henryscat
Well-Known Forumite
No. Should animals be property? I would say most definitely not. Why should property rights over an animal confer the right to do as you please?
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Buying your dead pig from Tesco or Sainsbury?
- Thread starter henryscat
- Start date
Gramaisc
Forum O. G.
The existing laws - 'unnecessary suffering', etc. - give scant regard to ownership.
Gramaisc
Forum O. G.
It was the case here within living memory - the Vicky Price defence of marital coercion was one of the last vestiges of it.
henryscat
Well-Known Forumite
Legislation gives little protection to animals. It allows species kept for meat/dairy to be abused, it allows animals to be abused in laboratories, is allowing a protected species (badgers) to be shot, but would convict you if you did any of that to a "pet" species at home. Either causing suffering to animals is wrong or it isn't, it can't just be oh well it is sometimes or wrong if it is a cat but not wrong if it is a pig.
tek-monkey
wanna see my snake?
If you don't like the current situation perhaps you should vote for someone that will change it?
Personally I think a clearer labelling system would do a lot of good. Make all meat have a label stating country of origin (including flag for the less literate), farm it is from and most importantly the equivalent uk welfare standard to which they adhere. If none match, then print none on the pack - to me that is the most important bit. No secondary labels for 'good' welfare, make it part of the legal packaging for all meat. I suspect many people seeing no welfare standard at all will think twice, at present it is simply omitted and forgotten about.
If a farm is not willing to pay to be inspected, then they are marked as none regardless. If they don't like it they can simply stop selling to the uk. I'm sure our own farmers would welcome this.
Personally I think a clearer labelling system would do a lot of good. Make all meat have a label stating country of origin (including flag for the less literate), farm it is from and most importantly the equivalent uk welfare standard to which they adhere. If none match, then print none on the pack - to me that is the most important bit. No secondary labels for 'good' welfare, make it part of the legal packaging for all meat. I suspect many people seeing no welfare standard at all will think twice, at present it is simply omitted and forgotten about.
If a farm is not willing to pay to be inspected, then they are marked as none regardless. If they don't like it they can simply stop selling to the uk. I'm sure our own farmers would welcome this.
tek-monkey
wanna see my snake?
Had a thought yesterday, but was incommunicado. I really do admire your commitment on this part, even if I don't agree with it. Given the choice between life saving medication tested on animals or just dealing with it and dying I can honestly say the rabbits/mice/monkeys wouldn't get a look in. I do hope you don't force this onto any offspring though?
henryscat
Well-Known Forumite
There was a lot of discussion on this in an animal testing thread quite some time back...
Significant numbers of people die from adverse drug reactions precisely because of animal testing being flawed. Equally that life saving medication could (and has) be delayed significantly in becoming available because of adverse reactions in animal tests that do not occur in humans.
tek-monkey
wanna see my snake?
But you do avoid medication tested on animals?
I couldn't, I prize the lives of myself and my family above other humans let alone animals! As long as say 10% of tests were beneficial I'd be hard pressed to condemn it, as I doubt I'd be alive to do so without them.
I couldn't, I prize the lives of myself and my family above other humans let alone animals! As long as say 10% of tests were beneficial I'd be hard pressed to condemn it, as I doubt I'd be alive to do so without them.
db
#chaplife
don't expect a reply.. same way he won't reply when asked if he uses a mobile phone manufactured in factories that don't respect the most basic of human rights, etc..
if something doesn't fit into his woefully flawed argument, it conveniently gets ignored..
tek-monkey
wanna see my snake?
Good point actually, I bet none of the technology in my house comes from factories where the workers are treated even remotely fairly (i.e. its all from Taiwan/China/India). I guess morals are fine as long as they don't infringe on your enjoyment of the finer things in life.
db
#chaplife
indeed.. i have tried to make this exact point over and over to our scatalogical friend, but he ignores it every time.. it all harks back to the point i made earlier:
henry scat's entire argument boils down to: if you can't justify something morally, then you shouldn't do it..
yet he has demonstrated several times that he himself cannot live by such a strict code..
Franklin_Delano_Roosevelt
Well-Known Forumite
Indeed. Inconsistencies in the argument are rife. HC claims that any destruction of animals is wrong and yet seems quite happy to condone the loss of wildlife and wildlife habitats brought about by arable farming, that incidentally would be made worse if everyone ate an exclusively vegetarian diet and said arable farming was made even more intensive.
HC loves a good argument, so long as said debate is on his terms in order that he can "pick and choose" his line of attack
Gramaisc
Forum O. G.
I'm not sure that land use would need to increase in intensity or that habitat destruction would necessarily increase to more than that at present. The land used directly by animal farming would be released and, more importantly, the arable land used to supply the livestock industries would also become available..
e.g., how many people could be fed by the bread from a hectare of wheat against how many would be fed by the cattle that had eaten the wheat from that hectare + plus land that they used..?
Franklin_Delano_Roosevelt
Well-Known Forumite
But intensive meat rearing doesn't tend to use much land as animals are crammed into sheds, pens or small plots. Many of these animals are stored and treated in such poor conditions that they often have a very poor artificial and/or "stimulant" fed diet which also means minimal land for the growing of their feed. Growing crops has to happen in open spaces, growing crops intensively has to happen in wide open spaces to make it economic for giant machinery to trundle around.
This type of arable farming already kills wildlife and destroys habitats. I can't see how that situation would be anything other than worse if no one ate meat anymore. The main point of my argument remains that HC seems to believe that killing pigs, cows etc is wrong but killing bees, butterflies, hedgehogs etc to grow crops is apparently fine.
tek-monkey
wanna see my snake?
The question is would we give any of the land back to wildlife? Or just ditch the pesticides and grow less but better for the wildlife?
Regardless, as stated HC couldn't even reply unless he was using a computer/phone made in shocking conditions by underpaid virtual slaves.
Regardless, as stated HC couldn't even reply unless he was using a computer/phone made in shocking conditions by underpaid virtual slaves.
littleme
250,000th poster!
Hmm, if everyone stops eating meat then the land freed up will have to be used to grow VAST quantitys of vegetables for the whole population which will then be vegetarian...
...and if the news is correct, then in the near future cattle will be wiped out by Bovine TB, beef from abroard will be too expensive, and what will happen to milk, cheese, yogurt etc...
...and if the news is correct, then in the near future cattle will be wiped out by Bovine TB, beef from abroard will be too expensive, and what will happen to milk, cheese, yogurt etc...
Gramaisc
Forum O. G.
Indeed, but you will need to produce less vegetable matter for feeding directly to humans than if you are going to feed it to animals to convert to meat.
henryscat
Well-Known Forumite
It is possible to have a very productive agricultural system without nasty chemicals and hydrocarbon derived fertiliser.
As it happens, I've been very busy. This one has come up several times before and I've answered it before, so you already know the answer. Human and animal exploitation is all part of the same continuum - the two are linked.
Where do you stand on human exploitation in far East factories then?
Where do you stand on human exploitation in the meat supply chain?