Give a man a fish, feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, MURDERER!!

March 12, 2007 10:07 AM

Fishing Hurts is a new website from PETA aimed at getting people to stop fishing. No one would consider doing to a dog what some so casually do to fish—trick them into impaling themselves in the mouth and pull them into an environment where they can't breathe. But the fact is—fish feel pain just as all animals do. When it comes to feelings, a child is a dog is a fish.
posted by billysumday (207 comments total)

Do you need further proof? Consider exhibit one and exhibit two and exhibit three. Q.E.D, bitches.
posted by boo_radley at 10:13 AM on March 12, 2007 [1 favorite has favorites]

If I wanted to eat a dog for whatever reason, and the best way to eat a dog was to trick it into impaling itself on a hook, I would trick it into impaling itself on a hook. End of story. I like to eat fish, particularly ones that I can see where they come from.
posted by spicynuts at 10:14 AM on March 12, 2007

Meat is Murder is a wicked album.
posted by chunking express at 10:17 AM on March 12, 2007 [1 favorite has favorites]

No one would consider doing to a dog what some so casually do to fish.

i beg to differ. though i prefer spear dogging as opposed to using a reel. broke too many lines with that.
posted by andywolf at 10:18 AM on March 12, 2007 [3 favorites has favorites]

a child is a dog is a fish.

HAHA
posted by kitalea at 10:18 AM on March 12, 2007

"My mother is a fish."-Vardaman Bundren
posted by OmieWise at 10:19 AM on March 12, 2007 [2 favorites has favorites]

I'm am all for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, but false equivalences...not so much.

If all living creatures are morally equal to children, is it swat flies? Step on ants (even accidentally)? Take antibiotics? Eat plants? Where exactly is the line?

</endlessrehashofPETAtupidity>
posted by DU at 10:20 AM on March 12, 2007

Come on, PETA is such an easy target of ridicule.
posted by melt away at 10:20 AM on March 12, 2007

Time to get the eyes checked. I thought it said "Fisting Hurts".
posted by srboisvert at 10:23 AM on March 12, 2007 [13 favorites has favorites]

The differences are quite clear:

1) Dog and baby licenses are much more expensive and most dogs and babies are harder to clean and take up more freezer space than anything smaller than a halibut.

2) You don't need a hook to catch most dogs and babies. A Snausage and a lollypop will usually keep you in hot dogs and baby cheeks for weeks.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 10:24 AM on March 12, 2007 [9 favorites has favorites]

What a joke.
posted by blaneyphoto at 10:25 AM on March 12, 2007

Yes, but then Fishing with John wouldn't be as funny.
posted by four panels at 10:26 AM on March 12, 2007 [1 favorite has favorites]

Anglers will have more than fishing on their minds when they see PETA's new billboard on the road to their favorite fishing hole.

Yeah, they will.

"Jesus fuck. Stupid PETA assholes."
posted by god hates math at 10:27 AM on March 12, 2007 [4 favorites has favorites]

All analogies comparing animals to humans can be refuted by selecting a tapeworm as the animal.
posted by Pastabagel at 10:27 AM on March 12, 2007 [3 favorites has favorites]

or Hitler as the human
posted by spicynuts at 10:29 AM on March 12, 2007 [8 favorites has favorites]

a child is a dog is a fish

Bullshit; not only are today's children incredibly high in fats and cholesterol in comparison to fish, but the juvenile obesity epidemic also means that it's damn hard to find a reasonably priced grill big enough to cook them on.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 10:29 AM on March 12, 2007 [2 favorites has favorites]

The funniest part of this is that PETA itself is clearly just trolling.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 10:29 AM on March 12, 2007 [6 favorites has favorites]

Well, how else are you going to get it out of quonsar's pants? Your hand?!
posted by dazed_one at 10:30 AM on March 12, 2007 [4 favorites has favorites]

This explains why those kids were so upset when I landed that mutt. Not my fault Tender Vittles are just what it says on the tin. And I'll be damned if I ever go fishing for shark or Labrador without a .45.
posted by yerfatma at 10:30 AM on March 12, 2007

No, the funniest part is that everyone in America gets told that PETA is an example of "liberal thinking", which is part of the reason there is no real Left in this country.
posted by DU at 10:31 AM on March 12, 2007

Hitler: the purely white meat.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 10:32 AM on March 12, 2007 [12 favorites has favorites]

Sorry PETA. I came of age in the 90's and so I know that its okay to eat fish. Cause they don't have any feelings. Q.E. Motherfucking D.
posted by ND¢ at 10:32 AM on March 12, 2007 [9 favorites has favorites]

I draw the line on creatures that bite any shiny thing that is dangled in front of their face.
posted by geoff. at 10:33 AM on March 12, 2007

But someone told me it was specifically okay to eat fish because they didn't have any feelings. Through song.
posted by solistrato at 10:33 AM on March 12, 2007 [2 favorites has favorites]

The funniest part of this is that PETA itself is clearly just trolling.

In other words, they were *fishing* for a reaction? Well, they got me, alright. Got me hook, line, and sinker!
posted by billysumday at 10:34 AM on March 12, 2007 [5 favorites has favorites]

Sorry, that wasn't clear. The lack of a Left isn't due to PETA. The lack of a Left is (partly) due to the left being vilified for having ridiculous opinions. PETA is only one example.
posted by DU at 10:34 AM on March 12, 2007

DAMNIT, ND.
posted by solistrato at 10:34 AM on March 12, 2007

Plus, fuck if i'm gonna trust something that breathes under water! That's some kinda commie, godless shit right there. Eating fish is thus fighting the good fight.
posted by spicynuts at 10:38 AM on March 12, 2007 [4 favorites has favorites]

Well, given what people are willing to do to children in other countries in order to get fancy running shoes, or designer clothes...

I joke but it's probably true- if we want social justice, we need to march with kittens and puppies, after all, police are less inclined to beat you then.
posted by yeloson at 10:38 AM on March 12, 2007

And who thinks about how a head of cabbage feels? Who dammit? WHO? You don't think they call it a head for nothing, do you?
posted by tula at 10:39 AM on March 12, 2007 [1 favorite has favorites]

The lack of a Left is (partly) due to the left being vilified for having ridiculous opinions.

Yes because we don't take the right's extremists and parade them around saying "Look how crazy Republicans are".
posted by ND¢ at 10:40 AM on March 12, 2007

Squirrel fishing.
Rat fishing.
Dog fishing.
Tar Baby Fishing.
posted by mattbucher at 10:41 AM on March 12, 2007

So hooks are out, but dynamite is still OK, right?
posted by mosk at 10:42 AM on March 12, 2007

How about noodling?
posted by spicynuts at 10:44 AM on March 12, 2007

srboisvert: Interestingly enough, PETA says that fishing becomes ethical only when using lots and lots of lube.
posted by honeydew at 10:46 AM on March 12, 2007

> No, the funniest part is that everyone in America gets told that PETA is an example of "liberal thinking",

Why no, everyone has that idea all by him- or herself, spontaneously and unprompted.
posted by jfuller at 10:47 AM on March 12, 2007

What about fish tickling?
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 10:51 AM on March 12, 2007

PETA is the Ann Coulter of animal rights.
posted by languagehat at 10:52 AM on March 12, 2007 [4 favorites has favorites]

...we don't take the right's extremists and parade them around saying "Look how crazy Republicans are".

The right's extremists are in office, including the White House (creationism anyone?), so I think it's fair to "parade them around" as representing Republicans.
posted by DU at 10:52 AM on March 12, 2007

Sure, a hook through your cheek hurts a bit, but getting your innards impaled by a beak or a claw and being eaten alive must hurt a good bit more, so I'm inclined to think I'm really doing the fish a favor.
posted by ikalliom at 10:57 AM on March 12, 2007 [1 favorite has favorites]

Oh, you don't want to meet the Ann Coulter of the Animal Right.
posted by Songdog at 10:57 AM on March 12, 2007

This is even more entertaining than when PETA managed to pi$$ off a sizeable fraction of the state of South Carolina by telling the University of SC that they ought to change their team-name mascot to something other than the Gamecocks. PETA tried this back in 2001 and again more recently.

(Dunno if they've even noticed all the teams named after bulldogs, but that's another story.)
posted by pax digita at 11:01 AM on March 12, 2007

         P    E    T    A
         E    A    A    N
         O    T    S    I
         P     I    T    M
         L    N    Y    A
         E    G         L
                          S

Mmmmm...PETA!
posted by taosbat at 11:02 AM on March 12, 2007 [1 favorite has favorites]

I draw the line on creatures that bite any shiny thing that is dangled in front of their face.

Well, that would include small children....

If all living creatures are morally equal to children, is it swat flies? Step on ants (even accidentally)? Take antibiotics? Eat plants? Where exactly is the line?

There is no line--that's the point. Swatting a fly, taking antibiotics, eating plants, you're choosing your life over another's, and usually many others. Of course, PETA's coming at this from the absurdity of the notion that life==good, so this is just an ethical GIGO. PETA's the natural end of that argument. We value the things closest to us--our own families, then our communities, then our species, then other mammals, then other animals, and in that order. Is this "right"? Certainly not in any objective sense, but is there such a thing as an objective morality? Can we know it if there is? I think it's more important simply to admit our own ignorance, and remember how much dies to keep us alive every day. Valuing the things closest to you most seems a fine enough way to make things work, but we shouldn't kid ourselves about it being "right."
posted by jefgodesky at 11:03 AM on March 12, 2007 [5 favorites has favorites]

Top Tip: If you can't find frozen bean curd skin, use egg-less egg roll skins instead (from most Japanese and Chinese markets).

Egg-less egg roll skins. Who'da thunk it?
posted by Samizdata at 11:04 AM on March 12, 2007

PETA=PITA
posted by IronLizard at 11:07 AM on March 12, 2007

I often wonder if Nietzsche would be in PETA. Or if he would be smart enough to call them all idiots.
posted by dios at 11:08 AM on March 12, 2007

Wait, what about squid or other invertebrates? I mean, they don't even have a complete nervous system, so they don't really feel anything, right?

What about bivalves? I mean, clams and oysters - surely they don't care? I mean, they're barely above plants in terms of "feelings".
posted by GuyZero at 11:11 AM on March 12, 2007

You ever notice how a fish just kinda flops around when you take it outta the water? Well, that got me to thinking...

Then came the day that T.C. f**ked the chicken.
posted by mr_book at 11:12 AM on March 12, 2007 [2 favorites has favorites]

Fuck PETA. If I'm going listen to any radical group of animal rights whackjobs, it's going to be the Animal Liberation Front. Fuck using billboards and media advertisements campaigns. Let's just bomb some shit and set some lab animals that have been injected with strange and exotic viruses and bacteria free while wearing ski masks. I mean, seriously, why should I believe you are committed to the cause if you won't commit acts of terrorism to prove to the world that you take animal rights seriously.

Of course, the saddest part is when you short circuit the whole argument by saying "people are animals too" or "go hug a grizzly bear." Last I checked, PETA still owns and maintains several "humane kill" facilities for animals that they "rescue" which are too dangerous to be allowed to live. Like certain breeds of dogs that have too much "game" in them (Rots, Pits, and other sport fighting breeds).
posted by daq at 11:14 AM on March 12, 2007

PETA exists so that other animal do-good organizations don't look crazy.
posted by five fresh fish at 11:14 AM on March 12, 2007

A holocaust of stupendous proportions has been going on for generations upon generations, virtually all over the globe. Every day, millions of innocent victims are being shoved into ovens to meet a gruesome death. However, none of us bats an eye. Since our childhood, we've been condoning this horror by our inaction. Take a stand now, and choose to end this genocide.

Please, won't someone think of the bread-leavening yeasts?
posted by CKmtl at 11:15 AM on March 12, 2007 [10 favorites has favorites]

Time to get the eyes checked. I thought it said "Fisting Hurts".

Of course it hurts if you do it in your eye. The fist goes in your bottom, silly.

