How can people do it?

[Hell Hath No Fury]

I just watched this video over in the Lounge --

http://www.wimp.com/confusedlamb/

The lamb is simply adorable. It is obviously very happy and having a great time playing.

And as I am watching it, all I can think about is, "How can people eat an animal like that? How can someone see such happiness and then even DREAM of snuffing the life out that animal and eating it??" :cry:

It simply does not compute with me any more -- the thought is so alien to me I cannot relate in any way to the desire to do that.

I am also finding it harder and harder to relate to people who do think it is just fine, and find I really don't want to be around them. :( These people may as well be feasting on the flesh of human babies for all the response it ignites in me. :puke: Yet many of these very same people are besides themselves over the pictures of the oil-soaked animals from the Gulf.

Anyone else just completely mystified by meat eaters these days?

[Codeine]

1. The rage that is exhibited in GD when a kitten is killed,

or when the discussion of dogmeat is raised, is always mystifying to me. How they can rail hysterically about the death of one animal while contented munching on hundreds of others over a lifetime is quite bizarre on the face of it.

Someone in GD actually seriously suggested a person receive the death penalty for killing a kitten but had no response to the reminder that they eat animals daily. I mean, WTF? :shrug:

[LeftyMom]

2. No response just might indicate that they're thinking.

Usually they'll respond that the animals they choose to eat are "different" and somehow have less awareness or eating them is somehow more ethical because they were purpose-bred, or shot in the wild, or magically appear on styrofoam trays at Safeway, or some from the organic happy meat farm of their dreams or however it is that they get their corpses.

[Robeson]

4. "No response just might indicate that they're thinking"...

...agreed. Some people just need a light-bulb moment. We've all had them.

[Hell Hath No Fury]

8. The disconnect is startlting.

People creating arbitrary decisions about what deserves to be labeled a "pet" and what deserves to be labeled "food" -- that bugs the heck out of me. Those folks who scream about dog meat would most likely be perfectly happy eating dogmeat if they had been born in certain countries. The "value" we put on one living creature over another is bullshit -- those creatures have value, period.

My ex-vegetarian nephew has been grossing the shit out of me lately. He grew up in a household in which animals of all kinds were considered members of the family and treated as such. Somewhere around age 28 he decided to start eating animals again. He spends a great deal of time in China for Apple and he will now eat anything put in front of him -- and we all know some of the sick shit they have been eating over their lately. Hippo??? I mean, WTF? :puke: :( When I asked him about it he said that once you come to terms that you're are killing an animal to solely to eat it, it all becomes OK. And this is a guy who is (allegedly) a Hindu convert. :crazy: He now eats the very same animals be grew up with as fucking family members -- ducks, chickens, rabbits -- without a second thought.

That just does NOT compute with me.

[flvegan]

3. I'm completely lost by the concern over birds, fish and animals killed by the oil spill

but chickens and Starkist tuna? No problem there.

I get the same thing when I see a baby calf pic and the oohing and ahhhing, but that burger? Yum! Put bacon on it!

[Codeine]

5. DU will rail about climate change

until it is pointed out that the simple, painless, healthy act of eliminating a meat-based diet would do more than eliminating every car, bus, train, and plane from the planet -- then they shit their pants and post the same tired nastiness.

Sigh. Much easier to complain about SUVs I suppose.

[CrispyQ]

7. Makes me wonder,

which would they give up first? Their car or their meat?

[Hell Hath No Fury]

11. You'll have to pry their car/meat from their cold, dead hands!

In teh case of meating eating, that very well may be the case. I watched my Kansas born and raised Grandfathger keel over with a massive, fatal heart attack after a (shortened) lifetime of meat, meat, and more meat for three meals a day. :(

[CrispyQ]

12. Last summer I would take things over to the local recycle center.

One day, two big SUVs were there putting their paper & cardborad in the bins. I followed them out & both went into the Burger King drive thru. :banghead:

I'm all in favor of recycling, but I think too many Americans think that because they recycle they are 'saving the planet.' If everyone stopped recycling and stopped eating meat, there would be a much bigger positive impact on the planet than people eating meat & recycling.

[Hell Hath No Fury]

10. That drives me nuts.

You give them a real solution that can have a huge impact on climate change and they call you a food Nazi. :eyes:

[WillParkinson]

6. Or the threads where you talk about injustices against animals...

And you get those 'good upstanding people' who have to come in and talk about their steaks they are grilling or whatever BS they're spouting now.

[Hell Hath No Fury]

9. It is truly mindboggling.

:crazy:

I am not sure which is worse -- people who are so disonnected from their food sources that they don't see it as anything other than the plastic package at Safeway, as LM said, or the folke who can have connecting experiences with animals such as pigs, rabbits, or cows and then still have no problem with the same being slaughtered for them to eat. :puke:

One of the things I always liked about George Clooney was his pig, Max. I always wondered if Clooney could still happily eat pork after sharing his life with Max all those years. How creepy if he could.