• bloc said on Sep 05, 2007....

  I find it odd that our culture gets upset over these things while at the same time being complicit in factory farming! 

• beyondtheveil said on Sep 05, 2007....

  I see the torture and killing as a signature for something far more sinister from the brats farther down the road. They are in the possession of traits that need to be addressed sooner rather than later.
  
  bloc-  Many of us who are upset over these things aren't necessarily complicit in others. Factory farming is a perfect example.
  

• bloc said on Sep 05, 2007....

  @beyond
  do you eat meat?
  

• silverwhisper said on Sep 05, 2007....

  bloc: i don't view factory farming as institutionalized genocide as you evidently do.
  
  ed

• bloc said on Sep 05, 2007....

  I promise you that what happens in factory farms is often worse than what happened to that puppy and far more frequent. I'll have to make a post on this subject when I get a chance.

• sweet_cookie01 said on Sep 05, 2007....

  such brutality!... (sweet cookie shakes head)

• bloc said on Sep 05, 2007....

  ok, maybe it's not as bad as what happened to that puppy (just read it), but I still fail to understand the seeming double standard. That people can be outraged at the hurting of a dog while scarfing down a bacon cheeseburger that was produced in an equally horrific fashion.
  
  so my friendly meat eaters, what's the difference between the dogs and the cows/pigs?
  

• SeanRenaud said on Sep 05, 2007....

  Dogs, cats, horses these are compainion animals to MOST people in most societies.  They are viewed as being superior to other animals by virtue of proximity.  Also like dolphins and certain rodents they are cute and as sharks, bears and aligators can attest it's not easy if you aren't cute.
   
  Also while you can prove time and time again and maybe it really is epidemic not just isolated freak jobs (as I believe the majority of say Marine rapists or Army girls who get off to torture are, though its starting to seem that my beliefs and reality may be divorced) we don't think the animals we eat suffer more than they need to.  As for this puppy, there was no purpose.  We didn't eat the puppy, we didn't use the skins for wallets.  It was just tortured for entertainment value.  There is a moral difference between killing for food and protection.
   
  I think a bigger question is sport hunting.  In many cases (as I understand) the animal isn't consumed for one reason or another.  That is murder for entertainment.  Or is it getting back to nature?  Humans have a funny thought pattern on that, getting back to nature while condemning the actions required by it.

• the_infernal_optimist said on Sep 05, 2007....

  I agree with SR overall - the death (and certainly the torture that occurred before that point) of that poor puppy served no purpose other than perhaps as the twisted entertainment of some abhorrent individuals. That's an important difference, bloc, although I do understand where you're coming from. It's not the same thing, imo, though there are lots of changes that could/arguably should be made in factory farming as well.
  
  ~Infernal
  

• bloc said on Sep 05, 2007....

  so if the kids had eaten it afterwards it would have been less bad?

• the_infernal_optimist said on Sep 05, 2007....

  Even if that had been their intent from the start, no animal deserves to die that way. Your argument is a tired but valid one (I can't win, certainly, because I don't want the cow that was raised for my cheeseburger to have died horrifically either, even if I can get past the whole animals-raised-for-food thing - and I'm no vegetarian), though I'm not sure it should take over this post.
  
  ~Infernal
  

• genalonewolf said on Sep 05, 2007....

  I hear dog makes a fine meal!

• bloc said on Sep 05, 2007....

  How can a valid argument be tired if the majority of people dismiss it? Maybe people's consciences are tired? I wouldn't expect such cynicism from an infernal optimist ;)

• rupert7 said on Sep 05, 2007....

  I signed but didn't like outting my name and address out there for the whole world to see,along with an email address!! But 'tis done!
  
  Have you ever heard of a Quokka. A small animal that lives on Rotnest Island off the coast of W.A. It is about the size of a rabbit i suppose, looks a bit like the American Gopher. Anyway these harmless (they don't dig all over the place) little fella's are subject to continueous mindless cruelty from teenagers. It is sickening!!
  
  Rot nest comes from the Dutch Rat nest. Early Dutch explorers mistook the Quokka for a large Rat!! I don't know if the Quokka is native to anywhere else other than this Island.
  

• rupert7 said on Sep 05, 2007....

  Here is a link and a picture of the Quokka, I hope the link works!
  ]
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quokka
  

• rupert7 said on Sep 05, 2007....

  Damn!!  You can highlight the address above and cut and paste it into the address bar then hit enter,it will work like that.

• kelly said on Sep 05, 2007....