Ocular fisting is better known as "doin' it stooge-style."
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 11:17 AM on March 12, 2007 [6 favorites has favorites]

dios, I don't remember where Nietzsche put down antivivisectionists but do recall he did. You know the Gaygenda goes back at least as far as Socrates, right?
posted by davy at 11:19 AM on March 12, 2007

Slow work day, guys?........
posted by metasonix at 11:19 AM on March 12, 2007

The thing I don't understand is, if it's wrong to eat fish, why are they made out of delicious fish meat?
posted by mullingitover at 11:22 AM on March 12, 2007

Thank you Jef for being possibly the only commenter who addressed PETA's main point and didn't crack animal jokes.

Just because there is no line doesn't negate the question of whether or not it is cruel to kill fish. By the logic displayed in this thread, we are completely morally praiseworthy if we ate infants. O.o

I'd like someone to actually address that question instead of insulting the messenger or commenting how silly it is to ask. "Well, tapeworms are killed all the time, so we should eat all animals!"

(Here comes the Barney Miller jokes....)
posted by Dantien at 11:23 AM on March 12, 2007

Now, imagine if the fish were black.
posted by four panels at 11:24 AM on March 12, 2007

The digambara sect Jains think PETA is full of bloodthirsty barbarians for even talking about it.
posted by Smedleyman at 11:26 AM on March 12, 2007

Never feel sympathy for your food. It's counter-productive. Every organism on the planet survives (directly or indirectly) off the death of another. Get over it.
posted by elendil71 at 11:29 AM on March 12, 2007 [1 favorite has favorites]

PETA is one of those organizations that exist to make leftists and humanitarians look stupid. They hurt our cause by making it difficult for your average, middle-of-the-road American to take issues like animal rights seriously.

Corporate fish farms = bad
Gigantic fishing boats overfishing the worlds oceans = bad
Going fishing with your old man = good

Does it really need to be more complicated then that?
posted by Afroblanco at 11:31 AM on March 12, 2007

"Food first, then morality"- Brecht
posted by Smedleyman at 11:31 AM on March 12, 2007 [1 favorite has favorites]

ROU_xenophobe: man, that description would make for some wacky personals, wouldn't it? Well done.
posted by boo_radley at 11:33 AM on March 12, 2007

Can't believe nobody's linked to Consider the Lobster yet. is an interesting look into the ethics of potentially causing suffering for our own gestational pleasure.

(Fishing LJ: I head to the Blue river a couple times a year with my dad. We typically catch nothing, but will sometimes come back with five or six good-sized channel cat and/or flathead. (I won't eat fish from the Blue -- or any Kansas river, for that matter -- because it's thoroughly polluted by pesticide runoff, but dad has no such compunctions.) The drive from the river to my folks' place is about an hour and a half. Once we get back, we have to clean the fish. Cleaning catfish is a bit more involved than bass or most other gamefish, because it's remarkably difficult to filet them. Our technique is to hang them up, flay them, gut them, then cut them into chunks for frying. The flaying is executed with pliers, and is for me a rather harrowing experience (and certainly more so for the catfish). After at least an hour and a half after being pulled from the water, the catfish have still not died, and will still react quite strongly to the process of getting their skin ripped off. The croaking sound they make is one of the most unsettling noises I've ever heard. It just reminds me of something Thoreau said to the effect that if more people had to slaughter the meat they eat there would be a lot more vegetarians in the world. [NOT VEGETARIANIST])
posted by cog_nate at 11:34 AM on March 12, 2007 [1 favorite has favorites]

"Fishing hurts!"...that's just not true.. I go fishing almost every day, it seldom if ever hurts. I did get a hook in my finger once that that was a real ouch, but that doesn't happen often...
posted by HuronBob at 11:34 AM on March 12, 2007

Gestational pleasure? That's so stupid it's not even wrong.
posted by cog_nate at 11:36 AM on March 12, 2007

jefgodesky: I think it's more important simply to admit our own ignorance, and remember how much dies to keep us alive every day. Valuing the things closest to you most seems a fine enough way to make things work, but we shouldn't kid ourselves about it being "right."

Dantien: Just because there is no line doesn't negate the question of whether or not it is cruel to kill fish....
I'd like someone to actually address that question

Okay - I'll address it. It's cruel to kill a fish, if you are that fish. If you are not that fish, well - that's life. And I don't mean "that's life" dismissively, I mean it literally. That is how life works. It is all about the constant exchange of energy. Energy is never created, only redistributed. So nothing new is ever possible without the destruction of the old. Every living thing on this planet will die, sometimes in a precalculatedly useful manner, but also often with no immediately useful return. Every one of those deaths is tragic at the local level, but to mourn them all is to miss the poignancy of the sacrifice: Death is the greatest gift that life has to offer the future.

A more interesting question (to me) is whether catch-and-release fishing, often touted as the more "humane" way to fish, is in fact more humane. For myself, I only kill to eat or protect, and I don't think there's anything "humane" about harassing any animal just for "sport." But that's just me. What do I know? I'm just a really rare worm banquet on the run.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 12:02 PM on March 12, 2007 [6 favorites has favorites]

Great t-shirt I saw on an NRA friend once:

People for the Eating of Tasty Animals

That said, if I had to kill Bessie or Babe myself, I'd be a vegetarian.
posted by mmrtnt at 12:10 PM on March 12, 2007

Well, I think PETA is wrong here. People evolved to eat a variety of things -- animal as well as vegetable. Just because it's *possible now* to survive on a solely vegetarian diet doesn't mean everyone is going to, or even that they should.

I think there are good health reasons to be vegetarian, but it's not a moral or ethical choice, at least not as far as killing other animals goes.

Humanity seems to wipe out easily hunted game animals, so, for example, cows would probably be extinct if they weren't domesticated. I don't think any one would keep them around as pets.

And I don't think the issue of "causing pain" is valid here. Lot's of things cause pain for animals, like parasites, other animals eating them, etc... I don't see PETA out creating hospitals for wild fish, to "reduce the suffering".

And I think it's an issue of suffering. As far as I can tell, fish don't suffer when they are caught. They don't seem to have any self awareness. (Maybe that's just a cop-out, though. It's awfully convenient for us that no other animal has much self-awareness.)

I have a little trouble eating mammals ... I still eat them, but I feel a little bad about it. I have trouble with anything that loves it's young. But it's a long-term goal to eat less red meat... But for all intents and purposes, I consider fish and poultry to be vegetables.
posted by webnrrd2k at 12:13 PM on March 12, 2007

Metafilter: just a really rare worm banquet on the run.

sorry, I always wanted to do that.
posted by SBMike at 12:14 PM on March 12, 2007 [1 favorite has favorites]

I draw the line on creatures that bite any shiny thing that is dangled in front of their face.

geoff should not be allowed anywhere near a cat.
posted by mmrtnt at 12:18 PM on March 12, 2007

Dantien: Just because there is no line doesn't negate the question of whether or not it is cruel to kill fish....
I'd like someone to actually address that question

Oh please...it's a post to PETA b.s. Talk about dangling a shiny thing if front of someone. You thought this was going to engender a discussion? On Metafilter?
posted by spicynuts at 12:18 PM on March 12, 2007

Dantien: I'd like someone to actually address that question instead of insulting the messenger or commenting how silly it is to ask. "Well, tapeworms are killed all the time, so we should eat all animals!"

Whether PETA intends to or not, they are inviting insults to their intelligence and cracks about their silliness. That picture of a hooked dog and the "a child is a dog is a fish" is just asking for it. All it's going to do is rile up PETA-minded people, and make non-PETA-minded people roll their eyes.

Obtaining and consuming food isn't an act of cruelty. Is it cruel for a lion to kill and eat its prey? A crocodile? A dolphin? PETA would mostly say no. So it's only cruel when humans do it? Then animals and humans aren't equal. Also, PETA members wouldn't be around to contemplate the innocent childlike nature of the noble Trout if, sometime in the Long Long Ago, one of our pre-human ancestors didn't hunt and kill things. They probably wouldn't be around to contemplate the trout if, in a more recent Long Long Ago, another ancestor didn't realise that obtaining food would be easier if prey animals were domesticated into livestock.

That said, cruelty to animals does exist. PETA should go talk to people working at their local SPCAs if they want to see cruelty. Beating, starving, letting collars get ingrown just for the sake of sadism or fun or from neglect; that's cruelty. The sadism / fun kind of cruelty also happens to be a harbinger of bad things to come.

So, if cruelty for the sake fun is bad, what about catch-and-release fishing? Isn't that the same as beating your dog or lighting your cat on fire? No, I'd said not. I'd say it's better compared to the tranq-darting and tagging performed by biologists. The animal's gets a tiny bit of pain, is freaked out for a bit, but is ultimately released without being harmed. Plus, catch-and-release fishing actually benefits wildlife and ecology by encouraging an interest in sustained wildlife populations and habitats.

Also, what Afroblanco said.
posted by CKmtl at 12:23 PM on March 12, 2007 [1 favorite has favorites]

Oops taosbat!

(Firefox text search only works horizontally)
posted by mmrtnt at 12:29 PM on March 12, 2007

This post made me go fishing...








in my fridge...








FOR BACONNNNNNN!
posted by exlotuseater at 12:30 PM on March 12, 2007 [1 favorite has favorites]

What really pisses the fish off is when you knock it off its bicycle.
posted by localroger at 12:34 PM on March 12, 2007 [2 favorites has favorites]

I do all my fishing in the Bassmaster 3000: X-Treme Angling! videogame. With the chainsword option.
posted by Midnight Creeper at 12:35 PM on March 12, 2007

"You know why fish are so thin? They eat fish."
Seinfeld.
posted by Green Eyed Monster at 12:35 PM on March 12, 2007

> If all living creatures are morally equal to children, is it swat flies? Step on ants (even accidentally)? Take antibiotics? Eat plants? Where exactly is the line?

There is no line--that's the point. Swatting a fly, taking antibiotics, eating plants, you're choosing your life over another's, and usually many others.

Yeah, there is a line. It's not objective, but we all have one. For me, it's to do with intelligence and potential and vague wishy-washy things like that. I wouldn't kill a chimpanzee, for example. For others, fly swatting is out too. Some say they don't eat plants, and others feel offended simply by existing. To the right of me, there have been plenty who don't mind killing weak and useless children, or undesirable adult humans. There's clearly some kind of line being drawn, and I'm hoping there's someone out there calibrating a new axis on the political compass based on it.
posted by hoverboards don't work on water at 12:38 PM on March 12, 2007

Is it cruel for a lion to kill and eat its prey?

Of course it is. It's also life.

So, if cruelty for the sake fun is bad, what about catch-and-release fishing? Isn't that the same as beating your dog or lighting your cat on fire? No, I'd said not. I'd say it's better compared to the tranq-darting and tagging performed by biologists.

Well let's not get ridiculous. It looks to be a pretty horrendous experience for the fish, and ain't no tranq comin through that hook to help matters any. Biologists also aren't just out for kicks. What you say about creating an incentive to invest in wilderness is true, however. Though it'd be nice if people would do that regardless. (disclaimer: last time fishing I did catch and release, decided for myself that it was cruel, and so now I'll enjoy the river and the boat with a book instead. PETA, however, can kiss my ass.)
posted by dreamsign at 12:44 PM on March 12, 2007

A child is a dog is a fish is a microbe. Oh noes, the human immune system is cruel!

Also, a mountain is a molehill.
posted by Foosnark at 12:54 PM on March 12, 2007

Well let's not get ridiculous. It looks to be a pretty horrendous experience for the fish, and ain't no tranq comin through that hook to help matters any. Biologists also aren't just out for kicks.

In the footage I've seen, the darted animals look _really_ freaked out by the experience, and the hovering helicopter (when they're used). It's a bit hard to tell when a fish is freaked out though, they always have that bug-eyed look. At least deer have the decency to have eyelids.

And no, there's no tranq, but I was just making a comparison in terms of the duration of the 'suffering' and the lack of durable harm. Don't get me wrong, I <3 biologists.
posted by CKmtl at 1:09 PM on March 12, 2007

Attacking PETA (of whom I agree with the goal but disagree with the approach) does not negate their point. And the fact that "life is suffering" isnt justification for killing animals. Neither is "well, other animals do it".

