Who says that all vegetarians are vegetarians for that reason? People have all kinds of reasons for being vegetarian. My mum was veggie for years due to McDonalds-style rape of the planet. If you saw her wearing leather shoes, would you have given her grief about it?
But if you want a specific answer to that point - the reason for the production line slaughterhouse is to mass produce as much meat as possible. If they were just aiming to get leather, it wouldn’t be anything like that. Therefore if your vegetarianism is a protest against mass-production of meat, there is no contradiction in wearing leather. Meat producers could kill animals far more humanely and it wouldn’t affect the leather industry one jot.
Do you use wood? Don’t you think they chop down trees for wood and paper? Doesn’t that fuck up the environment, too? What about the poor animals whose environments are destroyed for paper? Why don’t you boycott that, as well?
And what’s with this bullshit defining an entire company by one aspect? McDonalds also runs Ronald McDonald houses that help sick kids. They have special programs of franchise ownership and employment for the underprivileged in inner cities, including tuition reimbursement and incentives. You pick one bad thing a company does and use it to define the entire corporation, and justify a boycott. You know better. It’s bullshit.
Well, one thing does not define a company as large and diverse as McDonalds which in my book balances well over on the side of good (though their food tastes like shit.)
There was also that whole Chilean grape cyanide thing, insecticide in fruits and vegetables, etc. etc. The point to be taken is that food must be raised and prepared properly regardless of whether it is animal or vegetable.
You ever see a wildebeest migration on TV? Lots of suffering. Makes the worst slaughterhouse seem rather tame, you know. That’s nature. The truth is that a slaughterhouse is generally pretty humane compared to the natural fate awaiting most prey animals. Which doesn’t mean we can’t do better. But, the conclusion that some slaughter houses aren’t as considerate as they could be is hardly a valid argument against meat in general.
Truth be told, hunted meat suffers a lot more than a slaughterhouse beast 9 times out of 10. A slaughterhouse is efficient. An arrow or a bullet sometimes isn’t.
See - this is the trouble with the kind of anti-vegetarian whos knee jerks every time they hear a word beginning “veg”. Complex arguments and a lot of soul-searching are ignored and rejoined by pithy soundbites and schoolyard taunting. Do you really think that someone makes a life change of such proportions without giving their reasons a thorough analysis?
Food production on this planet is a fucking complicated subject. There are a lot of factors that inter-relate with a lot of other factors. How should one feel about razing of rainforests, coffee grown as a cash crop or slash and burn? When the cultivation of herds of cattle means other species are being systematically wiped out, how does that fit in with your crappy “plants have feelings too” bullshit? Have you ever sat in a slaughterhouse and watched the way sheep are killed? Have you seen the concoctions of crap that are injected into cows? Then don’t tell those that have that “you can’t live without killing something!”
Get a life and stop whinging at those who choose not to participate in the fucked-up meat-go-round. We should be grateful to them for forcing the food market to give us the few concessions towards organic farming that they have.
Incidentally that last post wasn’t directed at Scylla in particular - he happened to sneak in whilst I was writing it. It’s a general rant about those who feel they need to belittle vegetarians.
Yeah nature can be cruel. But people can, frankly, be crueler. We have a gift.
And our chickens are coming home to roost. There’s been more fucking food scares in England in the last five years or so than I care to remember. Mass production is screwing us as much as it is screwing the animals.
Incidentally, I’m NOT a vegetarian. This is because [list=1][li]I don’t always have the courage of my convictions[/li]
[li]I don’t see it as the most important problem we face[/li]
[li]I’m a bit cold hearted towards the suffering[/list=1]But that doesn’t mean that I don’t respect those who have different priorities to me. And it doesn’t mean that I can’t concede that they have a point.[/li]
pan
makes me wonder, Scylla, whether you’ve ever been anywhere near a slaughterhouse. The animals suffer hours and hours of stress in extremely (that is… extremely) cramped conditions. They can smell the dead animals and they can sense the fear. The whole herd is terrified. And they are left like this. For hours.
Of course, to get to the slaughterhouse in the first place, they are often transported miles for many hours (certainly in Europe 20 hours is not uncommon). The transport is in a lorry with no water, no food, no stops for toilet breaks and in extremely cramped conditions. By the time the truck arrives, many have broken limbs. They are left untreated, since they will be slaughtered in a few hours anyway.
By comparison, bleeding to death from a bullet or having yoru throat ripped out by a lion seems like skipping through the park.
There are two dairy farms adjoining my property. One also raises steers.
