They taste good, they're healthy for you, and our bodies are made to be able to consume animals.

Edit: Lulzy wording made it sound like animals are supposed to eat us.

You had me at They taste good.

Thanks Unfan...and Conan, too!...for telling me your reasons for eating animals. Conan, your primary reason is the one that I've been thinking is the main reason people have, so it's good to hear that in my poll of two people this appears to be the case.

Unfan, I would say that whether it is people eating animals or animals eating us, it is true that various animals (and microbes) evolved with the ability to eat others, so either way the statement works. The interesting issue for me pivots on the question of "can vs. should"--that is, given that we have the ability to eat someone, what causes us to decide to eat that individual or species or not? How do you make that decision?
--Erica

PETA and other animal rights groups don't seem to understand that if it weren't for people's desire to eat these animals, they would go extinct. Seriously, if the whole world stopped eating pork, how long to you think domestic pot-bellied pigs would last in the wild? The animals have become so dependent on us breeding them that to try and change now would be devestating.

But then again, we're talking about PETA, who got mad at President Obama for swatting a fly.

On PETA and Livestock
 

Hi Conan,

I think PETA and other animal rights groups do understand that if people stopped eating livestock animals this would drastically reduce the size of domestic animal populations (and there are billions of domestic animals on earth). However, reducing the size of domestic animal populations would not cause their species to go extinct for two reasons:

(1) Many domesticated animals can manage on their own quite well in nature; for example, domesticated pigs that have escaped are breeding rapidly in the wild.
(2) Wild members of cow, pig, chicken species, etc., will continue to survive.

Since livestock animals take up around 1/3rd of the habitable landmass of the world, apparently, reducing the number of domesticated animals would potentially allow wild animal species' numbers to rebound, increasing ecosystem diversity.

How does one reduce the number of domesticated animals, if a country such as the U.S. wished to do so? Since people artificially inseminate most livestock animals in the U.S., ending this practice would cause livestock populations to plummet after one year of slaughtering/eating the livestock.

The end of the livestock industry is unlikely to happen any time soon, though (in fact, the livestock industry is expanding..this is called the "Livestock Revolution"), due to the financial and emotional investments many people have in perpetuating the livestock industry. However, as energy and fresh water sources continue to be depleted (as the human population continues to rise) even fans of meat may be forced by rising prices to reduce their consumption significantly.

Conan, you commented about PETA's complaint that Obama swatted a fly. What may help you understand PETA's actions is to consider two points: first, you actually heard about and remembered this issue (which was PETA's intent); second, the issue forces people to consider their reasons for killing other animals, even flies, whereas normally most people don't even think about this question at all.

I read a Time Magazine interview about PETA's strategies, and the interviewee from PETA explained that one way for the organization, which has limited funds, to break into the news is to have campaigns that shock people, because then their campaigns get covered (for free) by the press.

It is telling that you, for example, actually heard about and remembered the fly issue. This shows that PETA's tactic worked. If you are like most people, you probably momentarily thought about why you feel a fly shouldn't matter. That is one step from considering why, or why not, what we do to other animals should matter.

--Erica

"CRITICS" lyrics
 

Hello, People,

(Special message for Conan! I replied to your comments about livestock populations and PETA in my previous post).

Switching from the topic of humanity's treatment of non-human animals to our treatment of each other, below are the lyrics of a new and very short song I wrote last week called "Critics." This song is one of a series inspired by Music Banter.

"Critics," for your poetry buffs out there, is a modern sonnet in iambic pentameter with the following rhyme scheme: abcd abcd abcd cc.
I was inspired to write this sonnet song because of the nature of some of the criticism that is offered on MB...criticism that I would describe as sometimes being destructive rather than constructive.

MUSIC RATING SYSTEM Rating for "Critics" is EM for "Extended Metaphor."

***********************************

"CRITICS" by Erica

Who’ll be the first to ridicule your soul?
You see them strolling toward you on the beach
as you construct a castle out of sand.
“What is this awful pile?” they scoff and grin
and flick their cigarette butts in the hole
that was to be the moat the sea would reach
and fill with waves a driftwood drawbridge spanned...
though broken now, the sticks seem small and thin.
“Why, this is trash,” they mock and crush your goal.
They smash the seaweed flags as you beseech
them with your eyes to stop and understand
the treasure shells and towers they kick in.
And when they’ve gone, you touch the trampled land...
and build again the castle that you planned.

***********************************

I find it funny that anyone would stick up for PETA's tactics when they kill roughly 90% of the animals they recieve.
Scans of PETA's reports, which are open for public.

...."build again the castle that you planned"...berating you, then later takin' credit for something you proposed in the first place???.....very well put.

You were pretty generous with your criticism(good criticism), so I thought I'd add my two cents to your lyrics. I don't really know what to say...I'm not all that well versed in any kind of poetry analysis, but I'll give you a half-assed critique.....you're a good writer and can express yourself clearly...I'm just not a vegetarian, so I don't feel all that emotional when I read the song lyrics. I also have a short attention span...and I can't read very long song lyrics.

I read "dichotomy" for the most part.I think if you want to speak out to other vegetarians you're doing just fine...if you want to convert the meat eaters it would be good skim the lyrics way back...maybe something short and catchy.

....also expand your pallette, there's other things besides veganism to sing about.

i think the song "Africa" was about human rights.

@VEGANGELICA

Look, I'm going to be quite frank here. You've got something to say, and I deeply respect that. You've got some O.K. poetry here, and although your criticisms are probably overdone, you do a good job with em.

Unfan here is a troll. Trolls are people who make asses of themselves to make you look bad. You've fallen for the hole, and your only digging yourself deeper with this self-righteous attitude that you seem to have picked up. It's the same attitude republicans and democrats pick up when they're near each other. It's like a sickly disease that tears you apart and blinds you from seeing the light on the other end of a dark tunnel. It's a partisan disease.

Look, my point is that you've got nothing to prove to us, and now your only imposing on the hand we held out to you in the beginning (with the exclusion of Unfan). We don't wish to hear the technical theory (because, as a great musician told me, theory only explains where music and poetry has been, not where it's going). We don't want to hear your arguments for PETA. We just want to read some poems.

Poetry was not meant to change people, but to depict change.

anyways that's my 2 cents.

peace,
-nick