I assume you'd give up those tired argument if you consider humans to be animals. If you did, then why any "human rights" at all? Why anything resembling Just War Theory? Hospitals? Ethics? After all, Lions dont build refugee camps to help the displaced. Bears don't argue over right-to-life issues.

Oh, so maybe you'd say humans are above animals? Then why wouldn't unnecessary killing of animals (which seems to me to be a great deal of our actions against them. Unnecessary.) be lambasted? We act as if ending suffering is a global fight, but happily eat salmon.

Which is it guys? Are we going to "be" like an animal? If so, why don't we treat our own species (or "pet" species like dogs and cats) like animals do their own? And if we have autonomy and reason unlike animals, why aren't our morals and ethics extended to animal kingdom? And if it's cruel to torture an animal, why is it not cruel to kill and consume one?

I just don't get such specious (and Species-ist) arguments for the eating of animals while disregarding the obvious contradictions in our behavior as a human species. We no longer NEED to eat animals, so what justification is there that isnt "Mmmm..tasty!"? Can someone defend fish eating without contradicting their other beliefs or making fun of anyone? Also, could it be that humor is being used to make ourselves feel better for all this?
posted by Dantien at 1:18 PM on March 12, 2007

Okay - I'll address it. It's cruel to kill a fish, if you are that fish. If you are not that fish, well - that's life.

That was rather my point, as well. But we should also be clear that that's life--there's nothing "good" about it anymore than there's anything "evil" about it.

A more interesting question (to me) is whether catch-and-release fishing, often touted as the more "humane" way to fish, is in fact more humane. For myself, I only kill to eat or protect, and I don't think there's anything "humane" about harassing any animal just for "sport."

Hear, hear.

Yeah, there is a line. It's not objective, but we all have one.

Then there is no line! You're just making it up, and everyone makes up something different. It's not a reason, it's a rationalization. And what's more, it's not a line--it's a gradient. You say you wouldn't kill a chimpanzee, but a fly is far enough away from you that it can be killed as an afterthought. What about a rat? A rabbit? A cat? The closer you get to things like yourself, the more hesitant you are to kill them. The virtue of vegetarianism is simply distance--plants are further away from us than mammals. There's no less death involved, it's just that the death is more alien, more removed--we can remove our sympathy from it more easily. Is this "right"? Absolutely not. But it works. It's not morality, it's evolution. We'd all be a lot better off if we could honestly look ourselves in the mirror and really wrap our minds around the fact that to stay alive another day, many living things will die, things that have every bit as much a "right to life" as you do. Maybe that'd help knock us all down a few pegs, and be a little more thankful for the world around us that dies every day for our sake--and one day, we'll die for its sake, too. Or did you think all those ancient myths about gods dying and rising to life again came out of nowhere?
posted by jefgodesky at 1:38 PM on March 12, 2007

I guess they don't stock this title in the PETA library?
posted by caddis at 1:38 PM on March 12, 2007

PETA's message is usually that it's cruel to make use of animals. What if I'm OK with causing some degree of pain in order to secure some meat? How do they expect their message to reach the people who say "Yeah, OK, I buy it that a fish feels pain when I clean them alive. So?"
posted by Sukiari at 1:41 PM on March 12, 2007

Fish

A poem by Sparx

Fish
They live in the sea
Where they make love and pee

-fin
posted by Sparx at 1:44 PM on March 12, 2007

"We no longer NEED to eat animals..."

Um, yes we do.
Sorry, the current agricultural output of the world does not provide the world population with adequate nutrients at this current point in time. If it did, we still would need to supplament our diet with protiens and complex amino chains that are not found in plants, thus we would need to either synthesize these required nutrients or we would have to continue consuming animals and animal by-products.

Don't get me wrong, I would love to not have to support the current domesticated slaughter factories, but at the current time, I cannot get Wendy-Treet or any other sci-fi imaginary cloned, brainless, protein meat substitute. I also have a problem with my digestive system that means I would pretty much starve to death due to malnutrition if I could not consume concentrated nutrients like those found in animal flesh. Trust me, I've tried the alternative. I'm not rich enough to afford to buy from Whole Foods or co-ops all the time. And the MSG and other fun compounds in Veggie Burgers (and other fake meat stuffs) tends to give me constipation and headaches.

Then we get to cultural issues. Are we supposed to surplant all other cultures in the world so we can stop all animal cruelty? Does that mean that PETA is all for the neo-con plan to create a global hegemony based upon the American model of society? I'm sure China, Russia, and most of Africa might have a little problem with this.

If you want to stop animal cruelty, use real education, not catch phrases and media savy advertising campaigns. Most people do not respond to 30 second blipverts with shock imagery and non-sequiter, grammatically incorrect shite. They mock them and go about their usual patterns of living.


I hate PETA and most PETA supporters because they are closet facists. Can you tell?
posted by daq at 1:46 PM on March 12, 2007

And the fact that "life is suffering" isnt justification for killing animals.

Sure it is. It's just not justification you accept.

I assume you'd give up those tired argument if you consider humans to be animals.

You'd be wrong.

If you did, then why any "human rights" at all? Why anything resembling Just War Theory? Hospitals? Ethics? After all, Lions dont build refugee camps to help the displaced. Bears don't argue over right-to-life issues.

Because whether you like it or not, most life forms are loyal first to themselves, then to their family, then to their tribe, then to their species, then to life. And most beings don't get much beyond the first category or three. That we even talk about the whole range of perspective ethics is a testiment to something or other, but certainly doesn't mean we see everything and everyone as equal draws to our emotional attention.

why don't we treat our own species (or "pet" species like dogs and cats) like animals do their own?

Do you not read the news?

And if it's cruel to torture an animal, why is it not cruel to kill and consume one?

I admitted that it's cruel. Life is cruel. Death is cruel. Getting old is cruel. Pain is cruel. They're also necessary.

We no longer NEED to eat animals

I've just deleted several snarky replies to this. I'll just leave it at "this is highly controversial."
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 1:46 PM on March 12, 2007

Great t-shirt I saw on an NRA friend once:

People for the Eating of Tasty Animals

OK, now that it's shown up twice in one thread... that joke is so tired and massively unfunny that, should I ever need to build a humor-detection device I'll use that joke as the zero calibration.

PETA annoys me greatly on their own merits; but I also hate them because every time they get mentioned, some chucklehead has to run that stupid fucking joke up the flagpole and slap themselves on the back for their cutting-edge humor.
posted by COBRA! at 1:50 PM on March 12, 2007 [2 favorites has favorites]

"Attacking PETA (of whom I agree with the goal but disagree with the approach) does not negate their point."

Their goal is total, immediate, and unconditional liberation of all animals and the establishment of equal rights for all animals including the human ones. So, they are all for turning out every cow from its pen, releasing every tiger from every zoo, taking away every pet hamster and beta fish and releasing them, etc. Equal rights for animals! What, will we be issuing drivers licenses now? Do we line up the Texas beef cattle at the Diebold voting machines this coming November? If I am to vote for a kangaroo for city council, it'd better let me slip a fiver into its pouch so I get my fair shake. Now that's lobbying!

But PETA has a dark side, too. They would rather put animals to sleep than imprison them in loving homes. PETA, despite their message to all of us lowly people that killing animals is bad, kills animals themselves. They are against manufacturing insulin in pigs so the public can use it, but PETA staffers take insulin. PETA has two standards - what's OK for PETA and what's OK for the general public. Those standards often disagree.
posted by Sukiari at 1:52 PM on March 12, 2007

Not eating meat doesn't need to be about animals at all. That, to me, is the fundamental flaw in PETA's thinking.

If I'm hungry, I could eat a one pound steak, sure. Or I could take the seven pounds of soybeans or whatever someone fed to the cow to get that steak, eat a pound, and ship the rest to someone else to eat. (yes, I know it's not that simple)

According to the internet, a child dies every 5 seconds from hunger-related illness. Let's assume that estimate is insanely awful and it's only a kid a minute. That's still 1440 kids every day, real living human kids (well, not living). In this sense PETA, despite their best efforts to be stupid trolls, actually kind of got something right in comparing eating meat to hurting people. Kind of.

I know it's not that simple, etc etc etc, the world has huge problems, and everything I do kills someone somewhere - I am acutely aware of all of these things and suffer for them. But seriously, trying to get the average American -- or even most crazy lefty Americans -- to feel bad for trout seems ridiculous under these circumstances. There's more to the situation, but there really are people starving to death, and we really do have enough food to feed them, and we really are feeding it to cows.

I'm not actually talking about the issue in the ad in question, and I'm not voicing any opinion on going fishin' in the pond with your pops. That's probably fine.
posted by pinespree at 1:54 PM on March 12, 2007

Time to get the eyes checked. I thought it said "Fisting Hurts".

Only if you're not using enough lube.

This fishing though, it reminds me of a Billy Connolly bit where he's taking one of his friend's sons fishing and the kid wants to eat the fish, but Billy is firm that they have other fish in the house to eat, that the fish they catch is just to be let go.

"So if we're not going to eat it, then why are we catching it?"
"To watch it in agony."
posted by grapefruitmoon at 1:56 PM on March 12, 2007

I'll end my participation in this thread since a rational discussion seems unlikely. Alas. I had hoped...

Sorry, the current agricultural output of the world does not provide the world population with adequate nutrients at this current point in time. If it did, we still would need to supplament our diet with protiens and complex amino chains that are not found in plants, thus we would need to either synthesize these required nutrients or we would have to continue consuming animals and animal by-products.


Funny that we seem to have more than enough adequate agricultural output to feed the cattle and other animals we raise for food. Also enough to subsidize farmers NOT to grow food. And enough to feed populations whose diet is mostly vegetarian. And vegetarians. *shrug*

Oh yeah, and what "protiens" aren't found in plants? I'd really love to hear the answer to that.

Otherwise, thanks for the hysteria guys. And we wonder why PETA has to go through such lengths to make an impact with its' message...
posted by Dantien at 1:57 PM on March 12, 2007

Don't get me wrong, I would love to not have to support the current domesticated slaughter factories, but at the current time, I cannot get Wendy-Treet or any other sci-fi imaginary cloned, brainless, protein meat substitute.

They might work for your digestive system, but for most people (me included), beans work very well. I'm not joking - I eat beans at essentially every meal, and I'm a highly active, healthy adult. I don't take supplements, either.

That processed "veggie meat" stuff sure is awful, though.
posted by pinespree at 1:58 PM on March 12, 2007

You know, if I didn't know any better I'd dare say these PETA folk are almost trying to get attention.
posted by XQUZYPHYR at 1:59 PM on March 12, 2007

I *heart* Pinespree.
posted by Dantien at 1:59 PM on March 12, 2007

Can someone defend fish eating without contradicting their other beliefs or making fun of anyone?

Certainly not me. My defense consists of "sure, it'd probably be better to go vegan, but I'm way too lazy for that." Seems pretty crazy to be defending fish on this basis when people are still out there eating mammals.

I've heard the screams of the vegetables,
Watching their skins being peeled;
Grated and steamed without mercy,
How do you think that feels?
(bet it hurts really bad)

Sorry, but someone had to quote that.
posted by sfenders at 2:02 PM on March 12, 2007

Please! Won't someone think of the children fish?
posted by Nelson at 2:07 PM on March 12, 2007

I assume you'd give up those tired argument if you consider humans to be animals. If you did, then why any "human rights" at all? Why anything resembling Just War Theory? Hospitals? Ethics? After all, Lions dont build refugee camps to help the displaced. Bears don't argue over right-to-life issues.

Humans are animals. Verbal, symbolic-minded, highly adaptable, highly social animals. We aren't the only animals with 'ethics' and inter-supportive behaviours. For example, certain species of bats keep a kind of running tally of who's regurgitated food for whom. Helpers get helped when they need it, and known moochers get the cold shoulder. Other animals take care of their elderly and sick, by bringing them food when they're unable to hunt. Those are forms of 'ethics', but they don't extend them to their prey. As for bears and lions, they don't have thumbs, mastery of architechture, or symbolic language... if they did, they might've done all those things to as inter-supportive behaviours. For their own species.

And if it's cruel to torture an animal, why is it not cruel to kill and consume one?

