"Tradition--even centuries-long tradition--doesn't make something right or true."

Truly awesome post.

Finally able to log in. Great post. I emailed. You're wonderful.

Great post, Stephanie! I put it on my Facebook page.

Absolutely brilliant. Very, very well said.

Thank you Stephanie!   You're not getting rich doing this??




I LOVE when a friend or family member asks *me* if I *know* about a certain aspect of animal suffering that they have recently found out about.  I usually just smile & let them tell me all about the new thing they've discovered and how they are going to change the way they shop/eat/think/act/feel.  It's wonderful.

Excellent! I ask people all of the time: Why do you think I do this? Do I do it just to make you mad? Do I do it just to make your life harder? Because, I can tell you the world doesn't revolve around you...

Those who ridicule animal rights activists are either trying to compensate for their own guilt or they are people that are so selfish that they have an honest delusion that all things happening in the world are happening to THEM.

Good article...

I am sorry, but i have to disagree with you people about that poor excuse of an article.  I understand that animal rights activists have a major difference of opinion compared to the average U.S. American, and i do not fault them for that.  But if you want to convince me of your viewpoint, please do not write emotional articles whining about being ridiculed for having a difference of opinion.  It comes with the territory of being outside of the mainstream.

Another issue that i have with this article (or rather, the rediculous video included at the end) is its dependence on emotional sniveling. What people need to see are logical, rational arguements about a particular case, like how poorly many animals are treated.  For instance, egg-laying chickens are put in tiny cages that restrict their movement which likely very painful.  Information like that is what will make people change.  Sob-stories about how animals are separated from their mothers will not, as most of America does not belive that animals are not capable of the same emotional stresses as humans are.

  Stephanie, This may come as a surprise to you but I commend you for your dedication and as you know from me that means alot. I have friends who are vegan and if that is the way you live I say more power to you. The only problem I have is representing people who don't live that way in a bad light. Everyone has a right to live however they choose as long as they don't interfere with the rights of others.

I felt like this was a very timely post, and was happy to read it.I look forward to whenever you have spare time to write about the other related topics mentioned in the beginning.  I'm sure they'll give a clearer background to this one, for anyone who wonders where this all came from. Well said.
Thanks.
(But now I should take a look at the comments on your other posts.)

great job! thanx for writting this.

great job! thanx for writting this.

Jeremy:
I understand your thoughts here, but it seems you spent so much time criticizing the article that you forgot to READ it. The entire point of it is "don't criticize. consider the information. etc." Stephanie puts a lot of thought and time into the articles she writes here. You calling it a "poor excuse of an article" is hurtful and unnecessary. If you read the other posts on this blog, you would see that Stephanie almost always writes articles full of logical, rational information. The fact that she uses HER blog to once-in-a-blue-moon let out an emotional argument, is HER right. I applaud her for each and every post--emotional, rational, whatever.

Eric:
"Everyone has a right to live however they choose as long as they don't interfere with the rights of others." That's absolutely true, and it is the exact statement that has convinced us vegans/vegetarians to choose to avoid animal products. We interfere very much with the rights of others when we create them, torture them, kill them, and use them for things we don't actually even need.

As a Buddhist monk my concern extends to all members of the human family and, indeed, to all sentient beings who suffer. I believe all suffering is caused by ignorance. People inflict pain on others in the selfish pursuit of their own happiness or satisfaction.

-His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Nobel Peace Prize Acceptance Speech, Oslo, December 1989

"I understand your thoughts here, but it seems you spent so much time criticizing the article that you forgot to READ it. The entire point of it is "don't criticize."

Lisa, although i do see how you could believe that i went overboard in my criticism, my point is (which i previously stated), is that when you have a belief that is not mainstream, of course you are going to be criticized.  Until that belief becomes mainstream, you will always be criticized for it.  Most people do not respond to emotional arguments about an issue if they do not agree with it, so emotional arguments mostly only work with people who already agree with you.  If you want to convince people of your cause (and not to make fun of you), logically explain to them why your cause is right, which i do not feel this article has done.

Stephanie, you are right to expect to be treated like a human being. You may be surprised to find out that non-vegans also expect the same. We do not expect our tires to be slashed when we come back from fishing. I do not expect some lunatic to approach us while I am fishing with my 4 year old grandson and start ranting about how fishing is evil. I too am a believer in animal rights, and visited this website with that incentive. I was at one time told "this was a vegan website" and it was suggested that I was not welcome here.

Friends, there are a few points here in the comments that I need to respond to (including yours, Jeremy--you do seem to have missed the point of the post, and though Lisa R did an admirable job of trying to clarify, "don't criticize" isn't what I was trying to say either; bear with me as I work on some other deadlines, and I'll be back to discuss this further).

For now, I'd like to respond quickly to Charlie. First, I don't think that slashing your tires is treating you like you're not human, BUT that's also something I wouldn't do. Nor would I start an antagonistic conversation with you in front of your young grandson. Indeed, even if I--or most other AR advocates--were to try to engage you in a conversation about fishing, an antagonistic, disrespectful, attack-like way isn't how we'd do it regardless of who was accompanying you.

Please don't take one or two bad experiences you had with one or two AR advocates and then present them as if they're the norm, as if this is how most of us conduct our advocacy.

If someone in the comment threads did say that to you at some point, I must not have seen it, and I'm sorry it happened. You certainly are welcome, and though this is a blog intended to encourage thought on, and advancement of, animal rights (including, yes, the right of fish not to be hooked, killed, and eaten), it is by no means intended to be a place only for current vegans. Indeed, the hope is that lots and lots of nonvegans come here, learn a bit, and then consider veganism. :)

Am I keen on dealing with comments from people who are completely closed-minded to animal rights and who come here for the sole purpose of mocking? No. And I don't welcome that. But anyone who wants to come here and engage in thoughtful, respectful discussion is welcome--and encouraged--to do so.

Stephanie, I appreciate your response. Please let me say that certainly understand the vegan point of view. I believe that all life is sacred and should never be taken except for one of two reasons. It is a threat to human safety, (poison ivy growing where my grandchildren play) or it is needed for food. (lettuce grown in my garden for that purpose). Poison ivy growing in the woods has every right to be there. Bugs found in my house are always let go outside, not killed. in my comment I was attempting to demonstrate that I have run into plenty of vegans who are completely disrespectful of non vegan point of view. I left out several.

Well said, something I wish I would have said many times over to those who look at me like I'm ridiculous.  I will be sharing this with many.

Charlie -  maybe it's animal rights extremists that you should be focussing on.  As a Vegan myself, I consider my diet and actions very important in showing others what I believe.  I think there's a big difference in being considered a "vegan" or an "AR" activist or extremist. 

As a Vegan, I try to put forth a good example of diet reflecting my ethics, in the hopes that someone else might think to themselves "Gee, I think killing is wrong, too.  Maybe I'll give this a whirl."

I am a very VERY peaceful AR advocate - giving to charities & doing what I can for local animal shelters.  Getting into someone's face & antagonizing them goes against my core belief of "ahimsa" - which promotes nonviolence to all living beings.  Other humans sometimes forget that "ahimsa" isn't just about animals or the planet, it's about other people.  I would never do something to someone to intentionally hurt them.

Unfortunately, you're experience with some very rude people has put you off to the more peaceful side of veganism and AR advocacy:  non-violence toward ALL.  I hope you meet some people here that will help you see that those people were the exception, not the rule.

Sorry, I didn't expand on my initial thought: the difference between being a vegan and an AR advocate!

Vegan - diet & lifestyle reflect our core beliefs regarding the sacred life force of all beings.  Not consuming or using any animal products (as much as is practical and to the best of our ability) is at the heart of being vegan. 

Animal Rights Activists/Advocates: actively promote the rights of non-human animals.  The rights of animals to live free of suffering, oppression & pain.

Most vegans ARE animal rights activists/advocates, both lifestyles & actions are intertwined.  But being "Vegan" doesn't automatically clump someone in with the more extreme actions/views of ecoterrorists or extremists.  There are plenty of vegans who choose that diet for purely health reasons and who may not engage in any animal rights related activities!

I'm not sure I did a good job summing that up, but maybe Stephanie could write a blog clearing up the details better!!

Still no time to go into all the details yet (I'll get to you Jeremy, I promise), but quickly: Lisa's a good egg--she knows I like and admire her very much--but I'm very bothered by fellow vegans and AR advocates taking up the "ecoterrorist" and "extremist" language that the opposition uses to make AR advocates seem scary and dangerous.

Statements such as this one seem to be setting up only two options: quiet vegans who don't agitate openly for animal rights and violent terrorists. And as I've mentioned on this blog before, and has been mentioned in many other places by many other people, even in "extreme" animal rights actions in the United States, no human has ever been physically harmed or killed. And the terrorist rhetoric goes way too far. It's used to paint all vocal AR advocates as "extremists" to be feared, and it hurts our movement when fellow animal advocates get lured in to using the deceptive language too. Please see Will Potter's coverage of this issue at GreenIsTheNewRed.com.

In the context of this conversation, it would make more sense to me talk about vegans who don't talk about AR much versus vegans who are outspoken AR advocates, rather than going from quiet vegan all the way to the other end of the spectrum to ALF-style activists who engage in property destruction.

Quote:

"in my comment I was attempting to demonstrate that I have run into plenty of vegans who are completely disrespectful of non vegan point of view. I left out several."

I find this "victim complex" curious. I am "disrespectful of the non vegan point of view" because it is baselss and grounded on mere prejudice. If I were to argue this to you, I'm assuming that you would add me to the list of AR activists that have been "rude" to you. However, that doesn't follow unless you are uncomfortable with consistency. Everyday, "anti-vegan" messages are proffered on television, at restaruants, and in daily conversations. To say, then, that my challenge to speciesism is "disrespectful," without acknowledging the "disrespect" - following the same line of reasoning - of the anti-vegan message, goes to prove some inconsistency on your behalf. We are both offering messages, and challenging the others' argument. That's the truth of it. 

About being confronted by AR activists, the same holds. I have certainly been ridiculed by non-vegans, sometimes harshly in fact, but a victim I am not. It is what occurs when two competing messages are proffered. As someone who believes that nonhuman animals shouldn't be exploited for trivial reasons such as "taste" or "sport," criticising fishing follows. However, the act of fishing is a direct challenge to my argument. And so it goes. 


It's always suspect when the majority appeals to their "victimization."   

Alex and Stephanie, I did not mean to say that the majority of vegans are disrespectful of others' opinions. In fact my experience has been quite the opposite. Most vegans I meet are quite tolerant of others' views. Stephanies' blog spoke of intolerant non-vegans, (which also clearly abound) so I was merely pointing out that there is intolerance on both sides. As in the past I also stress that plant life is also sacred and people should try to be aware of the toll they take with eating  plant life and try to be sensitive to that concern.

Please President Obama....

animals have rights too...please help them.....God created animals...and we are their companions....

so let us do the right thing....protect them...punish those who do abuse and neglect....and save our horses...pass the anti-horse slaughter bill.

we all have a place on this Green Planet...thank you...sir

Alex, if I gave you the idea I feel the victim, let me assure you I do not. I was merely pointing out there are two sides. You need to lighten up, it's not good to "get your panites in a bunch" as one of my dear departed friends used to say.

Lisa, I meant to include you in my response re acknowledging vegan tolerance of others' opinions, sorry

Dear Stephanie,

Amen, amen, amen.  Thank you.

Stephanie - this was excellent and deserves worldwide attention. The compassion that forms the basis of the animal rights movements is what is necessary for all dreams of a humane world. Animal rights activists are unduly slandered largely because of the cultures that arise from greed, bigotry and evil empires. Rev. Bookburn - Radio Volta

    I spend a lot of time reading, questioning, and responding to people who share the same views as you. No, I'm not an animal Nazi. I love my animals. I would probably even promote there rights, if, I agreed with what many groups are calling, "Animals Rights." I don't think you are whinner, or wrong in what you believe.

For all my positing I may have forgotten to mention that I salute you, Stephanie, Lisa, Alex, for your passion. We do not have to agree on every point to find common ground, But people working to improve the world should be able to have civil discourse.

I think it's always important to point out that most vegans were not "born" vegan.  I was not raised by veg*n parents.  I had to "come" to the decision to become vegan myself.  I had to learn what goes on in the "food industry" in order to decide to remove myself from it.  It's not an intolerance of the oposing view that I'm exhibiting, it's an intolerance of the system itself, status quo, that I am attempting to remove myself from.

I do not look down my nose at people who have different views from me - I just spend  A LOT of time defending my views and having my defense misinterpretted as animosity or intolerance.  I know I don't personally criticize anyone in my attempts to explain myself because I make a conscious effort to not to be hurtful.

We definitely don't need to agree on every point to find common ground, but we do need to agree that those challenging the majority rule do so because of real reasons that extend beyond just passion or emotion.  There are plenty of concrete reasons (health, environmental, religious, etc.) to not eat meat.  And from my point of view: eating the flesh of another living being is outside my ethical boundaries.

Plants do not have brain stems or conscious thought, they do not feel pain nor do they exhibit any of the sentience found in the animal kingdom - therefore I eat plants with a clean conscience.

Stephanie - Hi.  Sorry, in using the language that I did in my post, I was trying to give a title to those who do go around slashing tires, vandalizing or harrassing others as opposed to those who find more constructive ways of spreading "the word" of veg*nism.

Thank you for this post Stephanie. It's really beautiful. As a new vegan and aspiring AR activist it's just what I needed to hear. Since compassion for animals is NOT mainstream, I spend a lot of time doubting myself and not trusting my heart. I've barely begun, and I already feel the weight of witnessing the hell that animals are put through. I have SO much respect for people who devote themselves to this fight.

To Jeremy: I appreciate your comments and I also appreciate that you're willing to engage in a conversation. I do have a couple of things I want to say in response. Regarding your comment
"Another issue that i have with this article (or rather, the rediculous video included at the end) is its dependence on emotional sniveling. What people need to see are logical, rational arguements about a particular case, like how poorly many animals are treated."
As I said above, I sometimes don't trust my heart. But what is it that is so unacceptable to us about trusting our hearts? If feeling empathy for an animal in pain and wanting to defend that animal is somehow illogical or irrational, then I don't want any part of logic or reason. Imagine a world where our mantra as a society was "I feel, therefore I am," rather than "I think, therefore I am." Has dismissing our hearts and our emotions really served us, as a society? I decided to live as cruelty-free a lifestyle that I could not because of logic, but because of my heart. When I see a sow peering out through her cage bars, it is not my brain that goes on high alert, it is my heart, it is my HUMANITY. Why is this a negative thing? Is it within the realm of possibility that to respect our emotions rather than dismiss them would be a positive step for humanity? Perhaps we trusted our hearts when we were children and the logic and rationality of our parents and the paradigm upon which Western civilization is built literally and figuratively beat that out of us.

Perhaps this just sounds like more 'emotional sniveling' to you, but if we were not emotional beings, why we would even care if rational arguments and cold, hard evidence showed us "how poor animals are treated?" And lastly, just to offer my opinion, from the great deal of footage I've seen of primates in laboratories having their babies taken away, and of cows following desperately as someone drags their newborns away, I would argue that the maternal instinct appealed to in the video is a universal thing that all animals share. But I didn't need the evidence. I didn't need the videos. I just needed to look into my HEART, and I knew that either (A) other-than-human animals DO experience emotional stresses as humans do (as many scientists have proven by deliberately subjecting animals in laboratories to emotional stress) or (B) even if animals do not experience the world in the same way we do, I'd rather err on the side of compassion and empathy than treat them as if they really were just mere automatons as Descartes unfortunately convinced many of our ancestors.

I simply hope that you may ask yourself why it is that you can't trust your heart, or if you can, why you are asking us not too?

Charlie:
Regarding "I believe that all life is sacred and should never be taken except for one of two reasons. It is a threat to human safety, (poison ivy growing where my grandchildren play) or it is needed for food. (lettuce grown in my garden for that purpose). Poison ivy growing in the woods has every right to be there. Bugs found in my house are always let go outside, not killed."

I'd love for you to expand on this, because there's a lot of conflict about what exactly 'compassion for all life' means. I often hear the argument that there's no difference between eating an animal and eating a plant, if you're striving towards compassion and non-violence. I suppose we will never really know if plants feel pain, just as we will never really know what happens after we die. There is a great deal of scientific evidence that plants don't feel pain, but that's beside the point. To quote Kathy Freston in her book "Quantum Wellness," "does the fact that we can't stop all pain mean that we shouldn't bother to stop a lot of it?" and even more importantly, "the fact that we can't do everything should not mean that we then choose to do nothing."

Thanks for listening. :)

Biologically, humans are omnivores.  To prove that, all you have to do is look at our dentition.  We evolved to eat meat, along with other things.  Telling human being that we shouldn't eat other animals is a triumph of ideology over biological reality.
Humans and wolves are both social omnivores.  Would you tell a wolf that he shouldn't hunt?  Why is it acceptable that an animal kills to live but when a human does the same it's somehow "wrong"?
I believe that animals raised for the table certainly deserve to be raised and slaughtered humanely.  That's the simplest kind of ethics.  I see a world of difference between this POV and one that denies my biological nature.
I have a disability and I have a service dog.  I've had AR advocates tell me that keeping him is slavery and immoral.  I see our relationship as being symbiotic: we take care of each other.  Dogs and humans evolved together.  They wouldn't exist without us and there are those who argue that we wouldn't exist without them - their aid in hunting kept early man from starvation.
I take AR arguments with the same attitude as religious arguments.  They come from people who sincerely want to convince me of the correctness of their POV.  While the arguments may be very logical and compelling, the fact that I disagree with their basic premises cuts those arguments off at their knees.

I thank God organizations like PETA exist!

Reverend Al Sharpton recently joined PETA's call for a boycott of
KFC. A growing number of (mostly politically left-liberal) Christian
clergy, theologians and activists are beginning to take a stand in
favor of animal rights. The teachings of the Reverend Andrew Linzey
and Reverend Marc Wessels are especially significant in this regard.
A 1988 statement issued by the World Council of Churches called for
"The Liberation of all Life. "

Author B.R. Boyd writes in his 1987 book, The New Abolitionists:

"Many notable revolutionaries have come from powerful classes,
radicalized by acute contradictions between the realities of class
exploitation and whatever ideas of justice were harbored within their
breasts. We humans, stratified, divided, and warring among ourselves,
are nonetheless the indisputable ruling class of planet earth. In
fighting for our own intra-human liberation, we have largely ignored
or trivialized the oppression and violence perpetrated in our
name--often in response to our direct and personal economic
demand--against nonhuman animals.

"Seventy to one hundred million, including lost and abandoned pets,
are quite literally injected, infected, mutilated, driven insane,
strapped immobile for years on end, blinded, concussed, burned,
mechanically raped, dismembered, disemboweled, mutilated, and
otherwise violated--often without adequate anesthesia--in order to
test shampoos, oven cleaners, make-up, and scientific hypotheses; to
advance medical science or personal careers; to develop and test
nuclear, biological, chemical, and conventional weapons; or for
general scientific curiosity, and because public funding is
available.

"Twenty million unwanted pets undergo euthanasia every year and
countless others are abused by their owners. Spay-neuter clinics get
little or no public funding, while the pet-breeding industry continues
to enrich itself by pumping out living, disposable toys.

"Seventeen million wild fur-bearing animals (and twice as many
"trash" animals) are mangles in steel jaw traps and 17 million more
factory farmed, then gassed or electrocuted, that we may wear furs.

"170 million animals are hunted down and shot to death in their
habitats, mostly for sport, often leaving their offspring to die of
exposure or starvation.

"Industrial pollution, habitat destruction, and our transportation
system kill and maim untold millions, while we kidnap and imprison
others for our entertainment in zoos.

"Ten billion animals are killed in America every year; 95 percent of
them are killed for food. We force-breed, cage, brand, castrate, and
over-milk them, cut off their beaks, horns, and tails, pump them full
of antibiotics and growth stimulants, steal their eggs, and kill and
eat them."

"I have no doubt," wrote Henry David Thoreau, "that it is part of the destiny of the human race in
its gradual development to leave off the eating of animals, as surely
as the savage tribes have left off eating each other when they came
into contact with the more civilized."

Marc:

I understand where you're coming from. I struggle with ideas like that all the time. I think it's unrealistic to ask anyone with any kind of belief system, ideology, cause, religion or whatever to be 100% consistent and to have all the answers. I do believe in animal liberation, but I have a dog and a cat. I do believe that taking the life of another unnecessarily is wrong, but I can't see myself attacking indigenous people for eating beetles. There is ideology, and then there is reality. I think we are all struggling to convince others of our point of view, and when we're unwilling to have serious conversations not only about that which we are sure about but also that which we are unsure about, we're not really making progress. Yes every social movement, every fight to expand the rights of a particular group, has been fought by people who were convinced that their point of view was 'right' enough to be worth fighting for, to be worth giving their lives for. Did those people doubt themselves, I'm sure. Did they fail to convince many of their points of view, certainly. I'd like to believe that when it comes to 'right' and 'wrong,' everything was very clear. But there are questions that I just don't have answers to yet when it comes to animal rights.

Nevertheless, there are just a couple of things I wanted to point out in response to your post. I think there is something that makes the animal rights movement different in some ways from a religion or any other ideology, and really from any other social movement in history. We are speaking out on behalf of billions of sentient beings that do not speak our language. They certainly must have their own POV, right? But they cannot express it to us. They also really have no ability to defend themselves against our tyranny. I mean really, do they? Not that I can think of. Occasionally you'll see an oppressed circus elephant rebel against her so-called 'trainers,' who've been abusing her for years to force her to perform, and trample them to death, but inevitably she'll be shot down or recaptured. I always hear about 'respecting differing points of view,' and not 'forcing my beliefs on another,' but those who support the torture, imprisonment and death of animals, either through their words or their actions, or with their pocketbooks, are not respecting the 'point of view,' of each individual animal, which I would hesitate to guess is that they don't want to be tortured, imprisoned, experimented on, skinned alive, boiled alive, have their families ripped apart, and be beaten into submission, among a myriad of other horrors. If I'm wrong, then yes, animal rights is a mere ideology of a few delusional people. And as for 'forcing' my beliefs on others, if I saw someone beating a beagle puppy in the street, I would 'force' that person to stop. If I saw someone skinning a cat alive next door, I would 'force' that person to stop. I suppose that's the whole idea behind direct action. What right-minded person would stand by and watch someone beating a puppy? Few. But when the abuse is legally sanctioned and happening on a grand scale, somehow we must all accept it? But doesn't that almost make it worse?
 
Ok, to get back to your post. I'm challenging your argument for the purpose of learning more, as I try to navigate my way through the confusing territory of ethics. There are many other socially acceptable ways that 'ideology,' or 'ethics,' or 'propriety,' or compassion, or whatever you want to call it, has triumphed over biological reality. Yes, our ancestors probably ate meat occasionally (certainly not 3 times a day), but why are we bound by this? Supposedly, the instinct of the human male is to 'spread his seed,' right? So is the whole idea of monogamous relationships a triumph of ideology over biology? I suppose it is, and in fact, I've heard a lot of guys argue that (ha ha), but does that mean that any man in a monogamous relationship is an ideological betrayer of his biological reality? Human beings are not bound by our biological roots. We actually DON'T have to kill to survive. We DO, however, have to raise animals in a factory setting in order to feed the voracious appetites of billions of people the world round, so the idea of raising and slaughtering animals humanely is not a reality, not if we keep consuming them at the rate we are. And no, I’m sorry, but giving an animal enough space to turn around and spread it’s limbs is not ‘humane.’

Biological reality would also have us 'culling the herd,' wouldn't it? In 'nature,' whatever that is, no species would ever grow exponentially into infinity (without our interference anyway) as humans have. The idea of "survival of the fittest," which just as the human as hunter model is theory not fact, would have us killing off the weak and disabled rather than helping and protecting them. To keep a premature baby or a child with genetic defects alive would also then be considered a triumph of 'ideology' over biological reality, no?

Your argument that humans are omnivores and therefore there is nothing 'wrong' with eating meat is based on the ideas that (a) humans need to kill animals to survive, (b) humans are bound by the 'laws of nature,' (c) our biological heritage, such as our dentition, takes precedence over our ethical evolution and (d) we have no choice. I don’t believe any of these statements is true.

Since we do have a choice, there are many people who believe we should choose non-violence. That, I suppose, is our 'ideology.'

And for the record, I must say I'm sick of privleged Americans (not that you are one, Marc, at all, I'm totally just bringing this up because I've been talking about choice a lot) talking about how we don't have a choice not to eat meat and dairy when there really are millions of under-privileged people who actually don't, who can only afford a one-dollar burger at McDonalds on their way home from their first job of three. I mean seriously.

Okay, to finish off this novel that I'm writing (sorry!), this may nullify everything I just said, and I fear the wrath of the AR extremists who I so admire and look up to, but I really don't think that having a service dog is the same as eating meat. I've heard AR people say that we shouldn't adopt dogs and cats from shelters because it's like inviting a carnivore into your house and perpetuating the system of oppression, but I just have a hard time with that one. Yes, of course, we HAVE to stop breeding, and yes, animal liberation is the ultimate goal, but do I need to feel guilty for having my rescue dog as a companion? Well, I do feel guilty, because I've taken away his free choice and who knows if he really even wants to live with me anyways, and yes, I feel really bad when I have him on a leash, but should I feel guilty? I don't know the answer to that, I really don't, and I guess of all the battles I could be fighting as an AR activist attacking you for having a service dog to assist you with your disability is not my top priority. What I do know, however, is that when I see a service dog, and I see how much animals add to our lives, how much they help us, how they don’t judge us based on the way we look, as we do each other, how even after horrible trauma they can learn to be happy and love life, how they save our lives and rescue us when we’re in trouble, and how much they teach us every single day, I can’t help but think . . . Why are we even fighting about whether we should have compassion for them? Why do people have to fight tirelessly to convince others of their ‘ideological’ viewpoint that animals have inalienable rights to life, liberty and happiness just as we do? Well I know why. I could write another 10 page long post about why . . . that’s the reality of this profit-driven global economy etc. . . . but the question still remains. Just as we are not bound by our biological reality, we don’t have to be bound by the seemingly inescapable reality of a global system built on oppression of animals and people alike. That’s what the fight is about. So please just think about that.

Annie,

You, my dear, are exquisite.