  " Your argument is a tired but valid one..." I think the distinction needs to be made here between you being tired of the argument and the argument itself being a tired one. People that bring up good and valid but inconvenient arguments are at first listened to with a small degree of earnestness, and then when they have the nerve to not let it drop they are told to stop being shrill. When someone reminds us of our shortcomings or moral failings we almost never take the opportunity to examine ourselves more deeply. Instead it is much more common to attack the person who had the temerity to cause us unease by rubbing sand paper on our perfectly polished self images. What is going on at factory farms around the world is institutionalized cruelty. And those three deeply damaged teens had better get some psychotherapy or we're going to be hearing from them again in the form of the next BTK killers. The big difference being that those kids did the torturing and killing themselves. The rest of the meat eating world pays people to do it, and do it out of sight.

• Suddenrain said on Sep 06, 2007....

  This is soooooo unsettling. The whole incident makes me sick.

• phantomblogger said on Sep 06, 2007....

  I would like to repost this petition if you allow. I am new here and I am just trying to learn my way around. I do not mind posting anything that will make a difference for the better. Let me know what I can do. I do feel there is issues that need to dealt with when it comes to these kids. These kids need to get help now.

• Fire_01 said on Sep 06, 2007....

  What is the point really? The world has always been this cruel. Nothing will ever change.

• Battycat said on Sep 06, 2007....

  I'm afraid those kids need locking up and the key throwing away, they were all old enough to know what they were doing, and the fact they showed no remorse did it for me. They will go on to kill people eventually.

  on the factor farming issue - the west eats far too much meat, and it's far too cheap, we don't need meat every day, it should be a luxury, as it was in the hunter gather days. If we ate less and paid more the need for intensive farming would go

• VICARIOUS said on Sep 06, 2007....

  Hi stranger. Just popped in and noticed you were still here. How's the writing coming?

• the_infernal_optimist said on Sep 06, 2007....

  Point taken, Kelly.
  
  ~Infernal
  

• bloc said on Sep 06, 2007....

  In order to avoid hijacking sw's post, sorry if that already happened, I've posted my question here. I hope everone has the courage to address it.

• wakingharmony said on Sep 06, 2007....

  I am ashamed to say this is not the 1st I've heard of this in this state. This is also where we shop alot it is the next biggest town to us. Unfortunatly Texas pretty much makes its own laws, I believe.  I live out in little town Mostly Country. Can you believe I was told my cat could not be outside with out a leash....I called and asked, they said NO, then when i said who told me that their tune change.. Oh`yes there is...thats right..I know that if you dog got loose and you didnt find it. it was more or less taken out and Shot. They also had that big deal about the animal shelter here....where the guy was drowning the dogs.   Thanks for the awareness SW

• GrapeKoolaid said on Sep 06, 2007....

  Just wanted to point out that there are environmental concerns regarding factory farms as well.  The waste these animals output become toxic in such large volume, killing the ecosystem around it. 
  
  You shouldn't kill animals, but if you do, you should eat it.  Those kids should totally be force fed that dog.  Every last bit of it. 
  
  When my buddy was a little kid, he shot a squirrel and his grandmother made him eat it.  He said it was gamey. 
  

• Suddenrain said on Sep 06, 2007....

  LoL Grape, I totally agree!

• silverwhisper said on Sep 07, 2007....

  guys, thank you!
  
  bloc, kelly: i have a friend who runs a chicken farm. i'm familiar w/ the practices he employs in his coops. it's lower on the food chain than me, it gets eaten. the "double standard" as you're aware is as sean expressed it: food animals vs companion animals. people draw sustenance from it. cruelty as entertainment is quite another matter and frankly, i'm surprised that you didn't anticipate and pre-emptively argue against this point from the get-go.
  
  phantomblogger: please, be my guest--i saw it elsewhere, myself!
  
  fire: i don't accept that the world cannot be changed. if things cannot improve, why bother breathing?
  
  vic, i saw you were back. not doing much writing lately, sadly but thanks for dropping in.
  
  WH: i've got a friend who lives in TX and all i can say is ugh!
  
  grape: most wild animal meat is gamey. that's the natural flavor: it's only farm-raised animals that don't have that trait, i suppose. i'd be kinda curious to try squirrel some time.
  
  ed

• bloc said on Sep 07, 2007....

  food animals vs companion animals is a cop out in my mind. a dog can be a food animal just as easily. I don't believe there should be a different moral standard for cuteness considering that dogs and pigs are around the same level of intelligence and other possible metrics.
  
  I'm also not sure what point you are making regarding your friends farm. Are you suggesting his practices are the standard and that you are comfortable with standard practices? I suggest you watch the vid in my post on this subject.
  

• SeanRenaud said on Sep 07, 2007....

  I'm sure in Nam that dogs and cats don't get to qualify as companions.
   
  I didn't say there should be a different moral standard cor cuteness.  I said there is.  More people are concerned with dolphin safe tuna than they are in saving the Sharks.  The panda is the fucking symbol of the WWE.  Polar bears could go extinct and we'd hardly notice.  It's not right, its fact.
   