Cruelty, in my book, is inflicting unnecessary suffering, for pleasure of the act or by neglect. If you're going to maintain that killing food in order to eat, or eating things that others have killed, is cruel, you're going to have to go harangue every other living thing except plankton. Hell, by my defintion, housecat are cruel for batting around a mouse and chimpanzees are cruel for their occasional inter-troop "wars". I'd look like a complete jackass screaming at chimps though, so I'm not going to take on the cause of their pacification.

We no longer NEED to eat animals, so what justification is there that isnt "Mmmm..tasty!"?

You may no longer "need" to eat meat. Have fun with your malnutrition if you're not carefully making sure that you're getting all your required vitamins. It must be nice to afford overpriced soy products, varied produce, and vitamin supplements. Put on your Birkenstocks and try selling that in underdeveloped (or whatever the current buzzword is) countries, or less affluent neighbourhoods.

You like to throw around that word "species-ist"... who the hell are you to rip out the young of a soybean plant that hasn't done a thing to you? Doesn't Plantae and Fungi deserve the same protection that Animalia has? Kingdom-ist.
posted by CKmtl at 2:10 PM on March 12, 2007

I often wonder if Nietzsche would be in PETA. Or if he would be smart enough to call them all idiots.

There's a death of cod joke in there somewhere, but it ain't me who's going to make it.
posted by vbfg at 2:11 PM on March 12, 2007

er, i meant they might not work for your digestive system, daq.
posted by pinespree at 2:13 PM on March 12, 2007

"Funny that we seem to have more than enough adequate agricultural output to feed the cattle and other animals we raise for food"

Are you aware that the kinds of grain and other plant matter that are used to feed beef and chickens are not the same grade that a person would eat? Would you eat a bowl of silage and field corn?

It takes a more care and effort to produce a plant product that a human will eat, in the growth stage and the harvest / distribution stage. I'm not saying it couldn't be done. But there are many barriers in the way. Farmers don't make nearly the kind of money with grain that they do with beef. Unlike corn and grains, which must be sold soon after harvest no matter what the market is demanding, beef can be held on to and the sale delayed until the market is favorable.

Mostly I am comfortable with my place in the circle of life, as an apex predator. PETA's gory pictures don't make me blink - I have personally killed and butchered many animals.
posted by Sukiari at 2:14 PM on March 12, 2007

>Yeah, there is a line. It's not objective, but we all have one.

Then there is no line! You're just making it up, and everyone makes up something different. It's not a reason, it's a rationalization. And what's more, it's not a line--it's a gradient.

It's a political belief (that's why I mentioned the political compass), and rationalizations, shades of grey and subjectivity are the stuff of politics. That doesn't mean we can't talk about it; you could say there is no objective line drawn over abortion, but that doesn't stop people forming their own opinions in a very similar fashion.

We'd all be a lot better off if we could honestly look ourselves in the mirror and really wrap our minds around the fact that to stay alive another day, many living things will die, things that have every bit as much a "right to life" as you do.

I think honestly believing that would turn people into either twisted ubermensch or suicide victims.
posted by hoverboards don't work on water at 2:15 PM on March 12, 2007

Well, CKmtl, I'll ignore the personal attacks in your comment, or the strange "you like to throw around" comment when I used the term once, as an aside.

We need to eat something to survive. Plants, sadly, are one of those things. I still dont see why animals NEED to be. Can't we find a defense for the "need" part?

and can we hear the "third-world populations need meat" argument from someone who actually is a starving third-world person who would ignore the beans and grains staples found nearly in every culture?

Let me just say this: Me. 16 year vegetarian, 8 year vegan. Long distance bicyclist, martial artist, senior VP at a Fortune 5 company, etc. etc. I dont fit your tired stereotype. Can we get rid of that baggage too?

And lastly, just because other animals do it doesnt make it alright, or appropriate, or fitting with our values! Why am I the only one who sees the fallaciousness of the argument "if you are going to maintain that eating meat is wrong, you'll have to complain that other animals do it". Really? That's your defense? Cause by that logic, we should be doing many many other things we don't do.

People please. We are such smart intelligent humans. I love MeFi for this reason. But if we can't objectively examine ourselves and our eating habits without resorting to defensiveness or insults, how can we be deserving of respect or praiseworthiness? I'm not attacking meat eaters at all...just asking why the arguments in support of meat eating are so fragile and full of misinformation and propaganda?
posted by Dantien at 2:25 PM on March 12, 2007

Death is not cruel. Killing animals is not cruel.

There can be no rational discussion with anyone who would say "And if it's cruel to torture an animal, why is it not cruel to kill and consume one?"

The process by which one kills something may or may not be cruel, for that definition of cruel which means "causes unnecessary suffering." There are many ways to kill without cruelty.
posted by five fresh fish at 2:26 PM on March 12, 2007

Most fish are probably eaten by other fish. This predation starts with the egg stage.

There are sensible ecological arguments against certain kinds of fishing: bottom trawling, which destroys seafloor ecologies; cutting fins off sharks for shark-fin soup; killing sturgeons, which take several decades to mature, for caviar.

But fish have feelings? How far down are we supposed to take this? The human body is outnumbered by its commensal bacteria; if you have a raging case of pneumonia, does PETA have the view that antibiotics are genocidal to bacteria?
posted by bad grammar at 2:32 PM on March 12, 2007

"human body cells are outnumbered by bacteria," sorry
posted by bad grammar at 2:33 PM on March 12, 2007

PETA is crap. However, statements like this

...If it did, we still would need to supplament our diet with protiens and complex amino chains that are not found in plants, thus we would need to either synthesize these required nutrients or we would have to continue consuming animals and animal by-products.

are just silly.

Pretty much the only thing you can't get from a meatless diet is B₁₂, and most people can cut out all red meat, poultry and fish and still get enough protein.

I say this as an omnivore that ate a steak sangwich last night, but who is sick of misinformation. Acting like we need meat is absurd.

And, man, that sangwich was delish.
posted by exlotuseater at 2:37 PM on March 12, 2007

bad grammar:
An Argument for Vegetarianism
posted by Dantien at 2:39 PM on March 12, 2007

That's it. I give up. I hearby renounce my meat eating ways and declare myself to be vegetarian from this moment forward.
posted by mattbucher at 2:42 PM on March 12, 2007

The Bloodless Revolution
posted by Dantien at 2:48 PM on March 12, 2007

I am an animal.
The DNA that I use to build myself tells my brain to like the taste of meat.
Because I want to avoid diseases, I won't eat creatures with DNA too similar to my own. (Primates of all types including humans)
Other mammals have potential to carry parasites etc. that humans can get but the risks are not nearly as bad as if I ate rhesus monkeys or Canadians.
posted by Megafly at 2:52 PM on March 12, 2007 [1 favorite has favorites]

Well, CKmtl, I'll ignore the personal attacks in your comment, or the strange "you like to throw around" comment when I used the term once, as an aside.

The Birkenstocks thing wasn't meant as a personal attack, but as a "wealthy person trying to dictate behaviour to all humans, even the ones who can't afford it" quip. If I had wanted to make a personal attack, I could've, and it would've gotten deleted. And the "throw around" comment was in reference to your using the obnoxious "species-ist" term, whose logic makes no sense whatsoever when taken to the next level in taxonomy, i.e. "We need to eat something to survive. Plants, sadly, are one of those things." How is that different from 'Animals, sadly, are one of those things.'? It's not.

We need to eat something to survive. Plants, sadly, are one of those things. I still dont see why animals NEED to be. Can't we find a defense for the "need" part?

Provided above, by various people.

and can we hear the "third-world populations need meat" argument from someone who actually is a starving third-world person who would ignore the beans and grains staples found nearly in every culture?

Since when does "advocating" the eating of meat mean eating ONLY meat? Of course they wouldn't ignore the beans and grains, but they'd supplement it with meat.

And lastly, just because other animals do it doesnt make it alright, or appropriate, or fitting with our values!

Our having communicable values that we can sit around the fire and debate does not magically do away with our being bipedal, mostly bald, predators. Our digestive system groks with meat (moreso when cooked), the overlapping field of vision that makes 3-D movies cool arose for the hunt. Our bodies evolved with eating meat (as well as other things), so we need the things in meat. If you have enough money to go get all those things, piecemeal, at the market or in pill-form supplement, kudos. Other people still have to get them in the conveniently pre-packaged meat form.
posted by CKmtl at 2:56 PM on March 12, 2007

OK, I'm back. I hearby renounce vegetarianism and return to eating meat and fish.
posted by mattbucher at 2:59 PM on March 12, 2007 [1 favorite has favorites]

I use barbless hooks on the flies I tie because I like to ensure the fish will be available for torturing at some future date. If there is a fish to be found I will entice it with a hooked torture implement adorned with twisted bits of feather and fur. I will set the implement with glee and proceed to pull the hapless fish around, bending its will to mine. Once I am bored with the fish I will remove it from my chambers and throw it back to the dungeon. Woe be the fish who falls for my chicanery again.

Fish have posters of me pressed up on most vertical surfaces below the water line. Rewards have been proffered for my capture. Vast schools of fish attend group therapy sessions because of the havoc I wreck on their universe. I *am* the Abu Ghraib of the ichthyarchy and PETA can suck it for all I care.
posted by Fezboy! at 3:00 PM on March 12, 2007 [1 favorite has favorites]

we need to eat something to survive. Plants, sadly, are one of those things.

hmmm, that sounds a little looney to me. plants? c'mon man, it's OK, you can eat them without guilt.

As for do we need to eat meat, the answer is clearly no. I don't understand why people even bother arguing that one. Meat is well established as an inefficient source of protein in terms of how much it takes to produce. Animal farming consumes huge amounts of grain, pollutes the water, and releases significant amounts of greenhouse gasses. Yes, some of that grain is low grades stuff, but higher grade stuff could be grown instead. If southern India can go vegetarian so can the rest of the world.
posted by caddis at 3:04 PM on March 12, 2007

Yeah, PETA says some crazy stuff.

That said, the underlying issue is simpler than some above have suggested.

Life feeds on life. A being has a natural imperative to kill to feed and protect its family. Some of us kill veggies, some of us kill animals.

However, intentionally killing and inflicting harm on other beings where there is no need is an abomination.

Catch and release fishing? Eating a burger to round off your 4,000 Calorie a day diet? That’s going to mess up your karma something fierce.
posted by sisquoc15 at 3:05 PM on March 12, 2007

It's a political belief (that's why I mentioned the political compass), and rationalizations, shades of grey and subjectivity are the stuff of politics. That doesn't mean we can't talk about it; you could say there is no objective line drawn over abortion, but that doesn't stop people forming their own opinions in a very similar fashion.

I'm not saying not to talk about it, but the comparison to abortion is apt: think how much clearer that issue would be. There's near unanimity on the subject of abortion in the United States, if you ask people for their full opinion. But it's a centrist opinion, and that doesn't fall into the stark dichotomy we present. We present the issue as if there was some line between pro-life and pro-choice, when in fact, there's a bell curve.

Likewise, there's no line here; "This close to me and it's wrong for you to be killed; over there it's OK." It's a gradient, and different people color in that gradient in different ways. Swatting a fly? Only a Buddhist has a problem with that. Killing your brother? Only a sociopath doesn't have a problem with that. The family dog? That one's trickier. Usually bad, but what if he's old and sick? Then most people have no problem. Suggest the same for grandpa, though, and you've whacked a hornet's nest of controversy. See what I mean? The closer it is to us, the more we consider it wrong--the further away, the less we do. There's no line, and one of the first steps to dealing with this is realizing that, because that also strips us of the comforting embrace of universal ethical justification that a line provides. A line is solid and definite. A gradient, particularly one radiating out from ourselves, draws stark attention to the fact that this has nothing at all to do with ethics, and everything to do with our own wants and desires. That means we need to face the prospect that we are selfish, and that many millions of living things--every bit as alive as your family--have died for that selfishness.

If you're going to wind up an animist like me, the solution is to face that that's life. What comes along with that is a sacred responsiblity to the landbase that gives you its life to sustain you. You're part of it, and you're bound to defend it as much as your own body, because in a very real sense, it IS your real body. Your body is made up of the plants and animals that came from it, and if you're lucky, it's growing up out of the soil made (at least in part) from your ancestors. And it means that one day, you've got to give yourself up, too, just like all the other living things that gave themselves up for you.