Rather pampered animals actually, and no “concoctions” injected. The FDA is rather careful about what they allow you to put in a cow raised for human consumption, and how long you must wait after injecting it with a chemical before it can be eaten. They’re rationale is based on scientific evidence, not hearsay.
If you have scientific evidence that an approved supplement is dangerous when used within FDA guidelines, you should bring that to the FDA.
Safety problems with recent tires have no one saying we should abolish cars. They have people saying fix the problems so they’re safe. It’s not any different with meat production.
Stop picking on the vegetarians, Scylla. Other peoples’ dining habits are their own business. Besides, that leaves more chicken and fish for the rest of us.
Hey, Scylla and Milo–guess what?! After reading this thread, I’ve decided you guys are right! Boy, I am stupid for not eating meat. I mean, what kind of biological freak am I? For some reason, all the soul-searching I did to make this decision went out the window with your brilliant, brillaint logic!! I am such an idiot!!!
And that’s what you wanted when you started this thread, right? To make us silly, backwards vegetarians realize just how dumb we are?
I can’t wait to go have some bacon–have I missed that???
Bullet and arrow wounds can fester for months causing constant suffering before the animal dies.
And actually the cramped conditions of a slaughterhouse exist for the animals benefit, beleive it or not. The herd animals are more comfortable in close proximity in what is inarguably a stressful environment. It also makes it much more difficult for them to go into a wild panic, injuring themselves, other, animals, or the workers.
Yeah, I’ve been to slaughterhouses. I thought the chicken one was pretty funny.
The high speed eviscerator basically vaporizes the body cavities, it runs so fast. You haven’t lived until you’ve seen thousands of chicken heads going by on an assemply line, and watching one wink at you as it passes.
I know your heart longs for me and red meat eating manliness, but I’m a loner and a rebel, and I ride under a mysterious curse, and my heart belongs to another.
Please don’t spend your life yearning for me, but go seek happiness in the arms of another lesser, albeit more attainable man.
Trust me.
::Brushes tear from This Year’s Girl’s face and kisses her lightly::
If only all farms were like your friendly neighbourhood dairy farm, Scylla. Sadly, this is not the case.
And even for those farms, in the UK we have the ridiculous situation whereby the recent BSE crisis has resulted in the closure of all small-scale local slaughterhouses. This means that even those animals lucky enough to be raised on a humane farm must suffer the journey to the slaughterhouse (a point you seem to have forgotten to mention in your rebuttal). Of course, the reason the slaughterhouses were closed was the danger of BSE infection. This may be a problem you’ll face yourselves in the not too distant future, if you’re unlucky.
I’m not familiar, I’m afraid, with US-specific regulation (i.e. the FDA). But I do know that practices that lead directly to the BSE crisis were approved by our environmental agency at the time. And, if the news is to be believed, this was also true in the US and Europe - the UK was just the unlucky ones to be hit first. Various growth hormones are approved for use now and in a horribly analogous situation, we don’t know what problems they’ll cause in the future. Frankly, it’s a mess.
So as I say - if only all farms were like your local farm. And if only there was a way of killing the animals that fulfilled the two criteria of being humane and satisfying strict safety regulations. If these were true then I’m sure many vegetarians would seriously consider eating meat. Although even then there are the other problems to consider.
But people still drive cars in spite of safety problems. Why not just eat certified Angus meat, or pork? Why go Veggie because some meat prctices are bad? Some crop growing practices are quite bad as well. There’s no follow through on the logic.
I didn’t raise the transport issue, because it’s moot. Not all transport practices are bad, and the fact that some are hardly invalidates the eating of meat to even the most generous and imaginative debater.
You’ll get no argument from me that any and all reasonable pains should be taken to minimize unnecessary suffering.
But what the hell does that have to do with eating meat?
Oh, Scylla, go to hell. I mean, honestly, what do you care? Does it really affect you, what I eat? Really? Honestly? If it really, honestly does, too fucking bad for you, my friend. I’m not going to change my dietary habits to assuage your discomfort with them.
So you’ve been treated rudely by a couple of vegetarians or vegans? Boo-hoo. Grow up. They didn’t treat you rudely because they were vegetarians – get prepared for a big smack with the clue stick – wait for it – they treated you rudely because they were assholes. Let’s you and me sit down and trade stories about vegetarians who treated you rudely, and nonvegetarians who treated me rudely, and I guarantee you’ll run out hours before I do. At the Norfolk Dopefest last year, I had to put up with it from ChiefScott for six frigging hours.