Well said Stephanie.  For those who haven't evolved enough to comprehend what Stephanie has written, your time is coming. 
And it might be sooner that you expect if you keeping "hanging around" in cyber space with us.  Compassion can be contagious!   

Annie, I am not in any way saying anyone at any time should feel guilty for eating plants, and I really don't want to veer from Stephanies' point in her article. I know we have no practical way at this time of knowing what a plant feels, but we were once far more ignorant as to an animals place in this world also. For now I am merely saying we could open our eyes a lot more. We wipe out natural species in our yards and plant monoculture grass, we spray poison ivy, when we could just teach people to walk around it, some still wear fur and leather when man made materials are vastly superior. I honestly believe that all life stems directly from God, (I respect you atheists but it's my opinion I'm expressing)
and the taking of life, including plants, needs to be taken seriously, and only done when absolutely necessary. I probably should not have brought up the plant issue, because it really caused the thread to veer off course, sorry Stephanie.

Charlie, I figured you weren't saying that. I guess I was reading between the lines a bit, and I appreciate that you expanded on it. It just reminded me of a typical attack against animal rights activists, one which I think is unfounded. I recently heard the argument that vegetarians kill more animals than meat eaters because of the rabbits and mice that get killed by the tractors that harvest the grain. It seems that people will go to desperate measures to defend a way of life which they don't want challenged.

I suppose when I read your post I felt the need to articulate my argument about the difference between eating plants and animals. I really didn't think you were implying that it's pointless to be vegan because plants are alive too, and I suppose I came off as being very anti-plant, and perhaps veering off course. I am not anti-plant by any means. I believe in compassion for all life, for the natural world. I actually even believe that "God," whatever one's conception of that may be, permeates everything on this planet, and I agree that taking ANY life should be taken seriously. We're so out of balance as a species. We thrive on destruction of life rather than guardianship of life, at least the Western world does, and that needs to change.

"Why are we even fighting about whether we should have compassion for them?"

Great line, Annie! 

I've never once heard the AR argument against service dogs!  I have heard about not wanting people to have pets, but I can't do that one.  I think it's VERY important to adopt animals from shelters, give them loving homes, and allow their lives to be sheltered within our own.  My cat will never be skinned alive, boiled or eaten.  He's very lucky and I don't feel guilty at all that he's not running around outside dodging coyotes or cars. 

Choosing compassion is an easy choice for me.  It's a no-brainer.  There is no biological reason to have to eat meat, every "nutrient" you get from meat is second-hand from being processed by the animal, it's more prudent to eat the "source"  (plants).  I've heard theories that this is why humans don't eat carnivores...

As for whether or not humans are carnivores, ominvores or herbivores by nature, there is certainly a surplus of info on the internet.

http://michaelbluejay.com/veg/natural.html

http://www.nealhendrickson.com/mcdougall/030700pumeatinthehumandiet.htm

http://www.earthsave.ca/articles/health/comparative.html

In spite of your time constraints, you've nailed it!
What a beautifully written piece, Stephanie!
May I reprint it?

Quote:
"Biologically, humans are omnivores.  To prove that, all you have to do is look at our dentition.  We evolved to eat meat, along with other things."
Evolutionary biologists have identified a biological inclination to sexual aggression in the male's of our species -- to the point of rape. This, they argue, has its evolutionary advantages as the end of natural selection is the propagation of genes. I ask you Marc, is rape okay? 
Evolutionary biologists have also identified the biological underpinnings to racism. Through processes of "othering," there were evolutionary advantages gained from distinguishing between those who look like you from those who do not; this resulted in genocide, racism, and other forms of bigotry. I ask you Marc, is racism okay? 
What you have articulated is a textbook example of an "Is/Ought" fallacy. Evolution is the process of chance mutation; evolutionary coincidence. There is no "ethic" underlying the outcome, certainly no design or normative judgement being made (unless you can somehow defend this greatest of all assumptions?). Therefore, logically, to appeal to the way things "naturally" are -- the "is" -- as a means to derive a moral judgement -- an "ought" -- doesn't follow and has been shown to be fallacious for over 250 years. 
We must return to the question of "choice," as Annie so eloquently articulated, if you value consistency at all Marc. 
Quote:
"Annie, I am not in any way saying anyone at any time should feel guilty for eating plants, and I really don't want to veer from Stephanies' point in her article. I know we have no practical way at this time of knowing what a plant feels, but we were once far more ignorant as to an animals place in this world also."
A) There is a "practical way..." The same method I use to determine that you are perceptually aware of the world in which you exist Charlie: evolutionary history, physiology, and your reaction to external noxious stimuli. The principle of parsimony, then, demands that if I can assume your sentience Charlie (because, of course, I cannot "know"), then I must assume the sentience of other beings' similarly situation (physiologically and evolutionarily, for example). On this criterion, it is baseless to assume the sentience of plants, and equally baseless to not assume the sentience of cows and pigs, for example. (No matter how intelligent some people are, when confronted with vegans or vegetarians the ridiculous are always proffered as valid questions: "What about rocks?" We are talking about suffering here; let's not forget the premise.) 
Now, to pretend to concede your point Charlie: Even if plants can suffer, which is impartially bad (unless you want to challenge that claim?), we should still all be vegans because of the inefficiency of funneling plant protein through nonhuman animals to produce flesh protein. 
For example, as it takes between 13-15 pounds of plant protein to produce one edible pound of animal protein from a pig's flesh, if plants suffer, that is extremely unethical given that we eat the pig simply because we get a passing pleasure from doing so. We certainly don't need to. So vegans, who eat the plants directly, are still on firmer ethical ground if we actually believe that causing harm is something that should be avoided.     

Human anatomy shows we're frugivorous.

The frugivores (gorillas, chimpanzees and other primates) have intestinal tracts twelve times the length of the body, clawless hands and alkaline urine and saliva. Their diet is mostly vegetarian, occasionally supplemented with carrion, insects, etc. 
 
Flesh-eating animals lap water with their tongue, whereas vegetarian animals imbibe liquids by a suction process. Humans are classified as primates and are thus frugivores possessing a set of completely herbivorous teeth. Proponents of the theory that humans should be classified as omnivores note that human beings do, in fact, possess a modified form of canine teeth. However, these so-called "canine teeth" are much more prominent in animals that traditionally never eat flesh, such as apes, camels, and the male musk deer. 
 
It must also be noted that the shape, length and hardness of these so-called "canine teeth" can hardly be compared to those of true carnivorous animals. A principle factor in determining the hardness of teeth is the phosphate of magnesia content. Human teeth usually contain 1.5 percent phosphate of magnesia, whereas the teeth of carnivores are composed of nearly 5 percent phosphate of magnesia. It is for this reason they are able to break through the bones of their prey, and reach the nutritious marrow. 

Zoologist Desmond Morris makes a case for vegetarianism in his 1967 book, The Naked Ape: "It could be argued that, since our primate ancestors had to make do without a major meat component in their diets we should be able to do the same. We were driven to become flesh eaters only by environmental circumstances, and now that we have the environment under control, with elaborately cultivated crops at our disposal, we might be expected to return to our ancient feeding patterns." 
 
In The Human Story, edited by Marie-Louise Makris (1985), we read: "...recent studies of their teeth reveal that the Australopithecines did not eat meat as a regular part of their diet, and were mainly peaceful vegetarians, rather like chimps or gorillas. The popular image of the murderous ape is now as extinct as the Australopithecines themselves." 
 
Dr. Gordon Latto notes that carnivorous and omnivorous animals can only move their jaws up and down, and that omnivores "have a blunt tooth, a sharp tooth, a blunt tooth, a sharp tooth--showing that they were destined to deal both with flesh foods from the animal kingdom and foods from the vegetable kingdom... 
 
"Carnivorous mammals and omnivorous mammals cannot perspire except at the extremity of the limbs and the tip of the nose; man perspires all over the body. Finally, our instincts; the carnivorous mammal (which first of all has claws and canine teeth) is capable of tearing flesh asunder, whereas man only partakes of flesh foods after they have been camouflaged by cooking and by condiments. 
 
"Man instinctively is not carnivorous," explains Dr. Latto. "...he takes the flesh food after somebody else has killed it, and after it has been cooked and camouflaged with certain condiments. Whereas to pick an apple off a tree or eat some grain or a carrot is a natural thing to do; people enjoy doing it; they don't feel disturbed by it. But to see these animals being slaughtered does affect people; it offends them. Even the toughest of people are affected by the sights in the slaughterhouse. 
 
"I remember taking some medical students into a slaughterhouse. They were about as hardened people as you could meet. After seeing the animals slaughtered that day in the slaughterhouse, not one of them could eat the meat that evening." 
 
Author R.H. Weldon writes in No Animal Food: 
 
"The gorge of a cat, for instance, will rise at the smell of a mouse or a piece of raw flesh, but not at the aroma of fruit. If a man can take delight in pouncing upon a bird, tear its still living body apart with his teeth, sucking the warm blood, one might infer that Nature had provided him with a carnivorous instinct, but the very thought of doing such a thing makes him shudder. On the other hand, a bunch of luscious grapes makes his mouth water, and even in the absence of hunger, he will eat fruit to gratify taste." 
 
As far back as 1961, the Journal of the American Medical Association reported that: "A vegetarian diet can prevent 97% of our coronary occlusions." More recently, William S. Collens and Gerald B. Dobkens concluded: "Examination of the dental structure of modern man reveals that he possesses all the features of a strictly herbivorous animal. While designed to subsist on vegetarian foods, he has perverted his dietary habits to accept food of the carnivore. It is postulated that man cannot handle carnivorous foods like the carnivore. Herein may lie the basis for the high incidence of arteriosclerotic disease." 
 
Keith Akers in A Vegetarian Sourcebook (1983), responds to the argument that killing animals for food is natural: 

"This is quite an admirable argument.  It explains practically everything; why we do not eat each other, except under conditions of unusual stress; why we may kill certain other animals (they are, in the order of nature, food for us); even why we should be kind to pets and try to help miscellaneous wildlife (they are not naturally our food).  There are some problems with the idea that an order of nature determines which species are food for us, but an examination of human history indicates the broad outlines of just such an order, though inhibitions against eating certain species may vary from culture to culture.
 
"The main problem with this argument is that it does not justify the practice of meat-eating or animal husbandry as we know it today; it justifies hunting. The distinction between hunting and animal husbandry probably seems rather fine to the man in the street, or even to your typical rule-utilitarian moral philosopher. The distinction, however, is obvious to an ecologist. If one defends killing on the grounds that it occurs in nature, then one is defending the practice as it occurs in nature. 
 
"When one species of animal preys on another in nature, it only preys on a very small proportion of the total species population. Obviously, the predator species relies on its prey for its continued survival. Therefore, to wipe the prey species out through overhunting would be fatal. In practice, members of such predator species rely on such strategies as territoriality to restrict overhunting and to insure the continued existence of its food supply. 
 
"Moreover, only the weakest members of the prey species are the predator's victims: the feeble, the sick, the lame, or the young accidentally separated from the fold. The life of the typical zebra is usually placid, even in lion country; this kind of violence is the exception in nature, not the rule. 
 
"As it exists in the wild, hunting is the preying upon isolated members of an animal herd. Animal husbandry is the nearly complete annihilation of an animal herd. In nature, this kind of slaughter does not exist. The philosopher is free to argue that there is no moral difference between hunting and slaughter, but he cannot invoke nature as a defense of this idea. 
 
"Why are hunters, not butchers, most frequently taken to task by the larger community for their killing of animals? Hunters usually react to such criticism by replying that if hunting is wrong, then meat-hunting must be wrong as well. The hunter is certainly right on one point--the larger community is hypocritical to object to hunting when it consumes the flesh of domesticated animals. If any form of meat-eating is justified, it would be meat from a hunted animal." 

In his 1975 book, Animal Liberation, Australian philosopher Peter Singer writes:

"Killing an animal is in itself a troubling act. It has been said that if we had to kill our own meat we would all be vegetarians. There may be exceptions to that general rule, but it is true that most people prefer not to inquire into the killing of the animals they eat.

"Very few people ever visit a slaughterhouse; and films of slaughterhouse operations are rarely shown on television...Yet those who, by their purchases, require animals to be killed have no right to be shielded from this or any other aspect of the production of the meat they buy.

"If it is distasteful for humans to think about, what can it be like for the animals to experience it?"

Peter Singer concludes in Animal Liberation that "by ceasing to rear and kill animals for food, we can make extra food available for humans that, properly distributed, it would eliminate starvation and malnutrition from this planet. Animal Liberation is Human Liberation, too."
 
Dr. Milton Mills' "The Comparative Anatomy of Eating,"

www.vegsource.com/veg_faq/comparative.htm

and the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine,

www.pcrm.org ,

argue persuasively that the optimal diet for humanity is a vegan diet.  However, even if humans really are omnivores and not frugivores, my friend Mareechi Duvvuuri (another Hindu-American!) who once studied sports medicine, pointed out that the diet of natural omnivores is mostly (80 percent) plant food.

PEOPLE WHO OPPOSE ANIMAL'S RIGHTS DO NOT HONOR THEIR OWN HUMAN'S RIGHTS

The purpose of vegan out reach is what??? This is America where people have the freedom to choose to be vegan or eat a nice juicy yummy red piece of meat. I will defend my rights from Domestic terrorist who try to force their views on society through extreme tactics. Such astrying to close down legal tax paying businesses, ramming whaling ships owned by our allies, slandering Pet Stores and dog kennels, Trying to destroy farming. By any means ,you confused people can muster up, which even includes violence. I deserve my right to keep and breed any Animal I choose. I also have a right to eat the meat of any animal I see fit. To honor those animals who sacrifice so I may receive nutrients, by utilizing their entire bodies I will also use the skin and fur to keep me warm. I also share the meat with my 4 legged friends who by design of the maker are carnivores not vegan eating animals. A dog and especially a cat should never be fed a vegetarian meal. If you are a crazy AR vegan trying to force your views and prevent society from eating animals and you own pets. You are not only a thorn in the side of the world society you are also a big fat hypocrite. If you are trying to force those animals to be vegan then you are an Animal Abuser. Your entire Animal rights fight exploits animals and goes completely against all laws of nature. You need to be deprogrammed your thought process pollutes the world and effects our population of immature and confused, angry people. You also through your craziness force the public to turn interest away from real issues in our environment that have been labeled tree hugger isues. Our ecology is ignored because of you. All real issues you embrace are soon thought of as idiotic and extreme. You do more harm for nature and the Animals just by being the confused freaks you have become. Most all of you are extremely anti social many of you are sociopaths and dangerous. As a true Animal Lover I see your cause a danger to all humans and Animals on this planet because you have no real sense of reality

"Most all of you are extremely anti social many of you are sociopaths and dangerous."

Dangerous veg*ns who also challenged the "majority" rule:
http://www.happycow.net/famous_vegetarians.html
Sir Isaac Newton
Albert Einstein
Albert Schweitzer
Aristotle
Dr. Benjamin Spock
Buddha
Charles Darwin
Coretta Scott King
Emily Dickinson
Franz Kafka
Gandhi
George Bernhard Shaw
Harriet Beecher Stowe
Henry David Thoreau
Isaac Bashevis Singer
Jane Goodall
Rousseau
Jesus Christ
Leo Tolstoy
Louisa May Alcott
Leonardo da Vinci
Mark Twain
Fred Rogers
Paul McCartney
Plato
Plutarch
Pythagoras
Ralph Waldo Emmerson
Rosa Parks
St Francis d'Assisi
Socrates
Susan B Anthony
Vincent Van Gogh
Voltaire

(this list includes vegetarians who ate fish & seafood)

  My response to Stephanie was meant as a "We are all human" statement, do I agree with all this animal liberation and whether we are born vegan and does man have a hidden propensity for rape etc. etc... all this crap is ridiculous! I eat meat and I don't feel guilty in the least, you wan't to eat veggies, great. If people don't find some common ground and agree to disagree on issues, then we humans are in for a heap of turmoil. You may not believe this but, there are people out there in the real world who have hunted, fished, and eat meat for generations and no amount of pleading and reasoning are going to change their minds. If you don't agree with this then don't hunt or don't fish or don't eat meat. As far as these extremists or ecoterrorists go... people are also going to get tired of these and start taking matters into their own hands! I've seen some video of what these anti-hunting/fishing extremist do and its a real surprise that they are not shot! I for one don't think I could exercise such control.

“Animal rights activists are unduly slandered largely because of the cultures that arise from greed, bigotry and evil empires.”

“For those who haven't EVOLVED ENOUGH to comprehend what Stephanie has written, your time is coming.”

Ad-societatem and ad-hominem attacks are not going to convince people to change their minds.

-----

“[W]hat is it that is so unacceptable to us about trusting our hearts? If feeling empathy for an animal in pain and wanting to defend that animal is somehow illogical or irrational, then I don't want any part of logic or reason.”

Annie, there is nothing wrong with being emotional about issues.  I never said “trusting your heart” is a bad thing.  My point is that if you want to convince people that there is something wrong with the way that animals are treated, you are going to have to logically explain to them why.  Animals rights activists’ attempts to convince the mainstream that they should care that animals are separated from their mothers fail because they do not respond to emotional arguments unless they already possess those emotions.   They do not believe that animals are able to feel emotions in the same way that humans do.  Give them evidence to the contrary rather than sob-laden videos.

-----

Another thing that animal rights activists need to do is prioritize rather than utilizing the all-or-nothing approach.  Removing egg-laying hens from suffering is more important than keeping animals from being separated from their mothers.  It is much easier to prove that an animal is in excruciating pain than it is to prove emotional distress.  You are going to win a lot more supporters by addressing higher concern issues than alienating the general populace.

I genuinely care about removing animals from suffering, but i will never fully give up eating meat or eggs.  That doesn’t mean that i consider animals to be trivial and unworthy of consideration.  An impoverished villager in the third world can get a lot more nutrition from slaughtering a chicken and eating its flesh than he can from eating the plants that the chicken consumed, and i see nothing wrong with that action.  Around the world, many people are uneducated as to how a vegan diet can replace an omnivorous diet with it being just as nutritious.  Sometimes people are unwilling to eat only plants because they find the taste of meat substitutes to be repulsive.  For some people, their religious beliefs bind them to eating (or sacrificing) at least some meat, like Vodun.  Some people are too impoverished to afford nutritious plant based diets.  Although i believe that the animals used for any purpose should not have to suffer, or face extinction, i am not about to tell anyone to forgo killing animals, because i find each of these reasons more important.

-----

“"The word" of veg*nism.”

Lisa, i am curious as to why you choose to spell veganism as if it were a curse word.

-----

“mechanically raped”

Vasu,  your post is the kind of logical, information based response that i am looking for.  However, i feel the need to point out that often, even though they are artificially inseminated, animals are not mechanically raped.  After all, some species of turkey would not be able to reproduce if not by means of artificial insemination.  Also, when i have seen videos of ranchers impregnating their cows with seed from non-local bulls to improve virility, the cows do not even react.  If they had been mechanically raped, i would have expected some sort of reaction.

People, please, please never ever refer to "vegetarians who eat fish/seafood". These are NOT vegetarians, they are fish eaters who eat some vegetables.  I am sure that you mean well, but please stop perpetuating the myth.

Just once, in response to someone learning that I am a vegan, would I like to hear: "Wow, I admire your commitment to what must be very difficult in our meat-centric world."

rather than the ridiculous:

"If God had not wanted us to eat meat, he would not have created McDonald's" kind of arguments. Yawn.

In his 1975 book, Animal Liberation, Australian philosopher Peter Singer writes:

A liberation movement is a demand for an end to prejudice and discrimination based on an arbitrary characteristic like race or sex.  The classic instance is the Black Liberation movement.  The immediate appeal of this movement, and its initial, if limited, success, made it a model for other oppressed groups.  We soon became familiar with Gay Liberation and movements on behalf of American Indians and Spanish-speaking Americans.

When a majority group--women--began their campaign some thought we had come to the end of the road.  Discrimination on the basis of sex, it was said, was the last form of discrimination to be universally accepted and practiced without secrecy or pretense, even in those liberal circles that have long prided themselves on their freedom from prejudice against racial minorities.

We should always be wary of talking of "the last remaining form of discrimination."  If we have learned anything from the liberation movements we should have learned how difficult it is to be aware of latent prejudices in our attitudes to particular groups until these prejudices are forcefully pointed out to us.

A liberation movement demands an expansion of our moral horizons. Practices that were previously regarded as natural and inevitable come to be seen as the result of an unjustifiable prejudice.  In comparison with other liberation movements, Animal Liberation has a lot of handicaps.  First and most obvious is the fact that the exploited group cannot themselves make an organized protest against the treatment they receive (though they can and do protest to the best of their abilities individually). 

We have to speak up on behalf of those who cannot speak for themselves.  You can appreciate how serious this handicap is by asking yourself how long blacks would have had to wait for equal rights if they had not been able to stand up for themselves and demand it.  The less able a group is to stand up and organize against oppression, the more easily it is oppressed.

The principle of the equality of human beings is not a description of an alleged actual equality among humans; it is a prescription of how we should treat humans.  Thomas Jefferson saw this point.  He wrote in a letter to the author of a book the notable intellectual achievements of Negroes in order to refute the then common view that they had limited intellectual capacities:

"...whatever be their degree of talent it is no measure of their rights.  Because Sir Isaac Newton was superior to others in understanding, he was not therefore lord of the property or person of others."

Similarly when in the 1850s the call for women's rights was raised in the United States a remarkable black feminist named Sojourner Truth made the same point in more robust terms at a feminist convention.

" ...they talk about this thing in the head; what do they call it?  ('Intellect,' whispered someone nearby.)  That's it.  What's that got to do with women's rights or Negroes' rights? If my cup won't hold but a pint and yours holds a quart, wouldn't you be mean not to let me have my little half-measure full?

If possessing a higher degree of intelligence does not entitle one human to use another for his own ends, how can it entitle humans to exploit nonhumans for the same purpose? 

In a forward-looking passage written at a time when black slaves had been freed by the French but in the British dominions were still being treated in the way we now treat animals, Jeremy Bentham wrote:

"The day may come when the rest of the animal creation may acquire those rights which never could have been witholden from them but by the hand of tyranny.

"The French have already discovered that the blackness of the skin is no reason why a human being should be abandoned without redress to the caprice of a tormentor.

"It may one day come to be recognized that the number of the legs, the villosity of the skin, or the termination of the os sacrum are reasons equally insufficient for abandoning a sensitive being to the same fate.

"What else is it that should trace the insuperable line?   Is it the faculty of reason or perhaps the faculty of discourse?  But a full-grown horse or dog is beyond comparison a more rational, as well as more conversable animal, than an infant of a day or a week or even a month old.  But suppose they were otherwise, what would it avail?  The question is not, Can they reason?,   nor Can they talk?  but, Can they suffer?"

The capacity for suffering and enjoyment is a prerequisite for having interests at all, a condition that must be satisfied before we can speak of interests in a meaningful way.  It would be nonsense to say that it was not in the interests of a stone to be kicked along the road by a schoolboy.  A stone does not have interests because it cannot suffer.  A mouse, on the other hand, does have an interest in not being kicked along the road, because it will suffer if it is.

Since you live with three or four dogs and two cats, you should be concerned that PETA and the HSUS want to take your pets away from you. Both PETA and the HSUS are nothing more than fund-raising organizations for themselves. Ther operate no shelters. PETA "saves" animals by killing them.

Your compassion is admirable, but the real animal rights activists are opposed to ALL use of animals, ALL pet ownership, including yours, and the use of dogs for the purposes for which they have been bred.

I will stop ridiculing them when they stop being idiots.

Animal rights?
These are your animal rights:
1. You have the right to eat anything that you can catch.
2. You have the right to try to run away from anything that is trying to eat you.
That is all.

"People, please, please never ever refer to "vegetarians who eat fish/seafood". These are NOT vegetarians, they are fish eaters who eat some vegetables.  I am sure that you mean well, but please stop perpetuating the myth."

Sorry, I didn't compile the list, someone else did.  I just linked to it.

"Lisa, i am curious as to why you choose to spell veganism as if it were a curse word."

Veg*n is used throughout the blogosphere to include vegetarians & vegans of many varieties.  It's a simple way to include anyone who excludes animal products from their diets.  Again, I did not make up this shorthand.

Carl, there are plenty of animals who do need loving homes.  Shelters are not bad things.  Pets are not bad things to have.  This is akin to saying that because you oppose child abuse you also opposed orphanages that place abandoned children in loving homes.  I know that seems extreme, but doing any small part to alleviate the suffering of animals is important.

I belong to the HSUS and at no time in my 20 years of membership have I heard that they want to take my pets away or that they oppose service dogs.  I'd like to see some documentation of this claim?

I eat meat and will continue to eat meat.  As an omnivore meat is a part of our diet.  Predation is part of the natural cycle of life.

What is reprehensible is the lack of honor we show these creatures who die for our consumption.  They should experience a full life in their habitat doing what ever they do, chewing their cud in a green field or pecking at some grain in the open.

The consumption of insects could be promoted as an alternate source of nutrition.

The following quotes, facts, figures and statistics are excerpted from Please Don't Eat the Animals (2007) by Jennifer Horsman and Jaime Flowers:

"A reduction in beef and other meat consumption is the most potent single act you can take to halt the destruction of our environment and preserve our natural resources.  Our choices do matter:  What's healthiest for each of us personally is also healthiest for the life support system of our precious, but wounded planet."

---John Robbins, author, Diet for a New America, and President, EarthSave Foundation

One study puts animal waste in the United States to between 2.4 trillion to 3.9 trillion pounds per year.  The United states produces 15,000 pounds of manure per person.  This is 130 times the amount of waste produced by the entire human population of the United States. 

A 1,000-cow dairy can produce approximately 120,000 pounds of waste per day.  This is the functional equivalent of the amount of sanitary waste produced by a city of 20,000 people.

A 20,000-chicken factory produces about 2.4 million pounds of manure a year.  Poultry factories are one of the fastest growing industries throughout Asia.

One pig excretes nearly three gallons of waste per day, or 2.5 times the average human's daily total.  One hog farm with 50,000 pigs in France produces more waste than the entire city of Los Angeles, and some pig farms are much larger.

Factory farm pollution is the primary source of damage to coastal waters in North and South America, Europe, and Asia.  Scientists report that over sixty percent of the coastal waters in the United States are moderately to severely degraded from factory farm nutrient pollution.  This pollution creates oxygen-depleted dead zones, which are huge areas of ocean devoid of aquatic life.

