If you don't think animals should have rights, watch this.

[BenIsForRon]

http://www.hulu.com/watch/24012/30-days-animal-rights#s-p1-so-i0

A hunter moves in with some animal rights activists. A little corny, but still informative.

While I don't agree with all of what the animal rights folks are talking about, they are dead on with factory farming.

[Kotin]

yeah.. concerning factory farming... though there are COUNTLESS reasons why that is fucked up..


they argue just one side of it.. and in fact I cannot think of one positive.. (sure those sick bastards in the business could though ;) )

[Epic]

If animals have rights, then everybody's going veggie. I'm not down for this...

[Bman]

If animals have rights, then everybody's going veggie. I'm not down for this...

I don't think you are going to see a bill of rights anytime soon, however some of the practices are rather cruel that do not need to be. An easy way to make a difference is to buy eggs that are from free range chickens, use non-animal tested products like Jason, Tom's of Maine(?), Sun and Earth to name a few companies that make a range of household products, like soap and toothpaste.

[Epic]

I don't think you are going to see a bill of rights anytime soon, however some of the practices are rather cruel that do not need o be. An easy way to make a difference is to buy eggs that are from free range chickens, use non-animal tested products like Jason, Tom's of Maine(?), Sun and Earth to name a few companies that make a range of household products, like soap and toothpaste.

I actually do eat free range eggs - voluntarily. I just am not willing to advocate locking somebody up for harming animals. Heck, animals hurt animals. We gonna lock them up too? :)

[BenIsForRon]

I actually do eat free range eggs - voluntarily. I just am not willing to advocate locking somebody up for harming animals. Heck, animals hurt animals. We gonna lock them up too? :)

I'm not saying equal to human rights, just some BASIC rights. Like the right to not be tortured.

You should watch the video, I posted it for people with your viewpoint.

[Flash]

I'm not saying equal to human rights, just some BASIC rights. Like the right to not be tortured.


I agree with this.

[Bman]

I actually do eat free range eggs - voluntarily. I just am not willing to advocate locking somebody up for harming animals. Heck, animals hurt animals. We gonna lock them up too? :)

I disagree. Case and point would be someone messing with my animals, and not because they are my property, but because they are active members of my family.

As for your second part, nature is not the reason that we lack predators. We certainly have locked up animals that are a threat whenever we can.

[pappy]

everything would be a whole lot more sensible if everyone had to kill their own meat.

not personally raise it or hunt it or chase it down. but if you want to eat a burger you gotta kill a cow with your own hands, etc. this would allow the do gooder veggies a chance to point their fingers at the actual responsible party. it would also allow those who really want to eat meat a chance to provide death guilt free for others

i bet the number of meat eaters-would decline.... i would still be one of them though :-)

also if everyone had to kill their own dinner it would most likely be done in a more compassionate fashion...though the end result would be the same

[Bman]

everything would be a whole lot more sensible if everyone had to kill their own meat.

not personally raise it or hunt it or chase it down. but if you want to eat a burger you gotta kill a cow with your own hands, etc. this would allow the do gooder veggies a chance to point their fingers at the actual responsible party. it would also allow those who really want to eat meat a chance to provide death guilt free for others

i bet the number of meat eaters-would decline.... i would still be one of them though :-)

also if everyone had to kill their own dinner it would most likely be done in a more compassionate fashion...though the end result would be the same

Well I may be eating a lot more rabbit, but I'd find away you can't take away my steaks.

[specsaregood]

I'm not saying equal to human rights, just some BASIC rights. Like the right to not be tortured.

But who defines torture? It isn't like the animals can tell you what they consider torture. What one might consider hygienic slaughtering, another might call torture.

[South Park Fan]

If animals lack the right to life, how can they have any other rights?

[BenIsForRon]

But who defines torture? It isn't like the animals can tell you what they consider torture. What one might consider hygienic slaughtering, another might call torture.

Animals give some pretty strong clues when they're not feeling well.

[silverhandorder]

Animals do not have rights. Yes it breaks my heart when I see animals being tortured. I will step in to defend an animal if I see it being done.

Farming animals no matter how horrific is something that can not be solved with force. It should be solved by conscious people boycotting the product.

[BenIsForRon]

If animals lack the right to life, how can they have any other rights?

Have you never seen a Confined Animal Feeding Operation (CAFO)? There are many videos of them online, including in a part of the video I posted.

Answer to your question: because they do. Cows wouldn't survive in the wild, so by breeding them and "enslaving" them, we are protecting their existence.

[Bman]

Animals do not have rights. Yes it breaks my heart when I see animals being tortured. I will step in to defend an animal if I see it being done.

Farming animals no matter how horrific is something that can not be solved with force. It should be solved by conscious people boycotting the product.

Free markets FTW!!!