  As for that if the people had done the following.  Eaten the animal, if the original purpose it's death had been to eat it not entertainment wold have counted for a lot. 
   
  I'm against the people torturing the animals for shits and giggles and you've got very convincing videos that torture may be epidemic.  Which means we need to have a hard look at the industry decide what can be done to better it and take those actions.

• bloc said on Sep 07, 2007....

  I don't care about what is, I'm asking what should be. At one point in time I could have said, "sean is not guaranteed the rights in the constitution because he's black". The fact that something "is" isn't an argument that something should be that way. We all know why it is, my point is to get people to ask themselves why they hold what seems to be a double standard.
  
  What is your response to the industry given your libertarian leaning philosophy? Does that philosophy hold up in practice?
  

• SeanRenaud said on Sep 07, 2007....

  My response to the industry is we need to find out a few things and then take actions.
   
  1.  How often is this happening?  Is a few people or is it most of them?
   
  2.  Can we screen for the personalities that do this sort of thing?
   
  3.  Can we automate more of it to remove the human element?
   
  4.  Can we free range more/most/all of our food without damaging the livilihoods of those involved?
   
  Honestly since libertarians generally believe that if it doesn't effect us then we needing bother much about it.  As long as I ignore you then I don't know about pigs being tortured and I can eat my sausage in peace. 

• bloc said on Sep 07, 2007....

  "As long as I ignore you then I don't know about pigs being tortured and I can eat my sausage in peace. "
  
  which is why peta makes obnoxious ads.

• SeanRenaud said on Sep 07, 2007....

  Yeah I know.  And I'll still ignore them.  Just like I fucking hate those anti-smoking adds.  They piss me off to the point that I want to buy cigarettes for children.  But that wouldn't get them off the air, it would just be spite and I try not to be spiteful if I gain nothing else from it.  :-(
   
   

• bloc said on Sep 07, 2007....

  peta's can at least be funny at times. I thought the "got prostate cancer?" ad was funny even if insensitive. 

• SeanRenaud said on Sep 07, 2007....

  I liked them when they had Pamela Anderson dressed in lettuce.
   
  Honestly I'm willing to play my hypocrite card on this one over all.  I was raised in a society where certain animals that are considered pets are companions.  I like my cat more than I like most people.  I have no attachment to any cow and thus I don't care much abou their pain.  Kinda like I can only shed so many tears for starving (insert country)ians.  If I'm a half our late for dinner I'm cranky and if my friend needs .99 to go to McDonalds I'll take care of.  If it makes me a hypocrit so be it.
   
  On a side note it's funny to watch ALIEN respond when he knows he's beaten on a subject.

• bloc said on Sep 07, 2007....

  regarding alien, isn't that most of the time ;) Which discussion are you referring to?

• SeanRenaud said on Sep 07, 2007....

  Most specifically him on gay marriage and something else where I nailed him so bad he decided to start responding to kelly instead.
   
  I hate to admit it but I can't quite find the fault in his logic about abortions vs slaughter houses.  I'm sure it's there but that's because ALIEN is the antithesis to right.  So by logical extention he must be wrong I just don't know how.

• bloc said on Sep 07, 2007....

  his flaw is htat he fails to acknowledge that most people don't consider a microscopic cluster of 4 cells a full blown human with full legal rights. I'm certain he doesn't follow his own logic out to it's conclusions on this one.
  

• SeanRenaud said on Sep 07, 2007....

  Yeah but most people don't equate a cow with anything but a Big Mac.  Maybe a T-Bone.

• bloc said on Sep 07, 2007....

  there's a difference between refusing to make a logical  moral distinction between a dog and a pig and an illogical refusal to acknowledge that non christians probably aren't going to view 4 cells as a full blown human being.
  

• silverwhisper said on Sep 08, 2007....

  bloc: you can view it as a cop out if you like, but it's why people see it differently. i don't know what the standard is for treatment, but i know of a case in which it isn't as brutal as you seem to think and for me that's good enough.
  
  if it's lower on the food chain, i'll probably eat it. it tastes good.
  
  ed

• carmachu said on Sep 08, 2007....

  link to the story?

• silverwhisper said on Sep 08, 2007....

  the petition site has these three links.
  
  ed

• bloc said on Sep 08, 2007....

  so sw, how can you justify a different moral standard for dogs than cows and pigs? Sorry to say this, but saying that "my friend" doesn't abuse animals in his farm and that "that's good enough" for you is a cop out when we're talking about the generalized status quo.
  
  dogs are lower on the food chain as well. So are dolphins.
  

• silverwhisper said on Sep 08, 2007....

  i wouldn't have much problem w/ eating a dog, frankly. i would object to a dolphin b/c they exhibit considerable evidence of intelligence, just as certain primates do.
  
  ed

• bloc said on Sep 08, 2007....

