GardenBanter.co.uk - View Single Post

dh@.

On 10 Jan 2007 23:41:26 -0800, wrote:

Jim Webster wrote:
wrote in message
ups.com...
Jim Webster wrote:

snip

I confess I don't really care. I correct them when they tell lies about
my
industry, but as far as I am concerned if they don't want to eat meat,
fine,
there are an increasing number of people out there who do
Terrorism is merely terrorism, and we have jails for people who commit
that
sort of offence

It must have been a careless admission that you are with the meat
industry. I long wondered why some people attack animal rights
advocates and those who speak out against cruelty to animals on
alt.animals.ethics.vegetarian. I also suspected that the intensity of
those attacks are driven not by any conviction but by pure self
interest of those who profit from the horrible suffering of animals
produced by factory farming. Animals as living, feeling, suffering
creatures mean nothing to the likes of you who try to justify your
cruelty on helpless animals for your profit margin.

yawn
I'm honest,

Was it honesty or just a careless slip?

which is more than can be said about those animal rights
activists who were paid by an Irish meat factory group to protest against
live exports out of ireland.

That would also be deplorable.

fortunately most people out there know that the sort of person who digs up
your granny if you don't agree with them is not the sort of person you can
trust to tell you the truth on anything else either

I don't care about your or anybody else's personal life but I have
for some time been wondering about the canned posts some people are
putting out and they did look like meat industry shills to me.

You have no idea what it would look like if anyone were officially
representing the meat industry. I doubt anyone is doing it.

One has
to wonder why some people would personally attack you and call you
names just because you express your concern for animals unless they are
connected to the meat industry.

Your attack on National Georgraphic was maniacal, uncalled for
and dishonest. You have no way of knowing whether or not what
they did looked staged, and there's no reason why they would stage
it. Your desire to deny reality messed up your ability to think. Other
people don't want your problem with reality to screw up things for them,
so it's not any wonder at all but just something else about reality that
you can't comprehend.

I love animals

People who farm animals can care about them too, and so can
people who consume them. Don't forget that it's the consumers
of animal products--NOT vegans!--who make it possible for the
animals to exist at all. When they have decent lives of positive
value the consumers are just as much the reason for that as they
are when the animals have lives of negative value.

and it bothers me that they suffer and the least I can do is to
make sure that they do not suffer on my account.

· Vegans contribute to the deaths of animals by their use of
wood and paper products, electricity, roads and all types of
buildings, their own diet, etc... just as everyone else does.
What they try to avoid are products which provide life
(and death) for farm animals, but even then they would have
to avoid the following items containing animal by-products
in order to be successful:

Tires, Paper, Upholstery, Floor waxes, Glass, Water
Filters, Rubber, Fertilizer, Antifreeze, Ceramics, Insecticides,
Insulation, Linoleum, Plastic, Textiles, Blood factors, Collagen,
Heparin, Insulin, Solvents, Biodegradable Detergents, Herbicides,
Gelatin Capsules, Adhesive Tape, Laminated Wood Products,
Plywood, Paneling, Wallpaper and Wallpaper Paste, Cellophane
Wrap and Tape, Abrasives, Steel Ball Bearings

The meat industry provides life for the animals that it
slaughters, and the animals live and die as a result of it
as animals do in other habitats. They also depend on it for
their lives as animals do in other habitats. If people consume
animal products from animals they think are raised in decent
ways, they will be promoting life for more such animals in the
future. People who want to contribute to decent lives for
livestock with their lifestyle must do it by being conscientious
consumers of animal products, because they can not do it by
being vegan.
From the life and death of a thousand pound grass raised
steer and whatever he happens to kill during his life, people
get over 500 pounds of human consumable meat...that's well
over 500 servings of meat. From a grass raised dairy cow people
get thousands of dairy servings. Due to the influence of farm
machinery, and *icides, and in the case of rice the flooding and
draining of fields, one serving of soy or rice based product is
likely to involve more animal deaths than hundreds of servings
derived from grass raised animals. Grass raised animal products
contribute to fewer wildlife deaths, better wildlife habitat, and
better lives for livestock than soy or rice products. ·

For some reason, there are a number of people on
this list who hate people for showing concern for animals. Is that
because they know that what they are doing is wrong and must silence
those who remind them of it?

· Because there are so many different situations
involved in the raising of meat animals, it is completely
unfair to the animals to think of them all in the same
way, as "ARAs" appear to do. To think that all of it is
cruel, and to think of all animals which are raised for
the production of food in the same way, oversimplifies
and distorts one's interpretation of the way things
really are. Just as it would to think that there is no
cruelty or abuse at all.

Beef cattle spend nearly their entire lives outside
grazing, which is not a bad way to live. Veal are
confined to such a degree that they appear to have
terrible lives, so there's no reason to think of both
groups of animals in the same way.
Chickens raised as fryers and broilers, and egg
producers who are in a cage free environment--as well as
the birds who parent all of them, and the birds who parent
battery hens--are raised in houses, but not in cages. The
lives of those birds are not bad. Battery hens are confined
to cages, and have what appear to be terrible lives, so
there is no reason to think of battery hens and the other
groups in the same way. ·