I think honestly believing that would turn people into either twisted ubermensch or suicide victims.

Or animists. I imagine there are other solutions; that's the one I found. I don't believe it would be easy, but facing the truth about your own existence rarely is. That's part of why we're so often better for it once we have.

Most fish are probably eaten by other fish. This predation starts with the egg stage.

Most fish die of natural causes and are scavenged. Life's not exactly the bellum omium contra omnes that Victorian biologists imagined it to be.
posted by jefgodesky at 3:06 PM on March 12, 2007 [1 favorite has favorites]

So You're an Environmentalist; Why Are You Still Eating Meat? According to the British group Vegfam, a 10-acre farm can support 60 people growing soybeans, 24 people growing wheat, 10 people growing corn and only two producing cattle. Not an unbiased source, but probably not far off the mark either.

Enough for now, I have to get the grill lit, we are having pork, the other white meat.
posted by caddis at 3:14 PM on March 12, 2007

You think you own whatever land you land on
The Earth is just a dead thing you can claim
But I know every rock and tree and creature
Has a life, has a spirit, has a name
posted by mattbucher at 3:15 PM on March 12, 2007 [1 favorite has favorites]

Satan is a vegetarian. Julie Katz, the Daughter of God, having a discussion with "Wyvern", in James Morrow's novel, Only Begotten Daughter, 1990.

"Two place settings. 'Who's coming to dinner?' she asked.
'You are. Lentil soup and bean curds. Hope you don't mind--I'm a vegetarian.'
'Oh?'
'It's irresistible--the screams of the carrots as I dice them, the agonized beets convulsing in my mouth. Hungry?'
'Famished.'"
posted by exlotuseater at 3:21 PM on March 12, 2007

Our bodies evolved with eating meat (as well as other things), so we need the things in meat. If you have enough money to go get all those things, piecemeal, at the market or in pill-form supplement, kudos. Other people still have to get them in the conveniently pre-packaged meat form.

CKmtl: Look, eat all the meat you want, but don't pretend it's because you physically NEED to unless you are lactose-intolerant and allergic to eggs. As exlotuseater pointed out above, the only nutrient vegetarians really have to worry about is B12, which is plentiful in eggs and milk. It's possible to justify eating meat without resorting to the same old canards that get trotted out during every discussion on vegetarianism. At least pick an argument that's not demonstrably false.
posted by purplemonkie at 3:25 PM on March 12, 2007

There's no line, and one of the first steps to dealing with this is realizing that, because that also strips us of the comforting embrace of universal ethical justification that a line provides. A line is solid and definite. A gradient, particularly one radiating out from ourselves, draws stark attention to the fact that this has nothing at all to do with ethics, and everything to do with our own wants and desires.

Alright, there's more I was going to say, but I basically agree with you.

And it means that one day, you've got to give yourself up, too

I must say molon labe to this though :)
posted by hoverboards don't work on water at 3:31 PM on March 12, 2007

Homer: Are you saying you're never going to eat any animal again? What about bacon?
Lisa: No.
Homer: Ham?
Lisa: No.
Homer: Pork chops?
Lisa: Dad, those all come from the same animal.
Homer: Heh heh heh. Ooh, yeah, right, Lisa. A wonderful, magical animal.
posted by webnrrd2k at 3:34 PM on March 12, 2007 [1 favorite has favorites]

Troy McClure: Don't kid yourself, Jimmy. If a cow ever got the chance, he'd eat you and everyone you care about!
posted by webnrrd2k at 3:35 PM on March 12, 2007

A cow once tried to eat my hair. It's name was Buck. It was delicious. True story.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 3:40 PM on March 12, 2007

I must be pregnant. Seem to be having problems with my contractions.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 3:42 PM on March 12, 2007

Can I offer up a viewpoint without having read the previous 124 posts, rude as it may be? I have to start the barbeque to grill four 6 oz. bison steaks. The sun is well up in Colorado, thanks to Daylight Savings Time.

I was a vegetarian for fifteen years. Might still be, kind of, were it not for my meat-eating wife and my picky teenage daughter.

The fact that we CAN CHOOSE what we eat, as omnivores, and brainiacs, makes this decision difficult for many, given the political and (maybe) physiological arguments.

I'll tell you what, though. I sure don't miss quizzing waiters and relatives and friends EXACTLY what is in the soup presented to me. Eating everything is liberating.
posted by kozad at 3:42 PM on March 12, 2007 [1 favorite has favorites]

Man, I love the smell of junk science in the evening.

It would be nice if PETA ever got around to telling more than about 45% of the truth.

and can we hear the "third-world populations need meat" argument from someone who actually is a starving third-world person who would ignore the beans and grains staples found nearly in every culture?

People who aren't starving and in the third world can legitimately make this argument. Otherwise, can we hear the "fish feel pain" argument from someone who actually is a fish?
posted by oaf at 3:47 PM on March 12, 2007

purplemonkie: ... don't pretend it's because you physically NEED to unless you are lactose-intolerant and allergic to eggs. As exlotuseater pointed out above, the only nutrient vegetarians really have to worry about is B12, which is plentiful in eggs and milk.

I didn't say I or anyone physically needed meat, I said we need the things in meat because we evolved as omnivore-predators. And I acknowledged that those things are available elsewhere.

Milk and eggs aren't readily and cheaply available everywhere though. Plus, I seem to recall that PETA are against dairy as well... not sure if they've campaigned against eggs, but it wouldn't surprise me. So, in a world where meat is out on cruelty grounds, milk and eggs might be out as well.
posted by CKmtl at 3:54 PM on March 12, 2007

Most humans are carnivores (well, omnivores, but for the sake of this argument...), and our species evolved that way. I eat meat because I'm a carnivore - I eat meat to survive.

Now, I'm ethically bothered by modern industrial meat production, and I have problems with the cruelty shown to cows, pigs, chickens, etc. by the huge agribusinesses. The fact that they pump them so full of antibiotics just to keep them alive doesn't fill me with a lot of happiness.

But life must eat life to survive. Period.

Unless you've figured out a way to survive eating only dirt, or to have humans start to photosynthesize, we have to eat formerly living things to keep breathing.

Homo Sapiens are not herbivores. We are at the top of the food chain. Period.

We ought to reduce the suffering of the animals that we eat, but all the guilt in the world won't change the fact that human beings eat meat, and have gotten to the place where we are in the order of things on this planet on account of killing and eating other things.

Screw eating... humans have prospered through killing. Or would you rather have saber-toothed cats roaming around your neighborhood at night?

Me, I'm glad they're extinct. Although it would be nice to have some in zoos.
posted by MythMaker at 3:54 PM on March 12, 2007

Look, eat all the meat you want, but don't pretend it's because you physically NEED to unless you are lactose-intolerant and allergic to eggs.

PETA doesn't want you to eat eggs, either.
posted by oaf at 3:58 PM on March 12, 2007

IRFH: The cow might actually have been trying to eat you. At least one has developped a taste for flesh.
posted by CKmtl at 4:05 PM on March 12, 2007

daq - your facts are completely incorrect. Animal protein is not necessary for human nutritional support, as far as actual animal meat. True, adequate B12 requires some animal protein, but the actual issue of why we raise cattle, fowl, etc. for human consumption really could use some scrutiny. You personally may 'require' animal protein [even though you really need a lot less than you think], but humans in general do fine without it. I say this as someone who has been a vegetarian and who currently isn't.

It's always amusing to hear someone say they enjoy meat too much to be a vegetarian. Most vegetarians I know like it also but choose not to consume it.

PETA, on the other hand, just makes the whole issue so toxic that an intelligent discussion of how destructive and wasteful raising animals is for food is nearly impossible.
posted by docpops at 4:05 PM on March 12, 2007

Most humans are carnivores (well, omnivores, but for the sake of this argument...), and our species evolved that way. I eat meat because I'm a carnivore - I eat meat to survive.

God, that is such a tired, dramatic, uninformed and pointless sentiment. Humans are also impulsive, violent, and only recently stopped taking shits in the open. I take it you control your impulses to rape, kill, and shit with abandon once in awhile? People eat meat because it tastes good and they are too lazy to seek an alternative, and I'm one of them. Admit it and stop using the canard of evolutionary biology for an excuse.
posted by docpops at 4:09 PM on March 12, 2007 [2 favorites has favorites]

No, you just want to reshape mankind in your own image. Fine, be a herbivore. Others of us choose not to be.
posted by MythMaker at 4:30 PM on March 12, 2007

Never saw the appeal in catch and release fishing myself, but I do hunt. And I don’t take shots without a pretty certain clean kill.

“why any "human rights" at all?...or fitting with our values”

Sentience is the big thing too. I’m not going to eat something that can talk to me. Unless I’m really starving of course but that’s concession to the power of hunger, not principle. I can’t eat silicon, but I wouldn’t anyway if artificial intelligence was proven. Chimp meat is bad for you - I don’t eat that anyway. In fact I don’t eat pig much either (doesn’t count, don’t like the taste). Nor dolphin. Lots of animals in the “anywhere near smart” category I don’t eat.
Sentient beings have full rights. Other creatures have limited rights proportional to how sentient they are or are percieved to be via the best science we have. Similar to many takes on vegetarianism - but you’re still killing. I draw the line a bit higher because not everyone has the same level of resources. Nobles used to restrict hunting on their lands.
To me hunting is a sacred thing.

In terms of values - why do I have to adhere to your values in terms of how I nourish myself? If it’s wrong to make animals die because we’re hypocrites if we argue that we’re superior - why is it right for you to set limits in our choices but you’re not a hypocrite when you argue that’s ok because your values are superior?

Certainly there’s something to be said for the ecological argument in terms of raising cattle and such. But that’s not the central issue. (And indeed, there’s a market for it). India is a special case. But when they stop killing Pakistani’s, threatening people with the atomics and oppressing ethnic minorities, I’d be happy to vote for them for most enlightened folks for their vegetarian values.

Also - why do your ‘values’ afford you a greater right to the commons than I have? Particularly when you point out there is no stewardship going on now. And indeed most particularly when releasing big game (tigers, elephants, etc.), creating reserves, etc. is going to have a detrimental affect on human quality of life (people in India routinely kill tigers by the way - because they sometimes attack people, woodcutters wear masks with faces painted on them on the back of their heads).
And the amount of farmable land is diminishing as it is. We’re supposed to share it with animals?
Now, I’d be happy to do that on a volunteer basis (and I’ve advocated for it), but how do we then get other less developed countries who need to make greater uses of their resources to cooperate?
Conservation I favor. Stopping animal cruelty I favor. Ending the eating of domesticated animals, not so much. As a project over the next hundred to a thousand years, perhaps. Tomorrow, no.
posted by Smedleyman at 4:30 PM on March 12, 2007

Species compete for territory and food. Humans are very good at it. Hell, we're the -best- at it, except for perhaps, say, kudzu, or something. PETA is an infiltrative organization representing the Cow Legions and the Chicken Brigades, and they are trying to engineer our defeat.
posted by tehloki at 4:31 PM on March 12, 2007 [3 favorites has favorites]

No, you just want to reshape mankind in your own image. Fine, be a herbivore. Others of us choose not to be.
posted by MythMaker at 4:30 PM PST on March 12 [+]
[!]

No, mankind will do as it pleases. Don't delude yourself into thinking that your dinner choices, like your choice of vehicle and your thermostat setting, don't have consequences.
posted by docpops at 4:34 PM on March 12, 2007

Fair enough. They do have consequences. But I can act responsibly (i.e. eat free range meat, etc.) without becoming a herbivore.
posted by MythMaker at 4:39 PM on March 12, 2007

So long, and thanks for all of the fish.
posted by scblackman at 4:40 PM on March 12, 2007

When it comes to feelings, a child is a dog is a fish.

Most of you seem to be reading just the last half of that sentence.

We no longer NEED to eat animals

I've just deleted several snarky replies to this. I'll just leave it at "this is highly controversial."

Controversial to whom, exactly? Not to the field of nutrition science, as far as I can tell.

