Is Meat Really Murder?

VEGANGELICA · 11-27-2011, 03:03 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by VEGANGELICA

Doesn't our culture tell us that we should be kind to animals?

It isn't just that I don't like people eating meat in my presence, hip hop. I don't like them eating animals at all. The reason: I dislike what people are doing to animals to get them to the plate. I don't have to see something with my own eyes to know what is going on behind the scenes: (pictures)

Quote:

Originally Posted by hip hop bunny hop

If you're referring to American culture; our culture tells us that not all animals are equal. Kindness to animals depends on the animal; we don't even have a consensus on what constitutes "cruelty" to animals.

My point is that our culture says people should not be cruel to animals. Being kind to animals is considered a "good" thing. I agree with you completely that there isn't consensus on what constitutes "cruelty," and not just toward non-human animals, but also toward humans.

Perhaps, bunny hop, you and I agree that people should not be cruel to animals, but a main reason I am vegan and you are not is that we disagree on what constitutes "cruelty."

Quote:

Originally Posted by hip hop bunny hop

I hunt, I fish, and I've worked on a factory farm on the dairy side before (3 thousand, 1,500 pound dairy cows 3 times a day). The reality of the situation differs from your propaganda.

What makes you feel those pictures I showed, real scenes from the livestock industry, are propaganda...pictures of downer cows, a rabbit slaughterhouse, and a person pulling a sheep by her or his leg?

If those scenes seemed too isolated to you, then consider the following common practices within the livestock industry. Tell me why these widespead industry practices aren't "cruel":

(1) Killing the male calves of dairy cows. All of them. You should be familiar with this practice, since you worked in the dairy industry.

The treatment of male calves and other cattle at New York's largest dairy factory farm is shown in an undercover video from 2009 at the link below. How did your dairy factory farm differ from this one?

Dairy Investigation | Mercy For Animals

(2) Killing all the male chicks of egg-laying hens, millions per year, often by maceration (grinding them while alive and conscious).

Undercover Investigation at Hy-Line Hatchery in Iowa shows the grinding of male chicks
Ground Up Alive: Baby Chicks Suffer | Care2 Causes

(3) "Thumping" ill or small piglets (bashing their heads against the floor), castrating piglets without anaesthetic, and confining sows in gestation crates.

The following 2011 article, including a video, describes and shows these practices at an Iowan hog factory farm:

Undercover activist draws attention to pork producer's questionable practices | abc7news.com

This 2008 pamphlet, "On-Farm Euthanasia of Swine: Recommendations for the Producer," published by the National Pork Board (from Iowa), describes that the accepted way to kill piglets who weigh up to 12 pounds is by blunt trauma:

http://www.aasv.org/aasv/documents/SwineEuthanasia.pdf

^ All three practices that I list in bold above are standard in the animal industry in the U.S., although a few states have outlawed sow gestation crates thanks to activists and voters, including meat-eaters, concerned about cruelty toward animals.