Hate to crush your hopes and stereotype people, but don't grandmas that kill animals barehanded vote Republican in Georgia?

*kills mom because she was involved in killing animals*

@transmorpher

It's a little difficult to 'debate' your comment, because the points that you address to me are numbered but don't reference to specific parts of my post. That's probably my fault as i was releasing frustration haphazardly and sarcastically, and that sarcasm wasn't aimed at you. All i can do is try and sum up whether i think we agree or disagree overall.

Essentially everything is a question of 'taste', even for you. There's no escaping our nature, most of us don't drink our own piss, many of us won't swallow our own blood, almost all of us have a flavour that we can't abide because we were fed it as a child. So yes, our decisions are defined by taste. But taste is decided by the food that is available to people, within reasonable distance of their house, at a price they find affordable according to the society around them, from a range of food that is decided by society around them. Your average person does not have the luxury to walk around a high street supermarket selecting the most humane and delicious foods. People get what they can afford, what they understand, what they can prepare and what is available. Our ancestors ate chicken because of necessity of their own kind, their children are exposed to chicken through no fault of their own, fast forward a few generations, and thus chicken becomes an affordable, accessible staple. Can we reach a compromise here? It may not be necessary for chickens to die to feed the human race, but it may be necessary for some people to eat chicken today because of their particular life.

I don't like the use of the phrase 'if i can do it, i know anyone can'. I think it's a mistake to deal in certainties, especially pertaining to lifestyles that you can't possibly know about without having lived them. Are you one of the many homeless people accepting chicken soup from a stranger because it's nourishing, cheap and easy for a stranger to buy, and keeps you warm on the streets? Are you a single mother with coeliac disease, a grumpy teenager and picky toddler who has 20 minutes to get to the supermarket and get something cooking? Or one of the millions using foodbanks in the UK (to our shame) now? I don't think you're willfully turning a blind eye to those people, i'm not tugging heart strings to do you a disservice. Maybe you're just fortunate you not only have the choice, but you have such choice that you can't imagine a life without it. I won't budge an inch on this one, you can't know what people have to do, and we have to accept life is not ideal.

And within that idealism and choice problem we can include illnesses that once again in IDEAL situations could survive without dead animals, nevertheless find it necessary to eat what they can identify and feel safe with.

Yes, those damn gluten hipsters drive me round the bend but only because they make people think that a LITTLE gluten is ok, it makes people take the problem less seriously (see Tumblr feminism... JOKE).

I agree that we must look at what action we can take now - and that is why i keep reminding you that we are not in an ideal world. If the veganism argument is to succeed then you must suggest a reasonable pathway to go from how we are now to whatever situation you would prefer. My "ideal farm" description was just me demonstrating the problem - that you need to show us your blueprint for how we start again without killing animals and feeding everyone we have.

And on that subject, your suggestions need to be backed by real research, otherwise you don't have any real plan. "It's fair to say there is very little risk" is a nice bit of illustrative language but it is not backed by any fact or figure and so i'm compelled to do my Penn and Teller impression and call bullshit. As of right now, the life expectancy of humans is better than it has ever been. It is up to you to prove that changing the diet of 7 billion people will result in neutrality or improvement of health and longevity. That proof must come in the form of large statistical analyses and thorough science. I don't want to sound like i'm being a dick, but any time you state something like that as a fact or with certainty, it needs to be backed up by something. I'm not nit picking and asking for common knowledge to have a citation, but things like this do:

-- 70% of farmland claim
-- 'fair to say very little risk' claim
-- meat gives you cancer claim - i accept it may have a carcinogenic effect but i'll remind you so does breathing, joss-sticks, broccoli, apples and water
-- 'the impact to the planet would be immense' claim - in what way, and what would be the downsides in terms of economy, productivity, health, animal welfare (where are all the animals going to be sent to retire as of day 1?)
-- etc. etc.

Oh, and a cow might get its protein from plants, but it walks around a field all day eating grass, chewing the cud and having sloppy shits with 4 stomachs and enzymes that i don't have................. I'm a bit puzzled by this one... I probably can't survive on what an alligator or a goldfish eats, but i can survive on parts of an alligator or fish. I can't eat enough krill in a day to keep me going, but i can let a whale do it for me...?

not a surprising response as violence begets violence.

