I was disappointed to read a letter [“Fries With That?”, Feb. 14”] that displayed such an extreme lack of intelligence and compassion, in my opinion. There was a great deal of tension felt from the woman who wrote the letter towards animal-rights activists and nonhuman animals, as well. I have never understood that level of thinking.
How is it that people who fight for justice are criticized for doing so? Do we all not desire freedom? Do we not desire love and a life free from unnecessary cruelty and pain? Of course we do. Nonhuman animals deserve those same basic rights and freedoms.
We, as humans, sadly justify our domination and abuse of animals because we are capable of doing so. Simply having the ability to do something does not make it right. I believe that we should all strive to live a life of compassion. Adopting a vegan lifestyle is the best way to begin helping our dear animal friends, ourselves and our environment. No one can make you choose compassion. You must find that within yourselves.
“…an extreme lack of intelligence…”? Right back at ‘ya, Jodi. Nina Smith’s letter was what is known as the literary term SATIRE. It was funny. It’s a free country. People make jokes. People eat meat. If they didn’t, the animals would never be given the chance to live AT ALL. Ever think of it that way? Pigs for example…..Six months of playing and eating and being with their friends in a complex social order, all in the outdoors. Sounds like fun to me. Then one bad day. Oooops! Nobobdy is in “favor” of the anxiety the animal feels on the final day, but boy-oh-boy did it have a whole bunch of good ones first! And YOU are going to deprive it of every single one of them? Now, THAT’S cruelty! Could counselling or an outpatient facility or actual jail-time help with your attitude? I doubt it, and I wouldn’t advocate for it, because that’s not my place….not being a member of the compassion police.
“Pigs for example…..Six months of playing and eating and being with their friends in a complex social order, all in the outdoors. Sounds like fun to me.”
Now let me give you some of the truth
Approximately 100 million pigs are raised and slaughtered in the U.S. every year. As babies, they are subjected to painful mutilations without anesthesia or pain relievers. Their tails are cut off to minimize tail biting, an aberrant behavior that occurs when these highly-intelligent animals are kept in deprived factory farm environments. In addition, notches are taken out of the piglets’ ears for identification.
By two to three weeks of age, 15% of the piglets will have died. Those who survive are taken away from their mothers and crowded into pens with metal bars and concrete floors. A headline from National Hog Farmer magazine advises, “Crowding Pigs Pays…”, and this is exemplified by the intense overcrowding in every stage of hog confinement systems. Pigs will live this way, packed into giant, warehouse-like sheds, until they reach a slaughter weight of 250 pounds at 6 months old.
The air in hog factories is laden with dust, dander, and noxious gases, which are produced as the animals’ urine and feces builds up inside the sheds. Studies of workers in swine confinement buildings have found sixty percent to have breathing problems. For pigs, who spend their entire lives in factory farm confinement, respiratory disease is rampant.
The overcrowding and confinement is unnatural and stress-producing since pigs are actually very clean animals. If they are given sufficient space, pigs are careful not to soil the areas where they sleep or eat. But in factory farms, they are forced to live in their own feces, urine, vomit and even amid the corpses of other pigs.
In addition to overcrowded housing, sows and pigs also endure extreme crowding in transportation, resulting in rampant suffering and deaths.
Prior to being hung upside down by their back legs and bled to death at the slaughterhouse, pigs are supposed to be ‘stunned’ and rendered unconscious, in accordance with the federal Humane Slaughter Act. However, stunning at slaughterhouses is terribly imprecise, and often conscious animals are hung upside down, kicking and struggling, while a slaughterhouse worker tries to ‘stick’ them in the neck with a knife. If the worker is unsuccessful, the pig will be carried to the next station on the slaughterhouse assembly line — the scalding tank — where he/she will be boiled, alive and fully conscious.
Nothing fun about the life of a pig, in fact its a literal hell on earth
Jade Finn
Well, sure, if one purchases meat from a conventional source then one gets what one gets. I wouldn’t argue with the basic concept of how bad it is for livestock raised in confinement situations, but a critique of those situations isn’t a critique of the life it’s possible for a pig to have. If you’re against ALL meat eating, and it sounds like you are, and you suggest we are all immoral for doing so, then why always focus on the industrial model? It’s such predictable and low-hanging fruit that you pick here, when most of the readership is a bit more intelligent and free-minded than you give them credit for. Why not come up with arguments for not hunting and not raising livestock in more humane settings? Or, why not simply allow people to eat what they feel is right for them without attempting to talk to them from some higher moral plane?
hi im hecka bored and im in stupid tech class looking up animal rights!!!!!!!!!! and im tired!!!!!!
Well, I am certainly opposed to eating really rare meat so when I grill a burger I try to make sure it is cooked to medium well. Organically raised veal should never be wasted on a grill. Instead, using a mallet, pound veal cutlets thin and dredge them in an egg wash and seasoned bread crumbs before frying them quickly in hot butter. Served with an organic rice pilaf, they are delicious with a slice of lemon.
For my next recommendation, I would offer the culinary joys of preparing live Maine Lobster for the dining table… but I really prefer steamed clams myself.
You say that the pigs would not have life at all without being created to serve as meat for humans. Well, I ask this- wouldn’t it be better to have never existed than to live a life like that? Living with other dead pigs in feces and unrine when you are an innately clean animal. The idea is discusting and after reading all this I will never eat meat again. If I could assure that the animals were raised in an optimal environment, perhaps. BUT- how can that be assured? The way animals are treated in the world is a sin. God created all creatures and put humans on Earth to care for them and the Earth. Look how we have taken care of the Earth, much less our animals. I pray for the Earth and the animals, but most of all, I pray for the people who CHOOSE to treat them in such horrible, discusting, inhumane ways. Those people will surley go to hell. I am a first grade teacher and the other day at school, I saw a little boy wearing a football jersey with the name VICK across the back. How can decent human beings support such a pathetic person through their child? More importantly, what will that child become? A person who can harm an innocent animal over and over again should be shot. Better yet, they should be treated in exactly the same way. Michael Vick shoul be chained, starved, fought, beaten, dround, electrocuted, and hung, brought almost to the brink of death, then brought back to life and have this process repeated over and over again. (Sorry, little tangent there) Again, I could understand eating meat if I was assured that the animal had a good life prior. But when they are treated in such a way, I ask this- How can any decent person continue to support this?
Vegans love animals :)
certain animals love vegans (as well as any other helpless morsel of meat).