[BenIsForRon]

Animals do not have rights. Yes it breaks my heart when I see animals being tortured. I will step in to defend an animal if I see it being done.

Farming animals no matter how horrific is something that can not be solved with force. It should be solved by conscious people boycotting the product.

Just because we aren't protecting their rights doesn't mean they don't exist... I think.

[AutoDas]

oh look. farmers that receive subsidies for dairy and wheat for their cows create a moral hazard. The lesson here is that...animals have rights? :confused:

[silverhandorder]

Just because we aren't protecting their rights doesn't mean they don't exist... I think.

It's a convoluted subject. I am with you on this just as long as we do not use force against other humans. To me their right to property trumps any rights animals have. Even if personally abhor their practices.

[t0rnado]

They just can't defend their rights. The Native Americans couldn't defend their rights, so we took their property and then used the concept of rights to protect our property. Most people on the east coast have land because the natives who lived on it were slaughtered or forced to move.

A 'right' is just a man made concept. If you think about it, animals are on private property and don't have rights on another person's property. But if you agree with that and are against abortion then you're being hypocritical.

[jp5065]

Why stop with animals? Lets give rights to plants too. A dog and a tree are both living.

Didn't all living things evolve from a single cell?

[Standing Like A Rock]

Food for thought:

Genesis 1 26: "And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth."

[emazur]

I'm not saying equal to human rights, just some BASIC rights. Like the right to not be tortured.

Bingo. I'm vegetarian not b/c I think it's wrong to kill animals for food (in fact I don't think it's wrong, though it is avoidable), but b/c of inhumane treatment of animals from birth to death. Also b/c of environmental reasons.

I'll watch this later (don't like having to register, but it's free and the other programs in that series look interesting as well).


Why stop with animals? Lets give rights to plants too. A dog and a tree are both living.

It's not about living, it's about living in hell. If you wouldn't tolerate living from life to death in a cage where you couldn't even walk around, and have your balls cut off w/o anesthesia, be manhandled however your handlers damn well feel like handling you until you wish you would be put out of your misery, then you shouldn't tolerate such conditions for animals.

Also plants and trees don't have central nervous systems and can't feel pain, and they can't and don't need to move around.

[jp5065]

Also plants and trees don't have central nervous systems and can't feel pain, and they can't and don't need to move around.

Plants can and do need to move around.

Also...


Researchers from Michigan State University have discovered that plants have a rudimentary nerve structure, which allows them to feel pain. According to the peer-reviewed journal Plant Physiology, plants are capable of identifying danger, signaling that danger to other plants and marshaling defenses against perceived threats. According to botanist Bill Williams of the Helvetica Institute, "plants not only seem to be aware and to feel pain, they can even communicate."

This research has prompted the Swiss government to pass the first-ever Plant Bill of Rights. It concludes that plants have moral and legal protections, and Swiss citizens have to treat them appropriately.

SOURCE (http://www.collegian.psu.edu/archive/2008/12/09/recent_studies_have_proven_pla.aspx)




Researchers are studying signal transduction to learn more about how genetic and hormonal orders are carried out by plants. At present our understanding of the complex interactions of genes and environmental stimuli is limited. Recent research has found that plants have neurotransmitters very similar to those found in humans. A new field, plant neurobiology, has arisen to study the chemical mechanisms behind the growth of plants and their responses to the environment.

SOURCE (http://www.ubcbotanicalgarden.org/weblog/000685.php)

[Dr.3D]

Plants can and do need to move around.

Also...
Wow, now those people who won't eat animals because they are worried about the pain they feel won't be able to eat plants either.

But of course, plants don't scream when they are hurt, so perhaps nobody will notice when they are killing them.

I wonder if anybody is thinking up humane ways of killing plants.

[paulitics]

Animals should have rights, not to be tortured. Killing an animal humanely is part of life IMO, and do not pass judgement on the killing of a wild animal.

Two reasons animals should not be tortured before death. 1) immoral 2) unhealthy

The more stressed the animal is before death, the more toxic the meat. It's more expensive, but I keep this in mind when I buy my meat.

[jmdrake]

http://www.hulu.com/watch/24012/30-days-animal-rights#s-p1-so-i0

A hunter moves in with some animal rights activists. A little corny, but still informative.

While I don't agree with all of what the animal rights folks are talking about, they are dead on with factory farming.

Sorry, but what does hunting have to do with factory farming? Those are polar opposites. It's ironic, some years ago animal rights protesters complained about trappers. They called the fact that an animal might be alive in a trap for hours or even days "cruel". Their attacks on the trapping lifestyle is what led to factory fur farms. Of course the ultimate goal is to make everybody vegan. If you're not vegan and you support animal rights you are a hypocrite.

Regards,

John M. Drake

[jmdrake]

I'm not saying equal to human rights, just some BASIC rights. Like the right to not be tortured.