People evolved to eat a variety of things -- animal as well as vegetable. Just because it's *possible now* to survive on a solely vegetarian diet doesn't mean everyone is going to, or even that they should.

People evolved to do all sorts of things: murder, rape, enslavement, and so on. All of these things are natural human behaviors. I think you'd agree that, just because we can doesn't mean that we should.

And the "throw around" comment was in reference to your using the obnoxious "species-ist" term, whose logic makes no sense whatsoever when taken to the next level in taxonomy, i.e. "We need to eat something to survive. Plants, sadly, are one of those things." How is that different from 'Animals, sadly, are one of those things.'? It's not.

I don't know why you find the word "speciesist" to be obnoxious, just because you disagree with it. If you can't see a meaningful difference between animals - especially the mammals which are the primary source of meat - and plants, your senses are quite dim.

Sentience is the big thing too. I’m not going to eat something that can talk to me.

How about severely retarded children? If not, why not?
posted by me & my monkey at 4:45 PM on March 12, 2007

Please. Leave cannibalism out of this argument. We omnivores have never embraced Soylent Green.
posted by kozad at 4:58 PM on March 12, 2007

Eeewww, cog_nate, my Uncle Jack taught me to cut their heads off before applying pliers...what is wrong with your dad?

And the first time Uncle Jack showed me how to skin a catfish...when he told me to hold out my finger and clamped the decapitated bull's head right onto it...Aunt Dorothy said that was cruel.

;) mmrtnt...some folks don't seem to appreciate that joke; but, I say it'll only get old when PETA does.

...why any "human rights"at all?

Thanks for asking! This is where I draw the fabled line: the 'objective' one.

If it's not a contract-writing object, it is potential food. In the case of most potential food, I am already bound by a plethora of written contracts governing my potential consumption of that potential food.

If it is a contract-writing object, there are an even greater number of contractual obligations which apply to the killing and/or eating of same, not the least of which is Eeewww because the only contract-writing objects we've ever met are us. At least, that's what the records seem to show.

Were one to encounter contract-writing objects which are not us, adhering to this line may prevent them from putting out a detrimental contract on us, no matter how delicious they may appear to be.

Not all potential food is actual food.
posted by taosbat at 5:01 PM on March 12, 2007

I'm sorry, I am really, really sorry!
posted by HuronBob at 5:26 PM on March 12, 2007

Don't delude yourself into thinking that your dinner choices, like your choice of vehicle and your thermostat setting, don't have consequences.

This wasn't about choices though. I haven't seen anything about telling vegetarians that they can't be vegetarians if they want to be. This whole mess was about doing away entirely with meat-eating, because somehow meat-eaters are hypocrites (actually, it was about fishing being cruel, but so be it).

I don't know why you find the word "speciesist" to be obnoxious, just because you disagree with it. If you can't see a meaningful difference between animals - especially the mammals which are the primary source of meat - and plants, your senses are quite dim.

I find it obnoxious because, once its position accepted, we'll be having this same debate about another class of animals pretty quickly. All mammals are equal, but why not everything with a spinal cord? OK, them too. What about anything that senses and reacts to its environment? OK, them too. Soon you can't slap a mosquito on your arm or take antibiotics to treat infection, because you're violating the inalienable rights of the bug and bacteria.

Re: the whole "there's alternatives, so you're lazy / bad if you don't use them" and "being able to doesn't mean you should" thing... Completely rhetorical question: There's alternatives to heterosexual penetrative sex for reproduction too. Sure, we evolved to reproduce that way and it's a perfect viable way to go about reproducing, but it's icky and some people might find it objectionable. Does it mean that people are cheap, lazy, or morally bankrupt if they don't opt for invitro fertilization?
posted by CKmtl at 5:27 PM on March 12, 2007

Does it mean that people are cheap, lazy, or morally bankrupt if they don't opt for invitro fertilization?

Consensual sex doesn't damage the planet, apart from the laundering of bedsheets.
posted by docpops at 5:35 PM on March 12, 2007

One Fish.
Two Fish.
Red Fish.
Blue Fish.
posted by Vindaloo at 6:23 PM on March 12, 2007

I never fish with a hook. I use my penis instead.
posted by GDMFSOB at 6:24 PM on March 12, 2007

Lots of bad defenses of eating meat here. If you eat meat, just say it: I don't care enough about animal suffering to alter my eating habits. If that's what you believe, admit it. Don't rationalize your actions with bullshit arguments about "needing" meat or arguing from the nastiness of nature.

And I'm not a vegetarian. In fact, I'm looking forward to spending lots of time fishing this summer. But I know exactly what I'm doing when I go fishing; it's just that my enjoyment is far more important to me than the pain of the fish I catch.
posted by smorange at 6:34 PM on March 12, 2007 [1 favorite has favorites]

and smorange, that is the most lucid argument yet. Thank you and everyone for injecting some sense into here.
posted by Dantien at 6:42 PM on March 12, 2007

I eat meat. I don't need to.

If you eat meat, man-up and admit to yourself that you eat meat because you choose to, not because you need it. Quit with the other bullshit rationalizations.

Vitamin B12 is the only substance you can't readily obtain from a non-meat diet. A daily vitamin solves this issue. The vitamin probably contains trace animal elements. No need to be religious about it.
posted by jsonic at 6:45 PM on March 12, 2007

(I should preview more often)
posted by jsonic at 6:46 PM on March 12, 2007

I'm no fan of PETA.

But some despicable fishing practices simply must stop.

Dolphins are not tuna.
posted by bwg at 6:49 PM on March 12, 2007

"Can someone defend fish eating without contradicting their other beliefs or making fun of anyone?" - Dantien

I'll try:

I take what I need and I leave the rest.
posted by Matt Oneiros at 6:54 PM on March 12, 2007

There's alternatives to heterosexual penetrative sex for reproduction too. Sure, we evolved to reproduce that way and it's a perfect viable way to go about reproducing, but it's icky and some people might find it objectionable. Does it mean that people are cheap, lazy, or morally bankrupt if they don't opt for invitro fertilization?

Not unless you're so well-endowed that you're stabbing your partner to death with your lethally-large johnson.

I mean, come on, that's the worst analogy I've seen here in a while, and that's saying something.
posted by me & my monkey at 6:59 PM on March 12, 2007

Please, won't someone think of the bread-leavening yeasts?

I worked in a supermarket bakery for a year. I was sort of the Josef Mengele of the fungal set. Sometimes I can still hear the sandwiches screaming.
posted by jonmc at 7:07 PM on March 12, 2007 [1 favorite has favorites]

and most people can cut out all red meat, poultry and fish and still get enough protein.

Yeah, but why would anyone want to do that?

/clubs baby seal/
posted by Totally Zanzibarin' Ya at 7:17 PM on March 12, 2007

me & my monkey: I mean, come on, that's the worst analogy I've seen here in a while, and that's saying something.

Yea, I intended it to be bad... It's how I see the "eating meat is cruel, you're a lazy bad person and you shouldn't do it" argument.

jonmc: Sometimes I can still hear the sandwiches screaming.

The silence... of the hoagies.
posted by CKmtl at 7:23 PM on March 12, 2007 [1 favorite has favorites]

I'm drinking a bottle of Brooklyn Lager as I type this and it occured to me that I'm drinking yeast flatulence. sweet, sweet, yeast flatulence.
posted by jonmc at 7:28 PM on March 12, 2007

dammit jon, I just snorted soda up my nose, ouch, at least it was carbonated without killing any yeast
posted by caddis at 7:45 PM on March 12, 2007

I mean, come on, that's the worst analogy I've seen here in a while, and that's saying something.

Bah, the analogy was made not to point out that both have the same end result, but to highlight the idea that people who do not choose available alternatives (like avoiding meat, or avoiding reproduction via sex) are bad people (lazy, cheap, immoral, what have you.)

Eating meat is a bad thing only if you accept the idea that animal suffering is bad enough to care about. If you deny this premise, then avoiding killing animals for food is just as pointless as avoiding sex.
posted by 23skidoo at 8:14 PM on March 12, 2007

OK, I realize we've reached the yeast-flatulence-induced jokiness for the evening, but...

Milk and eggs aren't readily and cheaply available everywhere though. Plus, I seem to recall that PETA are against dairy as well... not sure if they've campaigned against eggs, but it wouldn't surprise me. So, in a world where meat is out on cruelty grounds, milk and eggs might be out as well.

Yeah, I know PETA are anti-eggs and dairy as well. That wasn't my point, considering that PETA = bunch o'loonies (and that's coming from a vegetarian/sometime vegan of 10 years). It just seems plain to me that most of the people here arguing for meat-eating on the basis of nutrition do, in fact, have easy and relatively inexpensive access to non-meat sources of B12-rich food. And for those people, eating meat is a choice. It would be nice if more meat-eaters would just admit that rather than pointing out other hypothetical people's hypothetical lack of access to B12 sources, or spewing blatant mistruths about the inadequacies of vegetarian diets, which is what seems to happen every time this subject comes up.

And now, back to my yeast farts.
posted by purplemonkie at 8:29 PM on March 12, 2007

We protect human rights because we do not wish to be tortured, or killed, or maimed ourselves. Every moral pursuit is ultimately a selfish one. The suffering of another species is not a pressing issue for humanity, and if that species cannot rebel and fight for its own rights, then they will never be granted.
See for example the groups of human beings who have been oppressed and treated as lower forms of life in humanity's past: Women have fought their way up from being regarded as property, as have African-Americans. Cattle and chickens and pigs do not have the capacity for such rebellion. Instead, we have human agents fighting for them. Do we know whether this is a pressing issue to the livestock themselves? It is irrelevant; people in general are not worried that they themselves may be kept in confinement for life, and slaughtered when their useful life is at an end.
I'm not trying to take a particular stance on this issue, so my statements may seem cruel and amoral. Oh well.
posted by tehloki at 8:34 PM on March 12, 2007

It just struck me that I completely forgot empathy. I suppose another reason that people fight for universal human rights is to avoid having to witness the suffering of their human brethren, in addition to fearing the suffering themselves. Still, discounting religious principles, I say there is no objective ideal one strives for regarding human or animal rights. We simply wish to live in a world that treats us well and pleases us.
posted by tehloki at 8:37 PM on March 12, 2007

So You're an Environmentalist; Why Are You Still Eating Meat?

Wait, wait - I know this one. Because the politics of personal virtue is the fragmentation grenade that balkanized the political left so completely that anyone aiming for inclusion gets shouted down by shrill single-issue lifestyle zealots like PETA and the whole thing devolves into snake-devouring-its-own-tale inertia while the pragmatic practitioners of the art of power politics continue to rape and pillage the earth at their leisure.

Am I right? If I am, I'd like to pick my own prize: one of those naturally raised striploins from Second-to-None Meats up the block. Because I can only afford them like quarterly, but man do I enjoy my quarterly steak.
posted by gompa at 8:57 PM on March 12, 2007 [2 favorites has favorites]

If people didn't eat meat, many species who have evolved symbiotically to be eaten by humans would become extinct. This point is made by Michael Pollan in The Omnivore's Dillemma. Killing and eating a cow is no good for the cow, but is essential for Cow. Cows, pigs, horses, chickens and a few other species have hit the evolutionary jackpot by getting domesticated. I find this line of thinking a good deal more compelling than the "because I have canines, it is permissible to eat meat".

A more interesting point raised in the book is that small, diverse farms are probably the most sustainable way to feed ourselves. Livestock are a key part of the kinds of truly sustainable operations. Large, industrial scale monocultures of corn, lettuce, soy, whatever require fertility or energy inputs from outside the farm. This is even true of organic farms (don't kid yourself, industrial organic food arrives to you on a platter of petroleum).

There is an argument for changing our eating habits that hinges on ecology and sustainability. I have yet to be swayed by any argument that eating meat is morally wrong. Probably the best such argument is made by Singer, but you have to get on board his train, which is a radical utilitarianism that -- by my lights -- has little merit of its own.

I'll gladly eat the meat from sustainable, small scale farming slaughtered humanely. In fact, I happier to eat this than organic lettuce in January.

As for the fish, well, I have major cognitive dissonance when it comes to seafood. We're doing disastrous things to the oceans, but damn, I love me some wild salmon.
posted by bumpkin at 10:21 PM on March 12, 2007

I eat meat. I love meat. I eat fish, I eat chicken, I eat all sorts of animals.