Meat production causes deforestation, which then contributes to global warming.  Trees convert carbon dioxide into oxygen, and the destruction of forests around the globe to make room for grazing cattle furthers the greenhouse effect.  The Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations reports that the annual rate of tropical deforestation has increased from 9 million hectares in 1980 to 16.8 million hectares in 1990, and unfortunately, this destruction has accelerated since then.  By 1994, a staggering 200 million hectares of rainforest had been destroyed in South America just for cattle.

"The impact of countless hooves and mouths over the years has done more to alter the type of vegetation and land forms of the West than all the water projects, strip mines, power plants, freeways, and sub-division developments combined."

---Philip Fradkin, in Audubon, National Audubon Society, New York

Agricultural meat production generates air pollution.  As manure decomposes, it releases over 400 volatile organic compounds, many of which are extremely harmful to human health.  Nitrogen, a major by-product of animal wastes, changes to ammonia as it escapes into the air, and this is a major source of acid rain.  Worldwide, livestock produce over 30 million tons of ammonia.  Hydrogen sulfide, another chemical released from animal waste, can cause irreversible neurological damage, even at low levels.

The world Conservation Union lists over 1,000 different fish species that are threatened or endangered. According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimate, over 60 percent of the world's fish species are either fully exploited or depleted.  Commercial fish populations of cod, hake, haddock, and flounder have fallen by as much as 95 percent in the north Atlantic. 

The United States and Europe lose several billion tons of topsoil each year from cropland and grazing land, and 84 percent of this erosion is caused by livestock agriculture.  While this soil is theoretically a renewable resource, we are losing soil at a much faster rate than we are able to replace it.  It takes 100 to 500 years to produce one inch of topsoil, but due to livestock grazing and feeding, farming areas can lose up to six inches of topsoil a year.

Livestock production affects a startling 70 to 85 percent of the land area of the United States, United Kingdom, and the European Union.  That includes the public and private rangeland used for grazing, as well as the land used to produce the crops that feed the animals.  By comparison, urbanization only affects 3 percent of the United States land area, slightly larger for the European Union and the United Kingdom.  Meat production consumes the world's land resources.

Half of all fresh water worldwide is used for thirsty livestock.  Producing eight ounces of beef requires an unimaginable 25,000 liters of water, or the water necessary for one pound of steak equals the water consumption of the average household for a year.

The United States government spends $10 million each year to kill an estimated 100,000 wild animals, including coyotes, foxes, bobcats, badgers, bears, and mountain lions just to placate ranchers who don't want these animals killing their livestock.  The cost far outweighs the damage to livestock that these predators cause.

The Worldwatch Institute estimates one pound of steak from a steer raised in a feedlot costs:  five pounds of grain, a whopping 2,500 gallons of water, the energy equivalent of a gallon of gasoline, and about 34 pounds of topsoil.

33 percent of our nation's raw materials and fossil fuels go into livestock destined for slaughter.  In a vegan economy, only 2 percent of our resources will go to the production of food.

"It seems disingenuous for the intellectual elite of the first world to dwell on the subject of too many babies being born in the second- and third-world nations while virtually ignoring the overpopulation of cattle and the realities of a food chain that robs the poor of sustenance to feed the rich a steady diet of grain-fed meat."

---Jeremy Rifkin, author, Beyond Beef:  The Rise and Fall of the Cattle Culture, and president of the Greenhouse Crisis Foundation

Lester Brown of the Overseas Development Council calculates that if Americans reduced their meat consumption by only 10 percent per year, it would free at least 12 million tons of grain for human consumption--or enough to feed 60 million people.

The following additional quotes, facts, figures and statistics are excerpted from Please Don't Eat the Animals (2007) by Jennifer Horsman and Jaime Flowers:

"Nothing will benefit human health and increase chances for survival of life on earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet." 

---Albert Einstein

"Each year, the meat industrial complex abuses and butchers nearly 9 billion cows, pigs, sheep, turkeys, chickens, and other innocent, feeling animals just for the enjoyment of consumers.  Each year, nearly 1.5 million of these consumers are crippled and killed prematurely by heart failure, cancer, stroke, and other chronic diseases that have been linked conclusively with the consumption of these animals.  Each year, millions of other animals are abused and sacrificed in a vain search for a 'magic pill' that would vanquish these largely self-inflicted diseases."

---Alex Hershaft, PhD, president, Farm Animal Reform Movement

When analyzing 8,300 deaths in the United States, United Kingdom, and Germany among 76,000 men and women in five different, large studies, researchers concluded that vegetarians have a 24 percent reduction in death from heart disease.

Similarly, in the famous Oxford Vegetarian Study, where 6,000 vegetarians were compared with 5,000 meat-eaters over nearly two decades, scientists found that the rate of death from heart disease was 28 percent lower in vegetarians than in meat-eaters.

One study analyzed eighty scientific studies in leading medical journals.  The analysis found that vegetarians had lower blood pressure, and were less likely to suffer from stroke, heart attack, and kidney failure.

A large German study of nearly 2,000 vegetarians found that deaths from heart disease were reduced by over one-third, and that heart disease itself was far less than that of the general population.

Another large study examined the coronary artery disease risk of young adults ages 18 to 30 and vegetarians were found to have much higher levels of cardiovascular fitness and a greatly reduced risk of heart disease. 

"The process of gradual blocking of the coronary arteries begins not in adulthood but in childhood...and the main cause of this arteriosclerosis is the steadily increasing amount of fat in the American diet, particularly saturated animal fats such as those found in meat, chicken, milk and cheeses.  If there was another disease that caused half a million deaths a year, you can be sure that the public would be acutely aware of the danger, and that the cure or prevention would be universally practiced."

---Dr. Benjamin Spock, author, child expert

"I don't understand why asking people to eat a well-balanced vegetarian diet is considered drastic, while it is medically conservative to cut people open and put them on powerful cholesterol-lowering drugs for the rest of their lives."

---Dr. Dean Ornish, author, Reversing Heart Disease

Stroke is the third leading cause of death behind heart disease and cancer.  Vegetarians have a 20 to 30 percent reduced risk of having a stroke.  Stroke, like heart disease, is associated with diets high in saturated fats, and the vegetarian diet is naturally low in these fats.

The Oxford Vegetarian Study found cancer mortality to be 39 percent lower among vegetarians when compared with meat-eaters.  The European Prospective Investigation of Cancer found vegetarians suffer 40 percent fewer cancers than the general population. 

Studies have shown that decreasing a woman's animal fat intake can reduce the chances that she will die from breast cancer.  A large-scale, long-term study in the Netherlands found a powerful connection between  the amount of animal fat consumed and the rate of prostate cancer.  A review of a dozen studies found dietary fat strongly correlated with prostate cancer.

Ovarian, uterine, and endometrial cancers have all been shown to be strongly correlated to the amount of animal fat in one's diet, and vegetarian women have significantly lower rates of these cancers.

"The beef industry has contributed to more American deaths than all the wrs of this century, all the natural disasters, and all automobile accidents combined."

---Dr. Neal Barnard, Executive Director, Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine

"Vegetarians have the best diet.  They have the lowest rate of coronary disease of any group in the country.  They have a fraction of our heart attack rate and they have only 40 percent of our cancer rate."

---William Castelli, MD, Director, Framingham Heart Study

"Human beings are not natural carnivores.  When we kill animals to eat them, they end up killing us because their flesh, which contains cholesterol and saturated fat, was never intended for human beings, who are natural herbivores."

---Dr. William Roberts, editor-in-chief, American Journal of Cardiology

I'm tired of the "predation" argument for the justification of humans eating meat.  (I don't consider meat-eaters predators, unless they actually stalk and snipe the animals themselves.)  Isn't there something higher we can attain to, than accepting a "predator" identity for our species?  

Jeremy: I do understand that people need facts and figures. We all come from different environments, families, cultures, histories, etc., and I agree that many people won't respond to an emotional appeal made on behalf of animals. However, I think in our culture 'emotional' has a negative connotation to many. I suppose I felt the need to defend MY OWN reasons for being devoted to this cause, and they stem from my heart first and foremost. But I see your point that this won't reach everyone, and I absolutely agree. And I didn't mean to imply that as an animal rights activist I will be on the street showing videos of lambs being reunited with their mothers while I cry and play the guitar, hoping to change the world. I just really needed to make the point that perhaps we should question our social perception of emotionality as a sign of weakness and something we should shut down or ignore. I assumed from your description of the video as 'emotional sniveling' that you shared this perception, but maybe I was wrong. I know I should never assume anything and I think a lot of us are talking past each other and perhaps misinterpreting some of the comments. That's one of the dangers of having serious conversations through email or texting. But the point is, I was discussing what I think is a much needed shift in the paradigm that governs Western society. We search for answers through scientific inquiry and rarely trust our hearts or our intiution. I was not discounting the importance of facts, figures, rational arguments, what have you. SO MUCH of this movement, at least the outreach part of it, is just about REVEALING the truth of what happens to animals on a massive scale not just every day, but every second. We can't even keep up with it, and every single one of us could spend a lifetime giving people the facts about animal oppression and torture, and we still wouldn't be able to cover it all.

Speaking of evidence and cold, hard facts, I need to clarify something. The Boyd quotation in one of Vasu's posts, which contained the description of animals being "mechanically raped," was actually about vivisection, not animal agriculture. Animals on factory farms literally are violently raped by workers with prods, and just because a cow is not kicking and screaming when she's inseminated, does not mean this is not a violation. And what's one of the most common practice for obtaining semen from male animals, whether on the farm or in the lab? Electro-ejaculation. That to me, is rape. Laboratory animals are raped and sexually violated all the time, have been for years. I could spend months compiling all of the studies that have been done which are examples of this, but here are just a couple, mild ones, which are the tip of the iceberg.

http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/121462080/abstract

Background: We sought to establish a nonhuman primate model of vaginal Lactobacillus colonization suitable for evaluating live microbial microbicide candidates. Methods: Vaginal and rectal microflora in Chinese rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta)
were analyzed, with cultivable bacteria identified by 16S rRNA gene
sequencing. Live lactobacilli were intravaginally administered to
evaluate bacterial colonization.
Results: Chinese rhesus macaques harbored abundant vaginal Lactobacillus, with Lactobacillus johnsonii as the predominant species. Like humans, most examined macaques harbored only one vaginal Lactobacillus species. Vaginal and rectal Lactobacillus isolates from the same animal exhibited different genetic and biochemical profiles. Vaginal Lactobacillus was cleared by a vaginal suppository of azithromycin, and endogenous L. johnsonii was subsequently restored by intravaginal inoculation. Importantly, prolonged colonization of a human vaginal Lactobacillus jensenii was established in these animals. Conclusions: The Chinese rhesus macaque harbors vaginal Lactobacillus and is a potentially useful model to support the pre-clinical evaluation of Lactobacillus-based topical microbicides.

http://www.jurology.com/medline/record/MDLN.15036498

Two experiments were conducted with 24 bulls in which semen collectionwas attempted by transrectal massage (RM) and electroejaculation (EE).In experiment 1, bulls received the following treatments on successivesemen collection days: saline 10 min prior to electroejaculation(control); saline 10 min prior to 2 min of transrectal massage followedby electroejaculation; cloprostenol (CLO) 10 min prior to 2 min oftransrectal massage followed by electroejaculation; oxytocin (OXY) 10
min prior to 2 min of transrectal massage followed by
electroejaculation. Transrectal massage consisted of general, back andforth motion over the ampullae, prostate and urethra with a flattenedhand. In experiment 2, bulls received saline (control), oxytocin, orcloprostenol 10 min before attempting semen collection by transrectalmassage. Massage was applied specifically to the ampullae for a maximumof 5 min or until a semen sample was obtained. Electroejaculation was attempted in all bulls following transrectal massage. In experiment 1,
semen was obtained in <1% of bulls by transrectal massage. However,by using an improved massage technique in experiment 2, semen wasobtained in 97.2% of attempts. Semen was obtained in 96.9 and 98.9% ofattempts by electroejaculation in experiments 1 and 2, respectively.Oxytocin treatment increased the time to penile protrusion during
electroejaculation in experiment 1 and during massage in experiment 2.
In experiment 1, oxytocin decreased the time to semen emission andtended to decrease the number of electroejaculation stimuli to semenemission. Cloprostenol treatment, in experiment 1, resulted in anincreased number of electroejaculation stimuli to penile protrusion,but did not affect the number of stimuli required for semen emission.Massage of the ampullae prior to electroejaculation reduced both thetime to semen emission and the number of electroejaculation stimulirequired for semen emission. Transrectal massage of the ampullae was
very effective in this experiment for producing semen emission, butquantity of semen samples was less than for electroejaculation. Theusefulness of transrectal massage for semen collection in breedingsoundness evaluations needs to be investigated further under field conditions.

Harry Harlow's "Rape Rack." Need I say more?

How do you think they test vaginal and rectal microbicides on rhesus monkeys? Do you think they ask the monkeys to do it themselves? No.

Sorry if this is too blunt, but this is what animals have to endure.

"The vegetarian movement ought to fill with gladness the souls of those who have at heart the realization of God's kingdom upon Earth."

- Leo Tolstoy, Russian author..

"A diet that can lead to heart attacks, cancer, and numerous other diseases cannot be a natural diet," writes Keith Akers in A Vegetarian Sourcebook.  "A diet that pillages our resources of land, water, forests, and energy cannot be a natural diet.  A diet that causes the unnecessary suffering and death of billions of animals each year cannot be a natural diet."

I understand there are conservative Christians who fear vegetarianism...which is kind of like being afraid of nonsmoking, nondrinking, or recycling.  Ronald J. Sider of Evangelicals for Social Action, in his 1977 book, Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger, pointed out that 220 million Americans were eating enough food (largely because of the high consumption of grain fed to livestock) to feed over one billion people in the poorer countries.
A pamphlet put out by Compassion Over Killing says raising animals for food is one of the leading causes of both pollution and resource depletion today.  According to a recent United Nations report, "Livestock's Long Shadow," raising chickens, turkeys, pigs, and other animals for food causes more greenhouse gas emissions than all the cars, trucks and other forms of transportation combined.  Researchers from the University of Chicago similarly concluded that a vegetarian diet is the most energy efficient, and the average American does more to reduce global warming emissions by not eating animal products than by switching to a hybrid car.

A 2007 journal published by the American Dietetic Association found "meat protein production required 26 times more water than vegetable protein on rain-fed lands."  The journal further states that dieticians "can encourage eating that is both healthful and conserving of soil, water, and energy by emphasizing plant sources of protein and foods that have been produced with fewer agricultural inputs."

"Livestock are one of the most significant contributors to today's most serious environmental problems.  Urgent action is required to remedy the situation." 

---Union Nations' Food and Agriculture Assocation

A single dairy cow produces approximately 120 pounds of wet manure per day, which is equivalent to that of 20 to 40 humans.

70% of the grain grown and 50% of the water consumed in the U.S. are used by the meat industry.  (Audobon Society)

On average 990 liters of water are required to produce one liter of milk.  (United Nations)

Over 260 million acres of U.S. forest have been cleared to grow grain for livestock.  (Greenpeace)

Farmed animals produce an estimated 1.4 billion tons of fecal waste each year in the U.S.  Much of this untreated waste pollutes the land and water.
  The number of animals killed for food in the United States is 70 times larger than the number of animals killed in laboratories, 30 times larger than the number killed by hunters and trappers, and 500 times larger than the number of animals killed in animal pounds.
“If anyone wants to save the planet,” says Paul McCartney in a PETA interview, “all they have to do is stop eating meat. That’s the single most important thing you could do. It’s staggering when you think about it. Vegetarianism takes care of so many things in one shot: ecology, famine, cruelty. Let’s do it! Linda was right.  Going veggie is the single best idea for the new century.”

First, let me say it up front: I am an omnivore.  I would no more give up meat than I would give up my Chilean Clementines (which I consume to the tune of about half a dozen a day). 
Second, I read most of the (long) posts here, and I have seen the arguments repeated elsewhere, so I won't even dispute them except for two things:
1.  Most of these studies involving meat eaters involve meat raised in CAFOs, not organically, or better yet, free-range.  It is admittedly hard to find free-range beef/pork/chicken everywhere, but I do most of the time.  I believe the extra cost is worth it since Michael Polen, among others, have made a good case that it is the hormone/anti-biotic/corn&meat based "feed" (I hesitate to even use that word) that causes the distortions in the final product that may be responsible for much of the health effects cited in the studies above.  My cholesterol is still high, but so was my father's, so heredity or diet?  Hard to tell.
2.  I am a male.  I only mention that because males have a demonstrably higher need for protein - up to 50%.  Most of the vegitarian males I've met look alarmingly emaciated, though I grant you, correlation is not causation.  Still, it is harder for males to mix the proper amount of amino acids together to get enough protein for good health.  Perhaps we need more protein for the muscles we no longer need to bring down big game - until evolution changes that, we are stuck with it.

I also freely admit my own hypocrisy in being an animal lover and a meat eater.  An amusing, or telling, story, depending on your point of view, brought this home to me.  My wife had bought a chicken from Chinatown one day, not realizing that the chinese, not wanting to be wasteful, regularly leave the head and feet on their chickens.  Well, she (who is a vegitarian, BTW), could not bring herself to cut off the head and feet for cooking.  I tried to cut off a foot, thinking I would work my way up.  But something about the blood draining, and the difficulty of looking the chicken in the (dead) eyes - well, I couldn't do it.
I still eat chicken though, sans feet and head, just the way nature, or the butcher, intended it.  I am probably not the only person in the world to live with contradictions.

So, if you want to end the practice of CAFOs, I'm with you (one suggestion would be to encourage the placement of wind turbines on grasslands, to defray the added cost of larger ranges for livestock).  But, as for going over to the "green" side, sorry, I just can't stomach it.

I realize it is more satisfying to be on an extreme position rather than a moderate one, but I do have to point out that there is a middle ground here.

Yes, factory farming, CAFO's, etc. are cruel beyond measure, pollute the environment, are detrimental to small towns, and debase the workers who maintain them. I would also add that corn based animal agriculture produces meat which is unhealthy and fattening.

On the other hand there is no evidence that we as humans can actually exist on a 100% plant based diet, or that we were meant to exist as such. As you all know, we need Vit B-12, which can only be found in animal products. Our bodies are physiologically designed to eat an omniverous diet. Many people cannot provide their bodies with enough iron and other vitamins and minerals with plant matter. Quite frankly, most people will not give up meat. Ever. Even if they know it was tortured and is making them sick. You are fighting a losing battle.

Here is the middle ground: not all meat is raised in a factory farm. Not all meat is fed corn, confined, filled full of hormones and antibiotics, and mutilated. Grass-fed, pastured meats and eggs are from animals who live the same as if they were in the wild, but with added protections. I myself raise at home chickens, geese, and turkeys, and gladly eat their eggs (btw-the chickens don't care, they ignore the nest after laying the eggs) and while I don't love the task, I take satisfaction in killing them in a humane way to feed my family. They are treated with respect and love during life, and they respectfully meet an end. The satisfaction is that I did not create suffering by my eating habits.

Animals kill other animals. That it the nature of the world. I understand that as humans we can be held to a higher standard, but we are still animals. Why is it when we kill something we are evil, but when say a baboon or chimpanzee kills something they are being true to their nature? And nature is not kind, animals suffer horribly in the wild. This is not an excuse for us to do the same, however it should be noted we do not have the market cornered in cruelty. 

Environmentally,  it may take more energy to raise a cow on corn than it does to directly feed a human that corn, but it does NOT take more energy to graze that cow. It is more energy efficient for me to eat grass fed lamb than it is for me to grow a full compliment of grains and legumes to feed the same food equivilant vegan. It is less polluting to buy meat from a small farm which is run well than to buy organic soy curd from China at Whole Foods Market. Plant agriculture is extremely polluting and energy intensive.

Know your farmer. Know your food. Eat local. Animal agriulture does NOT have to be cruel. Eating meat does not have to be an act of immorality.

Here are some simple truths: There is no glamour in livestock farming. There is low pay and much hard work. And livestock farmers  have (and are) sisters, brothers, children, grandchildren, parents, grandparents, friends, coworkers, partners, and spouses. We have responsibilities, struggles, jobs, bills, dreams, plans, hobbies, and interests. We have joys, sorrows, frustrations, and lives just like you. There are thousands of things on which we could spend our time and our money--if we had any.  But we choose to put our time and our money, what little there is of it, into caring for our livestock.  Animals cannot be turned off at 5pm, or on weekends, or for two weeks while we take a vacation.  Livestock needs to be cared for every day of every year. Livestock farmers eat, sleep, and breathe the work they do, sacrificing much for it. So the next time you're geared up to tell livestock farmers get a life, to ridicule their work and way of living, or to dismiss what they're trying to say to you, stop. The next time you're ready to presume that you know more about animal issues just because you've read about them on animal rights websites,  and the people who devote everything they can to learning about and caring for the animals just must be crazy, stop. Stop and ponder whether you really know what you're talking about. Consider that livestock farmers do what they do because they like animals and enjoy their company.  We have to like animals to do what we do. Consider that all the time and energy we've put into learning about animals.  Three or four years at college or university studying animal behaviour, welfare issues, animal housing, nutrition,  diseases and parasites,  as well as years actually working with the animals, feeding them, moving them, treating them when they are sick, shovelling manure, and just plain observing them, learning their habits and their little quirks, learning to recognise them as individuals, and going back day after day even after we've been kicked, trampled on, bitten, urinated on, bruised, knocked over,  or thrown in the air.  Yes, I have had many trips to the hospital after being injured by my charges, but I still love them, and won't give them up without a fight. When your instinct is to attack and ridicule, instead stop and ask yourself why we're doing what we're doing, what we're getting out of it. Livestock farmers feed the world.  Without us many people would go hungry.  Meat is a cheap source of protein that is still eaten by 98% of the US population in spite of your efforts to turn everyone vegan.  America still needs livestock farmers.  Who will feed Americans when we have been legislated out of existance?  We cannot grow enough crops in this country to provide the protein needed to feed every one.  What will people eat then? Livestock farming is not wrong or immoral.  Livestock farmers care for the animals they raise, and they care for the people they feed.  We are producing a food product, and we treat it accordingly.  We want our meat to be safe and wholesome, and we also want to make a decent living. If you really want to help farm livestock, why not lobby for farmers to be paid the true market value of their product?  Contrary to popular belief, livestock farmers do not make a large profit.  When times are good we may make $20 on each animal sold.  At the end of 2007 we were losing $50 on each animal we sold.  For a farmer who ships 300 hogs a week that's $15,000 they were losing every week, yet we still have to pay for power, feed, bedding, veterinary services, and transport.  Is it any wonder farmers are driven to suicide? So when you are eating your festive fare on December 25th, stop for a moment and think about the livestock farmers who will be caring for their stock before they can join their families for present opening around the tree.

Alex, I believe you may have made assumptions based on what I wrote. Let me clarify. I believe a plants' or animals' right to life is based on the fact that life was given to it by God (or natural order). I would like to see some sanity in our lives re: how we treat other beings (including plants). As to whether a plant suffers It could just be that data we observe through our five primitive senses may not be adequate to form a correct conclusion. Finally, we know darn well that animals suffer, and therefore a dedicated vegan should be respected, for her/his choice. Hey! I got back to the subject at hand!

R.K., my favorite line of your comment is this one: "Who will feed Americans WHEN we have been legislated out of existance?" (capitalization added by me)

Lisa Said- "Carl, there are plenty of animals who do need loving homes.  Shelters are not bad things.  Pets are not bad things to have."

I agree. PETA does not.

And- "I belong to the HSUS and at no time in my 20 years of membership have I heard that they want to take my pets away or that they oppose service dogs.  I'd like to see some documentation of this claim?"

Where to start with the HSUS?
Maybe with David Wills, former Vice President of the HSUS. He went to Alaska at HSUS expense to investigate "abuse" at the Iditarod. He did not talk to any musher, any of the race veterinarians, or anyone on the Iditarod trail Committee. Then he wrote a thoroughly uninformed, untrue slam piece that the HSUS published with great fanfare, in an effort to raise money to pay the bloated salaries of their officers.

Subsequently, he resigned his position at HSUS after he was found to have embezzled $325,000 of HSUS funds to pay for his wedding and honeymoon. But the HSUS did not prosecute him, nor demand repayment, since either of those actions would have caused negative publicity for them.

From: http://www.naiaonline.org/articles/archives/hijack.htm

"The humane movement has been hijacked, radicalized, and rerouted. Started more than 100 years ago, it was traditionally concerned with the humane treatment of animals. In the last 20 years, however, it has been taken over by animal rights leaders whose priority is neither the humane care of animals nor the prevention of cruelty to animals, but instead, the promotion of a revolutionary value system which redefines man's relationship with other animals. Animal rightists want to end man's use of animals altogether."

That quote is from the book "The Hijacking of the Humane Movement" by Rod and Patti Strand, written in the early '90's.
http://www.amazon.com/Hijacking-Humane-Movement-Animal-Extremism/dp/0944875289

Also from the above cited review:

Animal rights groups range from the terrorist through the treacherous to the tricky and advocate everything from elimination of medical research involving animals to the keeping of pets. The Animal Liberation Front (ALF) raids and vandalizes research laboratories and fur farms and terrorizes scientists; PETA is a mouthpiece for ALF and promotes civil disobedience, harassment, trickery, and lies to end the use of animals; and the Humane Society of the US (HSUS) proposes draconian breeding bans on dogs and cats and lobbies for an end to hunting. Sprinkled into the mix are the Fund for Animals, Physicians' Committee for Responsible Medicine, the New England Anti-Vivisection Society, the Progressive Animal Welfare Society, and a variety of other groups with related agendas and often overlapping personnel."

"...the Humane Society of the US (HSUS) proposes draconian breeding bans on dogs and cats..."

If nobody breeds them, they will go extinct. That would be an end to pet ownership.

Wayne Pacelle, HSUS President, said this: 
“We have no ethical obligation to preserve the different breeds of livestock
produced through selective breeding ...One generation and out. We have no
problems with the extinction of domestic animals. They are creations of human
selective breeding.”
— Animal People News, May 1993

NOW he says he didn't mean it.  Or he changed his mind.  Or something. 


http://www.animalscam.com/rights_vs_welfare.cfm  is a rational article about
the difference between animal welfare and animal rights.   