“The philosophy of nonviolence which I learned from Dr. Marin Luther King, Jr., during my involvement in the civil rights movement was first responsible for my change in diet…Under the leadership of Dr. King, I became totally committed to nonviolence, and I was convinced that nonviolence meant opposition to killing in any form. I felt the commandment ‘Thou Salt not kill’ applied to human beings not only in their dealings with each other – war, lynching, assassination, murder and the like – but in their practice of killing animals for food or sport. Animals suffer and die alike. Violence causes the same pain…the same arrogant, cruel and brutal taking of life.” – Dick Gregory

not really-life = sentient life is the only assertion which i clarified and this assumption was stated from the beginning so was implied. the suggestion that this changes everything is a classic straw man fallacy.

the imperatives which i am espousing on are merely non-violence and a rejection of oppression, exploitation and using others as property and economic commodities which almost every human believes when it concerns humans and perhaps a few other species. it is only the others whom should be considered under the umbrella of moral concern which is the key point of the issue for most people.

as far as the population, the main reason WHY the human population IS such an issue is due to the consumption of animal products. along with the obvious moral and ethical issues of murdering other sentient beings, the production of animal based foods requires many times the resources to produce an equivalent calorie compared to plant based food which drives things like climate change, resource depletion, water scarcity, biodiversity, species extinction and other aspects of environmental devastation.

when a video such as this one comes up which highlights people being kind to an animal, it is disturbing that people are so disconnected that they do not make the connection between the animals in the video whom they feel good about being rescued and the countless others which are being tortured and murdered for their dinner plate. this is exactly what the short article i posed above articulates so well.

“Ask ten people on the street if they think it’s wrong to injure or kill animals for one’s amusement or pleasure, and nine or ten will say yes, of course. Chances are all ten of those people freely consume animal products, simply because they like to and they’re used to doing it." - Karen Manfrede

No. There are MANY ways to stop it. Eating only non-factory farmed, humanely euthanized meats, for instance, makes one non-complicit in the (admittedly terrible) factory farming techniques.
Not all farms are factory farms, and not all use those techniques.
Wrong. Those things you list are valuable things. Slaves, valuable. Food, valuable.
There are humane ways to treat animals. Animals don't all have the need for 'freedom' that human beings do....some do, but those animals were not domesticated.
nutritionfacts.org is a propaganda site created by a vocal vegan who's been ostracized from the scientific community for massive exaggeration and cherry picking data to make his claims. It's not scientific, it has no affiliations with other science organizations, it misuses scientific data to make a pre-conceived point.
Nice, so at least you admit that humans are more healthy (full-body strong) if they eat meat. Thanks 300lbvegan!

EDIT: The best way to get fewer people to eat meat...STOP MAKING SO MANY MORE DAMN PEOPLE! If there was a reasonable population of humans, there would have never have been the 'need' for factory farms or other animal/ecology abuse. My progeny will NEVER eat a smidgen of meat, 100% certain, can you say the same?
Do you realize that, in order to farm enough food for all humans to be vegetarian, you have to create far more farmable land, which in turn removes habitat and kills millions of native animals in ways more painful than execution, right? yes, meat production does too, but the point is that you also kill animals to get your vegis, but you just let those dead animals go to waste.

You've bought the bullshit.
We are not the only omnivore. Many animals that can survive without meat eat it. They have a choice, they choose meat. All dogs for instance.
You make the mistake of assuming all meat was 'harmed' because it didn't die a natural death. Simply not true.
Yes, it can be wrong to violently kill animals for entertainment, but not wrong to humanely kill them for sustenance.
Sure we fornicate in public. You've never been to Key West, obviously.
Do we kill our newborn children, no, we advanced enough to 'kill' them before they're born so they are never children, but before abortion, yes, humans absolutely killed their newborn children. In ancient Greece, a child wasn't considered a human until it was a year old, and killing it for any reason in that time was perfectly acceptable. In many cultures, if a child is deformed, it's killed, even today. You're just plain wrong.
A LARGE percentage of animals eat meat, not a small one.
Again, you make a mistaken ASSUMPTION that I (and everyone else) eat factory meat, because otherwise your argument falls flat.

What say you about the Masai, who have nothing to eat besides their cattle and live a symbiotic life with them?

of course in some ways they are different but when it comes to suffering and death, a cow is a pig is a chicken is a dog.

if you wish to become educated on this subject rather than buying into the myths and lies of our culture and society, i suggest you read this short essay:
http://freefromharm.org/animal-products-and-ethics/killing-animals-imaginary-solutions/

@newtboy

Oh, absolutely, the video is poorly titled. I'll give you that.