You should watch the video, I posted it for people with your viewpoint.

Have you actually been to a slaughterhouse? There really is no "humane" way to kill an animal and it still be fit for human consumption. Sure you could poison the animal first, but who wants to eat poison meat? In order to "dull the pain" of getting sliced and diced alive, slaughterhouses will first slam a pneumatic hammer into a cows skull. (The old days they just used a sledgehammer).

YouTube - Slaughterhouse Equipment - Cattle Stunner (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pcirhyn8KI8)

Chickens don't even get stunned before being decapitated.

YouTube - Tyson Chicken & KFC cruelty (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zPaxE9ouHpI)

And even organic "free range" animals are killed in a way that would seem barbaric if it were done to a human.

YouTube - Chicken Slaughter (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bxIbLOLQYwQ)

And if that bothers you, look at the way animals treat each other.

YouTube - Shamu attacks and kills Pelican during show (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52o5yV6G7tY)

Really, the most BASIC human right specified in the constitution is the right to life. Once you have denied that right, no other rights really matter. Unless you don't eat animals and don't use any products that require killing an animal you aren't really standing up for animal rights. I'm mostly vegetarian (maybe eat a little meat every few months) but I think the animal rights movement is off base. I'm against factory farms for health reasons. We have mad cow disease because greedy agribusiness types fed cows dead cows. Cows are supposed to eat grass. But you aren't doing the cow much of a favor to let it "free range" all of its life and then smash its head with a sledge hammer and slit its throat.

Just my thoughts.

Regards,

John M. Drake

[pcosmar]

As a young hunter I was taught to respect the animals I hunted. I was schooled on a clean shot and a quick kill. I have been around farms and slaughtered animals. Still there was no place for cruelty.
Perhaps some have never learned this.


A righteous man regardeth the life of his beast: but the tender mercies of the wicked are cruel.

[Mini-Me]

Have you actually been to a slaughterhouse? There really is no "humane" way to kill an animal and it still be fit for human consumption. Sure you could poison the animal first, but who wants to eat poison meat? In order to "dull the pain" of getting sliced and diced alive, slaughterhouses will first slam a pneumatic hammer into a cows skull. (The old days they just used a sledgehammer).

YouTube - Slaughterhouse Equipment - Cattle Stunner (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pcirhyn8KI8)

Chickens don't even get stunned before being decapitated.

YouTube - Tyson Chicken & KFC cruelty (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zPaxE9ouHpI)

And even organic "free range" animals are killed in a way that would seem barbaric if it were done to a human.

YouTube - Chicken Slaughter (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bxIbLOLQYwQ)

And if that bothers you, look at the way animals treat each other.

YouTube - Shamu attacks and kills Pelican during show (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52o5yV6G7tY)

Really, the most BASIC human right specified in the constitution is the right to life. Once you have denied that right, no other rights really matter. Unless you don't eat animals and don't use any products that require killing an animal you aren't really standing up for animal rights. I'm mostly vegetarian (maybe eat a little meat every few months) but I think the animal rights movement is off base. I'm against factory farms for health reasons. We have mad cow disease because greedy agribusiness types fed cows dead cows. Cows are supposed to eat grass. But you aren't doing the cow much of a favor to let it "free range" all of its life and then smash its head with a sledge hammer and slit its throat.

Just my thoughts.

Regards,

John M. Drake

Maybe I'm just being naive, but...seriously, is it that hard or expensive to just shoot them in the head? It's as if the overly convoluted way we slaughter animals was originally designed by Dr. Evil or something. :rolleyes:

[jmdrake]

As a young hunter I was taught to respect the animals I hunted. I was schooled on a clean shot and a quick kill. I have been around farms and slaughtered animals. Still there was no place for cruelty.
Perhaps some have never learned this.

If your point is "don't be more cruel than you have to be" then I agree. But at the end of the day you're still dealing death. I never hunted, but as a boy I fished quite a bit. (Still do on occasion). I don't know of any "humane" way to gut a bass other than to use a sharp knife and to get it over as soon as possible.

This is how PETA views fishing.

http://suitablyflip.blogs.com/photos/uncategorized/peta.jpg

[BenIsForRon]

Really, the most BASIC human right specified in the constitution is the right to life. Once you have denied that right, no other rights really matter. Unless you don't eat animals and don't use any products that require killing an animal you aren't really standing up for animal rights. I'm mostly vegetarian (maybe eat a little meat every few months) but I think the animal rights movement is off base. I'm against factory farms for health reasons. We have mad cow disease because greedy agribusiness types fed cows dead cows. Cows are supposed to eat grass. But you aren't doing the cow much of a favor to let it "free range" all of its life and then smash its head with a sledge hammer and slit its throat.

Just my thoughts.

