At Free from Harm, we work hard to dismantle popular arguments in favor of eating animals: we share  scientific reports from leading government health organizations confirming that humans have no biological need to consume animal products. I still like you as a friend and a person. If we don’t challenge that, then we have challenged nothing. You’ve used just about every major carnistic defense in the book, ones we hear repeatedly from your side of the aisle. actually, Mark has justified his actions by the only argument against veganism which is valid-that of “might makes right” or “i want to and i can”. But the Times contest demonstrates perfectly what I am talking about, and why all this matters: viz. What kind of self-deception must be involved, I wonder, for your organization to go around writing and promoting such Newspeak? And that’s delusional. I haven’t heard such a morally vacuous and utterly delusional post as this for some time. I don’t believe death is necessarily significant harm. The criminal justice system is useless in the face of such a threat. perhaps this passage will more clearly illuminate these idea’s for you: “What we leave behind—our legacy—is how we affected others. Check this out from Gary Francione’s site: “Scientists at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have found that when just 10 percent of the population holds an unshakable belief, their belief will always be adopted by the majority of the society. It would give me great hope that such a chilling apathy is not “normative,” to use your expression. For more information on her poetry or advocacy writing, please visit her website. With Stephani Wells, Cory Nelson, Paul Gagné, Shaila Vaidya. The “humane” camps which showed the Jews and Roma well fed and clothed, but which left out the part about all the killing? Your reasoning is hard to fathom and one can only assume that your desperation in justifying what you do is how you come to such bizarre conclusions. They don’t in fact come away caring about animals at all. Mark, you wrote in your first comment, “I also think it’s in very poor taste to turn such noble, gentle creatures into food that is tasteless and gross (i.e. I do think that ignorance of one’s death could minimize the suffering associated with it. But humans are in a unique position because we are able to rationalize and moralize about our decisions, whereas animals act according to their instincts. For Newspeak it is. In order to help more animals escape a fate of misery, please give vegan food a try. I like the challenge that those with differing views are able to offer. Our answer is our legacy.”. But of course you will and cannot, since you are trying to make the bodies of dead animals seem palatable, not horrific. Just don’t expect a few incoherent arguments to win over rational, ethical meat-eaters. the Golden Rule, which is the basis of all morals and ethics, requires us to treat others as we wish to be treated. This would be akin to me saying the philosophy you subscribe to is fundamentalist Christianity and just thinking it’s all well and good. No, Mark, if you were forced to walk into a slaughterhouse and knew your killers were rational creatures who had a choice about whether or not to kill you — actually even if you didn’t know that at all — I can assure you would not meekly offer yourself up in sacrifice to their cruelty; you would, like the cow in the video whose life and suffering you so callously dismiss, fight till your last breath, and you would beg, sir, for the mercy you so flippantly deny to others. The implication here seems to be that this is akin to racists talking about their black friends. You write: “all the rationalizations we make for eating animals in an age when eating animals is not at all necessary for our survival or health,”, You write: “it is usually followed by a statement sympathetic to their vegan and vegetarian friends”. Otherwise they victimize blindly and without a thought.” ― Isaac Bashevis Singer. How sweet of you to defend Mark. I could even be murdered. There is no doubt that animals suffer in slaughterhouses, but are they aware of what is going to happen to them? Death is a part of every life. “In the western world, we feel it wrong to torture and eat cats and dogs, but perfectly acceptable to do the same to animals equally as sentient and capable of suffering. Good Shepherd is currently the market leader in the sale of chicken and turkey products that come from birds who are raised entirely outside of the factory farm industry using humane and sustainable methods.”. Chicken Behavior: An Overview of Recent Science, Eating Animals: Addressing Our Most Common Justifications, Motherhood Led Me to Quit Dairy Farming Forever, An excerpt from Nisha Kumar's speech at Free from Harm's Rally Against Dairy Chicago, Free from Harm’s June 10 Rally at Fairlife Milk Headquarters, Free from Harm’s June 17 Rally at Fairlife Milk Headquarters. First off, I see nothing wrong with having a mental illness, and using it as an insult is just as bad as being racist or homophobic. I am not entirely certain of which moral theory I subscribe to at this time, though I don’t believe actions are justified simply because one has power over another. Soon after, four college kids brutally hung Marty in revenge. A real “market leader”: banal corporate-speak in the context of mass killing. Out of respect for the animal, I try and buy local beef and make it into an incredibly delicious dish.” The implication seemed and seems still to be that because you traffic in haute cuisine, you’ve somehow done better (acted more ethically) by the needlessly murdered animal than someone who turns him into a hamburger. According to a press statement by Equalia: 'In the video, continuous irregularities in animal welfare are observed, such as lambs being beaten and kicked, or sick goats and lambs forced to walk towards the slaughter line. Personally, I love dogs so much I probably couldn’t eat them, but while I love and have owned cats, I might try cat if it wasn’t illegal to do so. Far from promoting veganism, your organization promotes animal agriculture. We also get up close and personal with the truth about so-called humane farming, exploring the hidden practices and routine cruelties that are inherent to all animal farming. Thanks for the reply. Please check your entries and try again. 'It can also be observed how food safety and hygiene regulations are violated, when operators, outside their working hours, introduce a group of more than fifty unidentified lambs, placing the ear tags already inside the same pen. “In their behavior toward creatures, all men are Nazis.