But everything else you wrote is, for lack of a better term, uninformed.

Certainly commercial meat suppliers in first world countries like the U.S. have bowed to the "politically correct" demands of PETA to "humanely" kill animals. Poultry are knocked unconscious (with electric shocks) before having their throats slit while larger animals like cows are killed with a single shot to the head. Concern with how "humanely" the animals are killed is rather comical given the conditions under which most commercial animals are bred and raised, but that's an issue for another thread.

Now, if you think stuff like this video doesn't happen in places like the U.S. I'm gonna guess you don't realize what happens on typical farms where people raise livestock for their dinner table as opposed to commercial sale. People kill animals exactly in this and similar ways--slitting their throats, beheading them with axes, grabbing poultry by the head and breaking their necks, etc. Don't believe me? Check out this thread on how to kill a chicken. What happens in this video happens across first world countries, including the U.S., on a daily basis. Your shock comes from the fact that modern society has insulated you from the killing by hiding it from you.

Now, the people in this video are probably not living in a first world country, and we've already established that even if they were the animal would likely be butchered in a similar way if it is being prepared for personal use as opposed to commercial sale. They're most likely doing it the way it's been done there for hundreds if not thousands of years using the tools available to them to get the job done. Slashing the carotid artery is the fastest and most painless way (compared to other methods) to kill the camel. I can't think of a faster or more painless way other than shooting it in the head (which still risks ricochets and assumes personal gun ownership is legal in the country where this is happening).

If vegans are getting into arguments with you about whether their food is healthier than yours, well, maybe they're right, maybe they're wrong. I listen to my buddy extolling the benefits of his paleo diet. If he's quick about it, I don't see the harm, whether he's right or not. If he won't shut up about it, or tries to push it on me, he's being a jerk. It sounds like you might have met some vegans who are jerks. So have I.

I also don't think your final question was genuine. You've clearly thought about this long enough to see how avoiding animal products reduces the amount of mistreatment. If you don't think it's important, or you don't think it's worth it, that's fine. The population of dairy cows is large enough that the 1-2million vegans in this country certainly affects how many are bred and subjected to the treatment they receive.

But telling me I shouldn't want meat is just bizarre. It should be pretty clear by now that I'm a vegan because I object to needlessly killing or mistreating animals, and try to reduce that number. I'm not offended by eating meat, just what has to happen to get it on my plate. If Nike used child slave labor to make its shoes, and I didn't approve of child slave labor, would you criticize me for buying another brand of shoes because I "shouldn't want shoes?" Meat tastes great. I don't like killing animals. There is no contradiction between those two sentences.

It sounds like your issue is with the "tells you all the time" part of your analogy, and that's tricky. On the one hand, people who sermonize and try to vilify your decisions are being jerks. On the other hand, if a cause is important enough, it's clearly worth being a jerk. It's a sliding scale. Civil rights campaigners were moralizing jerks too, but in hindsight, we mostly feel they were justified. The inquisition, less so. Some animal activists feel they fall reasonably well on the scale.

There's a long history of people trying to make other lead moral lives. And there's a long history of people getting various degrees of pissed off about it. I would encourage you to tell individuals who actively annoy you to stuff it, and to just relax about the rest of us.

And if you want moralizers to leave you alone, I'd also encourage you not to call their moral choices "stupid" on the internet. Counter-intuitive, I know, but give it a try.

My complaint is the over fishing of the waters, not just in their areas, but in International waters as well. Everyone else has agreed to slow or stop certain types of fishing but the Japanese just walk in and scoop everything up , with a "more for us attitude."

And fishing / killing animals that were bread for food stocks is much different than killing wild animals en mass, intelligent or otherwise. Remember the Buffalo? I would be just as put off if Canadians, rounded up hundreds of Caribou into herds and outright slaughtered them as well, humanly, inhumanly or otherwise.

I believe the Japanese have not solved the "feed it's population" problem, because it relies to much on the over fishing of the oceans. They are having to travel further and further out to catch enough fish to feed their population. So, it's unfortunate, but a slowly spiraling population is not all bad in an over populated area that cannot sustain that population.

I love that they use so much from the sea, I love Japanese food. I just wish they would have a better consideration for the environment. The oceans, although filled with food, is not a viable and sustainable source for food in the long run. They can't even begin to monitor the ecological damage they are doing.