HSUS still wants to be perceived as a middle-of-the-road animal welfare group,
but as time goes by they're moving further away from that.  Pacelle as
President proves it.    NONE of these AR groups are going to come out and say
they want to take our pets away.  

http://www.consumerfreedom.com/news_detail.cfm/headline/3779

http://www.consumerfreedom.com/news_detail.cfm/headline/3787

http://www.dogpolitics.com/my_weblog/2007/10/hsus---two-year.html

http://nathanwinograd.blogspot.com/2008/09/dubious-deals-at-hsus.html

Carl, just because these people say or do something that immediately means that *I* act, believe, practice the same things?  that's a dangerous assumption, one that I haven't made about anyone else who portends to be from the "other side" of the issue.  Am I right? 

I (and other ARs) spend more time defending ourselves than much of anything else here.

You link to the Center for Consumer Freedom - a very radical pro-business movement that works to disclaim the HSUS at every step of the way.  They serve no other purpose than to preserve the "right" to consumerism without consequence. 

On what basis have we arbitrarily decreed that only humans can have rights and other animals cannot? Is it because most members of the human species possess a higher level of intelligence than most animals? Then why do we protect mentally defective humans? Isn’t this a personal, or rather, an anthropomorphic prejudice?

In his book, Christianity and the Rights of Animals, the Reverend Andrew Linzey, an Anglican priest, writes:
"It does seem somewhat disingenuous for Christians to speak so solidly for human rights and then query the appropriateness of rights language when it comes to animals. The most consistent position is that of Raymond Frey, who opposes all claims for rights from a philosophical perspective, or that of Christians who consistently refrain from all such language."

According to Reverend Linzey:

"Raymond Frey, that dedicated opponent of rights theory, has sadly to conclude that ‘we cannot, without the appeal to benefit, justify (painful) animal experiments without justifying (painful) human experiments.’

"Frey accepts this even though he justifies experimentation on animals. Again, ‘The case for anti-vivisectionism, I think, is far stronger than most people allow,’ he writes. Alas, Frey does not seem to regard it as sufficiently strong to oppose experiments on animals or humans."

"Although I may disagree with some of its underlying principles," writes pro-life activist Karen Swallow Prior, "there is much for me, an anti-abortion activist, to respect in the animal rights movement. Animal rights activists, like me, have risked personal safety and reputation for the sake of other living beings. Animal rights activists, like me, are viewed by many in the mainstream as fanatical wackos, ironically exhorted by irritated passerby to ‘Get a life!’

"Animal rights activists, like me, place a higher value on life than on personal comfort and convenience and, in balancing the sometimes competing interests of rights and responsibilities, choose to err on the side of compassion and non-violence."

Kathleen Marquardt, founded Putting People First, an anti-animal rights group.  In her 1993 book, Animal Scam:  The Beastly Abuse of Human Rights, she says:

"The real agenda of this movement is not to give rights to animals, but to take rights from people—to dictate our food, clothing, work, recreation, and whether we will discover new medications or die." Identical assertions could have been made about the abolition of human slavery, the crusade to end child labor, the liberation of concentration camp prisoners from Nazi physicians or an end to the experimentation upon black humans by white humans.

Marquardt writes that the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) "now encourages vegetarianism, the banning of fur, and the eventual end to all animal research, not just ‘cruel’ animal research." Marquardt writes that the Humane Society now supports vegetarianism.

According to Marquardt, "The typical animal rights activist is a white woman making about $30,000 a year. She is most likely a schoolteacher, nurse, or government worker. She usually has a college degree or even an advanced degree, is in her thirties or forties, and lives in a city."

Marquardt cites studies indicating that animal rights activists tend to identify with liberal causes such as feminism and environmentalism. "Every year," writes the Reverend Andrew Linzey, "I receive hundreds of anguished letters from Christians who are so distressed by the insensitivity to animals shown by mainstream churches that they have left them or are on the verge of doing so." It is not surprising, therefore, that Marquardt reports that "Most activists share a bias against Western civilization and its Judeo-Christian foundations."

According to Marquardt, the "political clout" of the animal rights movement "is surprisingly bipartisan. But most of the leading politicians working with the animal rights movement are liberal Democrats." Marquardt makes mention of Senator Barbara Boxer of California, Nevada Congressman Jim Bilbray, Charlie Rose of North Carolina, Tom Lantos and Gerry Studds.

Marquardt admits, however, that "some Republicans are animal rightists, too. Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole of Kansas often supports animal rights causes—except, of course, those pertaining to cattle, a major business in Kansas. Senator Robert Smith of New Hampshire was a founder of the Congressional Friends of Animals. Bob Dornan of California, one of the most conservative House members, is an animal rights advocate—he cosponsored legislation banning the use of animals in testing cosmetics and received a PETA award. And Manhattan Congressman Bill Green promoted legislation that would have shut down over 90 million acres of federal land to hunting, fishing, and trapping."

Marquardt states further that "Although he’s not an elected official, a conservative political figure who, surprisingly, is on the other side is G. Gordon Liddy, author Will and a key figure in the 1972 Watergate uproar. When I went on Liddy’s radio show, he and PETA’s Ingrid Newkirk greeted each other with hugs and kisses and lots of warm words.

"With allies in both political parties and across the ideological spectrum," concludes Marquardt, "the animal rights movement has been able to score some great successes, regardless of which party controls the White House or Capitol Hill."

According to Kathleen Marquardt, "We value the life of any human being—let alone that of a loved one—more than that of a dog, pig, or baboon." Isn’t this merely an anthropomorphic prejudice? Membership in the human species as a criterion for personhood is comparable to racism or sexism—discrimination.

Kathleen Marquardt unsuccessfully tries to equate animal rights with Nazism in Animal Scam. She claims that Adolf Hitler was a vegetarian, and that he suffered from depression, mood swings, irritability, and agitation, all of which are symptoms of a vitamin B-12 deficiency, and that animal products are the only dietary source of vitamin B-12.

According to Carol Orsag, in Irving Wallace and David Wallechinsky’s The People’s Almanac (1975), however, Adolf Hitler consumed animal products in the form of eggs and dairy products, and enjoyed eggs "prepared 101 different ways by the best chef in Germany." He "became vegetarian because of stomach problems" rather than out of compassion for animals, and "was criticized for eating pig’s knuckles."

In a 1996 article, "Nazis and Animals: Debunking the Myths," Roberta Kalechofsky of Jews for Animal Rights states that Hitler "had a special fondness for sausages and caviar, and sometimes ham," as well as "liver dumplings." Kalechofsky states further that the Nazis experimented on animals as well as humans in the concentration camps:

"The evidence of Nazi experiments on animals is overwhelming. In The Dark Face of Science, author John Vyvyan summed it up correctly: ‘The experiments made on prisoners were many and diverse, but they had one thing in common: all were in continuation of, or complementary to, experiments on animals. In every instance, this antecedent scientific literature is mentioned in the evidence, and at Buchenwald and Auschwitz concentration camps, human and animal experiments were carried out simultaneously as parts of a single programme.’"

Professor Henry Bigelow observed: "There will come a time when the world will look back to modern vivisection in the name of science as they do now to burning at the stake in the name of religion."

Animal rights, as a secular, moral philosophy, may appear to be at odds with traditional religious thinking (e.g., human "dominion" over other animals), but this is equally true of democracy and representative government in place of the divine right of kings, the separation of church and state, the abolition of human slavery, the emancipation of women, birth control, the sexual revolution, lesbian and gay rights, and perhaps every kind of social progress since the end of the Dark Ages and the beginning of the Age of Enlightenment.

Some of the greatest figures in human history have been in favor of ethical vegetarianism and animal rights. These include: Albert Einstein, Leonardo da Vinci, Leo Tolstoy, Mohandas Gandhi, Alice Walker, George Bernard Shaw, Robert Browning, Percy Shelley, Voltaire, Thomas Hardy, Rachel Carson, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Victor Hugo, John Stuart Mill, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Pythagoras, Susan B. Anthony, Albert Schweitzer, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Gertrude Stein, Frederick Douglass, Francis Bacon, William Wordsworth, the Buddha, Mark Twain, and Henry David Thoreau.

I read the post by RK in defense of livestock farmers. Although I can't concede that the animals in factory farms are "cared" for in any way, shape or form, not all livestock farmers run factory farms, and again, fearing the wrath of the AR activists I admire, not all livestock farmers are monsters. The use of animals is a long-standing and deeply embedded facet of the modern world, with its roots extending as far back as we can imagine. In no way am I defending animal agriculture here, and I do have a problem with the conception of animals as "stock." That in and of itself is troubling. In my worldview, animals cannot be considered property any more than people can. If you read my other my other posts, you'll see that there is nothing in this world more important to me than animal rights and ending the suffering of as many animals I possibly can in this lifetime, along with challenging the system that exploits animals. I also have compassion for people though. I would like to take the easy road and classify all those who are part of this system as one group of evil-doers, but I feel that I have to grant some consideration to these people as human beings, and try to understand where they are coming from. I know children, for example, who are terrified of dogs because their parents are. From day one they were taught that dogs are dangerous. They no doubt will not develop the same sort of connection to animals that I have. I understand the value of direct action and have taken part in it myself (and I don't mean the underground stuff, which I won't disclose how I feel about because 'you never know who's reading this stuff'). But I also understand the value of seeing the 'other side,' and understanding that everyone has a history. There is something to be said for making change through compassion. If I don't attempt to have some semblance of understanding for people on all 3000 sides of this issue (no I don't believe it's black and white, us vs. them), I don't think I'll get very far. That's personal, because if I see all those who don't agree with me as my enemies, my rage will consume me and I will burn out quickly. Perhaps I'm not as strong as some.

For example, I could very easily see Harry Harlow, the primate researcher who implemented the rape rack, pit of despair, well of despair, and many other torture tools, as the personification of all evil, and at times I do. I tend to think people like him should be imprisoned for the rest of their lives if not receive the death penalty. But during my short life, I've managed to have an understanding and even compassion for those who perpetrate violence against other people, so perhaps I should attempt this for those who perpetrate violence against animals. Here's an example. Imagine a child who is beaten by his mother and repeatedly sexually abuse by his father. Because he is growing up in a system that does not support his healing, he will be left to figure it out for himself. He may grow up and do the same to his children. They, in turn, will do the same to their children, and on and on. It's the cycle of abuse. How do we break that cycle? By imprisoning everybody? I believe that if we have compassion for the victims, in some ways, we need to have compassion for the perpetrators, as most of them were once victims themselves. This does not mean we condone their actions, but how else can we hope to break the cycle if we do not understand it? Certainly locking up all perpetrators is not a viable solution, because we'll run out of space. Imagine how much abuse of the innocent would be prevented if as soon as someone started showing signs, such as torturing and abusing animals as children, we intervened and helped them heal their own wounds? Imagine if we directed public funding towards this instead of towards research on monkeys dedicated towards a 'cure' for depression which involves implanting electrodes in peoples' brains (yes, there are such studies). Imagine if we tried to have compassion for each other. All perpetrators were once children. Harry Harlow was once a child, and he no doubt had a disturbing childhood, given what he grew up to do.

If I treat every meat-eater, vivisectionist and circus trainer as that and nothing else, how I can expect to be treated any differently. I may be vegan, but because I can't afford to buy non-leather shoes from the fair-trade producers, I may buy them from cheaper shoe stores. I know some of them are made in China, likely in a sweatshop. I know that now and again I’ve probably eaten a banana raised on a plantation in South America that at some point caused the displacement of small-scale produce farmers and inevitably led to their death through poverty. There was a time in my life when I had no idea what went on in slaughterhouses and laboratories. There was even a time when I knew, but I turned away from it and kept on living my life as I had. My point is that almost every action we take can be traced back to some injustice. It's the nature of the global economic system. It's the nature of a system which places profit above the wellbeing of people, animals, and the planet, and for all of us to believe that we have no part in this is delusional.

On the same token, not all ‘animal rights activist,’ are delusional lunatics. They do not all believe in closing shelters and killing pets, or taking people’s companion animals away from them. They do not all blindly follow organizations like PETA and HSUS without question. If there’s money to be made, there are people in the world who will take advantage of this, whether they work at the NIH, USDA, Hormel, HSUS or PETA, among others. There are also people who truly care about what they stand for, not as a radical ideology which they want to impose on the rest of the world like a dictator, but who know too much about the suffering of people and animals alike to turn a blind eye anymore. To call people like this lunatics is terribly sad, a sign of how sick our society has become. On the other hand, for people like this to take on a holier-than-though attitude (which I myself have, do and I’m sure will continue to do) as if they do not also leave their mark and contribute to some injustice in some far away land through their actions is also sad. I know this, I know that just by using electricity to power my computer, that I am using energy which is probably coming from fossil fuels and polluting the earth, and creating socio-economic situations half way across the world which are causing wars, and yet I still do it. It’s just important to think critically about things and to see the whole picture, and to stop painting each other as lunatics and monsters, because in my eyes, when I’m feeling sane and not letting my rage overtake me, it’s not about good and evil.

"Carl, just because these people say or do something that immediately means that *I* act, believe, practice the same things?  that's a dangerous assumption, one that I haven't made about anyone else who portends to be from the "other side" of the issue.  Am I right? "

I make no such assumptions either. However, since you have supported the HSUS for 20 years, you must either agree with them or be ignorant of their actual agenda. If the latter, that is understandable since the HSUS has been nothing more than a thinly veiled fraud for at least 15 years.

I'm not going to read either of those incredibly long comments. Instead I urge everyone to watch this film:

http://elainevigneault.com/peaceable-kingdom.html

"Although I may disagree with some of its underlying principles," writes pro-life activist Karen Swallow Prior, "there is much for me, an anti-abortion activist, to respect in the animal rights movement.

"Animal rights activists, like me, have risked personal safety and reputation for the sake of other living beings. Animal rights activists, like me, are viewed by many in the mainstream as fanatical wackos, ironically exhorted by irritated passerby to 'Get a Life!'

"Animal rights activists, like me, place a higher value on life than on personal comfort and convenience, and in balancing the sometimes competing interests of rights and responsibilities, choose to err on the side of compassion and nonviolence."

During 1986 - 1988, when I had access to USENET, a nationwide computer network linking corporations, military bases, think tanks, universities, etc., I paid close attention to the abortion debate. The subject of animal rights always came up, albeit indirectly.

The mentality of the pro-choicers was that the fetus wasn't human, but rather some kind of lower life form--and that lower life forms couldn't possibly have rights.

When a pro-lifer discussed the potential humanity of the unborn, a pro-choicer replied, "MY CAT has more potential than that!"

One pro-choicer said sarcastically, "Maybe the kid (the fetus) should be raised as a vegetarian. After all, don't cows have the right to life?"

Another pro-choicer, Oleg Kiselev, upon hearing the pro-life argument that brain waves can be detected in the unborn as early as six weeks, pointed out that animals also have brain waves. He then added, "Excuse me, while I eat my veal stew."

In the spring of 1988, Stephen Carrier, a grad student in Mathematics at UC Berkeley, pointed out that chimpanzees share 99 percent of their DNA with humans, and so, to argue that species membership alone makes life worth protecting "is to fetishize DNA."

A pro-lifer responded: "If it'll please you, I will agree to protect anything that is 99 percent human."

To this, Stephen responded: "Okay. How about 50 percent? That would probably bring quite a few species into the net."

Stephen Carrier admitted, "I don't know what makes it acceptable to kill animals for meat. Some people think it's wrong, and I have no logical answer for them. But it's not murder, and I believe abortions are analogous. Yes, it's killing--but it's not murder."

Stephen admitted his argument was "not a mathematical proof, but there is no mathematical proof that will resolve the abortion debate."

In the fall of 1986, pro-life student John Morrow of Rutgers University compared abortion to slavery: Roe v. Wade denied rights to an entire class of humans merely on account of their age and developmental status, just as the Dred Scott decision of 1857 denied rights to an entire class of humans based on the color of their skin.

Dave Butler of Tektronix in Oregon responded: "Abortion and slavery? Not even close. A fetus isn't human. If you believe it's wrong to eat meat, should your morality be imposed upon everyone else?"

"Not even close" has become a popular slogan with pro-choicers. It even appeared on the headlines of most San Francisco Bay Area newspapers in November 1992, when Bill Clinton was elected.

"Not even close" is not a new slogan. Peter Singer writes in Animal Liberation that when Mary Wollstonecraft, a forerunner of today’s feminists, published A Vindication of the Rights of Women in 1792, "her views were widely regarded as absurd."

Thomas Taylor, a distinguished Cambridge philosopher, tried to refute Mary Wollstonecraft by demonstrating that if women could be given liberation, then animals could be given liberation, too. And since this is "absurd" it must be equally "absurd" to give women liberation. Taylor called his parody, "A Vindication of the Rights of Brutes."

"Not even close" is the "A Vindication of the Rights of Brutes" of the late 20th and early 21st century, because it takes for granted the invincible prejudice that other animals couldn't possibly have rights.  It is this prejudice which we in the animal rights movement are struggling to overcome.

Again, the mentality of the pro-choicers was that the fetus wasn't human, but some kind of lower life form--and that lower life forms couldn't possibly have rights. This led me to conclude that if there's any group out there which ought to be sympathetic to animal rights, it's pro-lifers.

Carl wrote:
Where to start with the HSUS?
Maybe with David Wills, former Vice President of the HSUS. He went to Alaska at HSUS expense to investigate "abuse" at the Iditarod. He did not talk to any musher, any of the race veterinarians, or anyone on the Iditarod trail Committee.

  This is not quite true.  Wills was given a position on the Iditarod's animal care committee.  Musher Susan Butcher gave generously of her time and hospitality,  thinking that if Wills and the HSUS were educated in sled dog care and training, there would be no problem.   The mistake everyone made was in thinking that Wills and HSUS wanted an education.  What they wanted was the media attention that brings in donations.  "No problem" for animals means "no money" for HSUS.  

 

Carl, if there was an animal organization that stood 100% behind only the causes *I* cared about, only acted in the way that *I* would act, only spent the monty the way *I* would, then I would only be describing myself.  If there were an organization in line with what each individual thought, then everyone would have their own charity attached to their name. 

I'm not that lucky.  But I do stand behind many central issues that the HSUS lobbies into law, or at least into ballot measures.  After many years of fighting for the end of Greyhound Racing in Massachusetts, I was finally able to see that measure pass. 

The problem isn't that I am supporting a group that's motivated by money like EVERY OTHER lobbying group in this country, but that there are nationally recognized organizations that can speak much louder than me on the issues that matter to me.

I refuse to be shaken by criticism about one of the many non-profits I donate to. 

Jen K mentioned Vitamin B-12.  We are not natural herbivores. The human body can't break down cellulose, the principle component of plant foods (though it does serve a purpose as dietary fiber). This is the reason we can't graze or live on grass. Anatomically, we resemble the other primates (frugivores), whose diet is mostly vegetarian. We're meant to live mostly, if not entirely, upon plant foods. Only vitamin B-12 cannot be obtained from plant foods.

Predators are found in nature, but so are cannibalism and rape. Killing other animals for food, in this sense, really is an ethical issue, not a "dietary" issue.

Keith Akers writes in A Vegetarian Sourcebook (1983): "There is no question that lacto-ovo-vegetarians easily obtain enough vitamin B-12; dairy products and eggs are generous suppliers of vitamin B-12. The controversy pertains only to those who live on plant foods and do not eat any animal foods at all--the 'total vegetarians' or 'vegans.'...The evidence shows, however, that there are numerous sources of vitamin B-12 other than animal foods, and that vitamin B-12 is not a particularly difficult vitamin to get. In short, the Great Vitamin B-12 Controversy, like the protein controversy, is largely generated by lack of information concerning already available research data.

"Only incredibly small quantities of vitamin B-12 are thought to be needed in the diet. According to the National Research Council, 3 micrograms daily will meet the body's requirements. but Victor Herbert, a noted authority on the subject, puts the requirement at 0.1 micrograms, making even the National Research Council's microscopic figure 30 times in excess of the actual need."

John Robbins, author of the Pulitzer Prize nominated Diet for a New America (1987), says that vitamin B-12 is found naturally around us: on the dirt on a carrot pulled out of the ground, in rainwater, etc., but we live in a sanitized society, removed from nature.

Keith Akers similarly observes:

"Vitamin B-12 has been found in rainwater and in many plant foods. In small quantities, Vitamin B-12 has been found either in or on various foods such as the roots and stems of tomatoes, cabbage, celery, kale, broccoli, leeks, and the leaves of kohlrabi. An ounce of the roots of leeks, beets, and other vegetables will provide 0.1 to 0.3 micrograms of B-12, which is more than a day's requirement.

"There are other plant foods which provide 'massive' quantities of vitamin B-12--'massive,' that is, in relation to human requirements for the vitamin. These include nutritional yeast, tempeh, seaweed, algae, kelp, and fermented soy sauces. The human liver can store vitamin B-12 for years, so once it is ingested from one of these sources, one can go for long periods of time without having to worry about a source of B-12."

In his 1979 book, Vegetarianism: A Way of Life, Dudley Giehl writes that some ancient Egyptian priests were vegetarian to help them with their vows of celibacy and that they avoided eggs and milk, which they called "liquid flesh." Giehl writes that Leonardo da Vinci was a vegan, out of ethical concern for animals.

In his 1923 book, The Natural Diet of Man, Adventist physician Dr. John Harvey Kellogg writes: "The Ladrone Islands were discovered by the Spaniards around 1620. There were no animals on the islands except birds, which the natives did not eat. The natives had never seen fire, and they lived entirely on plant foods--fruits and roots in their natural state. They were found to be vigorous, active, and of good longevity."

The Garden of Eden was vegan, but veganism as an historical trend is a fairly recent phenomenon. The Vegan Society was formed in England in 1944.

The ethical, environmental, and nutritional arguments are compelling enough to encourage millions of Americans to reduce, if not eliminate entirely, their consumption of animal products.

I have found that B-12 is quite easy to get in fortified soy products and multivitamins.  And I think B-12 is dosed on a weekly, not daily, basis, making it easier to get the right amount.

From the Mayo Clinic:  The human body stores several years' worth of vitamin B12, so nutritional deficiency of this vitamin is extremely rare.

http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/vitamin-B12/NS_patient-vitaminb12#68CEF2A3-E7FF-0DBD-14884AA482B07B11

"Global hunger could be directly attributed to meat-eating."  ---Chrissie Hynde

Half the world's population does not receive an adequate amount of food to eat.  Ten to twenty million die annually of hunger and its effects.  The Institute for Food and Development Policy reports that, "Forty thousand children starve to death on this planet every day," or one child every two seconds.

The livestock population of the United States today consumes enough grain and soybeans to feed over five times the entire human population of the country.   We feed these animals over 80% of the corn we grow, and over 95% of the oats.   Less than half the harvested agricultural acreage in the United States is used to grow food for people.  Most of it is used to grow livestock feed.

Ronald J. Sider of Evangelicals for Social Action, in his 1977 book, Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger, pointed out that 220 million Americans were eating enough food (largely because of the high consumption of grain-fed livestock) to feed over one billion people in the poorer countries.

The world's cattle alone, not to mention pigs and chickens, consume a quantity of food equal to the caloric needs of 8.7 billion people.  It takes 16 pounds of grain to produce one pound of beef.  According to Department of Agriculture statistics, one acre of land can grow 20,000 pounds of potatoes.  That same acre of land, if used to grow cattlefeed, can produce less than 165 pounds of beef.

In his book, The Hungry Planet, Georg Bergstrom points out that protein-starved underdeveloped nations export more protein to wealthy nations than they receive.  He calls this "the protein swindle."  Ninety percent of the world's fish meal catch, for example, is exported to rich countries.  One-third of Africa's peanut crop winds up in the stomachs of European livestock.  Half the world's cereal crop is fed to livestock and the United States annually imports one million tons of vegetable protein from Third World nations--just to feed its farm animals.

Bergstrom writes:

"Sometimes one wonders how many Americans and Western Europeans have grasped the fact that quite a few of their beef steaks, quarts of milk, dozens of eggs, and hundreds of broilers are the result, not of their agriculture, but of the approximately two million metric tons of protein, mostly of high quality, which astute Western businessmen channel away from the needy and hungry."

Jeremy Rifkin, author of a dozen influential books and President of the Foundation on Economic Trends, writes in his 1992 bestseller Beyond Beef:

"Cattle and other livestock are devouring much of the grain produced on the planet.  It need be emphasized that this is a new phenomenon, unlike anything ever experienced before.

"Contrary to popular belief, the poor are getting poorer each year...Increased poverty has meant increased malnutrition.  On the African continent, nearly one in every four human beings is malnourished.  In Latin America, nearly one out of every seven people goes to bed hungry each night.  In Asia and the Pacific, 28 percent of the people border on starvation, experiencing the gnawing pain of a perpetual hunger.

"In the Near East, one in ten people is underfed.  Chronic hunger now affects upwards of 1.3 billion people, according to the world Health Organization--a statistic all the more striking in a world where one third of all the grain produced is being fed to cattle and other livestock.  Never before in human history has such a large percentage of our species--nearly 25 percent--been malnourished.

"The transition of world agriculture from food grain to feed grains represents an...evil whose consequences may be far greater and longer lasting than any past examples of violence inflicted by men against their fellow human beings."

In the 1970s, the United Nations Secretary General said that the food consumption of the rich countries is the key cause of hunger around the world.  The United Nations has recommended that the wealthy nations cut down on their meat consumption.

The Worldwatch Institute has released a remarkable report entitled Taking Stock: Animal Farming and the Environment, which lists nation after nation where food deprivation has followed the switch from a grain-based diet to a meat-based one.

Most of the nations that now import grain from the United States were once self-sufficient in grain.  The main reason they aren't is the rise in meat production and consumption.

In Taiwan, for example, per capita consumption of meat and eggs increased 600 percent from 1950 to 1990.  With this change, vastly increased amounts of grain have gone to livestock, raising the annual per capita grain use in the country from 375 pounds to 858 pounds.  In 1950, Taiwan was a grain exporter; in 1990 the nation imported, mostly for feed, 74 percent of the grain it used.

In mainland China, the situation is similar.  Increased meat consumption has meant less grain available to feed people.  Since 1978, meat consumption has more than doubled, to twenty-four kilograms.  The share of Chinese grain fed to livestock rose from 7 percent in 1960 to 20 percent in 1990.

Over half Of Latin America's beef production is exported, and the rest is too expensive for any but the wealthy to purchase.  From 1960 to 1980 beef exports from El Salvador increases over sixfold.  Meanwhile, increasing numbers of small farmers lost their livelihood and were pushed off their land. Today, 72 percent of all Salvadoran infants are underfed.