I used to go vegetarian every year on January 1. It never, ever worked. I know vegetarians, I have read the books, I take my vitamins. I even cook most of my own food. But I was just so damned tired that I never made it past the third week.

I would always end up with a big, juicy steak. I would feel no guilt, only relief.

Some of us just need meat. Or fish. Or chicken. Hell, I did Atkins for a while, and I felt better than I ever have. I'm thinking about going back on it, not to lose weight, but to have more energy.

PETA will have a leg to stand on when they swear off EVERY animal product. Lose the shoes, the coats, the insulin, the antibiotics, the additives in the vitamins they take to supplement whatever fucked up diet they have. Lose all the pets, too. And don't forget all of those nice little bugs living in your bodies. Stop letting those benefit you.

I'll skip the fishing and hunting and general meat-eating when there is a replacement. No, soy isn't it.
posted by bh at 11:22 PM on March 12, 2007

The suffering of another species is not a pressing issue for humanity, and if that species cannot rebel and fight for its own rights, then they will never be granted.

Animals already have rights. We created them. Oops, there goes your argument. But easy dismissals like yours are de rigueur for self-proclaimed relativists who invoke the idea whenever they don't want to face up to the consequences of their own actions, but who, obviously, don't believe it at all in their daily lives. Tortured nonsense like this is a sign that the debate is over; only denial remains.

I have little doubt that, in 100 years or so, people will look back in horror at the way we treat animals. Eating meat will look as self-evidently wrong to these people as the denial of women's suffrage does to us. There's no reason for eating meat, apart from the tastiness of it.
posted by smorange at 12:21 AM on March 13, 2007

Oh? What rights do "animals" have? I wasn't aware of the legal ramifications of treading upon a beetle or trapping a mouse. I know that sometimes people are punished for mistreating animals, but the animals are not compensated. We still deal only in the rights of human beings.
posted by tehloki at 2:54 AM on March 13, 2007

just asking why the arguments in support of meat eating are so fragile and full of misinformation and propaganda?

As opposed to, say, "a child is a dog is a fish"? Come on, you're going to have misinformation and propoganda on both sides of every argument when it comes to ANY strongly held beliefs.

There's no reason for eating meat, apart from the tastiness of it.

You act like this is a BAD reason. I likes me some meat, and until you can find me a replacement for a steak that tastes as damn good as a steak (in my opinion, not yours), I'm going to keep eating steak.
posted by antifuse at 4:10 AM on March 13, 2007

I likes me some meat, and until you can find me a replacement for a steak that tastes as damn good as a steak (in my opinion, not yours), I'm going to keep eating steak.

Now I'm not suggesting that the two are comparable crimes or anything, but you could say something similar about rape. Men are genetically inclined to do it, it feels good, and most rapists can't find a suitable replacement.
posted by hoverboards don't work on water at 4:31 AM on March 13, 2007 [1 favorite has favorites]

Good point, Hover.

As for all of the ridiculous arguments in favor of meat-eating (and, thus, the murder of animals), it seems to me that if you eat meat "because it tastes good", without any thought for where it came from, then you're as guilty as a rapist.
posted by spincycle at 4:50 AM on March 13, 2007

You could say something like that , but then you'd be talking about rape instead of meat. It's okay to have one set of ideas about Why I Think Meat is Okay and another set for Why I Think Rape is Immoral. There doesn't have to be any Unified Theory of Ethics.
posted by 23skidoo at 4:53 AM on March 13, 2007

Wow, the stupid is strong in this thread. Yeah, I am starting a comment with a blanket insult, which in itself is pretty stupid behaviour - maybe it's contageous!

All this talk of vegans needing to eat food substitutes to get enough B12 made me wonder if I were getting enough B12, being as I have been vegetarian for the majority of my life and more recently have been avoiding lactose and have an aversion to eggs. Well, it turns out that I am getting more than enough B12 through eating my normal diet which includes vegan margarine, soya milk, fortified breakfast cereal and marmite. No need for supplements in my normal easily maintained diet.

Vitamin B12, whether in supplements, fortified foods, or animal products, comes from micro-organisms.

Vegans using adequate amounts of fortified foods or B12 supplements are much less likely to suffer from B12 deficiency than the typical meat eater. The Institute of Medicine, in setting the US recommended intakes for B12 makes this very clear. “Because 10 to 30 percent of older people may be unable to absorb naturally occurring vitamin B12, it is advisable for those older than 50 years to meet their RDA mainly by consuming foods fortified with vitamin B12 or a vitamin B12-containing supplement.” Vegans should take this advice about 50 years younger, to the benefit of both themselves and the animals. B12 need never be a problem for well-informed vegans.

I would consider eating meat, if I could be sure of having organic non-factory-farmed meat whenever I required meat. This is not the case, so I am glad not to have to make the choice of whether to contribute to a system that causes so much damage to the environment, animal welfare and nutrition.

Wild/organic venison is the meat of choice for the conscientious meat eater. Good for you and tasty too!

If we are happy with the notion that the human race is somehow superior to other species on this planet, maybe an attempt at good husbandry might be fitting? Human activities on this planet have not been working inconcert with the life support system on which all species rely. IIRC 80% of marine life exists within a days sail from a coast as it is the transitional environment that fosters life. Unfortunately for them this puts them in easy reach for the human race. We are eating the fish stocks beyond their ability to recover, which is stupid.
posted by asok at 6:05 AM on March 13, 2007 [1 favorite has favorites]

Thanks Bumpkin, that's a notion that has been brewing in my mind for years, about domestic animals having a 'contract' with us to assure their survival. Allow me to paraphrase it:

"Kentucky Fried Chicken is just a chickens way of assuring there are always more chickens."

I eat meat. I like it that way.

I can't stand rignt wingnuts trying to force me to conform to their notions of morality. I don't see why I should put up with the same shit coming from people of other political persuasions.

I have come aware of arguments about raising livestock taking more resources than growing plants. This is one reason why I eat less beef than I otherwise might, although the fact I like other flesh probably weighs more, to be honest. I do try to make the majority of my flesh-eating to be chicken (which I happen to be especially fond of).

But I am self-interested. At this point in my life (the 'middle' part), I battle weight. Eating meat helps keep the weight off for me. Grain makes me fat. Pity, I used to enjoy eating meatless half the time.

As for the fish: I would never participate in catch-and-release. To me, that's stupid. But I haven't fished in about 12 years. When I do, I eat the fish. I don't give a damn if the hook gives the fish pain, nor see any reason why I should.

I'm also quite happy that researchers use animals for testing a wide variety of products. I use many products, and prefer them to be well tested. Those bunnies and mice aren't going extinct any time soon. Thanks in part to their contribution, we all enjoy the leisure of contemplating something as unimportant as the pain a fish fills when it bites a hook.

Many of us MeFites love to bitch about the moralizing fo the wingnuts, but we all to easily ignore the same damn behavior on our side of the aisle. Doing so, we fail to see the comfort offered Joe Sixpack by going to the right, where no one is likely to damn him for fishing, hunting deer or eating steak.
posted by Goofyy at 6:20 AM on March 13, 2007

ugh, must make coffee. Too many spelling and typing errors. fill=feel, etc etc etc
posted by Goofyy at 6:24 AM on March 13, 2007

Being a LOLXIAN, I can take refuge in Acts 10: None of it should be considered unclean anymore. Thanks for moral hectoring, PETA; message received, now go jump in the lake.

I wish there were more of a commercial market for free-range vension and boar meat here in the US, though. I'd cheerfully pay the premium to support the industry. As it is, I made damn sure I befriended a hunter so I can have my venison roasts and chili -- even the wild stuff is waaaaay better than most commercially raised beef.
posted by pax digita at 7:08 AM on March 13, 2007

phishing?
posted by xjudson at 7:20 AM on March 13, 2007

rape. Men are genetically inclined to do it, it feels good, and most rapists can't find a suitable replacement.

This is an inane statement, even as self-conscious hyperbole. There isn't one part of it that seems correct.
posted by OmieWise at 7:53 AM on March 13, 2007

This thread seems to contain evidence that becoming highly defensive of one's eating practices leads to mental retardation.
posted by five fresh fish at 8:37 AM on March 13, 2007 [1 favorite has favorites]

Realize that the moralizing from the extremists on the left is as irritating (if not moreso) as the moralizing from the extremists on the right. I eat meat. Why? Because I enjoy it, and I can. I don't need another reason.
posted by jbelshaw at 8:49 AM on March 13, 2007

to the point that eating meat keeps animal species from going extinct:

Case 1) animal is never born therefore does not feel pain or regret that it hasnt been born

Case 2) animal is born, lives a life in a small pen amongst its' bretheren, then slaughtered painfully.

I dont see the value in Case 2. sorry. I can't see why you'd justify that living a painful, unnatural life is somehow better than no llfe at all. And if you think all livestock exists on happy sunny farms where they roam and graze, then you are deluded. Try researching your beliefs.
posted by Dantien at 9:10 AM on March 13, 2007 [1 favorite has favorites]

I can't see why you'd justify that living a painful, unnatural life is somehow better than no llfe at all.

The Selfish Gene. It's not about what's morally right or wrong, it's that a species seeks to do whatever it takes to maximize the number of offspring generated. Even if that means a life of endless suffering.
posted by GuyZero at 9:20 AM on March 13, 2007

I used to be a vegetarian and let me tell you why I left the movement: bacon tastes good, pork chops taste good. I know that sewer rat might taste like pumpkin pie, but I would not eat the motherfucker because a rat is a filthy animal. They eat their own feces. Dogs also eat their feces, but a dog has got personality and personality goes a long way out there. Wild salmon have weak, if any, personalities. Show me one trout as charming as that Arnold on Green Acres and I'll shun his/her flesh forever.
posted by mattbucher at 10:06 AM on March 13, 2007

purplemonkie: It just seems plain to me that most of the people here arguing for meat-eating on the basis of nutrition do, in fact, have easy and relatively inexpensive access to non-meat sources of B12-rich food. And for those people, eating meat is a choice.

Yes, I choose to eat meat, because it tastes good and I want to eat it. But, this whole omnivore vs. herbivore mélée didn't come about in a discussion of choices. Anti-meat people have said that eating meat is cruel, tantamount to rape*, slavery and murder, and somehow fundamentally incompatible with human rights. My reading of this is that everyone, everywhere, bar none, should stop eating meat - regardless of availability and expense - because doing so makes them horrible human beings. Ecologically-improved livestock production, organic and free-range meat, and wild game are out of the window under that mindset, because they're just as bad.

* That's fantastic. It'd go over really well in a sexual assault clinic. "So, you've just been raped... Now you know how livestock feels. Could I interest you in a tofurkey sandwich?"

I'm no fan of massive pig farms (those huge fecal reservoirs are bad news), massive trawling fishing operations, or current fish-farming practices because of ecological impact. I'd gladly support developping and implementing alternatives. But that's completely irrelevant under the absolutist "meat is cruel, and fundamentally Wrong" mindset.

... or spewing blatant mistruths about the inadequacies of vegetarian diets, which is what seems to happen every time this subject comes up.

OK, I mentionned potential inadequacies, so I'll try diplomatically explaining myself. I don't think vegetarian or vegan diets are inherrently inadequate, alternative sources of what you'd get from meat are out there. They can be as healthy or unhealthy as balanced or unbalanced meat-containing diets. The reason I mentionned the potential for malnutrition is as follows. When I was in High School, a couple girls in my 9th grade class got it into their heads that meat-is-murder and so forth. Because of this, they went on unbalanced vegetarian diets and got sick (I think anemia was part of it). So, the potential of doing harm to oneself in the name of cruelty-free eating is there.
posted by CKmtl at 10:06 AM on March 13, 2007

i'm not gonna let your morality interfere with my diet, and i love seafood. you people should just be grateful i wasn't acculturated to eating human flesh as a child.
posted by bruce at 10:06 AM on March 13, 2007

“How about severely retarded children? If not, why not?” -
posted by me & my monkey

Not real big on axiomatic set theory then? Besides that (but related) sentience is not the same as a given threshold of “intelligence.” Any given human no matter what their intellect is still human.

