhat “higher” level than yours? Is it absurd to even have a different threshold than yours?
I take this that you do indeed set a conditional threshold of what behaviour towards animals ought not to be allowed. To mine eyes, your particular conditions present all kinds of loopholes for justifying outright sadistic torture (could a latter day L Ron Hubbard start a Church of the Feline Anal Firecracker?), but we disagree only by degree, really.
Sentient Meat, to clarify, are you taking the position that crate training is cruel, or simply trying to ascertain **UB’**s position?
Zhao, just out of curiosity…
You lit into Unregistered Bull because he did not post “reasons and evidence”. Yet Post number 3 in that thread was from jimpatro, who also did not show “reasons and evidence”. But you didn’t get on his case, because he agreed with you.
Hmmm…it appears that as long as someone agrees with you, they get a pass. But if they disagree, you jump up and down and demand “reasons and evidence”. Rather inconsistant, it seems…
Yes, I believe crate training is cruel and should be outlawed. I try to eat meat only from sources where some minimum benchmark of animal welfare has been credited (though I’m not ultra-conscientious by any means). However, I understand full well that all wild animals ultimately die in pain: I seek only to curb those practices I consider needlessly aggravate this pain. Bull’s gun-hunting is fine with me, but dressing up and exhausting his quarry over several hours when a spotlight and a rifle would have done just fine falls marginally on the wrong side of my particular threshold, as does deliberately tripping animals up when a fine old rodeo show is possible without it.
And just to clarify, this is still not “giving animals rights”, right?
And, incidentally, if the “culture” and “tradition” are so important, Animal Rightists (and I’m still not sure if I’m classed as such yet) can argue that our countries have a long standing cultural tradition of addressing cruelty and barbarism via appropriate legislation.
Dogs shouldn’t be left in a hot car because it’s UNNECESSARILY cruel.
It’s not only a difference in thresholds of animal treatment but a difference in respect levels of cultures different than ones own IMO.
Let there be loopholes, for a society to be respectful of different human cultures, there has to be. Your religion idea certainly gives a new meaning to “Black Cats” 
(opular brand of US firecrackers). But I am thinking more in the terms of respecting Santería practices or, as I’ve seen on the news about Iraq, the traditional slaughter of chicken to somehow bless a new house.
I do think most ideas held by AR people are absurd. Especially the more radical ones. And I can certainly be an asshole when pointing that out. But I really don’t have a problem with them having those beliefs that are so very different than mine. It’s just when they try to get the State involved in discriminatory behaviour because of those beliefs that I have problem with them. I’m all for live and let live even if I don’t like others’ lifetstyles. I just wish others would adhere to a similar philosophy.
That is a culture or tradition that harms other HUMANS. I’m all for not respecting and even legislating against a traditional or cultural practice that harms HUMANS. Animal use doesn’t fall HUMAN harm arena IMO.
SentientMeat,
To me, crate training is a method used to housebreak dogs, and one solution to separation anxiety. A crate trained animal is much safer to transport, both for the pet and the human driver. Many of the dog trainers I know, all of whom train only with positive reinforcement and without physical correction, advocate crate taining. Here is a link that discusses crate training in detail. Like anything, I suppose, it is open to abuse, but when applied properly is beneficial to both pet and owner.
I always find it interesting when an op pits someone and everyone comes on and says that he is being oversensitive and then the pittee comes along and proves the op. This guy is sitting at his keyboard going LaLaLaLaLaLa.
Bull, OK, you’re now sounding far more reasonable than earlier in the thread, and are making an important point about interfering with religious practices: I still disagree, but you’re debating more effectively than your earlier scattershot of hatred and Klansmen. Keep it up, and we’ll all get more out of it.
Contrapuntal, ah, I mistakenly took it that “crate training” meant the rearing of veal calves in crates in order to keep them immobile and provide tender, fatty meat suitable for foie gras and the like. If it is merely to literally train the animals so that they experience less stress in transport, that’s (marginally) OK by me (although I try to buy local).
SentientMeat just to clarify, Contrapuntal is talking about crate training DOGS.
I do still believe that advocating AR legislation is a form a bigotry, and I’m very sensitive about it because it does affect me personally.
As to the crate training, I always thought that it was practice used mainly by urban, city dwellers where a dog was kept in in essentially a “crate” while his master was away at work so the dog didn’t tear up the apartment. In my experience, dogs don’t like terribly confined space, even dog houses. But they weren’t conditioned to them and had other sources for shade and blocking the wind.
It’s only sounds like LaLaLaLaLa if you have your fingers stuck in your ears.
Yes, I realise that now - sorry for the misinterpretation.
That’s OK, but bear in mind that you yourself advocate some legislation that could justifiably be considered “AR” to a degree, even if you wouldn’t call it such yourself.
Foie gras is goose liver. It has nothing whatsoever to do with “tender fatty meat” from veal or any other cattle.
SB- you’re making a lot more sense and although I disagree with most of what you say, at least you’re spending more time addressing the issues and less time insulting dissenting points of view.
I don’t see how a legislative bill could be a form of bigotry- why can’t you simply debate the actual legislation as it arises and if indeed your viewpoint is correct, then it should prevail. It sounds as if you agree that animal cruelty is a bad thing, you just disagree on what constitutes cruelty and where to draw the line.
Christ, I’m not doing very well here! I think I’ll take my leave while my dignity still hangs by a thread.
(Ah, yes, I was confusing two equally cruel practices: crate rearing and force-feeding geese for foie gras.)