  A college professor told me that indians didn't hunt bears because they look a lot like humans when you skin them :/
  
  the problem with factory farms aren't the fact that animals are used for food, but the way in which life is treated as something other than life.
  

• silverwhisper said on Sep 08, 2007....

  i don't hold w/ the notion that all life irrespective of species is equally valuable, bloc.
  
  ed

• bloc said on Sep 08, 2007....

  i didn't suggest that or I wouldn't eat lettuce either ;)

• silverwhisper said on Sep 08, 2007....

  so as is often in the case of such disagreements, it's a matter of degree? would that be a fair statement?
  
  ed

• bloc said on Sep 08, 2007....

  absolutely. very few things in life have clear delineations imho. Where do shrimp fall into our categorizations? These recent dog issues lead me to ask people why they have a strong since of morality for a dog and not a pig or cow. In our scales of degree pigs and dogs are in an almost identical position.

• silverwhisper said on Sep 09, 2007....

  where you see [x] bits of grayscale, others see [y], i suppose.
  
  ed

• bloc said on Sep 09, 2007....

  Yeah, dogs are on a much different moral plane than pigs :/ sigh. I think others see the rationalizations that they want. 

• SeanRenaud said on Sep 09, 2007....

  I suppose they do.  Pigs, cows, chickens, turkeys these are for eating.  The fact that they have some kind of form prior to becoming a Big Mac makes little difference.  Kinda like nobody (or very few people) seriously consider how many trees were cut down to make their home, and much of it, say the cabinets could just as easily be made of plastic and painted to look like wood if you even like the wood look. I'm convinced a great deal of people wouldn't care one way or the other.
   
  Dogs, cats and canaries are pets, only slightly less important than actual humans.  Look at the vet bills people pay for their dogs and cats.  If somebody could show me an equal amount of rage for say Hyena fighting or Wolf fighting (though wolves look enough like normal dogs they might cause an outrage) I'd think you were right. 
   
  The fact is that in Western Society these animals are family and you don't fuck with family.

• bloc said on Sep 09, 2007....

  sean, your logic is terrible. If people start keeping pigs as pets will they suddenly have different moral standings?
  
  Btw, your logic would make slavery just at the time it was occuring.
  

• SeanRenaud said on Sep 10, 2007....

  I think that if pigs became common pets their moral standing would change because they would have altered their social standing so to speak.
   
  As for slavery seriously have you read my opinion on prisoners?  I don't think that slavery should be dealt according to racial lines or birth status.  If you are a criminal oh well.  If you're country loses a war well it kinda sucks to be you but I atleast have pity for you.
   
  Morality does change as society progresses though.  Some things progress because they are the "right" way.  Other things change because we have "broken" a rule.  Being a vegetarian wasn't truly plausible until relatively recently.  It is a "broken" rule of nature which just means it will take longer to break.  We aren't nomads and most of us buy things rather than bashing skulls but certain changes take a while.
   
  I also did cash in a hypocrit card on this.  I don't care what it means that I enjoy a bacon double cheesburger and honestly I'm trying to find a way to work chickens and turkeys in just so I can cause maximum carnage in a single meal (just cus I'm a jerk sometimes) but if you so much as look sideways at Leah (my cat) I am likely to knock you clean into next week.  As much as I hate rationalizing I know I'm doing it here, I just really don't care.

• silverwhisper said on Sep 10, 2007....

  bloc, some ideas are simply too ingrained to be reasonable points of discussion; in this case, either you do or don't accept the idea of food animals vs. companion animals.
  
  ed

• bloc said on Sep 10, 2007....

  "Being a vegetarian wasn't truly plausible until relatively recently."
  Um, this isn't true.
  
  "bloc, some ideas are simply too ingrained to be reasonable points of discussion; in this case, either you do or don't accept the idea of food animals vs. companion animals."
  
  The exact same argument can be made about race. Either you do or you don't accept that idea that non-whites are lesser than whites. Are both sides equally right because it's ingrained in so many people?

• silverwhisper said on Sep 10, 2007....

  AFAICT, it isn't a question of rightness, bloc, so much as different priorities. or am i misunderstanding you?
  
  ed

• bloc said on Sep 10, 2007....

  I'm not sure i understand you. Animal rights is an issue of "rightness" for me. After all, it's in the name ;)
  
  I may be totally confused about your question.
  

• silverwhisper said on Sep 10, 2007....

  i think that this is one of those matters where even the vocabulary is problematic, bloc.
  
  OK, perhaps future discussion would be best served by revisiting your blog entry on the matter. i didn't see an explanation of your stance re: vegetarianism. i thought i understood it but perhaps i was taking something for granted. ?
  
  ed

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