In Brazil, major portions of the Amazon tropical rain forests have been destroyed so that wealthy multinational corporations can produce beef for the wealthy.   Corporations such as Volkswagen, Nestle, Mitsubishi, Liquigas, King Ranch, and Swift-Eckrich have bulldozed and burned literally hundreds of millions of acres, replacing the world's oldest and richest ecosystems, home to two million or more species of plant and animal life with a single crop--pasture grass for cattle.

And here, the beef produced has not gone to feed hungry Brazilians; it has been primarily exported to Western Europe, the Middle East, and North America.  In 1987, the United States imported three hundred million pounds of meat from countries in Central and South America.

With the help of international lending institutions, Brazil has mounted an enormous effort to increase agricultural production, but this has been primarily meat-oriented production and for export.  In the late '60s, soybeans were almost nonexistent or Brazil.  Today, this crop is the nation's number one export--but almost all of it goes to feed Japanese and European livestock.  Twenty five years ago, one third of the Brazilian population suffered from malnutrition.  Today, the figure has risen to two thirds.

Oxfam, the international charity, reports that in Brazil huge cattle ranches take up some of the most fertile soil in the whole country, yet 60 percent of Brazilians are malnourished.  Oxfam estimates that in Mexico, 80 percent of the children in rural areas are undernourished, yet the livestock are fed more grain than the human population eats!  The livestock are exported of course, to satisfy the developed nations' craving for cheap hamburgers.

In the early '60s, sorghum was almost unknown in Mexico.  But by 1980, it covered literally twice the acreage of wheat.  Sorghum isn't grown for humans.   It is fed to livestock.  In the late '60s, livestock consumed only 6 percent of Mexico's grain.  Today, the figure is over 50 percent.  This is a trend throughout the Third World.  Copying the United States' meat-oriented diet, these poor countries devote increasing percentages of their resources to meat production.

In Guatemala, 75 percent of the children under five years of age are undernourished.  Yet, every year Guatemala exports 40 million pounds of meat to the United States. It borders on the criminal!

In Costa Rica, beef production quadrupled between 1960 and 1980, but almost all this beef is exported to the United States, and what does stay in the country is eaten by a tiny minority.  Though more and more Costa Rican land is being turned over to meat production, the population is not eating more meat for the change.  The average family in Costa Rica eats less meat than the average American housecat.

Throughout Latin America, land availability is a prominent social issue.   Revolutionaries as well as reform-minded moderates have made land reform a major issue.  Yet in many Latin American countries, forests are being leveled in order to create pastures for cattle grazing land.

In a region where land availability is a central social issue, existing land is being gobbled up by livestock agriculture.   The resulting social tensions have resulted in civil wars, repression and violence.

Hunger is really a social disease caused by the unjust, inefficient and wasteful control of food.  Our food security is not being threatened by the prolific, hungry masses, but by elites that profit by the concentration and internationalization of control of food resources.

In country after country the pattern is repeated.  Livestock industries are consuming feed to such an extent that now almost all Third World nations must import grain.  Seventy-five percent of Third World imports of corn, barley, sorghum, and oats are fed to animals, not to people.  In country after country, the demand for meat among the rich is squeezing out staple production for the poor.

The same trend can be found in the Middle East and North Africa--increases in grain-fed livestock require more imported feed.  In the early '70s, Egypt was self-sufficient in grain.  Then, livestock ate only 10 percent of the nation's grain.  Today, livestock consume 36 percent of Egypt's grain.  As a result, Egypt must now import eight million tons of grain every year.

In the late '60s , Syria was a barley exporter.  But in the intervening years, livestock has consumed increasing amounts of the country's grain.   Now, despite a phenomenal 1,000 percent increase in the land area devoted to producing barley, Syria must import the cereal.

According to Buckminster Fuller, there are enough resources at present to feed, clothe, house and educate every human being on the planet at American middle class standards.  The Institute for Food and Development Policy has shown that there is no country in the world in which the people cannot feed themselves from their own resources.

And there is no correlation between land density and hunger.   China has twice as many people per cultivated acre as India, yet less of a hunger problem.  Bangladesh has just one-half the people per cultivated acre that Taiwan has, yet Taiwan has no starvation, while Bangladesh has one of the highest rates in the world.  The most densely populated countries in the world today are not India and Bangladesh, but Holland and Japan.

Many of us believe that hunger exists because there's not enough food to go around.  But as Frances Moore Lappe' and her anti-hunger organization Food First! have shown, the real cause of hunger is a scarcity of justice, not a scarcity of food.

Most of this discussion is silly.

humans have to eat animal foods for proper nutrition. Vegans, please educate yourselves. I used to be vegan, and it caused health problems. Yes, I ate a "healthy" vegan diet and did everything right. The problem is that the vegan theory is totally wrong. A good place to start is www.westonaprice.org.

But that doesnt mean that people have to eat factory farmed meat, which is terribly unhealthy. I dont eat it-never did and never will. I buy meat, milk and eggs from local farmers that treat their animals kindly and properly. they live on grass and are healthy.

Animal rights activists could have a powerful ally in the organic farming movement if they would cease with their shrill tiresome rhetoric about "animal liberation". There is a 3rd way, thats better for animals, environment, and humans. And that is to raise animals on pasture, where manure is recycled, and healthy animals foods are produced. Instead, there is an inane conversation taking place between those seeking to eliminate all animal foods, and those that think factory farming is "necessary". The third, and most logical solution is natural farming, as farming has been practiced for thousands of years.

Dont respond with nonsensical vegan nutrition theories. Veganism is garbage. Do your research, please.

I don't have time to respond to even a fraction of these comments, but two really frustrating, infuriating comments that keep getting repeated all over this blog and the Ideas for Change comments really need to stop.

1. Quit insisting that all AR advocates adhere to the philosophies and strategies of PETA and HSUS. Many of us do not. These two organizations may have money, and they may have visibility, but many of us will tell you that they do not speak for us. And the "Well, PETA says this" and "HSUS is doing this" arguments are tiresome.

2. Commenters who are intensely defensive of their animal-eating habits: quit telling vegans to do their research about the healthiness of a vegan diet and do some of your own. I know it's easy to find biased information to help you justify what you choose to--not must, but choose to--eat, but please lay off the ridiculous, condescending "do your research" remarks; try having a respectful instead of mocking conversation with some of the vegans on this comment thread, and you might find that many of them have done and continue to do the research.

And forgive me if, when deciding whether or not a vegan diet is healthy, I look to the many longtime vegans who are in excellent health and to the positions of such groups as the American Dietetic Association instead of assuming there's any sense or expertise to your defensive, self-serving lay opinions.

http://www.eatright.org/cps/rde/xchg/ada/hs.xsl/advocacy_933_ENU_HTML.htm

"A vegetarian, including vegan, diet can meet current recommendations for all of these nutrients. . . . Well-planned vegan and other types of vegetarian diets are appropriate for all stages of the life cycle, including during pregnancy, lactation, infancy, childhood and adolescence. Vegetarian diets offer a number of nutritional benefits, including lower levels of saturated fat, cholesterol, and animal protein as well as higher levels of carbohydrates, fiber, magnesium, potassium, folate, and antioxidants such as vitamins C and E and phytochemicals. Vegetarians have been reported to have lower body mass indices than nonvegetarians, as well as lower rates of death from ischemic heart disease; vegetarians also show lower blood cholesterol levels; lower blood pressure; and lower rates of hypertension, type 2 diabetes, and prostate and colon cancer."

Finally, I will likely close the comments soon because of how completely off-track this discussion has gone. If you have final thoughts, present them soon. (Clarification: If you have final thoughtful thoughts, present them soon. If you use this last call to just spout off something offensive, I'll just delete your comment.)

The presence of at least a million healthy vegans of all ages should allay any health concerns about a vegan diet. Most vegans I know are thriving. My wife and I get sick much less than our meat-eating friends.

Some people may have unusual nutritional requirements; we're not all the same. In those cases I would seek the advice of a dietician well-versed in vegan nutrition.

"Humane meat" is an illusion. I believe it is perpetuated by a) a wish that one may eat animals without consequence, b) fear of change. On "humane" farms:

- Laying hens come from hatcheries in which the male chicks are killed soon after they're born. Common methods of killing include gassing, suffocation, and being ground up alive. This is how we introduce 300 million baby chicks (in the U.S. alone) to the world each year.

- Hens are forced to lay 250-300 eggs per year, rather than the 20 laid by their wild ancestors. This takes a tremendous toll on their bodies. When the hens' "productivity" starts to drop, at around two years old, they're killed.

- On dairy farms, one-day old baby calves are stolen from their mothers, so that humans - who don't need dairy - can have all the milk.

- Dairy cows are forced to produce up to 10 times their normal output of milk. This greatly increases the incidence of painful mastitis infections. It also robs the cows' bodies of calcium and other nutrients. On organic farms, the cows may suffer even more, because they're not given antibiotics to treat their infections.

- Dairy cows are kept constantly pregnant, starting at a little over one year old, until the end of their abbreviated lives. In the wild, they'd have their first calf around 4 years old.

- When dairy cows' output starts to drop, around 4 or 5 years old (the equivalent of young adulthood), they're killed. Often they are pregnant, and they are always lactating. Thus, their milk, and their blood and the blood of their fetus spills on the slaughterhouse floor.

- Modern "brolier" chickens are engineered to be so top-heavy and grow so fast that they commonly die of heart attacks when only a few weeks old. Or they fall over and cannot get up, and die of dehydration even if within inches of water. They are killed when 7 weeks old.

- Turkeys, also engineered to have huge bodies (due to demand for "white meat") suffer similar problems. The frequently develop painful arthritis and congestive heart and lung disease. They are killed at 14-20 weeks old.

- Animals are castrated and dehorned without painkillers. They may have tails, toes, and other body parts partially amputated without painkillers, also.

- The parents of the farmed animals live their lives in breeding facilities that are typically filthy, intensely crowded, impoverished, and generally horrible.

- Animals are typically starved for one to four days before slaughter, as a cost-saving measure.

- Farmed animals are nearly always transported in horrid, crowded conditions, and are given no food or water regardless of the temperature or duration of the trip. Death during transport is a known "cost of doing business" in animal agriculture.

- Slaughterhouses are filled with violence.

Rather than trying to finagle ways to exploit animals without guilt, be as compassionate as possible and go vegan. I think in our heart of hearts we don't want to cause avoidable harm. Veganism is about refraining from causing avoidable harm.

These days, there is a plethora of delicious, satisfying, diverse, and healthy vegan food, recipes, support groups, and advice sites. And the choices only get better as more people try veganism. Visit www.tryveg.com, www.goveg.com, and www.choosveg.com for some ideas on how to start this non-violent lifestyle. For no-nonsense vegan health information, visit www.veganhealth.org. To "veganize" your favorite meals, simply type in "vegan recipe" followed by the recipe or food, in any search engine. For inspiration, check out the positive, engaging podcasts at www.compassionatecooks.com. Or check out this 4-minute video about a cow who escaped the slaughterhouse: http://tinyurl.com/254r2p. Visit a farmed animal sanctuary - meet the animals, learn their stories, maybe even volunteer. Spread your circle of compassion as widely as possible and you'll never regret it. Good luck!

Mark (and others who say that we humans are omnivores and eating meat is "natural") -

This is an indoctrinated viewpoint - if you repeat any lie long enough, people will believe it. Cows on today's dairies eat huge quantities of meat (fish meal, chicken meal, etc) to make them give more milk - they grow used to eating meat just like we do, who are forced as they are to eat it. Do they have the dentition of meat-eaters? As much as we do! We have a jaw that is hinged to provide side to side movement, just like cows and other herbivores; not the jaws of ominivores (bears, etc) that are hinged just for up and down movement. Same with our saliva, teeth, circulatory system, disgestive acids, etc. A gorilla will NEVER eat animal flesh, dairy products, or eggs in the wild, but Koko, now adopted and living in California, eats hamburgers and hot dogs because that's what she's fed. She has much larger canine teeth than we humans could dream of, too!!
Please stop with the absurdities that we are omnivorous by nature. We are all forced into it from birth by a culture that is devastating the Earth, animals, and people.
As Voltaire said, If we believ absurdities, we will commit atrocities.
Veganism is not just a "point of view," like other points of view. It is the ancient wisdom of ahimsa or non-violence, that we will never have peace or happiness or understanding as long as we harm others. We have all been born into a culture that forces us into a mentality of violence, reductionism, disconnectedness, and exclusion, and into daily meal rituals that inject this mentality into our behavior and into every dimension of our thinking.
Meat-eating is just indoctrination into disease and war and arrogance. Blessed are the meek and merciful and humble who allow animals their lives and question the violence exploding in slaughterhouses, restaurants, kitchens, and hospitals.
We CAN be the change we long to see in this world!

By the way, I've been a vegan for 28 years and have never been to the doctor in all those years. Everywhere I go I hear, over and over again from vegans I meet that when they went vegan, they found they had a lot more energy, inner peace, and mental clarity. Some feel worse at the beginning because they are cleaning out, but after that, it only stands to reason that as we live with kindness and joy, we feel healthier. That is one of the side benefits of veganism.

And also, by the way: eating a plant-based diet for health reasons is NOT veganism! There is only one reason to go vegan: out of compassion to animals. The man who coined the word vegan in 1944, Donald Watson, said: "Veganism is a philosophy and way of life which seeks to exclude, as far as possible and practical, all forms of exploitation of and cruelty to animals for food, clothing, or any other purpose." Veganism is not about personal health or purity, it is about ethical living and blessing others. As we bless others, we will be blessed.

There are many reasons to respect all life on this planet, the most simplest is kindness, compassion and common sense.  Some do it for health reasons, some do it for religious reasons.  Personally, my reasons for becoming vegetarian 16 years ago, then vegan 2 years ago, are complex - very much including ahimsa, buddhism & yogic practices.  The flesh of another living being will not enter my body becuase I believe truly that compassion is the right choice. 

Clarity of mind, calmness of temperment & health of my body have been wonderful side effects.  My 7-year-old son is a lacto-ovo-vegetarian (again, complex reasons I chose to raise him this way which I won't get into in this forum).  Actually, the only "dairy" he eats is dairy cheese - he only drinks soy milk.  Someday, he will make his own food choices AND the benefit of beginning life with a healthy diet not littered with saturated fats, cholesterol & sugar.  His pediatrician has applauded my choice & given me the support I need to counter any arguments as to why my child (who falls int he 75%ile height and 60%ile weight) is thriving on a vegetarian diet.  He

Choosing compassion shouldn't need to be defended.  I know that there are people out there who make it appear that the majority of vegans & ARs are violent, self-serving, sanctimonious zealots, but most of us just live our lives quietly, peacefully, and as hamoniously as we can.  

Most vegans ARE very well-educated on not only the benefits of a vegan diet, but the practicality of it as well.  I probably know more about what goes into producing a gallon of milk than most people who blindly buy it from the dairy case, I know more about production, pesticides & transport used in producing the veggies I eat than someone who shops at Wal-Mart, I know more about vitamins, supplements, complete proteins, etc. than someone who says meat is the only place to get B12. 

I've spent more time & energy researching than most people I know, and my conclusion is that veganism is the healthiest way for me to eat - physically, mentally, spiritually.  I make my own informed choices.

I just wanted to thank Stephanie for this article, and although many of the comments have gone off track (and I apologize if that includes mine) I think it's a testament to how important animal rights has become to so many people. The article was about the attacks on animal rights activists that indeed have become tiresome, and we had many examples of them in these comments. The vehement attacks on animal rights activists and veganism, many times unfounded, uninformed and with little actual evidence to back them, are a sign that those who defend the rights of all animals on this beautiful planet are gaining serious momentum.

There is a plethora of information in these comments about why animal rights activists do what they do, about the horrors that million of animals face every single day. For FOOD alone, over 50 billion animals are mutilated, tortured and killed every year. If that is not a sign that "We have all been born into a culture that forces us into a mentality of violence, reductionism, disconnectedness, and exclusion, and into daily meal rituals that inject this mentality into our behavior and into every dimension of our thinking," (Dr. Will Tuttle, see comment above) then I don't know what is. And although some of the arguments in favor of humane farming (killing is not humane and no animal, no matter how broken, does not fight for his or her life when threatened with death) are made somewhat respectfully, there is not enough 'pasture,' on this planet, not by a long shot, to humanely raise and kill 50 billion animals a year. The wealthy defend their rights to buy expensive 'humanely' raised meat and dairy while millions of people starve to death every year.

Thank you for all of the information and sources. I have a huge list of books I need to read now. The more educated I become, the stronger my arguments. The stronger my arguments, the more violent the attacks and the threats will become (but I'm the terrorist? See comments above by anti animal rights people). The unfounded, desparate attacks and the crack downs, the imprisonment and the laws which take away our rights to free speech, these are typical of any justice movement which is gaining strenght.

Lastly, I wanted to second Stephanie's concluding statements

"This struggle on behalf of nonhuman animals is about love and compassion and living in a way that is peaceful and just and without contradictions. It's about opening our eyes and hearts to the possibility of a new and better world, new and better not just for the nonhuman animals on this planet, but for us too."

and Dr. Will Tuttle's comments:

"Veganism is not about personal health or purity, it is about ethical living and blessing others. As we bless others, we will be blessed."

Veganism and animal rights in general is about non-violence, love and compassion, about choosing to protest the violent culture which we are all born into. It is about respecting the rights of all to life, liberty and happiness, and thus validating our own rights to these things. A way of life which embraces the rights of all creatures, all earthlings, based in compassion and empathy and doing what's right, will undoubtedly have many far-reaching positive consequences, as we already know that it does. And we will reach more people every day.

The Bible supports the vegetarian way of life.

According to the Bible, God intended the entire human race to follow a vegetarian diet (Genesis 1:29). Paradise is vegetarian. Rashi (Rabbi Solomon von Isaac, 1030-1105), the famous Jewish Bible commentator, taught that "God did not permit Adam and his wife to kill a creature and to eat its flesh. Only every green herb shall they all eat together." Ibn Ezra and other Jewish biblical commentators agree.

According to the Talmud, "Adam and many generations that followed him were strict flesh-abstainers; flesh-foods were rejected as repulsive for human consumption." Although man was made in God's image and given dominion over all creation (Genesis 1:26-28), these verses do not justify humans killing animals and devouring them, because God immediately proclaims He created the plants for human consumption. (Genesis 1:29)

In a letter to Pope John Paul II, challenging him on the issue of animal experimentation, Dr. Michael Fox of the Humane Society argued that the word "dominion" is derived from the original Hebrew word "rahe" which refers to compassionate stewardship, instead of power and control. Parents have dominion over their children; they do not have a license to kill, torment or abuse them. The Talmud (Shabbat 119; Sanhedrin 7) interprets "dominion" to mean animals may be used for labor.

Man was made in God's image (Genesis 1:26) and told to be vegetarian (Genesis 1:29). "And God saw all that He had made and saw that it was very good." (Genesis 1:31) Complete and perfect harmony. Everything in the beginning was the way God wanted it. Vegetarianism was part of God's initial plan for the world.

"It appears that the first intention of the Maker was to have men live on a strictly vegetarian diet," writes Rabbi Simon Glazer, in his 1971 Guide to Judaism. "The very earliest periods of Jewish history are marked with humanitarian conduct towards the lower animal kingdom...It is clearly established that the ancient Hebrews knew, and perhaps were the first among men to know, that animals feel and suffer pain."

After the Flood, God revised His commandment against flesh-eating. Human beings, since eating of the forbidden fruit, seemed incapable of obedience on this issue. One Jewish writer comments, "Only after man had proven unfit for the high moral standard given at the beginning, was meat made a part of the humans' diet."

A Jewish legend says Moses was found to be righteous by God through his shepherding. While Moses was tending his sheep of Jethro in the Midian wilderness, a young kid ran away from the flock. Moses ran after it until he found the kid drinking by a pool of water. Moses approached the kid and said, "I did not know that you ran away because you were thirsty; now, you must be tired." So Moses placed the animal on his shoulders and carried him back to the flock. God said, "Because thou has shown mercy in leading the flock, thou will surely tend My flock, Israel."

In their book, The Nine Questions People Ask About Judaism, Dennis Prager and Rabbi Telushkin explain:  "Keeping kosher is Judaism's compromise with its ideal vegetarianism.  Ideally, according to Judaism, man would confine his eating to fruits and vegetables and not kill animals for food.

In his excellent A Guide to the Misled, Rabbi Shmuel Golding explains the orthodox Jewish position concerning animal sacrifices:  "When G-d gave our ancestors permission to make sacrifices to Him, it was a concession, just as when He allowed us to have a king (I Samuel 8), but He gave us a whole set of rules and regulations concerning sacrifice that, when followed, would be superior to and distinct from the sacrificial system of the heathens."

Some biblical passages denounce animal sacrifice (Isaiah 1:11,15; Amos 5:21-25).  Other passages state that animal sacrifices, not necessarily incurring God's wrath, are unnecessary (I Kings 15:22; Jeremiah 7:21-22; Hosea 6:6; Hosea 8:13; Micah 6:6-8; Psalm 50:1-14; Psalm 40:6; Proverbs 21:3; Ecclesiastes 5:1).

Sometimes Christians cite Isaiah 1:11, where God says, "I am full of the burnt offerings..."  They say the word "full" implies God accepted the sacrifices.  However, in Isaiah 43:23-24, God says:  "You have not honored Me with your sacrifices...rather you have burdened Me with your sins, you have wearied Me with your iniquities."  This suggests, as Moses Maimonides taught and Rabbi Shmuel Golding confirms above, that "the sacrifices were a concession to barbarism."

Jesus taught his disciples to pray for the coming of God's kingdom (Matthew 6:9-10), the kingdom of peace, in which the entire world is restored to a vegetarian paradise (Genesis 1:29; Isaiah 11:6-9).  Recalling Psalm 37:11, he blessed the meek, saying they would inherit the earth.  (Matthew 5:5)  The kingdom of God belongs to the gentle and kind (Matthew 5:7-9)  Christians are to "Be merciful, just as your Father is also merciful."  (Luke 6:36)  Those who take up the sword must perish by the sword.  (Matthew 26:52)

Jesus repeatedly spoke of God's tender care for the nonhuman creation (Matthew 6:26-30, 10:29-31; Luke 12:6-7, 24-28).   Jesus taught that God desires "mercy and not sacrifice."  (Matthew 9:10-13, 12:6-7; Mark 2:15-17; Luke 5:29-32)  The epistle to the Hebrews 10:5-10 suggests that Jesus did not come to abolish the Law and the prophets (which Paul regarded as "so much garbage"), but only the institution of animal sacrifice, as does Jesus' cleansing the Temple of those who were buying and selling animals for sacrifice and his overturning the tables of the moneychangers in the Temple.  (Matthew 21:12-14; Mark 11:15-17; Luke 19:45-46; John 2:14-17)

Jesus not only repeatedly upheld Mosaic Law (Matthew 5:17-19; Mark 10:17-22; Luke 16:17), he justified his healing on the Sabbath by referring to commandments calling for the humane treatment of animals.

When teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath, Jesus healed a woman who had been ill for eighteen years.  He justified his healing work on the Sabbath by referring to biblical passages calling for the humane treatment of animals as well as their rest on the Sabbath.  "So ought not this woman, being a daughter of Abraham...be loosed from this bond on the Sabbath?" Jesus asked.  (Luke 13:10-16)

On another occasion, Jesus again referred to Torah teaching on "tsa'ar ba'alei chayim" or compassion for animals to justify healing on the Sabbath.  "Which of you, having a donkey or an ox that has fallen into a pit, will not immediately pull him out on the Sabbath day?"  (Luke 14:1-5)

Jesus compared saving sinners who had gone astray from God's kingdom to rescuing lost sheep.  He recalled a Jewish legend about Moses' compassion as a shepherd for his flock.

"For the Son of Man has come to save that which was lost.  What do you think?  Who among you, having a hundred sheep, if he loses one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness, and go after the one which is lost until he finds it?

"And when he has found it," Jesus continued, "he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing.  And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors saying to them, 'Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost!'

"I say to you, likewise there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine just persons who need no repentance...there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents."  (Matthew 18:11-13; Luke 15:3-7,10)

Jesus insisted upon the moral standards given by God in the beginning (Matthew 5:31-32, 19:3-9; Mark 10:2-12; Luke 16:18), and this did not go  unnoticed by early church fathers such as St. Jerome.

From history, too, we learn that the earliest Christians were vegetarians as well as pacifists.  For example, Clemens Prudentius, the first Christian hymn writer, in one of his hymns exhorts his fellow Christians not to pollute their hands and hearts by the slaughter of innocent cows and sheep, and points to the variety of nourishing and pleasant foods obtainable without blood-shedding.

Some of the most distinguished figures in the history of Christianity have been vegetarian.  A partial list includes:  St. James, St. Matthew, Clemens Prudentius, Origen, Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria, St. Basil, St. Jerome, St. John Chrysostom, St. Benedict, Aegidius, Boniface, St. Richard of Wyche, St. Columba, St. Filipo Neri, John Wray, Thomas Tryon, John Wesley, Joshua Evans, William Metcalfe, General William Booth, Ellen White, Dr. John Harvey Kellogg, and Reverend V.A. Holmes-Gore.

Reverend Marc Wessels of the International Network for Religion and Animals (INRA) writes:

"The most important teaching which Jesus shared was the need for people to love God with their whole self and to love their neighbor as they loved themselves.  Jesus expanded the concept of neighbor to include those who were normally excluded, and it is therefore not too farfetched for us to consider the animals as our neighbors.

"To think about animals as our brothers and sisters is not a new or radical idea.  By extending the idea of neighbor, the love of neighbor includes love of, compassion for, and advocacy of animals.  There are many historical examples of Christians who thought along those lines, besides the familiar illustration of St. Francis.  An abbreviated listing of some of those individuals worthy of study and emulation includes Saint Blaise, Saint Comgall, Saint Cuthbert, Saint Gerasimus, Saint Giles, and Saint Jerome, to name but a few."

According to contemporary Benedictine monk, Brother David Steindl-Rast:

"...the survival of our planet depends on our sense of belonging---to all other humans, to dolphins caught in dragnets, to pigs and chickens and calves raised in animal concentration camps, to redwoods and rainforests, to kelp beds in our oceans, and to the ozone layer."

