PETA?

[Nikolas]

Let the controversy begin.

http://www.petatv.com/tvpopup/Prefs.asp?video=fur_farm&chgpref=1

It's really awful to watch, really really awful, and couldn't finish it myself. Don't say I didn't warn you.

I'm not a vegetarian, I like my meat, but can't really think that animals are treated this way (then again humans can be treated this way in some countries).

:'(

[Damien]

You might also want to look at this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9ijLulwUTY

[Babar]

I'm not defending PETA, and I'm not defending...furriers(?), but isn't it a pretty weak argument to say that "Hey, this group that is accusing us also has its bad points, so we can have our bad points too!"?
If you disagree with the last part, but are trying to say the 1st, then why? If PETA doesn't have the most ethical practices, then why is that relevant to the unethical practices shown in this video?

Now you could say that the video is fake, or strung together out of context, or some such thing, and that might be debatable, but I'm curious who would say so.

[Damien]

Well, in Nikolas' post I see some peasants beating animals to death. If such videos would come from a factory in the USA or developed European countries, I'm sure some legal measures would be drawn. But PETA turns this around somehow and a peasant beating down an animal seems to be a global problem.

If they really want to do something about it, they should find these people and deal with them.
I don't even see the point in fur, even if the animal was killed in a "humane" way. Artificial fur - I have no problem with it.

There were some other videos, KFC (not sure) workers throwing chickens at a wall. Sick f**ks but they were dealt with. PETA made a video, of course, and somehow turned that into a "don't eat meat" debate. Well bohemians, I can see you as vegans, but how would that diet affect a person that works 10hrs a day working on your roads and buildings.

PETA is not an organization anymore, it's a corporation now. There must be a way to protect animal rights, but not like PETA does.

[Haddas]

PETA is a terrifying organization. So unorganized. Full of idiots. It scares me.

[Ghost]

I always thought that The Meatrix
was scary enough... Well, these movies too make some pretty general claims, but well, let's face it, there's a grain of truth in all of that. I must confess that I enjoy meat a lot, and usually have no bad feelings when eating it. The De-Personalisation argument doesn't work for me; my grandparents used to have a small farm and I grew up eating meat I personally knew.

Ugh. Controversy, for sure.

[MrColossal]

I haven't watched the video and won't because I don't need too... Personally I'm more concerned with the way people are treated in the world right now than animals, not because I don't care for animals but because humans can destroy the world and chickens can eat worms.

However, when the senior vice president of your organization takes insulin derived from animal testing and still containing animal products and says "It's ok that I do this, I need my life to fight for animals!" but then tries to stop other animal testing that could save other lives... I really stop caring!

Mary Beth Sweetland:
"I'm an insulin-dependent diabetic. Twice a day I take synthetically manufactured insulin that still contains some animal products -- and I have no qualms about it ... I'm not going to take the chance of killing myself by not taking insulin. I don't see myself as a hypocrite. I need my life to fight for the rights of animals."

[Ghost]

Mary Beth Sweetland:
"I'm an insulin-dependent diabetic. Twice a day I take synthetically manufactured insulin that still contains some animal products.

Now that's just stupid. I'm a diabetic myself, and for almost three years now insulin is completely synthetical. The reason is that a certain percentage of diabetics had allergic reactions to the traditional insulin (which was harvested from pig cell samples), and the new sythetical one reduces this percentage to a very, very tiny number.
I agree, Collosal: This really sounds more like an attempt to stir some emotional reaction.

[Sparky]

What a traumatic video- I had to stop watching after a minute or so, it was pretty graphic.

I've been a vegetarian myself for 15 years, but I find I have a strange cringing reaction to animal rights propaganda and organizations like PETA. There's definitely some truth underneath it all, but the cause tends to be championed in such a creepy way. It's almost as if some vegetarians lose sight of the actual issues, they're so excited about feeling like victims and displaying injustices to the world. I'll be the first in line to agree with critics who point out this sort of distorted thinking.

The De-Personalisation argument doesn't work for me; my grandparents used to have a small farm and I grew up eating meat I personally knew.

A lot of vegetarians would get pissy about that, but I see very little wrong with that sort of thing. That seems like a very healthy kind of meat eating.

[jetxl]

...Personally I'm more concerned with the way people are treated in the world right now than animals, not because I don't care for animals but because humans can destroy the world and chickens can eat worms.
...

I disagree: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_HDwsNyNyYo

[LimpingFish]

I'm an animal person, and cases of cruelty to animals usually hits me harder than cases of cruelty to people.

Perhaps my priorities are twisted, but what the hey.