Regards,

John M. Drake

We just fundamentally disagree here. Humans have been eating meat their entire existence. They've only been doing CAFO's for about 60 years. Basically, its about animals living their natural live. Cows did not evolve to have to walk ankle deep in their manure their whole life. Chickens are supposed to be able to walk more than two steps at a time. Animals do know when they're sick and in pain. They don't know they're going to die except for maybe the five seconds before you do it.

[jmdrake]

We just fundamentally disagree here. Humans have been eating meat their entire existence. They've only been doing CAFO's for about 60 years. Basically, its about animals living their natural live. Cows did not evolve to have to walk ankle deep in their manure their whole life. Chickens are supposed to be able to walk more than two steps at a time. Animals do know when they're sick and in pain. They don't know they're going to die except for maybe the five seconds before you do it.

Yes we fundamentally disagree. I'm against corporate farming because I think it's unhealthy. But I'm not under the illusion that butchering an animal is somehow "humane". It's debatable if humans have been eating meat their entire existence. According to the Bible meat eating didn't come until after the flood. But I've also heard evolutionary biologists make the same argument. Humans are not naturally equipped for hunting. Because of that it makes little sense for men to have taken up that occupation. But human women, unlike most other animals, don't eat the afterbirth. A lot of protein is lost through that (and through menstruation) that has to be made up somehow, so hunting developed.

Plus you seem to have glossed over my point that the animal rights movement inadvertently helped create factory farms by their opposition to trapping. You don't have to eat meat to survive. If you eat meat that you didn't raise, catch or kill yourself or bought from someone else who did you're part of the problem.

[BenIsForRon]

Trapping is not even in the top ten reasons for factory farming. Corn subsidies, fast food, advances in antibiotics, immigrant workforce would all be more important reasons.

I try to buy locally/regionally raised meat most of the time for my own personal use. I know that when I cheat and get a chicken biscuit at bojangles on occasion I am supporting factory farming.

[jmdrake]

Trapping is not even in the top ten reasons for factory farming. Corn subsidies, fast food, advances in antibiotics, immigrant workforce would all be more important reasons.

I try to buy locally/regionally raised meat most of the time for my own personal use. I know that when I cheat and get a chicken biscuit at bojangles on occasion I am supporting factory farming.

You're mixing apples and oranges. The anti trapping movement was a major reason for fur factory farms. You're talking about factory farms in general.

Anyhow, I wouldn't want to be an animal on a factory farm, I wouldn't want to be a fish that got gutted and I wouldn't want to be a free ranged chicken that got his head cut off after being told "Don't struggle, it will only make it worse". I'm against waton cruelty, but then I will skewer a live cricket or worm onto a fish hook and toss it into a stream. What do the animal rights people in your film think of that?

Like I said, I'm against many modern farming practices for health reasons. Cows shouldn't eat dead cows. I think the healthiest way to slaughter an animal is to hang it up, slit its throat and let the blood drain out. Is that the most "humane" way to do it?

And finally, I think we disagree the most on the basic definition of "rights". If we are to continue to deny animals the basic right to life, everything else is academic in my book. We can chose to avoid cruelty because of our own values as a society, but that's different from establishing some new "right".

[mczerone]

Seriously, some questions:

Who should define the content of these rights?

Who should define which animals are eligible?

Who should enforce these 'rights'?

And, who decides how to punish for violating these rights?

I think that there is a free market solution that focuses only on human action, and that there is not an effective or just governmental solution that focuses on "giving" rights to animals.

Certainly there are horrible practices in agriculture, but the government shelters some and turns a blind eye to the rest, while allowing boobus to think everything is being well inspected, disinfected and respected. Adding a complex layering of "animal rights law" on top of the current quagmire of commercial, agricultural, and "ASPCA" law seems counter-productive, at best.

[South Park Fan]

If animals have rights, could I be charged with genocide for using bug spray?

[BenIsForRon]

Certainly there are horrible practices in agriculture, but the government shelters some and turns a blind eye to the rest, while allowing boobus to think everything is being well inspected, disinfected and respected. Adding a complex layering of "animal rights law" on top of the current quagmire of commercial, agricultural, and "ASPCA" law seems counter-productive, at best.

It's hard to say. The rules would more than likely get bent and undermined. It's really just food for thought.

I do think the country would be better off if we banned CAFO's. The question is, which terrible practice would arise through carefully crafted loopholes?

[InterestedParticipant]

If animals have rights, then everybody's going veggie. I'm not down for this...
That's the plan!

This is just a tactic to move us in this direction. The social planners don't give a rats ass about animals, but they know humanity does, so they are leveraging this emotional trigger.

So, what do you think humanity's collective health and well being will look like once we're all on GMO Veggie diets, and our "healthcare" is under their control?

Family farmers fed the world for centuries without all of this. It's when their corporate controlled agribusiness took over that these issues arose, which is simply them controlling the 'problem' side of this dialectic.