In a sermon preached in York Minster, September 28, 1986, John Austin Baker, the Bishop of Salisbury, England, attacked the overcrowded confinement methods of raising and killing animals for food ("factory farming"), choosing as his example, the treatment of chickens:

"Is there any credit balance for the battery hen, denied almost all natural functioning, all normal environment, lapsing steadily into deformity and disease, for the whole of her existence?" he asked.  "It is in the battery shed and the broiler house, not in the wild, that we find the true parallel to Auschwitz.  Auschwitz is a purely human invention."

Rick Dunkerly of Christ Lutheran Church says:

"The Bible-believing Christian, should, of all people, be on the frontline in the struggle for animal welfare and rights.  We who are Christians should be treating the animal creation now as it will be treated then, at Christ's second coming. It will not now be perfect, but it must be substantial, otherwise we have missed our calling, and we grieve the One we call 'Lord,' who was born in a stable surrounded by animals simply because He chose it that way."

Rose Evans, editor and publisher of Harmony:  Voices for a Just Future, a "consistent-ethic" periodical on the religious Left, says there are more Christian vegetarians than Jewish vegetarians.  Yet some people still react to the idea of Christian vegetarianism as though it were an oxymoron.

"Every year," says Reverend Andrew Linzey, author of Christianity and the Rights of Animals, "I receive hundreds of anguished letters from Christians who are so distressed by the insensitivity to animals shown by mainstream churches that they have left them or are on the verge of doing so...The time is long overdue to take the issue of animal rights to the churches...

"I derive hope from the Gospel preaching that the same God who draws us to such affinity and intimacy with suffering creatures declared that reality on a Cross in Calvary.  Unless all Christian preaching has been utterly mistaken, the God who becomes incarnate and crucified is the one who has taken the side of the oppressed and the suffering of the world--however the churches may actually behave."

Stephanie, if I were not at work right now, I would be standing and applauding your incredibly well-written, insightful and touching article.

I am new to this site and have read only a bit of your writing (I'm also a writer/vegan/animal advocate/animal activist/musician).  I really like what I see so far and hope to see more inspired and inspiring writing!

I've often thought that, if I were in the habit of walking down the street and slapping children on the back of the head, I would catch less criticism than I do on a DAILY basis for simply making what I consider to be the compassionate choice to live a vegan lifestyle.  It's mind-boggling, really, but it seems to come with the choice so I accept it as best I can, with humor (when I can... sometimes sarcasm is the very best I can muster) and as much dignity as possible.

I long for the day when we cease to have to CREATE humane societies and instead simply choose to live as one.Peace,Keith

Well Put! :-)

Using as few words as possible, I too would like to say thank you Stephanie, and sorry for going off track.

The Bible contains numerous examples of conflict situations that are directly attributable to the practice of raising livestock, including contested water rights, bitter competition for grazing areas, and friction between agriculturalists and nomadic herdsmen.  The more settled agricultural communities deeply resented the intrusion of nomadic tribes with their large herds of cattle, sheep, and goats.  These animals were considered a menace.  Aside from the threat to the crops themselves, large herds of livestock caused much damage to the general quality of the land as a result of over grazing.

It was ostensibly for this reason that the Philistines, whose primary agricultural pursuits were corn and orchards, sought to discourage nomadic herdsmen from using their territory by filling in many of the wells in the surrounding area.  One of the earliest accounts of strife among the herdsmen themselves is found in the story of Lot and Abram:

"And Lot also, which went with Abram, had flocks, and herds, and tents.   And the land was not able to bear them, that they might dwell together; for their substance was great, so that they could not dwell together.  And there was a strife between the herdmen of Abram's cattle and the herdmen of Lot's cattle."   (Genesis 13:5-7)

Abram moved Westward to a region known as Canaan, while Lot journeyed to the east, finally settling in Sodom.  Such peaceful agreements, however, were not always possible.  There are several references in the Bible to clashes between the Israelites and Midianites.  The Midianites were wealthy Bedouin traders who owned large numbers of livestock, as did the Israelites, who brought their herds with them when they left Egypt.

Livestock require vast areas of land for grazing.  They also need water, which has never been abundant in that region of the world.  The strain thus placed on the land's resources is mentioned in Judges 6:4: "And they encamped against them, and destroyed the increase of the earth."

The depletion of resources created by the people arid livestock moving into this territory is described in Judges 6:5 by a singularly appropriate simile: "For they came up with their cattle and their tents, and they came as grasshoppers."   Another passage informs us that after a particularly vicious battle with the Midianites the Israelites augmented their herds with the livestock of their slain captives.  This included 675,000 sheep and more than 72,000 beeves.

A strikingly frank reference to the casual relationship between flesh eating and war, in terms of land use, is found in Deuteronomy 12:20: "When the Lord thy God shall enlarge thy border, as he hath promised thee, and thou shalt say, 'I will eat flesh,' because thy soul longeth to eat flesh; thou mayest eat flesh, whatsoever thy soul lusteth after." (See also Numbers 31:32-33)

A similar straightforward reference to the relationship between flesh eating and war can be found in Plato's Republic.  In a dialogue with Glaucon, Socrates extols the peace and happiness what come to people eating a vegetarian diet: "And with such a diet they may be expected to live in peace and health to a good old age, and bequeath a similar life to their children after them."

Glaucon remains skeptical that people would be satisfied with such fare.  He asserts that people will desire the "ordinary conveniences of life," including animal flesh.  Socrates then proceeds to stock the once ideal state with swineherds, huntsmen, and "cattle in great number."  The dialogue continues:

"...and there will be animal's of many other kinds, if people eat them?"

"Certainly."

"And living in this way we shall have much greater need of physicians than before? "

"Much greater."


"And the country which was enough to support the original inhabitants will be too small now, and not enough?"

"Quite true."

"Then a slice of our neighbor's land will be wanted by us for pasture and tillage, and they will want a slice of ours, if, like ourselves, they exceed the limit of necessity, and give themselves up to the unlimited accumulation of wealth?"

"That, Socrates, will be inevitable."

"And so we shall go to war, Glaucon.  Shall we not?"

"Most certainly," Glaucon replies.

Critics of Plato, reading the rest of the Republic, have complained that what Plato gives us is a militaristic or proto-fascist state, with censorship and a rigidly controlled economy.  Plato would hardly disagree with these critics; what they have overlooked is that the state which he describes is not his idea--it is merely a consequence of Glaucon's requirements which Socrates himself disavows.  Greed for meat, among other things, produced the character of the second state Plato describes.

The history of the European spice trade would seem to suggest that there is indeed a relationship between war and large-scale consumer demand for foods not required by what Plato refers to as "natural want."  Spices were of vital importance to meat preparation before the process of mechanical refrigeration was developed in the 20th century, meat was usually preserved by the process of salting.  Using various combinations of spices to offset the saltiness of meat, thus making it palatable, became a popular practice in medieval Europe.

The demand for spices was a significant factor in European colonial endeavors.   Competition intensified, contributing to the exacerbation of serious disputes that already existed among various European nations.  Efforts in the 17th and 18th centuries by the Dutch, Portuguese, English and French to expand their spice trade resulted in warfare, as well as the subjugation of native peoples by these imperialist powers.

In 1992, members of Los Angeles' First Unitarian Church agreed to serve vegetarian meals at the church's weekly Sunday lunch.  Their decision was made as a protest against animal cruelty and the environmental damage caused by the livestock industry.

The realization that meat is an unnecessary luxury, resulting in inequities in the world food supply has prompted religious leaders in different Christian denominations to call on their members to abstain from meat on certain days of the week.  Paul Moore, Jr., the Episcopal Bishop of the Diocese of New York, made such an appeal in a November, 1974 pastoral letter calling for the observance of "meatless Wednesdays."

A similar appeal had previously been issued by Cardinal Cooke, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of New York.  The Reverend Eugene Carson Blake, former head of the World Council of Churches and founder of Bread for the World, has encouraged everyone in his organization to abstain from eating meat on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.

Father Thomas Berry, a Catholic priest, author, and founder of the Riverdale Center of Religious Research in New York, wrote in 1987 that "vegetarianism is a way of life that we should all move toward for economic survival, physical well-being, and spiritual integrity."

"Is this not the fast I have chosen?  To loosen the chains of wickedness, to undo the bonds of oppression, and to let the oppressed go free?  Is it not to share thy bread with the hungry, sheltering the oppressed and the homeless?   Clothing the naked when you see them, and not turning your back on your own."

---Isaiah 58:6-8

The Reverend Marc Wessels, Executive Director of the International Network for Religion and Animals made these Observations on Earth Day 1990:

"It is a fact that no significant social reform has yet taken place in this country without the voice of the religious community being heard.  The endeavors of the abolition of slavery; the women's suffrage movement; the emergence of the pacifist tradition during World War I; the struggles to support civil rights, labor unions, and migrant farm workers; and the anti-nuclear and peace movements have all succeeded in part because of the power and support of organized religion.  Such authority and energy is required by individual Christians and the institutional church today if the liberation of animals is to become a reality."

"1. Quit insisting that all AR advocates adhere to the philosophies and strategies of PETA and HSUS. Many of us do not. These two organizations may have money, and they may have visibility, but many of us will tell you that they do not speak for us. And the "Well, PETA says this" and "HSUS is doing this" arguments are tiresome."

I didn't insist anything of the sort. If you do not adhere to their philosophies, and they do not speak for you, then don't give them any of your money.

If you do not adhere to their philosophies, and they do not speak for you, yet you give them money, then your actions do not agree with your words. Actions speak louder than words.

On what basis have we arbitrarily decreed that only humans can have rights and other animals cannot? Is it because most members of the human species possess a higher level of intelligence than most animals? Then why do we protect mentally defective humans? Isn’t this a personal, or rather, an anthropomorphic prejudice?

In his book, Christianity and the Rights of Animals, the Reverend Andrew Linzey, an Anglican priest, writes:

"It does seem somewhat disingenuous for Christians to speak so solidly for human rights and then query the appropriateness of rights language when it comes to animals. The most consistent position is that of Raymond Frey, who opposes all claims for rights from a philosophical perspective, or that of Christians who consistently refrain from all such language."

According to Reverend Linzey:

"Raymond Frey, that dedicated opponent of rights theory, has sadly to conclude that ‘we cannot, without the appeal to benefit, justify (painful) animal experiments without justifying (painful) human experiments.’

"Frey accepts this even though he justifies experimentation on animals. Again, ‘The case for anti-vivisectionism, I think, is far stronger than most people allow,’ he writes. Alas, Frey does not seem to regard it as sufficiently strong to oppose experiments on animals or humans."

Roman Catholic Cardinal John Henry Newman (1801-90), wrote in 1870 that “cruelty to animals is as if a man did not love God.”  On another occasion, he asked:

“Now what is it that moves our very heart and sickens us so much at cruelty shown to poor brutes?  I suppose this:  first, that they have done us no harm; next, that they have no power whatever of resistance; it is the cowardice and tyranny of which they are the victims which make their sufferings so especially touching...there is something so very dreadful, so satanic, in tormenting those who have never harmed us and who cannot defend themselves; who are utterly in our power.”

Cardinal Newman compared injustices against animals to the sacrifice, agony and death of Christ upon the cross:

“Think of your feelings at cruelty practiced upon brute animals and you will gain the sort of feeling which the history of Christ’s cross and passion ought to excite within you.  And let me add, this is in all cases one good use to which you may turn any...wanton and unfeeling acts shown towards the...animals; let them remind you, as a picture of Christ’s sufferings.  He who is higher than the angels, deigned to humble Himself even to the state of the brute creation...”

Another cardinal, Henry Edward Manning (1808-92), spoke out against cruelty to animals, especially experimentation upon animals.  In a letter dated July 13, 1891, he wrote:  “We owe ourselves the duty not to be brutal or cruel; and we owe to God the duty of treating all His creatures according to His own perfections of love and mercy.”

Bishop Westcott wrote, “Animals are in our power in a peculiar sense; they are committed by God to our sovereignty and we owe them a considerate regard for their rights.  No animal life can be treated as a THING.  Willful disrespect of the sanctities of physical life in one sphere bears its fruit in other and higher spheres.”

Cardinal Francis Bourne (1861-1934) told children in Westminster Cathedral in April 1931:  “There is even in kindness to animals a special merit in remembering that this kindness is obligatory upon us because God made the animals, and is therefore their creator, and, in a measure, His Fatherhood extends to them.” 

Cardinal Arthur Hinsley (1865-1943), the former archbishop of Westminster, wrote that “the spirit of St. Francis is the Catholic spirit.”  According to Cardinal Hinsley, “Cruelty to animals is the degrading attitude of paganism.”

In his 1957 book, The Status of Animals in the Christian Religion, author C.W. Hume wrote that the catechism children use for their first Communion and for their confirmation in France contains the answer, “it is not permissible for me to cause suffering to animals without good reason, to hurt them unnecessarily is an act of cruelty.” 

British Jesuit Father John Bligh observed, “A man is not likely to be much of a Christian if he is not kind to animals.”

A Roman Catholic priest, Msgr. LeRoy E. McWilliams of North Arlington, New Jersey, testified in October 1962 in favor of legislation to reduce the sufferings of laboratory animals.  He told congressional representatives:

“The first book of the Bible tell us that God created the animals and the birds, so they have the same Father as we do.  God’s Fatherhood extends to our ‘lesser brethren.’  All animals belong to God; He alone is their absolute owner.  In our relations with them, we must emulate the divine attributes, the highest of which is mercy.  God, their Father and Creator, loves them tenderly.  He lends them to us and adjures us to use them as He Himself would do."”

Msgr. McWilliams also issued a letter to all seventeen thousand Catholic pastors in the United States, calling upon them to understand “what Christianity imposes on humans as their clear obligation to animals.”

Christian writer C.S. Lewis noted that animals were included in the first Passover.  The application of the “blood of the lamb” on the doorposts, not only saved a man and his family from death that night in Egypt, it saved his animals as well.  Lewis put forth a rational argument concerning the resurrection of animals in The Problem of Pain.  His 1947 essay, “A Case for Abolition,” attacked vivisection (animal experimentation) and reads as follows:

“Once the old Christian idea of a total difference in kind between man and beast has been abandoned, then no argument for experiments on animals can be found which is not also an argument for experiments on inferior men.  If we cut up beasts simply because they cannot prevent us and because we're backing up our own side in the struggle for existence, it is only logical to cut up imbeciles, criminals, enemies, or capitalists for the same reason.  Indeed, experiments on men have already begun.  We all hear that Nazi scientists have done them.  We all suspect that our own scientists may begin to do so, in secret, at any moment.

“The victory of vivisection marks a great advance in the triumph of ruthless, non-moral utilitarianism over the old world of ethical law; a triumph in which we, as well as animals, are already the victims, and of which Dachau and Hiroshima mark the more recent achievements.  In justifying cruelty to animals we put ourselves also on the animal level.  We choose the jungle and must abide by our choice.”

Stephanie said:
  "1. Quit insisting that all AR advocates adhere to the philosophies and strategies of PETA and HSUS. Many of us do not. These two organizations may have money, and they may have visibility, but many of us will tell you that they do not speak for us. And the "Well, PETA says this" and "HSUS is doing this" arguments are tiresome." 

  That comment is like saying, "quit assuming that because I say I'm a vegan, I don't eat meat." 
  If you claim to be an AR advocate then people are going to assume that you adhere to the philosophies and strategies of the AR movement.  If you don't want that assumption made, then don't identify yourself as an AR advocate. 
  

Just because someone is a vegan doesn't mean they have to belong to PeTA or HSUS.

Just because someone believes in Jesus doesn't mean they belong to [insert Christian denomination] Church. 

People have the right to belong to or denounce organizations that do or do not speak for them. 

I don't know how much clearer I can make this. I am a part of the AR movement. But PETA/HSUS and the AR movement are not one and the same. PETA and HSUS are well-known organizations, but there are dozens more grassroots organizations and countless individual activists who operate in completely different ways. Your erroneous assumption is your problem.

Lisa, that frustrated comment was obviously not directed at you. I hadn't seen your (gentler, more elegant) remarks yet. : ) If I had, I just would have let your better way of responding stand alone.

. . . and if you don't support the philosophies and strategies of the Black Panthers, the ACLU, and MLK Jr., all at the same time, since they're all the same thing, then don't identify yourself as a civil rights advocate.

. . . and if you don't support the World Wildlife Fund, don't identify yourself as a wildlife defender.

. . . and if you don't believe that homosexuality is a sin, as the Bible states, then don't identify as a Christian.

Huh?

Maybe I'm taking Cynthia's post the wrong way, but my impression is that she's saying that PETA and HSUS (which have completely different philosophies and strategies actually) represent THE philosophies and strategies of "THE AR movement," whatever that is. I actually do not identify with either HSUS or PETA, which are the largest, most prominent organizations representing the 'animal welfare movement,' and the 'animal rights movement' respectively. However, I reserve the right to identify as someone who advocates for the rights of animals. Call me crazy. Oh, wait, that's been done.

This is absurd.  If I'm wrong, perhaps a response that contains more than ill-founded rhetoric is in order?

And I hadn't seen Lisa or Stephanie's responses when I was writing mine. Funny that we all jumped on that one and all said very similar things.

Stephanie!  You're fine!  In fact, you said it quite well!! 

Annie - how funny we thought the same thing!

Let's just be really nice to the animals before we devour and wear them ok?

From

"The Comparative Anatomy of Eating", by Milton R. Mills, MD

Which category are humans most suited for?

*Facial Muscles*
CARNIVORE: Reduced to allow wide mouth gape
OMNIVORE: Reduced
HERBIVORE: Well-developed
HUMAN: Well-developed

*Jaw Type*
CARNIVORE: Angle not expanded
HERBIVORE: Expanded angle
OMNIVORE: Angle not expanded
HUMAN: Expanded angle

*Jaw Joint Location*
CARNIVORE: On same plane as molar teeth
HERBIVORE: Above the plane of the molars
OMNIVORE: On same plane as molar teeth
HUMAN: Above the plane of the molars

*Jaw Motion*
CARNIVORE: Shearing; minimal side-to-side motion
HERBIVORE: No shear; good side-to-side, front-to-back
OMNIVORE: Shearing; minimal side-to-side
HUMAN: No shear; good side-to-side, front-to-back

*Major Jaw Muscles*
CARNIVORE: Temporalis
HERBIVORE: Masseter and pterygoids
OMNIVORE: Temporalis
HUMAN: Masseter and pterygoids

*Mouth Opening vs. Head Size*
CARNIVORE: Large
HERBIVORE: Small
OMNIVORE: Large
HUMAN: Small

*Teeth: Incisors*
CARNIVORE: Short and pointed
HERBIVORE: Broad, flattened and spade shaped
OMNIVORE: Short and pointed
HUMAN: Broad, flattened and spade shaped

*Teeth: Canines*
CARNIVORE: Long, sharp and curved
HERBIVORE: Dull and short or long (for defense), or none
OMNIVORE: Long, sharp and curved
HUMAN: Short and blunted

*Teeth: Molars*
CARNIVORE: Sharp, jagged and blade shaped
HERBIVORE: Flattened with cusps vs complex surface
OMNIVORE: Sharp blades and/or flattened
HUMAN: Flattened with nodular cusps

*Chewing*
CARNIVORE: None; swallows food whole
HERBIVORE: Extensive chewing necessary
OMNIVORE: Swallows food whole and/or simple crushing
HUMAN: Extensive chewing necessary

*Saliva*
CARNIVORE: No digestive enzymes
HERBIVORE: Carbohydrate digesting enzymes
OMNIVORE: No digestive enzymes
HUMAN: Carbohydrate digesting enzymes

*Stomach Type*
CARNIVORE: Simple
HERBIVORE: Simple or multiple chambers
OMNIVORE: Simple
HUMAN: Simple

*Stomach Acidity*
CARNIVORE: Less than or equal to pH 1 with food in stomach
HERBIVORE: pH 4 to 5 with food in stomach
OMNIVORE: Less than or equal to pH 1 with food in stomach
HUMAN: pH 4 to 5 with food in stomach

*Stomach Capacity*
CARNIVORE: 60% to 70% of total volume of digestive tract
HERBIVORE: Less than 30% of total volume of digestive tract
OMNIVORE: 60% to 70% of total volume of digestive tract
HUMAN: 21% to 27% of total volume of digestive tract

*Length of Small Intestine*
CARNIVORE: 3 to 6 times body length
HERBIVORE: 10 to more than 12 times body length
OMNIVORE: 4 to 6 times body length
HUMAN: 10 to 11 times body length

*Colon*
CARNIVORE: Simple, short and smooth
HERBIVORE: Long, complex; may be sacculated
OMNIVORE: Simple, short and smooth
HUMAN: Long, sacculated

*Liver*
CARNIVORE: Can detoxify vitamin A
HERBIVORE: Cannot detoxify vitamin A
OMNIVORE: Can detoxify vitamin A
HUMAN: Cannot detoxify vitamin A

*Kidney*
CARNIVORE: Extremely concentrated urine
HERBIVORE: Moderately concentrated urine
OMNIVORE: Extremely concentrated urine
HUMAN: Moderately concentrated urine

*Nails*
CARNIVORE: Sharp claws
HERBIVORE: Flattened nails or blunt hooves
OMNIVORE: Sharp claws
HUMAN: Flattened nails

According to the American Dietetic Association, "most of mankind for most of human history has lived on vegetarian or near vegetarian diets."

Humans resemble the other primates (frugivores) and possess a set of completely herbivorous teeth. In The Human Story, edited by Marie-Louise Makris (1985), we read: "...recent studies of their teeth reveal that the Australopithecines did not eat meat as a regular part of their diet, and were mainly peaceful vegetarians, rather like chimps or gorillas. The popular image of the murderous ape is now as extinct as the Australopithecines themselves."

Zoologist Desmond Morris makes a case for vegetarianism in The Naked Ape: "It could be argued that, since our primate ancestors had to make do without a major meat component in their diets we should be able to do the same. We were driven to become flesh eaters only by environmental circumstances, and now that we have the environment under control, with elaborately cultivated crops at our disposal, we might be expected to return to our ancient primate feeding patterns."

How did agriculture arise? One particularly interesting theory is put forth by Mark Nathan Cohen in his book The Food Crisis in Prehistory. This view is startlingly simple: agriculture developed because the world was overpopulated. Relative to the existing hunter-gatherer technology, the environment was incapable of supporting the existing population.

"It seems odd at first to think of the world as being overpopulated...when the population was only a fraction of what it is today or to think of the world as environmentally exhausted, when it was more fertile then than it is now," observes author Keith Akers in A Vegetarian Sourcebook.

"But we must remember that the hunter-gatherer technology is extremely inefficient with respect to land resources. It is estimated that each of the Kung bushmen (a modern hunter-gatherer society) requires over 10 square kilometers of land -- more than 2500 acres. At this rate of land use, the world could hardly have supported more than a few million hunter-gatherers."

According to one theory, primitive men were anatomically ill equipped to be full-time predators. Plant food was thus the basis of their diet, and meat was eaten infrequently. Hunting with primitive weapons--bones, sticks, and spears--is far more difficult than most people realize. Even throwing a rock with accuracy demands great practice and skill. If this theory is correct, primitive man's time was spent mostly gathering and foraging for plant foods.

A study of the Bush People of the Kalahari in Africa found that, even during a serious drought, the most important source of food came from vegetables. Four out of eleven males never went hunting. The others killed 18 animals in eight days. Their chances of obtaining meat on any day was about 25 percent.

On the other hand, the women always returned from their gathering expeditions with food; a 100 percent success rate. The entire tribe was able to comfortably feed itself if each member contributed 15 hours of work per week--even better than our own society's achievement.

"It seems...the real heroes of our Stone Age period were the women, not the men," observes British author Peter Cox in his 1986 book, Why You Don't Need Meat: "...our ancestors ate much more plant food than is popularly believed."

"A diet that can lead to heart attacks, cancer, and numerous other diseases cannot be a natural diet," writes Keith Akers in A Vegetarian Sourcebook.  "A diet that pillages our resources of land, water, forests, and energy cannot be a natural diet.  A diet that causes the unnecessary suffering and death of billions of animals each year cannot be a natural diet."

Half the water consumed in the U. S. goes to irrigate land growing feed and fodder for livestock.  Huge amounts of water are also used to wash away their excrement.  In fact, U. S. livestock produce 20 times as much excrement as does the entire human population, creating sewage which is 10 to several hundred times as concentrated as raw domestic sewage.  Animal wastes cause 10 times as much water pollution than does the U. S. human population; the meat industry causes 3 times as much harmful organic water pollution than the rest of the nation's industries combined.

Meat producers, the number one industrial polluters in our nation, contribute to half the water pollution in the United States.  The water that goes into a 1,000 lb. steer could float a destroyer.  It takes 25 gallons of water to produce a pound of wheat, but 2,500 gallons to produce a pound of meat.  If these costs weren't subsidized by the American taxpayers, hamburger meat would be $35 per pound!

The burden of subsidizing the California meat industry costs taxpayers $24 billion annually.  Livestock producers are California's biggest consumers of water.   Every tax dollar the state doles out to livestock producers costs taxpayers over 7 dollars in lost wages, higher living costs and reduced business income.   17 western states have enough water supplies to support economies and populations twice as large as the present.

Overgrazing of cattle leads to topsoil erosion, turning once-arable land into desert.  We lose 4 million acres of topsoil each year and 85 percent of this loss is directly caused by raising livestock.  To replace the soil we've lost, we're destroying our forests.  Since 1967, the rate of deforestation in the U. S. has been 1 acre every 5 seconds.  For each acre cleared in urbanization, 7 are cleared for grazing or growing livestock feed.

One-third of all raw materials in the U. S. are consumed by the livestock industry and it takes 3 times as much fossil fuel energy to produce meat than it does to produce plant foods.  A report on the energy crisis in Scientific American warned: "The trends in meat consumption and energy consumption are on a collision course."

Nor can fish provide any help here.  There are signs that the fishing industry (which is quite energy-intensive) has already overfished the oceans in several areas.  And fish could never play a major role in the worlds diet anyway: the entire global fish catch of the world, if divided among all the world's inhabitants would amount to only a few ounces of fish per person per week.

The American Dietetic Association reports that throughout history, the human race has lived on "vegetarian or near vegetarian diets," and meat has traditionally been a luxury.  Studies show the healthiest human populations on the globe live almost entirely on plant foods--useful data, given our skyrocketing healthcare costs.  Nathan Pritikin, author of The Pritikin Plan, recommended not more than 3 ounces of animal protein per day; three ounces per week for his patients who had already suffered a heart attack.