Buck, I am not a vegetarian and as I stated previously in the thread, I am not opposed to hunting for the purpose of food. Perhaps you didn't catch my sarcasm, but that last comment was meant as a joke. I also agree with you completely about factory farming being a miserable life for an animal. My issue is with the addiction to violence. Once a person has become accustomed to not feeling remorse for causing pain and suffering, it causes them to be less empathetic towards human beings. In school, violence is not tolerated and yet at home, parents are teaching children how to kill. Does this not worry you? As shang said, it becomes much like a videogame. Not to mention that when a person takes delight in killing animals, it is a possible warning sign of a psychopathic personality disorder. An addiction to that sort of violent behaviour is a problem in my book and I sure as hell wouldn't be sending my child over to shang's house to play with his kids.

No, I don't need to research "properly cleared" firearm. You do.

By definition if it is properly cleared then it has no cartridge in the chamber and is safe.

If a person makes a mistake and assumes a firearm is cleared when it is not - then they have not - by definition - properly cleared the firearm.

If a person is shot by a firearm they assumed was cleared or they did not clear properly then by definition they have not cleared it properly.

"not a single one of them saw the bullet in the barrel" is usually caused by a squib load. It is easily detected both when it happens and visually by looking for light down the chamber end of the barrel (no light = projectile stuck in barrel). If you mean to say that you had a cartridge in the chamber and 30 people familiar with cleaning firearms didn't see it then you have 30 people in need of reeducation.

A self discharing firearm is not common but yes it does happen. That's why we practice muzzle safety at all times with a loaded firearm.

"Now, if you truly believe a firearm was invented for sport, you have seriously deluded yourself."
I don't know where you got this from. I never wrote any sentiment similar to this. I wrote about the difference between design and use. A firearms first use was for killing animals (people included). This is now outnumbered by sports shooters by an order of magnitude.

I think it is pretty obvious I'm familiar with firearms and you don't need to describe a 22lr Hammerli, 22lr Anschutz, etc. sports pistol or rifle to me. These are not nearly as common as other multi-use sporting firearms. Sporting includes all the disciplines in my link a few posts back and hunting game animals.

"if you truly truly deep down in your gun loving heart believe an AR-15 was invented for sport . . . well, there's nothing anyone can ever say to make you see reason."
I never suggested I did.

"If you truly believe hallow point bullets were made for sport, then we live in a very strange world."
I never suggested I did. They're for expansion upon contact with body fluids to help bring about hydrostatic shock and give a larger hole with expansion of the bullet. They may have been intended for hunting (which is a sport) by its designer - I don't know and I doubt it's recorded in the history books.

"If you truly believe a recoiless machine gun that fires 30 rounds per minute was made for sport"
This is getting boring.

Look it's pretty obvious you're confusing "intent of design/invention", with "design", and "purpose of use". They are three different things.

The intent of the original design for firearms was for it to be used as a weapon to kill animals (again people are animals). No two ways about that.

A firearm is designed to accelerate a projectile down the barrel.

A firearm is used for more than it's original intention. So nowadays we use it more for sports using paper, cardboard or clay targets than hunting (which is also a sport) or killing other people.

"Guns, well, you're just in fantasy land there."
Now that you've finished your embarrassing diatribe could you try to be a little nicer and pay attention to what I write - not what you imagine I wrote.

Nobody has ever been shot with a properly cleared firearm. Lots of people have been shot with an improperly cleared firearm. That's the point of saying "properly cleared" versus "improperly/badly cleared". One makes it safe, the other doesn't.

The point isn't that a cleared firearm is useless - the point is that a firearm can be rendered safe. All firearms can and must be made unsafe by loading a round in them to be able to shoot with them.

A firearm is not designed to "solely kill humans". It is designed to accelerate a projectile. It's purpose of use is mainly for sports (see the list I posted above). Yes, it is also used for killing animals (people are animals) but that is no longer its primary use. There is a definitive difference between design and purpose of use. Go look it up if you're interested.

Which is what I have where I live - strict regulations. If you were to accidentally harm someone, break someone's property, intentionally or recklessly scare someone with a firearm then you will be charged and you will lose you firearms license and firearms.

A firearm is not designed to kill. It is designed to accelerate a projectile out the barrel. It is used most often (by an order of magnitude) for paper target shooting. It is also used to kill animals. There is an obvious difference between design and use.