Veganism is founded in ignorance? Um, no. Veganism is decided upon based on an examination of one’s own personal ethical considerations. I’m really, really sorry they don’t consult you before making those decisions, but you’re just going to have to learn to cope. Some people are vegans or vegetarians for cultural reasons. Is the entire culture ignorant? Some people choose it for religious reasons. You ready to condemn their religion? You ready to take on kashrut when you do? Because if you’re going to condemn religious vegetarians, you’re going to have to condemn Jews who keep kosher, too.
If I had a dollar for every SD thread belittling vegetarians, or every harrassing comment made on the SD by a nonvegetarian, I could buy your property a thousand times over. There’s a current thread in GD seriously debating whether vegetarianism is an eating disorder, for chrissakes.
No. I left those people out of it. My sights are firmly set on the save the planet, moral choice, ignorant, in you face screwballs who think they’re doing the planet a fucking favor.
They can take their empty-headed bio-conscious symbiotic passive, I-do-no-evil-having-attained-enlightenement self-righteous flawed bullshit and…
well you know the rest.
People that go to social functions, and then get loud and obnoxious about what they are served are RUDE. This has nothing to do with their food preferences, this has to do with a lack of manners.
Some people like vegies - they don’t care about the dead animals, they just like vegies.
A vegie diet is a good way to maintain a healthy weight - and before anyone starts in about societal pressures to be thin, and the evilness of caring about one’s appearance, please note that I said HEALTHY weight. I’m just saving health care dollers here, folks.
Why on earth would anyone care? Assuming you haven’t been accosted with a flaming ratatoullie, get over it guy!
You know, I have a really hard time watching what I eat. Just this morning, the coffee guy accidently gave me regular milk instead of skim, and I’ve been buying the same coffee from the same guy for years on end.
How the hell do people find the time to watch what other people eat?
McDonald’s does not represent the meat eaters. Sure, it has the wrong practices and its food tastes bad, and if you do not like it, do not eat there, do not support it. For the record, agriculture can have some adverse effects for the environment. Do you know about the slash and burn practice? Clear a whole area by cutting and setting fire to the vegetation, the ashes will become fertilizers, but after some years the soil runs out of nutrients and then its slash and burn again. Also, fertilizers like the DDT can damage the whole ecosystem. Other thing that agriculture can do is erode the soil.
There are of course better ways to grow plants, the same as there are other ways of raising cattle, McDonalds is not the sole meat producer. I am a happy omnivore. I have a friend that is semi-vegetarian(the only meat he eats is fish, and I think he also eats dairy products). He did it because of some of the concerns expressed before in this thread. Fear of poor meat handling, disgust at the meat, and others. He does not rub it to everyone, and he has no qualms of eating a fish sandwhich while the one next to him is devouring a hamburger. I also had a vegetarian teacher, who is probably vegetarian because of her religious beliefs. She also does not have a holier than thou attitude. The whole class(Craft course) went to eat at Uno’s, and she had no problem eating her veggie deep dish pizza while the rest ate pasta and other meat-filled pizzas. I was in front of her, eating pizza skins(which have bacon…hmm…pig…hmm…blood sausages…)
You know…I had a big response to this all typed up…I thought I hit “Submit”, but it seems to have disappeared. We’ll try again.
I did not mean to imply anything of the kind. My point was:
You stated several reasons for becoming a vegetarian
You then posted reasons why it was OK to wear leather, presumably within the context of the reasons to be a vegetarian
The two struck me as contradictory.
I was seeking clarification.
This is the contradiction as I see it: You (the proverbial you, not you, kabbes, in particular) are protesting the “production line slaughterhouse” by not eating meat. However, you’re validating the practice by using other products from the same “production line slaughterhouse”. Granted, leather is a secondary product, but a product nonetheless. It’s almost worse because, by your own argument, leather could could be produced in a far more humane way than as a secondary product of the meat market. Additionally, the leather industry would be more prone to put pressure on the meat industry to change conditions. All in all, it would seem a far more consistent and effective boycott. This is why I felt, in my initial response, that it seems a “moral facade”.
See, what I’ve always wondered is: suppose everyone stopped eating meat (or there was a substantial decline in the market). Suddenly there’s less of a demand for, say, beef, and producers stop breeding as many cattle, because they can’t sell the surplus.
So now fewer cows are being born. And I’m forced to wonder, which is preferable, a few years of life with a sudden stop at the end, or never being born at all? Vegetarians are trying to pre-emptively terminate untold trillions of cow lives by preventing their births!