Obviously, then, the idea of providing the entire world with a Western-style diet is absurd.  But what about satisfying today's demand for meat--which provides only a fraction of the population with a Western-style diet?  If the world population triples in the next 100 years, and meat consumption continues, then meat production would have to triple as well.  Instead of 3.7 billion acres of cropland and 7.5 billion acres of grazing land, we would require 11.1 billion acres of cropland and 22.5 billion acres of grazing land.

But this is slightly larger than the total land area of the six inhabited continents!  We are desperately short of forests, water and energy already.   Even if we resort to extreme methods of population control: abortion, infanticide, genocide, etc...modest increases in the world population would make it impossible to maintain current levels of meat consumption.  On a vegetarian diet, however, the world could easily support a population several times its present size.  The world's cattle alone consume enough to feed over 8.7 billion humans.

You guys that jumped down the original authors throat... on a topic that is about asking for respect... what you've proven is once again how you show a complete lack of respect for others. Its not just Animal Rights you guys lack who detract from the cause, its general consideration and general. And you expect at the end of this debate your close minded lack of respect and lack of listening isn't going to be evidently clear? Your rigidity and lack of experimentation and science isn't going to hold up in the courts when eating meat becomes banned across the earth.

And if predation is an argument, cool bro, I'm coming to get you tonight and you are my meal. Its a free world of course... I'll just quote what you said when anybody says I did the wrong thing. I'll just remind them I actually acted within your belief system and was part of the agreement. Is that cool?

How about we make a law that if you want to be a consumer without consequences... thats fine... but then you can't rest on the protection of human rights when we come for you? Seems fair to me. Otherwise you're just a contradictory joker afraid of his little meatie snacks getting pulled away. You poor thing... poor little baby who is gonna miss his mcmeaties.

I'm just offering these things as possibilities to think about. I chime in with Stephanie in a sense that I personally used to be a real pro-meatie and used similar arguments to Carl. I took it as far as to suggest that "hey, they incarnated as animals... if they evolved to a better level then they could fight me off like humans do".

The problem I found with some of my arguments like the one above was that while I believed in evolution and was grateful for the evolution that brought me to now, my very actions of holding myself in some supreme top of the incarnation level was actually disrespecting evolution itself. Of course a cow can't get in a court room and explain to you in english that it doesn't agree with being murdered. Of course it can't negotiate on that level. Of course a chicken can't say to you that it wants to build an egg farm on its own terms and sell them to you for a dollar. No creature in reality could evolve past moans and growns if it was never given the possibility to adapt culture.

We humans are the first beings who've worked out how to captivate life in almost every way. As soon as we did, we quickly cut off the evolutionary chain by locking everything up and forcing it to be stupid and slave like. Do you think a human being would act any different to cows if every life it was born inside a shed, quickly thrown into cage and forcefed food it didn't like while never seeing the sunlight? Hey, just do a simple experiment and I say if a human then acts like an animal, lets just take away human rights because obviously we are not all that much better.

I want to respond to some of the info that Gary Lowenthol posted on 12/22, where he listed a lot of 'information' about livestock management and length of life, etc. Within the factory farming model of modern day agriculture, I would have to say that Gary is probably right. Within the organic, or sustainable and small scale agriculture model, I would have to say, from my personal experience, that you are way off. All Agriculture is not the same.

Please visit the Weston A Price website (www.westonaprice.org) for some excellent information on human nutrition, the studies done over the years within various indigenous cultures on their diet and health and more. If you choose to eat meat, eggs, butter, milk and other animal products, make sure it is coming from a farm that cares for the animals in a humane way and provides the animals with a diet that is in check with what they would naturally eat - for their benefit and for the benefit of those who eat the meat, milk or egg products from those animals.

I appreciate the comments from both sides that are being shared here and would encourage everyone to think about living systems that we need to have in place when the time arrives (and it is fast approaching)that we will ALL have to engage with the earth in a more intimate way - by growing some or all of our own food, no matter what you decide to eat.

We have a small subsistence farm which allows us to live on very little (monetarily), and graces us with a lifestyle and an intimate connection to the land and the animals that we raise (and yes, we do eat some of them). This IS a tremendous responsibility and no, we do not travel much, but if I had a vacation, the place that i would want to be (most often) is home spending more relaxing time in my gardens or spending more time with our animals.

Some of the animals on our farm are used for work: plowing fields, logging, haying. Our cows and horses live on a primarily forage diet converting solar energy into milk, meat or energy that they need to accomplish work - which they love to do -  on the farm. (solar energy grows the grass/forbs, which is 90% of what our livestock eat, actually stabilizing more carbon in the earth... very different from the high grain diet that you see in factory farming set-ups)

Our cows live long productive lives, our birds are heritage breeds of birds, which do not grow as fast as the frankenstein varieties that one commonly buys in the supermarket, we keep the horns on our cows and the manure that comes out of these animals is integral to our operation as we recycle these nutrients back onto the land to grow the vegetables, herbs, forages, berries on our farm. What is considered a 'waste product' on large animal enterprises is considered gold for us. Our farm would not be what it is today without the livestock that we raise. We do not use chemical fertilizers.... hey, we even started a worm farm and - wow - are those critters fun to work with and their contribution to the health of our soil and to the food that we eat is critical.

 Our children are involved in all the aspects of the farm and have a wisdom and respect for the food that they put in their bodies every day. they know where their food came from while many children today are raised believing that milk came from a carton on a store shelf and their carrots came from a bag.

This may seem to be a little off-topic from the original posts and those following, but I think it all comes down to having an awareness and appreciation for life - all life forms - and what it takes to keep it going and to truly exist on this earth. We must all do our part and it starts with everyone having access to some land so that they can grow a garden. Our newly elected President will, hopefully, do the same and set an example.

If the transportation system were to shut down or collapse, most cities would run out of food within 3 days. If you want to see human nature at its best (vegans, vegetarians, omnivores alike), stick around in one of those areas and you will see things you will never believe could happen; people fighting over the last loaf of bred, stores getting broken into in broad daylight...

Be well, build  your communities, grow your own food, be the change you wish to see in the world.

Lisa McCrory
Vermont

the quotes and statistics listed below were taken from one of the posts above.  I am an omnivore but I am also a responsible meat eater.  I DO NOT eat any meat that originated or was finished by means of a CAFO (concentrated agricultural feeding operation) whether it is beef, chicken or pork or any other kind of meat/poultry.  Humans have been eating meat for thousands of years, literally.  I believe that the problem with eating "modern" meat is the environmental pollution caused by that type of farming, for lack of a better word (it really doesn't resemble farming.  Food should NOT be a commodity (whether it is meat or wheat).  The facts and statistics listed below have nothing to do with old fashioned farming and animal husbandry (read about Polyface Farm or check out The River Cottage Meat Book opening statements) but everything to do with big agri-business.  I applaude most of the work being done by animal rights activists because people should know where their food comes from.  I, myself, am a real food activist. I guess you could say that I am to vegetables what you are to meat.  I educate and inform people about the dangers of GMO foods (plant and animal foods).  So, thank you for telling people about the agri-business animals and the cruelty of modern meat processing (from birth to death).  I will continue to tell people about the modern mono-farmers and the cruelty imposed on people by way of plant foods by Monsanto.
So when you read all this statistics, know that it is NOT the small family farmer supporting the food needs of his community that these statistics refer to.  Look to Con-Agra, Smithfield Foods, etc for the real (but as yet unpunished) criminals.


"Livestock are one of the most significant contributors to today's most serious environmental problems.  Urgent action is required to remedy the situation." 

---Union Nations' Food and Agriculture Assocation

A single dairy cow produces approximately 120 pounds of wet manure per day, which is equivalent to that of 20 to 40 humans.

70% of the grain grown and 50% of the water consumed in the U.S. are used by the meat industry.  (Audobon Society)

On average 990 liters of water are required to produce one liter of milk.  (United Nations)

Over 260 million acres of U.S. forest have been cleared to grow grain for livestock.  (Greenpeace)

Farmed animals produce an estimated 1.4 billion tons of fecal waste each year in the U.S.  Much of this untreated waste pollutes the land and water.
  The number of animals killed for food in the United States is 70 times larger than the number of animals killed in laboratories, 30 times larger than the number killed by hunters and trappers, and 500 times larger than the number of animals killed in animal pounds.

Lisa - having lived in Western MA for almost a decade before moving here to Vegas, I'm running through all the organic farms we visited during those years and wondering if we've actually been to your farm?!  Wouldn't that be fun?

" All Agriculture is not the same."
I completely agree.  We have found an organic family run farm here in Vegas that we patronize as much as possible - getting our fruits & veggies right off the plants in the fields, watching our money go directly into the hands of those who raise the food, and knowing we're supporting a local business is all the reason we need to go there.  They don't raise any animals - it is purely a produce farm.

I think it is very important to patronize local businesses, and especially farms that are in keeping with my personal beliefs.  Keep spreading the word Lisa!  It's important people know the real options.

I've been vegetarian since 1982.  I attended my first anti-vivisection protest in the spring of 1985, as anti-apartheid demonstrations rocked the UC San Diego campus. I first got interested in promoting vegetarianism in mainstream society after reading John Robbins' Diet for a New America (1987).  Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, it makes veganism seem as reasonable and mainstream as recycling.

For example, half the water consumed in the U.S. goes to irrigate land growing feed and fodder for livestock.  Huge amounts of water are also used to wash away their excrement.  U.S. livestock produce twenty times as much excrement as does the entire human population; creating sewage which is ten to several hundred times more concentrated than raw domestic sewage.  Animal wastes cause ten times more water pollution than does the U.S. human population; the meat industry causes three times as much harmful organic water pollution than the rest of the nation's industries combined.  Meat producers are the number one industrial polluters in our nation, contributing to half the water pollution in the United States.

Joanna Macy, author of Despair and Personal Power in the Nuclear Age, depicts the advantages of America moving towards a vegan diet in her foreword to Diet for a New America:

"The effects on our physical health are immediate.  The incidence of cancer and heart attack, the nation's biggest killers, drops precipitously.  So do many other diseases now demonstrably and causally linked to consumption of animal proteins and fats, such as osteoporosis... 

"The social, ecological, and economic consequences, as we Americans turn away from animal food products, are equally remarkable.  We find that the grain we previously fed to fatten livestock can now feed five times the U.S. population; so we have become able to alleviate malnutrition and hunger on a worldwide scale...

"The great forests of the world, that we had been decimating for grazing purposes, begin to grow again.  Oxygen-producing trees are no longer sacrificed for cholesterol-producing steaks.

"The water crisis eases.  As we stop raising and grinding up cattle for hamburgers, we discover that ranching and farm factories had been the major drain on our water resources.  The amount now available for irrigation and hydroelectric power doubles.  Meanwhile, the change in diet frees over 90% of the fossil fuel previously used to produce food.  With this liberation of water energy and fossil fuel energy, our reliance on oil imports declines, as does the rationale for building nuclear power plants..."

Joanna Macy admits, "This scenario is wildly, absurdly utopian.  It is also clearly the way we are meant to live, built to live."  What could possibly make it a reality?  "It is this very book!"

Paul McCartney also says, "If anyone wants to save the planet, all they have to do is just stop eating meat.  That's the single most important thing you could do.  It's staggering when you think about it.  Vegetarianism takes care of so many things in one shot:  ecology, famine, cruelty.  Let's do it!  Linda was right.  Going veggie is the single best idea for the new century."


Roberta Kalechofsky of Jews for Animal Rights similarly says:

"Merely by ceasing to eat meat
 Merely by practicing restraint
 We have the power to end a painful industry

"We do not have to bear arms to end this evil
 We do not have to contribute money
 We do not have to sit in jail or go to
 meetings or demonstrations or
 engage in acts of civil disobedience

"Most often, the act of repairing the world,
 of healing mortal wounds,
 is left to heroes and tzaddikim (holy people)
 Saints and people of unusual discipline

"But here is an action every mortal can
 perform--surely it is not too difficult!"

When I first read Diet for a New America, I thought it could have the same kind of impact on mainstream American society that Frances Moore Lappe's Diet for a Small Planet had in the '70s.

The number of animals killed for food in the United States is 70 times larger than the number of animals killed in laboratories, 30 times larger than the number killed by hunters and trappers, and 500 times larger than the number of animals killed in pounds.

A fellow animal activist in San Diego, Tricia Fernatt, felt as I did:  since the vast majority of animals are being killed for food, why are we wasting our time on peripheral issues?  Shouldn't veganism be the main focus of our movement?  And Diet for a New America tied it all together.  If Americans reduced their meat consumption by just 10 percent, it would release enough grain and soybeans to feed over 60 million people.

In writing his expose on the meat industry, John Robbins has been compared to Rachel Carson, Ralph Nader and other whistleblowers.  In Diet for a New America, he demonstrates how all the various causes that concern the left: healthcare, a sustainable energy policy, hunger, malnutrition, etc. are all taken care of in one fell swoop by a vegan diet.  I had the opportunity to meet John Robbins, in September 1988.  It was one of the most inspirational moments of my life!

He was heir to the Baskin-Robbins fortune.  He renounced it at a young age.  He traveled to India, opened a yoga ashram in Canada, etc.  He spoke of Gandhi and nonviolence.  His son Ocean Robbins founded Youth for Environmental Sanity (YES!) and is also dedicated to promoting veganism.  I asked John if he would try and get the American Left to support animal rights.  He told me that he had sent a copy of his book to Mother Jones, a left-liberal periodical published in San Francisco.

Many on the Left are beginning to take a stand in favor of animal rights.  Joanna Macy spoke at the San Francisco Green Festival, in November 2005.  In his 1990 updated and revised edition of Animal Liberation, Australian philosopher Peter Singer writes that many of the political parties leaning towards the "Green" end of the political spectrum in Europe were beginning to oppose animal experimentation.

John Robbins elaborated further on the economic waste of raising animals for food in May All Be Fed, which my brother gave me for Christmas in 1992.  Oxfam, the international charity, reports that in Mexico, 80 percent of the children in rural areas are undernourished, yet the livestock are fed more grain than the human population eats!  Meat consumption in Taiwan increased 600 percent between 1950 and 1990.  In 1950, Taiwan was a grain exporter; in 1990 the nation imported, mostly for feed, 74 percent of the grain it used.  Twenty-five years ago, Syria was a barley exporter.  But in the intervening years, livestock have consumed increasing amounts of the country's grain.  Now, despite a phenomenal 1000 percent increase in the land area devoted to producing barley, Syria must import the cereal.

John Robbins spoke before the United Nations in 1994, where he received a standing ovation.

I had the opportunity to hear John Robbins speak at a Unitarian church here in Oakland several years ago.  The church was PACKED!  John writes in The Food Revolution (2001):

"The revolution sweeping our relationship to our food and our world, I believe, is part of an historical imperative.  This is what happens when the human spirit is activated.  One hundred and fifty years ago, slavery was legal in the United States.  One hundred years ago, women could not vote in most states.  Eighty years ago, there were no laws in the United States against any form of child abuse.  Fifty years ago, we had no Civil Rights Act, no Clean Air or Clean Water legislation, no Endangered Species Act.  Today, millions of people are refusing to buy clothes and shoes made in sweatshops and are seeking to live healthier and more Earth-friendly lifestyles.  In the last fifteen years alone, as people in the United States have realized how cruelly veal calves are treated, veal consumption has dropped 62 percent."

I don't think anyone can be dismissive of Animal Rights Activists and their efforts.  In an age with the A.R.s are bombing research laboratories and obtaining homeless animals under the pretense of finding them homes, but killing them and dumping their bodies in trash cans as PETA employees did ub Ahoskie NC, when Animal Rights Activists top the FBI's list of Domestic Terrorist Threats, how can anyone be dismissive of them?

Lisa S. admitted her long-term support of the HSUS. She can say what she wants about disagreeing with them, but she is voting with her wallet. That vote is in favor of the HSUS philosophy and actions.

Do the rest of you  self-described "AR activists" give money to HSUS or PETA?

Disagreeing with their philosophy and policies on one hand while giving them cash with the other is a clear act of hypocrisy. Forgive me for assuming that if you give them money, then you agree with them.

i don't think I ever said I disagree with the HSUS?  This is why I give them my money.  There are so many issues that they represent and the nice thing is that you can allocate your money to particular causes.  I'm very involved with stopping greyhound racing, I gave a lot of money to pass anti-horse slaughter legislation this past year, I gave money to rehabilitate Michael Vick's dogs, I gave money to the causes I care the most about.  I am not going to defend the non-profit's actions across the board because I have the option of allocating my funds within the organization.  I guess that makes me a horrible person, being an AR who gives to an animal welfare organization? 

The most-repeated argument against biblical vegetarianism I've gotten from Christians is that they think they are no longer under Mosaic Law, because the apostle Paul referred to his background as a former Pharisee and his previous adherence to Mosaic Law (with its dietary laws, commandments calling for the humane treatment of animals, etc.) as "so much garbage."  (Philippians 3:4-8)

There is nothing in the synoptic gospels of Jesus, however, to suggest a fundamental break with Judaism.  Jesus was called "Rabbi," meaning "Master" or "Teacher," 42 times in the gospels.  The ministry of Jesus was a rabbinic one.  Jesus related Scripture and God's laws to everyday life, teaching by personal example. He engaged in healing and acts of mercy.  He told stories or parables--a rabbinic method of teaching.  He went to the synagogue (Matthew 12:9), taught in the synagogues (Matthew 4:23, 13:54; Mark 1:39), expressed concern for Jairus, "one of the rulers of the synagogue" (Mark 5:36) and it "was his custom" to go to the synagogue (Luke 4:16).

Jesus began his ministry by teaching the multitudes not to "give what is sacred to the dogs, nor cast your pearls before swine."  (Matthew 7:6)  Dogs, like swine, were considered foul and unclean by the Hebrew people.  (Deuteronomy 23:18; I Samuel 24:14; II Kings 8:13; Psalm 22:16,20; Matthew 7:6; Luke 16:21; Revelations 22:15)  These words were used by the children of Israel to describe the neighboring heathen populations.

When sending his disciples out to preach, Jesus instructed them not to go to the gentiles, but to "go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel."  (Matthew 10:5-6)  When a Canaanite woman asked Jesus to heal her daughter, he replied, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel...It is not fair to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs."  (Matthew 15:22-28)

Jesus regarded the gentiles as "dogs."  His gospel was intended for the Jewish people.  Even the apostle Paul admits that the gospel was first intended for the Jews, and that the Jews have every advantage over the gentiles in this regard (Romans 1:16, 3:1-2).

When a scribe asked Jesus what is the greatest commandment in the Torah, Jesus began with "Hear O Israel, the Lord, thy God, is One Lord."  This is the Shema, which is still heard in every synagogue service to this day. "And you shall love the Lord with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength...And you shall love your neighbor as yourself," Jesus concluded.

When the scribe agreed that God is one and that to love Him completely and also love one's neighbor as oneself is "more important than all the whole burnt offerings and sacrifices," Jesus replied, "You are not far from the kingdom of God."  (Matthew 22:36-40; Mark 12:29-34; Luke 10:25-28)

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus himself said, "Do not suppose I have come to abolish the Law and the prophets.  I did not come to destroy but to fulfill...till heaven and earth pass away, not one jot or tittle pass from the Law till all is fulfilled.  Whoever, therefore, breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches men so shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven...unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven."  (Matthew 5:17-20)

Jesus also upheld the Torah in Luke 16:17:  "And it is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for the smallest portion of the Law to become invalid."

Nor do these words refer merely to the Ten Commandments.  Jesus meant the entire Torah:  613 commandments.  When a man asked Jesus what he must do to inherit eternal life, Jesus replied, "You know the commandments."  He then quoted not just the Ten Commandments, but a commandment from Leviticus 19:13 as well:  "Do not defraud."  (Mark 10:17-22)

Jesus' disciples were once accused by the scribes and Pharisees of violating rabbinical tradition (Matthew 15:1-2; Mark 7:5), but not biblical law.  At no place in the entire New Testament does Jesus ever proclaim Torah or the Law of Moses to be abolished; this was the theology of Paul, a former Pharisee who never knew Jesus, but who used to persecute Jesus' followers.  Paul openly identified himself not as a Jew but as a Roman (Acts 22:25-26) and an apostate from Judaism (Philippians 3:4-8)

Sometimes Christians cite Matthew 7:12, where Jesus says "Do unto others..." and this "covers" the Law and the prophets.  But Jesus was merely repeating in the positive what Rabbi Hillel taught a generation earlier.  No one took Hillel's words to mean the Law had been abolished--why should we assume this of Jesus?

If Jesus really did come to abolish the Law and the prophets, Simon (Peter) would not have resisted a divine command to kill and eat both "clean" and "unclean" animals (Acts 10), nor would there have been a debate in the early church as to what extent the gentiles were to observe Mosaic Law (Acts 15).  When Paul visited the church at Jerusalem, James and the elders told him all its members were "zealous for the Law," and that they were worried because they heard rumors that Paul was preaching against Mosaic Law (Acts 21).

None of these events would have happened had Jesus really come to abolish the Law and the prophets.  Jesus not only repeatedly upheld Mosaic Law, he justified his healing on the Sabbath by referring to commandments calling for the humane treatment of animals!

While teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath, Jesus healed a woman who had been ill for eighteen years.  He justified his healing work on the Sabbath by referring to biblical passages calling for the humane treatment of animals as well as their rest on the Sabbath.  "So ought not this woman, being a daughter of Abraham...be loosed from this bond on the Sabbath?" Jesus asked.  (Luke 13:10-16)

On yet another occasion, Jesus again referred to Torah teaching on "tsa'ar ba'alei chayim" or compassion for animals to justify healing on the Sabbath.  "Which of you, having a donkey or an ox that has fallen into a pit, will not immediately pull him out on the Sabbath day?"  (Luke 14:1-5)

Jesus compared saving sinners who had gone astray from God's kingdom to rescuing lost sheep.  He recalled a Jewish legend about Moses' compassion as a shepherd for his flock:

"For the Son of Man has come to save that which was lost.  What do you think?  Who among you, having a hundred sheep, if he loses one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness, and go after the one which is lost until he finds it?  And when he has found it," Jesus continued, "he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing.  And when he comes home,he calls together his friends and neighbors saying to them, 'Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost!'

"I say to you, likewise there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine just persons who need no repentance...there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents."  (Matthew 18:11-13; Luke 15:3-7,10)

Paul, on the other hand, said if anyone has confidence in Mosaic Law, "I am ahead of him" (Philippians 3:4-8). Would that mean Paul places himself ahead of Jesus, who said he did not come to abolish the Law and the prophets?  Would that mean Paul places himself ahead of Jesus, who said whoever sets aside even the least of the laws demands shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 5:17-19)?

Would that mean Paul places himself ahead of Jesus, who taught that following the commandments of God is the only way to eternal life (Mark 10:17-22)?  Would that mean Paul places himself ahead of Jesus, who said that it is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for the smallest portion of the Law to become invalid (Luke 16:17)?

Paul may have regarded his previous adherence to Mosaic Law as "so much garbage," but it should be obvious by now that JESUS DIDN'T THINK THE LAW WAS "GARBAGE"!

If Christians assign greater value to Paul's teachings over those of Jesus, then "Christianity" really is "Paulianity".  Bertrand Russell referred to Paul as the "inventor" of Christianity.

I'm not saying Christians should all be circumcised and following Mosaic Law.  The Reverend Andrew Linzey, the foremost theologian in the field of animal-human relations and author of Christianity and the Rights of Animals (1987), rejected such an approach in a 1989 interview with the Animals' Agenda.

I'm merely saying that Christianity for the past 2000 years has been based on a misunderstanding.  My friend Rankin Fisher (a former Missionary Baptist minister), quoted a Methodist minister friend of his as having admitted, "We (Christians) aren't really following Jesus.  We're following Paul."

In a sermon preached in York Minster, September 28, 1986, John Austin Baker, the Bishop of Salisbury, England, attacked "factory farming" -- the overcrowded confinement methods of raising and killing animals for food, choosing as his example, the treatment of chickens.

"Is there any credit balance for the battery hen, denied almost all natural functioning, all normal environment, lapsing steadily into deformity and disease, for the whole of her existence?" he asked. "It is in the battery shed and the broiler house, not in the wild, that we find the true parallel to Auschwitz. Auschwitz is a purely human invention."

On another occasion, Bishop Baker taught: "By far the most important duty of all Christians in the cause of animal welfare is to cultivate this capacity to see; to see things with the heart of God, and so to suffer with other creatures."

On World Prayer Day for Animals, October 4, 1986, Bishop Baker preached against indifference to animal pain and lauded the animal welfare movement: "To shut your mind, heart, imagination to the sufferings of others is to begin slowly but inexorably to die. It is to cease by inches from being human, to become in the end capable of nothing generous or unselfish—or sometimes capable of anything, however terrible. You in the animal welfare movement are among those who may yet save our society from becoming spiritually deaf, blind and dead, and so from the doom that will justly follow..."

According to Bishop Baker: "...Rights, whether animal or human, have only one sure foundation: that God loves us all and rejoices in us all. We humans are called to share with God in fulfilling the work of love toward all creatures...the true glory of the strong is to give themselves for the cherishing of the weak."

In October, 1986, on the Feast Day of St. Francis, the Very Reverend James Morton in the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, New York City, made this observation: "We don’t own animals, any more than we don’t own trees or own mountains or seas or, indeed, each other. We don’t own our wives or our husbands or our friends or our lovers. We respect and behold and we celebrate trees and mountains and seas and husbands and wives and lovers and children and friends and animals...Our souls must be poor—must be open—in order to be able to receive, to behold, to enter into communion with, but not to possess. Our poverty of soul allows animals to thrive and to shine and be free and radiate God’s glory."

