We Have A Choice
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An angry animal-eater wrote:
“Let us know the status of your campaign to prevent grizzsly [sic] bears from devouring moose, or polar bears from devouring seals, or wolves from devouring caribou or orcas from devouring dolphins and great whales, or lions from devouring gazelles, or hawks from devouring pigeons, or Komodo dragons from devouring whatever they can get their teeth into.”
Have you heard this one a million times like I have? It’s some variation of “But animals eat other animals, so we can eat animals, too.” When I hear it I often pity the person who says it. I think they must be a little slow.
It’s very clearly an excuse, not a reason, to eat meat. And it’s an empty excuse at that. I have to bite my tongue because I just want to scream, “We have a choice! We don’t have to torture, kill, and eat animals!”
Some animals participate in rape, incest, or cannibalism. That doesn’t mean humans should do those things. If a pedophile said, “But some animals eat their young. So I should be allowed to do what I do,” any rational person would reject the pedophile’s reasoning.
Our behavior is guided by social norms and morality. We are not ruled by instinct. We have the capacity to reason and to choose our actions. We can go vegan.
Granted, humans are animals. Granted, our species tends to behave as a herd. Granted, most humans don’t think critically. But if you’re one of the few free thinkers, if you’re someone who makes their own choices and doesn’t simply do things because everyone else does them, you know you have a choice.
You can go vegan. You can reject factory farming. You can boycott cruelty. You can choose compassion. You can choose justice. You can choose to go vegan.
you can reject factory farming, you can boycott cruelty, and still eat animals.
It’s an excuse. It’s also a huge misunderstanding that allows the thinker (which is stretching it) to assume that we vegans are wusses who would faint if we saw a lion devour a gazelle, for example. It might surprise them to learn that most of us are fine with it. We may hurt for the gazelle but the lion has to eat and this is how it’s done. The lion doesn’t take the head and put it on his cave wall, either, as some kind of trophy. Nor does he raise the gazelles in pens where he can more easily get to them and pump hormones and antibiotics in them.
If I were in a situation where the only way I could survive would be by killing an animal I would likely do it. That is not the case for most humans today, though.
alicia – That all depends on your definition of “cruelty”.
For starters, some people who kill animals will actually enjoy causing suffering. We cannot be certain that all slaughterhouse workers will be gentle and humane. It’s simply not possible to ensure cruelty-free killing.
For more, see http://humanemyth.org
I protest by putting my money into local farms that I know are treating their animals humanely, and I would suggest any meat eater attempt to do the same to the best of their ability. If you are concerned about the level of suffering that an animal undergoes while being slaughtered, perhaps you should look into kosher butchering: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kosher
I was vegetarian for over 10 years, so I’m familiar with all the links and literature. I just wanted to offer the perspective that not all meat eaters are jerks who don’t care about animals. After spending so much of my life not eating animals because I didn’t want to support inhumane practices, I found a way to round out my diet (I’m much healthier now) and support local, organic, sustainable farming.
It always cracks me up when people say they are “familiar with all of the books and literature” as if they know everything and have nothing left to learn. Haha! It’s especially funny when someone claims to know it all and then says something that is so obviously wrong – like that eating meat made then healthier. Haha! Or that there are “humane” ways to slaughter animals. Maybe at kosher slaughterhouses the animals are petted to death by gentle rabbies. haha! Oh, wait, I’ve seen kosher slaughter practices. The animals have their throats sliced open. But I’m sure that is very comfortable. (seathing sarcasm)
I didn’t claim to know it all, I just didn’t want anyone wasting their time digging up links I’ve already seen. Btw, having your throat sliced open is probably more comfortable than getting shot in the temple with a bolt, but that’s just my (and lots of other people’s) humble opinion.