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desertowl1026 December 4 2007, 23:46:22 UTC
What's the difference between this and forcing poor vegetables to grow in cramped rows, picking them before they fully ripen and then boiling them alive?
Because animals feel pain? So? They're not sentient, so what's the difference? Animals only deserve that kind of empathy if we elevate them to the status of a pet - which farm animals aren't.
I hate how privilege grants America the right to take things for granted - like the fact that we have enough food to eat in the first place. Show me an animal rights activism group anywhere in Africa.

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desertowl1026 December 5 2007, 00:00:10 UTC
But, I jumped right to defending the moral argument, because the video conflates the two.

"Conditions in these slaughterhouses are inhumane and terrible, *THEREFORE* eating meat is wrong."

Well, no. PETA and whomever clearly pick out the worst-kept farms to highlight in their videos, and they're far from a representative sample of the entire meat industry. Even mass-production type meat farms (a subject which I clearly have no authority on) have nicer facilities than the grainy, horror-film mess in the video.

There was a Dirty Jobs episode where Mike Rowe assisted in the same ear-trimming, tail-cutting, castrating of the baby pigs that's here, but it was clearly a brief, routine procedure done for the health of the pigs, and it didn't have Alec Baldwin using colorful adjectives and verbs like "mutilating" to describe it.

Slaughterhouses will never be luxury hotels, even by stupid animal standards. But they can indeed stand to have better conditions. Just don't tell me I can't enjoy my delicious steak.

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shadowgb December 5 2007, 17:19:47 UTC
oh n I totally agree with you. I'm not trying to be some no cheese eating vegan hippie or something. I just don't understand why there aren't better ways to do some of these things, or rather why these people don't utilize better techniques. I've seen the episode of dirty jobs you are referring to. and I understand why they do the things they do. however, using chickens like dodge balls and hanging a 500 lb cow by one leg is akin to hanging you from your pinkie toe. while no, I don't think cows and such are sentient, they still have nerve endings and a central nervous system and do feel pain. doing th things like this makes about as much sense and swabbing a death row inmate's arm with alcohol just before you stick in the needle. it's just plain unnecessary.

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desertowl1026 December 5 2007, 18:30:55 UTC
I bet the problem probably comes down to cost. How much painkiller would these places need to buy to render thousands and thousands of cows numb before slitting their throats every year? If they spend the extra money for bigger cages, so their chickens will have less squalid conditions, they'll probably have room for fewer cages, which means fewer chickens and less profit. That's why "free range" or "cageless, natural" eggs cost more than "normal" eggs in the supermarket. Everything comes down to money.

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