I also eat meat. Chicken, pork, lamb...not beef, though. And I don't feel guilty for eating said fleshy delights.

I'm a realist. You breed two thousand chickens for consumption by humans. Fair enough. I'm not going to get on your case for fowl-ocide. People like to eat chicken. A service is provided to accomodate the need. Same for pigs. Same for sheep. Same for cows; even though I don't partake of beefy dishes, I understand that a lot of people do.

But you follow the rules, and try to be as humane as possible. If you choose to kick a chicken to death on the factory floor, you can be damn sure I'm going to make you pay for it.

A man was recently arrested in Dublin for having a killing floor in his back garden. He sold ducks to local restaurants, and prepared them for sale by hanging them from his clothes line by their feet and slitting their throats. A duck with it's throat slit takes a while to die, and doesn't do so quietly. All the while, the other ducks in the garden are watching their compadres meet a grisly end and panicking like it's the duck apocalypse, shitting themselves senseless.

[-------]

A clear-cut case of animal cruelty.

Now vegetarians, or (shudder)...vegans, may say a dead duck is a dead duck, and you're just as cruel for eating a duck who was treated with dignity in it's last moments, and a duck who met it's end in a manner cruel and unusual. That's your opinion, and you're welcome to it.

But surely, instead of picketing McDonalds or Burger King, expressing a kind of nebulas disagreement with "killing" animals for food, surely you would be better served attacking blatant and tangible cases of animal cruelty.

The russian "Bear Bile" industry, or the UK's underground dog fighting organizations, perhaps?

EDIT: Or picket Covance.

[ManicMatt]

Not McDonalds or Burger King so much, but KFC.

http://www.kfccruelty.co.uk/

One of many websites about it. I just picked this one over PETA on a google search.  :

[EldKatt]

The man, a non-national, said he prepared the ducks according to his religion. He was a lying sack of shit, who was just too mean to pay a nearby slaughterhouse to "process" the ducks, in a humane manner, for him.

I don't think he was a lying sack of anything. Google "halal slaughter" or something. He seems to have honestly prepared (or tried to prepare) the ducks according to his religion. Whether this means that we should "respect" it, or that his religion is fucked up in this respect... is up to you. Fact of the matter is that religious prescriptions for this stuff exists, and the "respect religions in absurdum" trend is still big.

[deadsuperhero]

PETA disgusts me. They come across as an extremist group with a terrorist-faction mentality. They slant news, and then they do these disgusting demonstrations (one of which they killed thousands of animals to prove a point)
I'm all for being kind to animals, but I'm against complete morons making us all seem bad and evil and whatnot. They're the FSF of nature lovers.
Sorry if that offends anyone, it's just my view.

[LimpingFish]

Eldkatt: When I said he was lying, I meant his reason for killing the ducks in this way went beyond simply conforming to a religious edict. But I'll withdraw the remark.

Regardless, he was arrested for inhumane treatment of an animal.

After the story broke, it emerged that a number of Dublin butchers/slaughterhouses have offered to handle, and have done so in the past, specialist requests for preparing animals and fowls for consumption by various religions. There is no problem in doing so. But to do it in your back garden, in the middle of a housing estate, using a clothes line, a bucket, and a machette?...

Another incident was the slaughter, by three men, of an adult pig on a busy mainstreet in the middle of the day. Again by slitting it's throat while it was still alive. Again money was involved, and because these men claimed that they were bound by their religion, they felt they had done nothing wrong. They were mistaken.

These people are free to live in this country. I welcome them, and I respect the need for them to practice their religions. But...

You cannot take it upon yourself to slaughter animals in this way in Ireland. This is not a failing in our society to be corrected. Religion doesn't come into it. If your religion is in conflict with the law, but you choose to ignore said law, then you should be, and will be, prosecuted.

[vict0r]

Regardless, he was arrested for inhumane treatment of an animal.

Wait, what..?

[LimpingFish]

Regardless, he was arrested for inhumane treatment of an animal.

Wait, what..?

Wait, what...what? He broke several laws and was fined, and the remaining ducks were rescued. Possibly by a crack team of swat geese. I'm not sure.

[Rui 'Trovatore' Pires]

I think it was a joke-slash-deep thought. Animals aren't human, so treating them inhumanely is, pedantically, not a problem.

Not a view I agree with, because the line because animals and humans is very thin, if you even decide that there IS a line. But ah well..

[EldKatt]

Inhumane does not mean inhuman, though, so it kind of fails...

[Rui 'Trovatore' Pires]

Oh, so true.

You forced me to take a peek at the dictionary, you.