Letters to the Editor
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empathy for suffering is universal and not limited to the first world
Excuse me, I beg to differ with the writer who thinks that the animal had a good time before being slaughtered. Where does pain and fear factor into having a good time? I'd like to see you have a good time in an abbatoir trussed up and ready to have your throat slit. Perhaps in your next life you will be so lucky.
I'm from Viet Nam and I do not eat dog or cat, it is a choice. Do you assume that all people from third world countries are savages, or that we live in a hut and sleep on a straw mat? The decision to be humane is a universal one and not reserved for supposedly more enlightened Westerners. Budhism is our national religion, many of us practice vegetarianism. My uncle considered becoming a monk at one point, he decided to become a doctor instead to support the family, but he is still a devout Budhist and vegetarian. My father on the other hand ate anything including dogs. We were not starving peasants, we were middle class people with plenty of food and money. Our choice of food was not directed by famine nor poverty.
Cruel and inhumane treatment of any being is wrong, regardless of where you are from. Any reasonable person with empathy and conscience would recognize this.