“If you eat meat, just say it: I don't care enough about animal suffering to alter my eating habits.”

I will argue that I did in fact need meat (former athlete) but of course I don’t -need- to anymore.
Your statement tho’ begs the question - what if we could painlessly keep and kill any given animal. Hinges on how ‘suffering’ is defined.
Which is part of the problem here.
PETA, et.al - are asserting that animals suffer like humans. The fact is that simply is not true. We have a gigantic imaginary world from which we can draw great pleasure or suffering. Some animals have rudimentary societies - and indeed, it’s allowed them to control their circumstances to a degree and has also spawned great suffering.
Because we are far more sensitive and knowing than animals - not merely in nervous system input but in a great variety of measures - we suffer more than any other creature on earth.
Sentience. It’s a bitch.
A cow doesn’t know it’s in bondage. It’s a cow. It eats grass. It’s adapted to an environment we’ve modulated.
Where the needs of it’s evolution are met, it is happy.
Similarly - a human has evolutionary traits such that we like to eat meat. Yet we are not allowed the same basic happiness because it’s “immoral” or “evil” (indeed tantamout to rape).
We recognize a higher level of reasoning and need than ourselves.
Where those needs are not met - we suffer.
Cows do not have divorce or crime or any of the more abstract concepts that can cause a human to suffer or lead to a human’s physical suffering.
And if you don’t think abstract suffering can cause phsyical symptoms in a person you are greatly mistaken.
A cow does not dread the slaughterhouse because they have no conception of it. They are in a field eating grass. A fish is an even larger contrast. Many fish have - demonstrably - memories that span only a few minutes. Whereas a human awaiting execution or with a terminal disease or even simple paranoia can anticipate his death for many years.

Now in terms of raw organic pain - certainly all suffering is carried by nerve fibers and transmitted to a nervous system organ of some sort.
I would argue human suffering is greater due to the greater complexity of emotion, understanding, and so forth but I would cede to the argument that pain is equal in the sense there is physical suffering.

That, obviously, should be as limited as possible.
But if a fish should be allowed to follow its genetic potential as its evolution has directed so too should a human. There is no reason an animals right to live and pursue happiness should be greater than a humans. Meat tastes good to us because of evolutionary biology.

That is not a reason to eat animals of course. But there is no reason life exists in the first place. It simply does. The fact of it is self-justifying - as are human rights. We’re genetically predisposed to eat some meat as part of our diets. Do we have to? No. Can we choose not to eat animals? Yes.Should we? Perhaps - for a variety of practical reasons.

But to presume there is some moral value based on suffering equity that should compel me not to is ridiculous. And indeed, leads to errors in practical judgement (such as PETA makes).
I morally oppose the death penalty - should I free all the prisoners on death row? I oppose abortion on a moral basis - should I bomb an abortion clinic? Of course not - there are greater concessions there to practical realities and other rights beyond stopping death and suffering of the kind in my focus. Those criminals are still a danger to others if they are released. Similarly, it causes a greater danger to inflict my will on another to force her to have a child.
As I don’t believe I should be forced not to eat meat, so too I don’t believe in telling someone they can’t be vegan. Or whatever else they want to do with what goes into their body. Feel free to work for change through practical means though.
posted by Smedleyman at 10:19 AM on March 13, 2007

I'd meant to add this earlier, but got distracted. For those of you arguing for the moral equivalency of all creatures, try this out.

There's a house burning in front of you. Inside, there's a person (adult, to avoid any "aww, baby!" effect), a dog, and a fish in an aquarium. None of them are any sort of threat to society; the person's not a serial killer or Hitler, the dog's not a "violent" breed, and the fish is, well, a fish. The person and dog are either injured, trapped or unconscious, so they can't get out without your help (the fish, obviously, can't either). Suppose you only have time to help one get out, before the roof caves in killing the ones left inside. Suppose you only have time to help two get out. Which one(s) do you rescue? Do you decide by your gut, or do you draw straws for them because their lives are morally equivalent?

No need to cause a flood of answers, just a morality thought experiment.
posted by CKmtl at 12:30 PM on March 13, 2007

A cow does not dread the slaughterhouse because they have no conception of it. They are in a field eating grass.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Seriously, you think sustaining the meat consumption of this society allows us the opportunity to raise cattle in this manner? Seriously?

And some 9th grade girls give up meat and get sick? Somehow that means what? Proper nutrition requires meat? I dont understand since if you ate only meat, there are a host of problems that would develop too. No one is arguing this and it doesnt pertain to whether animals feel pain or eating meat is cruel.

Ignore PETA. Ignore the hyperbole. Just please, someone, back up your statements before spouting them. No wonder you all think eating meat is appropriate and natural...your heads are filled with so much misinformation!
posted by Dantien at 12:33 PM on March 13, 2007

Some statistics with regard to our meat eating habits
posted by Dantien at 12:35 PM on March 13, 2007

*hurls steak into trashcan*

I was unconvinced for so long, but the ALLCAPS mockery and repeated accusations of ignorance awakened me from my delusion, and the links to such nonpartisan information sources as goveg.com and factoryfarming.com sealed it.

Well done, Dantien. Your supreme humanity has shown me the error of my ways.
posted by gompa at 1:05 PM on March 13, 2007 [1 favorite has favorites]

Dantien: And some 9th grade girls give up meat and get sick? Somehow that means what? Proper nutrition requires meat? I dont understand since if you ate only meat, there are a host of problems that would develop too.

Can you understand the words that are coming out of my mouthfingertips? Read what I said, and stop imagining things just because I don't agree with your absolutism. I said proper nutrition is possible in a vegetarian/vegan framework. I never said that including meat in your diet = eating only meat. I never said people shouldn't be vegetarians if they want to be. I was explaining my reasons for having said that a vegetarian diet can be done incorrectly. I didn't say so because I'm against vegetarians, but because I've seen cruelty-free vegetarians mess it up. That's all.

Ignore PETA. Ignore the hyperbole.

So... spouting more hyperbole, and more repackaged PETA-like stuff is helpful, how?

No wonder you all think eating meat is appropriate and natural...your heads are filled with so much misinformation!

Mkay, our opinions are dismissed. Now, can we dismiss yours as being food-facism?
posted by CKmtl at 1:28 PM on March 13, 2007

“Seriously, you think sustaining the meat consumption of this society allows us the opportunity to raise cattle in this manner?”

You seriously think attacking the imagery used to illustrate a concept in my argument is a rebuttle? Seriously?

It’s irrelevant to my argument whether cows are enduring the worst tortures of sadistic cow-hating bastards or they float gently on clouds all day eating dewy fresh green grass. I’ve explicitly stated my opposition to animal suffering. Several times. Very clearly. It’s a more than ceded point, I agree with it foundationally.
(Why is it the clearer I state something - generally speaking - the greater the tangential resistance?)
Whatever pain animals suffer is not relevent to my point that you have no basis to assert the right of an animal to act according to it’s nature over mine as a moral value judgement.
I would further assert that my life is more valuable beyond our relative equality in terms of right to exist, et.al - as we are sentient beings. CKmtl poses a nice point on that. We all have a right to life - why is the human life more valuable?

on preview: ‘Smedleyman, do you seriously think water vapor could support the weight of a cow?’

Yes, you’re so much smarter than us all. We’re just misinformed dolts. Dupes of the meat industry. Please, tell us how to run our lives before we hurt ourselves.
posted by Smedleyman at 2:30 PM on March 13, 2007

Sorry to get irate. I’m actually trying to communicate, not win. Often throws people off.
(I’m reminded of that bit in “That Thing You Do” the guy says “The One-ders” and the other guy says “Looks like the ‘oh-needers’” guy says “no, look the ‘One-ders’” guy says ‘Got it - looks like the ‘oh-needers’” and the name still isn’t changed)
I don’t mean to disparage anyone’s passion in alleviating suffering of any kind.
Sometimes suffering is a component - and there are some cases (not necessarily this one) where it’s a necessary component - of any given process. It’s what we do with the sacrifice that matters.
posted by Smedleyman at 5:55 PM on March 13, 2007

Slaughtering an animal for sustenance is *not* morally equivalent to killing a human being. I mean, come on.

One can be environmentally conscious, and care about minimizing the suffering of animals and still choose to eat meat.

There's no hypocrisy there.
posted by MythMaker at 6:00 PM on March 13, 2007

It's funny. I'm a meat-eater, and I find Dantien to be the most persuasive person in this thread, and I think the ridicule he, as well as the other vegetarians, has received is inappropriate and unfounded. I think he has good reasons for his position, and it is not steeped in ignorance, unlike many, if not most, of the positions opposed to his. Unfortunately, though, I'm not convinced by the arguments for vegetarianism, or even the arguments opposed to "mistreatment" of animals.

My position on this is analogous to my position on the rights of a fetus. Pro-life people sometimes ask how I would feel if my mom had aborted me. The correct answer to this, I think, is that I wouldn't care because I wouldn't exist. A fetus doesn't have a sense of identity, and so its life doesn't matter to itself. The pro-lifer is thus asking a deeply incoherent question. Similarly, I'm not convinced that nonrational animals have a sense of self. They don't matter to themselves. Hence, their lives have no value, except to us, as means to our ends.

But I'll be upfront with the consequences of my view, which many people will find repugnant: 1) Animal pain doesn't factor in (directly) at all in my moral calculus; 2) People with certain forms of dementia aren't persons, and they don't have moral rights; and 3) Very young children aren't persons either, so we have no direct duties to them.* All of these are deeply controversial, particularly the last one. Good people can and do disagree on these points. There are valid arguments, with different assumptions, that tell in favor of vegetarianism. In fact, I think these arguments will win out in the future. It's just that I'm not persuaded by them. But there's no reason to get indignant about it.

*Of course, we can and do have nonmoral attachments to all of these.
posted by smorange at 6:48 PM on March 13, 2007

One can be environmentally conscious, and care about minimizing the suffering of animals and still choose to eat meat.

Ah, but the vegetarian is saying that one doesn't care very much about minimizing the suffering of animals if one also chooses to eat meat in our society. Which, it seems to me, is probably right. Meat-eaters need to admit this.
posted by smorange at 6:55 PM on March 13, 2007

Well, then, shall y'all 'objectively' draw the line here: delicious and nutritious!
posted by taosbat at 7:57 PM on March 13, 2007

"It's not about what's morally right or wrong, it's that a species seeks to do whatever it takes to maximize the number of offspring generated. Even if that means a life of endless suffering."

I think humans, as a species, are very much illustrative of this concept.

"I'm a meat-eater, and I find Dantien to be the most persuasive person in this thread, and I think the ridicule he, as well as the other vegetarians, has received is inappropriate and unfounded."

While it is certainly unkind to ridicule someone for a mostly harmless personal belief held and practiced, it may be best to ridicule and challenge a shrill ideologue trying desperately to validate his viewpoint against those of others whom he came to expecting nothing but a negative reaction.
posted by Matt Oneiros at 8:37 PM on March 13, 2007 [1 favorite has favorites]

Now I'm not suggesting that the two are comparable crimes or anything, but you could say something similar about rape. Men are genetically inclined to do it, it feels good, and most rapists can't find a suitable replacement.

Thank you, for awesomizing this thread to previously-unheard-of proportions.
posted by antifuse at 2:51 AM on March 14, 2007

If a child is a dog is a fish... why, that means I can do some dryland spearfishing! Woohoo, y'all meet me down at Bixby Elementary, y'hear?
posted by five fresh fish at 8:30 AM on March 14, 2007

If a child is a dog is a fish... why, that means I can do some dryland spearfishing! Woohoo, y'all meet me down at Bixby Elementary, y'hear?
posted by five fresh fish at 8:30 AM on March 14, 2007

I’m also reminded of old Zen bit: “A fish saved my life once” “How?” “I ate him.”
posted by Smedleyman at 12:52 PM on March 14, 2007

"A fish saved my life once." "How?" "It ate me." "Jonah?"
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 12:57 PM on March 14, 2007

"The zoo must kill the bear."
posted by taosbat at 7:36 AM on March 20, 2007