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comment by tacocat
tacocat  ·  3235 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Critically analysing the moral consistency of our beliefs

I'd kill a cow and eat it





organicAnt  ·  3235 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Why?

tacocat  ·  3234 days ago  ·  link  ·  

If the need arose I'd eat you. I don't even change my own oil though and there's plenty of people to kill my food for me.

Your argument for the value of all life and its desire to live doesn't jive with killing a mosquito out of annoyance but it's not my job to teach vegans about the legitimate arguments against meat.

organicAnt  ·  3234 days ago  ·  link  ·  

    If the need arose I'd eat you.
If the need arose to that point everyone would be in survival mode.

    Your argument for the value of all life and its desire to live doesn't jive with killing a mosquito out of annoyance
So for you killing a mosquito and killing a complex organism capable of social bonds, such as a dog or a cow is the same thing? How about killing someone you love? Would that bother you?

    it's not my job to teach vegans about the legitimate arguments against meat.
Here's 65 reasons. How many legitimate arguments have you got for raping, torturing and killing innocent creatures?
tacocat  ·  3234 days ago  ·  link  ·  

    raping

End of discussion

wasoxygen  ·  3233 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I was also distressed by organicAnt's use of that term. I don't think it's appropriate. I did some research to find out more about what happens to dairy cows. Here is a description in the most objective language I can manage:

    A farmer tricks a bull into mounting an artificial vagina to collect semen. Later the farmer restrains the cow and inserts his arm deep into her rectum and removes any feces. The farmer inserts an 18-inch (45 cm) long artificial insemination gun into the cow's vagina and guides it through the cervix, using the other hand in her rectum to position the tip of the gun in the uterus. No pain management drugs are used. When a calf is born, it is separated from the cow within a few days to avoid additional stress caused by breaking the close bond that forms between cow and calf.

My source is a family-friendly guide for dairy farmers with cartoon illustrations.

This is standard practice to keep the dairy cows regularly pregnant, so they will lactate. There are other practices which make the cows produce more milk than normal, protect the milk from contamination, and dispose of the cow when milk production eventually declines. In my judgement these practices generally increase the suffering of the animal. I strongly suspect that if typical dairy cows somehow had the option of suicide, the rate would be near 100%.

I would be very happy to hear evidence to the contrary, that things are not as bad as they appear.

tacocat, what do you think? Is providing the cheapest possible liquid protein and calcium source in the grocery store adequate justification for these practices?

tacocat  ·  3233 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I got dragged into this for calling bullshit on a non answer. I already said more than I wanted to

wasoxygen  ·  3233 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Okay, thanks for letting me know.

How about you, Grendel, any opinion you would like to share?

organicAnt told me privately that Hubski members use organicAnt’s inflammatory language as an excuse to avoid a subject they want to ignore. I disagreed, certain that if we speak respectfully, Hubski will come through with thoughtful contributions on a difficult topic.

Grendel  ·  3228 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I have years of experience on sites like 4chan and similar, where it's considered perfectly normal and acceptable behaviour for users to outright insult each other for little or no reason, so I have a relatively high tolerance to inflammatory language by now (though I hold hubski to a higher standard than 4chan, obviously).

That said, I've never really researched veganism and I don't feel strongly pro- or against it. I only took part in the conversation in the first place because one of organicAnt's beliefs, that all life is equally worthy of respect, seems flawed to me, and since it's the basis for his argument, I felt it had to be criticised.

organicAnt  ·  3234 days ago  ·  link  ·  

    Like humans, cows produce milk only when they’re pregnant or nursing. In order to keep the milk constantly flowing, farmers artificially inseminate cows over and over, often on devices called “rape racks.” After their calves are taken from them, mother cows are hooked up, several times a day, to milking machines so that the milk meant for their calves can be sold to humans.

    Cows used for dairy products are genetically manipulated, artificially inseminated, and often drugged to force them to produce about four and a half times as much milk as they naturally would to feed their calves. These animals are often dosed with bovine growth hormone, which contributes to an inflammation of the udder known as “mastitis”—an extremely painful condition that up to 50 percent of cows used for their milk suffer from.

    Cows on dairy farms are also routinely mutilated without painkillers by having their horn tissue burned or gouged out of their heads, holes punched in their ears, and part of their tails cut off. Once their milk production declines, cows are sent to a terrifying death in a slaughterhouse to be ground up into hamburger.

http://www.peta2.com/blog/whats-wrong-with-drinking-milk/

Also: What is a Rape Rack?: Why Feminism Applies to Cows

_refugee_  ·  3232 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Wow wow wow if I didn't need more reasons to not eat dairy

(I know we disagree on meat products but I try to exclude dairy from my diet already for various reasons; this is not a sarcastic remark)