Letters to the Editor
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China and The Olympics
After reading about the Chinese treatment of animals I will be boycotting the Olympics. The sad part is they treat the Tibetans just about as bad as seen on the news of late.
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Bravo, Chinese girl!
What is the connection between the Olympics and whether the Chinese eat the same animals we do?
It was nice to see some straight discussion on a topic which is so emotional for many.
"Again, welcome to China, and next time bring your own outer space food."
I'm still smiling!
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mull
I have been thinking about this article all day. I do understand the argument that those who eat meat of any kind should examine their own actions. What is most profoundly disturbing though, is a lack of empathy exhibited by some posters here and , it seems, most of the Chinese reponsible for the slaughter. People in the US were outraged at the recent inhumane treatment of cows in the slaughterhouse. Yet, many who post here seem to make no reference to the callous, insensitive and truly horrific treatment of the cats and dogs in China. The lassie dog in the article was seeking human companionship and found it. I wonder what it was thinking when it was grabbed by the scruff, and god knows what.
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Irreconcilable Moral Disagreements
The author believes that dogs and cats are deserving of some of the same moral considerations given to humans. I don't have the same intuition, and actually it strikes me as self-righteous to criticize the Chinese for engaging in a culinary practice that they have been practicing for thousands of years. But I can provide no principled argument for why we should eat cats and dogs, just as the author can provide no principled argument for why we shouldn't eat them. A libertarian might argue that humans have a fundamental right to eat dogs and cats, but the pet's-rights advocate can just respond that dogs and cats have the fundamental right not to be eaten by humans. Alternatively, the utilitarian might argue that the Chinese gain utility from eating dogs and cats, but the pet's-rights advocate can just respond that the disutility imposed on dogs and cats by being eaten should be included in the utility calculus. It is impossible to draw an indisputable line between those whose rights/utility should matter and those whose rights/utility shouldn't matter. We rely solely on our emotional intuitions about the subject: mouths in America contort in disgust, while mouths in China water in anticipation. I guess the only solution is to aggregate our intuitions through the democratic process.
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Who do you eat?
While I am happy to see the author did not 'indulge' in eating his friend just to make others happy or as a result of 'political' pressure, I couldn't help but wonder: does the author feel the same way when biting into a burger? or chicken breast? rack of lamb? veal? bacon?
The animals we routinely torture and heinously slaughter every second of every day in this country are no different than the author's 'Lassie'. They are looked at the same way here as dogs, cats and pretty much all animals are looked at in China (and other countries). The only difference is that you don't really know cows or chickens, pigs or sheep - or any of their babies (lamb and male calves or 'veal' in the standard American vocabulary) and the slaughterhouse industry wants to keep it that way. If you developed a touching relationship with any animal that you now call 'food', you may have second thoughts about ripping into it's leg or breast- at least a compassionate human would.
So, why be so appalled at someone else's actions when you commit the same atrocities in your own home?
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it's idiotic to say that there is any connection between being vegan and pro-life
if someone is against eating eggs laid by "companion" chickens then yes THEY should be pro life. I have never heard of ANYONE who objects to eating eggs ON PINCIPLE though, if the egg layers were treated properly.
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as a matter of fact kansas girl they study both brain physiology and function
and the more they look the more similarity they find between haumans and other mammals. Of course we can never absolutley prove what ANYTHING is feeling including another human, but we can makes reasonable inferences based on overwhelming evidence, for people AND at least some other animals.
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People are to animals as the Nazis were to Jews.
China is a particularly barbaric and cruel nation, but the torture and mistreatment of animals is a universal human activity. Among the countless ways the United States tortures animals is its monstrous factory farming system; if you eat meat or dairy or eggs, you're paying for animals to live lives of misery and pain. That's the biggest and worst, but rest assured that our mad scientists subject animals to tests where pain is the desired result, and our mad military tests its awful chemical weapons on live animals. Cats, dogs, chimps, cows, chickens, pigs: if it's not human, we torture it, one way or the other.
The problem is the damned human race. We complain and wring our hands about man's inhumanity to man, but why do we expect ourselves to be kind, compassionate creatures when we obviously are the exact opposite. We are the true demons from Hell.
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The sentient and spiritual nature of domestic animals
Anyone who has lived with a cat or dog...anyone who has left himself or herself open to communication with that animal...that person has been privileged to understand how effectively and powerfully cats and (especially) dogs communicate with us. Right, of course I am nuts for saying this. Of course I am anthropomorphizing if I ascribe a soul and spirit to a "dumb" animal, I must be one of those PETA lunatics! But I have had a cat tell me through her eyes and face that she wanted me to let her go because, at age 17, life had become unbearable for her. I have felt the forgiveness flow into me when I lost my temper at our dog and hit him. I have learned that people have sophisticated themselves out of contact with the soul that lives in those animals. Yes: I eat meat. I wear leather. I am not the plastic-and-rope-wearing prophet in the desert who thinks that all animals are sacrosanct. No, you do not abuse any animal lest you become what you do. But in the special case of domestic pets, for millenia part of our households and our lives, you do not descend to butchery, torture, and a place on the menu. You do not kill and eat somethingn with a soul that can talk to yours if you are not so closed-off and ignorant that you can't sense it's there.