A 1980 United Nations report states that women constitute half the world’s population, perform nearly two-thirds of its work hours, yet receive one-tenth of the world’s income and own less than one-hundredth of the world’s property. The impact of the women’s movement upon the church is being heralded as a Second Reformation. Women are now being ordained as priests, pastors and ministers, while patriarchal references to the Almighty as "Father" are replaced with the gender-neutral "Parent." Jesus Christ is designated the "Child of God." The words of Scripture—perhaps, more accurately, the words of the apostle Paul—on this subject are seen today not as a divine revelation, but rather as an embarrassment from centuries past:

"Let the women keep silent in the churches, for they are not allowed to speak. Instead, they must, as the Law says, be in subordination. If they wish to learn something, let them inquire of their own husbands at home; for it is improper for a woman to speak in church...let a woman learn quietly with complete submission. I do not allow a woman to teach, neither to domineer over a man; instead she is to keep still. For Adam was first formed, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman, since she was deceived, experienced the transgression. She will, however, be kept safe through the child-bearing, if with self-control she continues in faith and love and consecration." (I Corinthians 14:34-35; I Timothy 2:11-15)

Many churches now claim these instructions were merely temporary frameworks used to build churches in the first century pagan world—they are not to be taken as universal absolutes for all eternity. If churches, Scripture and Christianity can adapt and be redefined or reinterpreted in a changing world to end injustices towards women, they can certainly do the same towards animals.

The International Network for Religion and Animals (INRA) was founded in 1985 by Virginia Bouraquardez. Its educational and religious programs are meant to "bring religious principles to bear upon humanity’s attitude towards the treatment of our animal kin...and, through leadership, materials, and programs, to successfully interact with clergy and laity from many religious traditions."

According to the INRA:

"Religion counsels the powerful to be merciful and kind to those weaker than themselves, and most of humankind is at least nominally religious. But there is a ghastly paradox. Far from showing mercy, humanity uses its dominion over other animal species to pen them in cruel close confinement; to trap, club, and harpoon them; to poison, mutilate, and shock them in the name of science; to kill them by the billions; and even to blind them in excruciating pain to test cosmetics.

"Some of these abuses are due to mistaken understandings of religious principles; others, to a failure to apply those principles. Scriptures need to be fully researched concerning the relationship of humans to nonhuman animals, and to the entire ecological structure of Nature. Misinterpretations of scripture taken out of context, or based upon questionable theological assumptions need to be re-examined."

In the winter of 1990, INRA’s Executive Director, the Reverend Dr. Marc A. Wessels wrote: "As a Christian clergyman who speaks of having compassion for other creatures and who actively declares the need for humans to develop an ethic that gives reverence for all of life, I hope that others will open their eyes, hearts and minds to the responsibility of loving care for God’s creatures."

In a pamphlet entitled "The Spiritual Link Between Humans and Animals," Reverend Wessels writes: "We recognize that many animal rights activists and ecologists are highly critical of Christians because of our relative failure thus far adequately to defend animals and to preserve the natural environment. Yet there are positive signs of a growing movement of Christian activists and theologians who are committed to the process of ecological stewardship and animal liberation.

"Individual Christians and groups on a variety of levels, including denominational, ecumenical, national and international, have begun the delayed process of seriously considering and practically addressing the question of Christian responsibility for animals. Because of the debate surrounding the ‘rights’ of animals, some Christians are considering the tenets of their faith in search for an appropriate ethical response."

According to Reverend Wessels, "The most important teaching which Jesus shared was the need for people to love God with their whole self and to love their neighbor as they loved themselves. Jesus expanded the concept of neighbor to include those who were normally excluded, and it is therefore not too farfetched for us to consider the animals as our neighbors.

"To think about animals as our brothers and sisters is not a new or radical idea. By extending the idea of neighbor, the love of neighbor includes love of, compassion for, and advocacy of animals. There are many historical examples of Christians who thought along those lines, besides the familiar illustration of St. Francis. An abbreviated listing of some of those individuals worthy of study and emulation includes Saint Blaise, Saint Comgall, Saint Cuthbert, Saint Gerasimus, Saint Giles, and Saint Jerome, to name but a few."

Reverend Wessels notes that: "In the Bible, which we understand as the divine revelation of God, there is ample evidence of the vastness and goodness of God toward animals. The Scriptures announce God as the creator of all life, the One responsible for calling life into being and placing it in an ordered fashion which reflects God’s glory. Humans and animals are a part of this arrangement. Humanity has a special relationship with particular duties to God’s created order, a connection to the animals by which they are morally bound by God’s covenant with them.

"According to the Scriptures, Christians are called to respect the life of animals and to be ethically engaged in protecting the life and liberty of all sentient creatures. As that is the case, human needs and rights do not usurp an animal’s intrinsic rights, nor should they deny the basic liberty of either individual animals or specific species. If the Christian call can be understood as being a command to be righteous, then Christians must have a higher regard for the lives of animals.

"Jesus’ life was one of compassion and liberation;" concludes Reverend Wessels, "his ministry was one which understood and expressed the needs of the oppressed. Especially in the past decade, Christians have been reminded that their faith requires them to take seriously the cries of the oppressed.

"Theologians such as Gutierrez, Miranda, and Hinkelammert have defined the Christian message as one which liberates lives and transforms social patterns of oppression. That concept of Christianity which sees God as the creator of the universe and the One who seeks justice is not exclusive; immunity from cruelty and injustice is not only a human desire or need—the animal kingdom also needs liberation."

A growing number of Christian theologians, clergy and activists are beginning to take a stand in favor of animal rights. In a pamphlet entitled "Christian Considerations on Laboratory Animals," Reverend Marc Wessels notes that in laboratories animals cease to be persons and become "tools of research." He cites William French of Loyala University as having made the same observation at a gathering of Christian ethicists at Duke University—a conference entitled "Good News for Animals?"

On Earth Day, 1990, Reverend Wessels observed: "It is a fact that no significant social reform has yet taken place in this country without the voice of the religious community being heard. The endeavors of the abolition of slavery; the women’s suffrage movement; the emergence of the pacifist tradition during World War I; the struggles to support civil rights, labor unions, and migrant farm workers; and the anti-nuclear and peace movements have all succeeded in part because of the power and support of organized religion. Such authority and energy is required by individual Christians and the institutional church today if the liberation of animals is to become a reality."

"I gave money (to the HSUS) to rehabilitate Michael Vick's dogs"

Too bad the HSUS didn't do anything to rehabilitate Michael Vick's dogs. The HSUS wanted them to be killed.

From: http://nathanwinograd.blogspot.com/2008/02/saving-pit-bulls-from-hsus-peta-michael.html

"Reno News Gazette writer Mark Robison put it best: “PETA and the Humane Society of the United States lobbied to have all of the pit bulls killed. These organizations really need to be shamed for promoting death instead of life for rescued animals; their opposition to no-kill efforts is simply inexcusable.” "

And from the New York Times, straight from the horses err, mouth:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/01/sports/football/01vick.html?_r=1

Wayne Pacelle, the president and chief executive of the Humane Society of the United States, said in a telephone interview... “(W)e have recommended to (the government), and believe, they will be eventually put down.”

That is the HSUS's idea of rehabilitation. I wonder what they did with your money that was supposed to help those dogs.

E P Ratledge you've just made one more massive generalisation to highlight another pro-death-diet's ability to grotesquely see life. Here's what you are like...

"Hitler was bad, so all germans are evil"... or ... "George Bush is a psychopath... all americans are racists".

Thats what you're saying when you basket us all with some terrible act. Guess what genius? Most animal rights activists would agree with you that its horrible what happened in the case you brought up. Your inability to even see that humans like us have the ability to be individuals just shows how far you have fallen in a lack of respect for life.

Diplomatic people don't really listen all that much to people who display a lack of respect and reason. Without the bigger picture, nobody is going to take you seriously. Nobody is going to start eating meat again because you made some mindless comment. You should speak up more because you just make us that more passionate to move towards our goals sooner. What goals do you have? What is the purpose of your comment? Just to shut down activists? Think about the battle here... people afraid of losing some comfortable snack versus people who are engaged in changing the world. You stand NO chance.

Same applies to Carl. Why don't I just attack you because of George Bush? The way you're trying to incriminate all Animal rights activists because of a couple organisations actions? Its just showing your tunnel vision and inability to see that the people who make the most noise and get the spotlight represent everybody. Does George Bush represent you as an individual? How about instead of attacking you personally, I just shoot of criticism at GB and assume that he represents everything you do?

Here, I'm doing a Carl...

"George Bush dropped bombs on iraq... man... americans are a nasty peice of work."

correction => "Its just showing your tunnel vision and inability to see that the people who make the most noise and get the spotlight DO NOT represent everybody."

This is a thread about a person explaining why she would like to not be attacked personally. And you guys coming in here ranting on its like you just don't care about what other people want. Let alone animal rights. Proving the very nature of yourself... a mindless predator who respects nobodies boundries. Day in, day out, massacring multiple lives while then coming into some thread on the web to try and make an activist feel guilty because some remotely connected organisation who has done a couple bad things versus the millions of peoples lives who've made turns for the better? You just better hope that we are more compassionate if we ever have the power to incriminate you for the countless murders you indulge in.

I would like to see organized religion take up the struggle for animal rights. Religion has been wrong before. It has often been said that on issues such as women's rights and human slavery, religion has impeded social and moral progress. It was a Spanish Catholic priest, Bartolome de las Casas, who first proposed enslaving black Africans in place of the Native Americans who were dying off in great numbers.

The church of the past never considered human slavery to be a moral evil. The Protestant churches of Virginia, South Carolina, and other southern states here in the U.S. actually passed resolutions in favor of the human slave traffic.

Human slavery was called "by Divine Appointment," "a Divine institution," "a moral relation," "God's institution," "not immoral," but "founded in right." The slave trade was called "legal," "licit," "in accordance with humane principles" and "the laws of revealed religion."

New Testament verses calling for obedience and subservience on the part of slaves (Titus 2:9-10; Ephesians 6:5-9; Colossians 3:22-25; I Peter 2:18-25) and respect for the master (I Timothy 6:1-2; Ephesians 6:5-9) were often cited in order to justify human slavery. Some of Jesus' parables refer to human slaves. Paul's epistle to Philemon concerns a runaway slave returned to his master.

The Quakers were one of the earliest religious denominations to condemn human slavery.  "Paul's outright endorsement of slavery should be an undying embarrassment to Christianity as long as they hold the entire New Testament to be the word of God," says contemporary Quaker physician Dr. Charles P. Vaclavik. "Without a doubt, the American slaveholders quoted Paul again and again to substantiate their right to hold slaves.

"The moralist movement to abolish slavery had to go to non-Biblical sources to demonstrate the immoral nature of slavery. The abolitionists could not turn to Christian sources to condemn slavery, for Christianity had become the bastion of the evil practice through its endorsement by the Apostle Paul. Only the Old Testament gave the abolitionist any Biblical support in his efforts to free the slaves. 'You shall not surrender to his master a slave who has taken refuge with you.' (Deuteronomy 23:15) What a pittance of material opposing slavery from a book supposedly representing the word of God."

In 1852, Josiah Priest wrote Bible Defense of Slavery. Others claimed blacks were subhuman. Buckner H. Payne, calling himself "Ariel," wrote in 1867: "the tempter in the Garden of Eden...was a beast, a talking beast...the negro." Ariel argued that since the negro was not part of Noah's family, he must have been a beast. Eight souls were saved on the ark, therefore, the negro must be a beast, and "consequently, he has no soul to be saved."

The status of animals in contemporary human society is not unlike that of human slaves in centuries past. Quoting Luke 4:18, Colossians 3:11, Galatians 3:28 or any other biblical passages in favor of liberty, equality and an end to human slavery in the 18th or 19th century would have been met with the same kind of response animal rights activists receive today if they quote Bible verses in favor of ethical vegetarianism and compassion towards animals.

Some of the worst crimes in history have also been committed in the name of religion. There's a great song along these lines from the early 1990s by Rage Against the Machine, entitled "Killing in the Name Of".

Someone once pointed out that while Hitler may have claimed to be a Christian, he imprisoned Christian clergy who opposed the Nazi regime, and even Christian churches were subject to the terror of the Nazis. Thinking along these lines, I realize that while I would like to see organized religion support animal liberation (e.g., as was the case with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the American civil rights movement) rather than simply remain an obstacle to social and moral progress (e.g., 19th century southern churches in the U.S. upheld human slavery on biblical grounds), this support must come freely and voluntarily (e.g., "The Liberation of All Life" resolution issued by the World Council of Churches in 1988).

Religious institutions can't be coerced into rewriting their holy books or teaching a convoluted doctrine to suit the whims or the secular political ideology of a particular demagogue. American liberals argue that principle of the separation of church and state (upon which the United States was founded) gives us freedom FROM religious tyranny and theocracy. Conservatives argue (the other side of the coin!) that one of the reasons America's founding fathers established the separation of church and state was to prevent government intrusion into religious affairs.

I agree with Reverend Marc Wessels, Executive Director of the International Network for Religion and Animals (INRA), who said on Earth Day 1990:

"It is a fact that no significant social reform has yet taken place in this country (the United States) without the voice of the religious community being heard.  The endeavors of the abolition of slavery; the women's suffrage movement; the emergence of the pacifist tradition during World War I; the struggles to support civil rights, labor unions, and migrant farm workers; and the anti-nuclear and peace movements have all succeeded in part because of the power and support of organized religion.  Such authority and energy is required by individual Christians and the institutional church today if the liberation of animals is to become a reality."

PETA certainly seems to me to be an extremist group on one end of the spectrum while the Center for Consumer Freedom seems to be an extremist group on the opposite end of the spectrum, and they both seem to me to criticize almost everything the other does merely because of the other's involvement and without looking at the particulars of any issue at hand.

Most of the people I know are like myself and somewhere in the middle of the spectrum of the two aforementioned groups.  For example, I rescue dogs and personally choose not to breed them; however, I believe people have the right to breed dogs if they so choose but also think there is not enough regulation of breeders and that dogs and cats often suffer in various ways as a result.  And I am not a vegetarian, but I believe that animals raised for human consumption should be cared for appropriately and treated humanely while they are on this earth.

I disagree with HSUS's stand on certain issues and agree with them on others (and to me PETA seems much more extremist/radical than HSUS), but because I don't agree with the HSUS on certain issues does not minimize all the good they do on other issues.  One of the big negatives re HSUS for me is I personally think the HSUS exploited the Vick dogs and collected untold amounts of money for the care of them when the HSUS clearly never even had possession or control of the Vick dogs.  Again, that doesn't take away all the good HSUS has done as a whole to prevent staged animal fights and to legislate tougher penalties for those convicted of dog or cockfighting.

I also have personally met a few HSUS employees, all of whom own dogs and/or cats, so for me that pretty much destroys the theory that HSUS wants to end all dog and cat ownership.

Here is an example of how groups operating under the belief that they are pro dog have interacted:  I received a forwarded email from an AKC breeder, and the email had been sent out to this person's AKC Yahoo group.  The AKC Yahoo group that forwarded the email has a slogan, "WORKING TOGETHER TO FORM A UNITED FRONT TO END ANTI-CANINE LEGISLATION," yet the author of the information contained in this email seemed to get so excited about an opportunity to criticize HSUS and other animal welfare groups that they didn't seem to stop and think about the fact that they were simultaneously promoting and/or defending a very well-known/infamous pit fighter whose family has spent generations past and present subjecting dogs to mutilating abuse in the pit.  http://pitbullfamily.topicboards.com/apbt-history-f17/interview-with-floyd-boudreaux-t216.htm

The information provided concentrated on how the rights of the (alleged in this particular case) pit fighter, Boudreaux, were violated when his dogs were taken and destroyed without due process.  I admittedly don't personally know enough about the situation to say whether or not laws regarding due process were, in fact, broken in this case, but you would think a group that cared about the well-being of animals would be at least as equally outraged and focused on the fact that this guy and his family have been well-known dogmen/pitfighters for decades and have subjected countless dogs to unnecessary suffering and abuse. 

In my opinion, it happens much too frequently that the baby gets thrown out with the bath water, so to speak, because groups that are both allegedly pro animal are so busy spewing venom. 

Lisa writes:
  "  I'm very involved with stopping greyhound racing, I gave a lot of money to pass anti-horse slaughter legislation this past year, I gave money to rehabilitate Michael Vick's dogs, I gave money to the causes I care the most about.  I am not going to defend the non-profit's actions across the board because I have the option of allocating my funds within the organization.  I guess that makes me a horrible person, being an AR who gives to an animal welfare organization?"

    I'm sure all the greyhounds that will die when they'd rather be racing are grateful for your support.  HSUS spread a lot of lies about sled dogs when they were trying to stop sled dog racing, I see no reason to believe anything they say about greyhounds or anything else.   The mushers know sled dogs, the greyhound owners know greyhound racing, HSUS just tells lies or twists the truth around backwards.    They never had anything to do with Vick's dogs.  They're under investigation about what happened to millions they collected for Katrina rescues. 
  And they are NOT an "animal welfare organization."  HSUS is an animal rights group.  There is a difference. 
http://www.animalwelfarecouncil.com/html/aw/rights.php

An essay:  "What's Wrong With Animal Rights"
www.sfponline.org/Uploads/20/Hearne.pdf

Yes yes, I get it, it's all *my* fault.  That argument is so old it has dinosaur poop on it.

Normal 0 Normal 0 In a 1985 paper entitled “The Status of Animals in the Christian Tradition” (based on a September 1984 talk at a Quaker study center entitled “Non-violence:  Extending the Concept to Animals”), the Reverend Andrew Linzey redefined the traditional understanding of human “dominion” over the animal kingdom:
“...scholarly research in the modern period interprets the notion of dominion in terms of early kingship theology in which man is to act as God’s vice-regent in creation, that is with authority, but under divine moral rule.  We are therefore not given absolute or arbitrary power over animals but entrusted with God-like power which must be exercised with responsibility and restraint.
“...for centuries Christians have misinterpreted their own scripture and have read into it implications that were simply not there.  The idea that human beings have absolute rights over creation is therefore eclipsed. The vital issue that now confronts moral theologians is how far and to what extent we may use animal life and for what purposes.”
After citing Scripture and many positive instances of concern for animals in the Christian tradition, Reverend Linzey concludes that the Christian basis for animal rights includes the following points:   1)     Animals are fellow creatures with us and belong to God. 2)     Animals have value to God independently of their value or use to us. 3)     Animals exist in a covenant relationship with God and mankind and therefore there is a moral bond between us. 4)     Human beings are set in a position of responsibility to animals. 5)     Jesus Christ is our moral exemplar in his sacrifice of love for creation. 6)     God’s redeeming love extends to all creation. 7)     We have duties to animals derived from our relationship of responsibility to them.   The Reverend Dr. Andrew Linzey’s 1987 book, Christianity and the Rights of Animals, may be regarded as a landmark in Christian theology as well as in the animal rights movement.  Linzey responds to criticism from many of the intellectual leaders of the animal rights and environmental movements—Peter Singer, Richard Ryder, Maureen Duffy, Lynn White, Jr.—that Christianity has excluded nonhumans from moral concern, that Christian churches are consequently agents of oppression, and that Christian doctrines are thus responsible for the roots of the current ecological crisis.
“We do not have books devoted to a consideration of animals,” he acknowledges.  “We do not have clearly worked-out systematic views on animals.  These are signs of the problem.  The thinking, or at least the vast bulk of it, has yet to be done.”
Dr. Tom Regan calls Reverend Linzey, an Anglican clergyman, “the foremost theologian working in the field of animal/human relations.”  Christianity and the Rights of Animals, a must-read for all Christians, certainly clears the ground.
According to Reverend Linzey:
"It does seem somewhat disingenuous for Christians to speak so solidly for human rights and then query the appropriateness of rights language when it comes to animals...the Christian basis for animal rights is bound to be different in crucial respects from that of secular philosophy.  But because Christians (as we see it) have a good, even superior, basis for animal rights, that in no way precludes others from utilizing the terminology.”
Linzey acknowledges that the gospel is ambiguous on ethical questions such as animal rights.  “When it comes to wanting to know the attitude that Jesus may have taken to a range of pressing moral issues today, we are often at a loss to know precise answers.  But we can at least be clear about the contours.  The lordship of Christ is expressed in service.  He is the one who washes dirty feet, heals the sick, releases individuals from oppression, both spiritual and physical, feeds the hungry, and teaches his followers the way of costly loving...”
Linzey justifies compassion for animals through the example of Christ.  “If God’s self-revealed life in Jesus is the model of how Christians should behave and if, crucially, divine power is expressed in service, how can we disregard even ‘the least among us’?  It may be that in the light of Christ we are bound to say that the weakest have in fact the greater claim upon us.
“In some ways,” Linzey continues, “Christian thinking is already oriented in this direction.  What is it that so appalls us about cruelty to children or oppression of the vulnerable, but that these things are betrayals of relationships of special care and special trust?  Likewise, and even more so, in the case of animals who are mostly defenseless before us.
“Slowly but surely,” Linzey explains, “having grasped the notion of dominion means stewardship, we are now for the first time seeing how demanding our lordship over creation is really meant to be.  Where once we thought we had the cheapest ride, we are now beginning to see that we have the costliest responsibilities...Lordship without service is indeed tyranny.”
Discussing the finer points between human “dominion” over animals, versus humane stewardship, Linzey says, “the whole point about stewardship is that the stewards should value what God has given as highly as they value themselves.  To be placed in a relationship of special care and special protection is hardly a license for tyranny or even... ‘benevolent despotism.’  If we fail to grasp the necessarily sacrificial nature of lordship as revealed in Christ, we shall hardly begin to make good stewards, even of those beings we regard as ‘inferior.’”
Linzey sees divine reconciliation through Christ.  The “hidden purpose” of God in Christ was “determined beforehand,” and consists of bringing “all in heaven and on earth” into a “unity in Christ.”  (Ephesians 1:9-11)  Linzey notes that in Ephesians, as in Colossians and Romans, the creation is “foreordained in Christ.”
“Since it is through man’s curse that the creation has become estranged from its Creator,” Linzey asserts, “it is only right that one important step along the road to recovery is that man himself should be redeemed.  The salvation of human beings is in this way a pointer to the salvation of all creation...For it must be the special role of humans within God’s creation to hasten the very process of redemption, by the power of the Spirit for which God has destined it.
“Human beings must be healed,” Linzey insists, “because it is their violence and disorder which has been let loose on the world.  Through humans, liberated for God, we can glimpse the possibility of world redemption.  Can it really be so difficult to grasp that the God who performs the demanding and costly task of redeeming sinful man will not also be able to restore the involuntary animal creation, which groans under the weight of another’s burden?
“In principle the question of how an almighty, loving God can allow suffering in a mouse is no different to the same question that may be posed about man.  Of course there are important differences between men and mice, but there are no morally relevant ones when it comes to pain and suffering.  It is for this reason alone that we need to hold fast to those cosmic strands of the biblical material which speak of the inclusive nature of Christ’s sacrifice and redeeming work.”
Linzey finds two justifications for a Christian case for vegetarianism:
“The first is that killing is a morally significant matter.  While justifiable in principle, it can only be practically justified where there is real need for human nourishment.  Christian vegetarians do not have to claim that it is always and absolutely wrong to kill in order to eat.  It could well be that there were, and are, some situations in which meat-eating was and is essential in order to survive.  Geographical considerations alone make it difficult to envisiage life in Palestine at the time of Christ without some primitive fishing industry.  But the crucial point is that where we are free to do otherwise the killing of Spirit-filled individuals requires moral justification.  It may be justifiable, but only when human nourishment clearly requires it, and even then it remains an inevitable consequence of sin.
“The second point,” Linzey explains, “is that misappropriation occurs when humans do not recognize that the life of an animal belongs to God, not to them.  Here it seems to me that Christian vegetarianism is well-founded.  For while it may have been possible in the past to rear animals with personal care and consideration for their well-being and to dispatch them with the humble and scrupulous recognition that their life should only be taken in times of necessity, such conditions are abnormal today.”
In Christianity and the Rights of Animals, the Reverend Dr. Andrew Linzey not only makes a very sound Christian theological case for animal rights, but states further that animal slavery may be abolished on the same grounds that were used in biblical times to abolish human sacrifice and infanticide:
“...it may be argued that humans have a right to their culture and their way of life.  What would we be, it may be questioned, without our land and history and ways of life?  In general, culture is valuable.  But it is also the case that there can be evil cultures, or at least cherished traditions which perpetuate injustice or tyranny.
"The Greeks, for example, despite all their outstanding contributions to learning did not appear to recognize the immorality of (human) slavery.  There can be elements within every culture that are simply not worth defending, not only slavery, but also infanticide and human sacrifice.”
“With God, all things are possible.”  (Matthew 19:26; Mark 10:27; Luke 18:27)  Linzey urges Christian readers to think in terms of future possibilities.  “For to be committed to Jesus involves being committed not only to his earthly ministry in the past but also to his living Spirit in whose power new possibilities are continually opened up for us in the present.  All things have yet to be made new in Christ and we have yet to become perfect as our Father in heaven is perfect.  Making peace is a dynamic possibility through the Spirit.”
The Glauberg Confession is a theological statement of faith made before a God whose love extends to all His creatures.  It reads as follows:
“We confess before God, the Creator of the Animals, and before our fellow Men; We have failed as Christians, because we forgot the animals in our faith.
“As theologians we were not prepared to stand up against scientific and philosophical trends inimical to life with the Theology of Creation.  We have betrayed the diaconical mission of Jesus, and not served our least brethren, the animals.
“As pastors we were scared to give room to animals in our churches and parishes.
“As the Church, we were deaf to the ‘groaning in travail’ of our mistreated and exploited fellow-creatures.

“We justify the Glauberg Confession theologically.
“We read the statements in the Bible about Creation and regard for our fellow-creatures with new eyes and new interest.  We know how tied up we are with Nature, linked with every living thing—and under the same threat.
“The rediscovery of the theology of Creation has also turned our regard upon the animals, our poorest brothers and sisters.  We perceive that as theologically thinking and working Christians we owe them a change of attitude.
“We justify our Confession pastorally.
“For years many people actively engaged in animal welfare have been waiting for us ministers of religion to take up the cause of animal rights.  Many of them have quit the Church in disappointment because no clear witness was given for the animals in the field of theology, in the Church’s social work or in the parishes, either in word or in deed.  The task of winning back the trust of these people who dedicate their time, money, energy and sometimes their health to reconciliation with the animals, is a pastoral challenge to us.”
Reverend Marc Wessels says of The Glauberg Confession:
“It speaks simply but eloquently on behalf of those who have determined that they will no longer support a theology of human dictatorship that is against God’s other creatures...
“This brief statement was written during the spring of 1988 and was signed by both Roman Catholic and Protestant clergy who participated in its framing.
“It was signed by men and women of religious orders, as well as by laity.  Both academics and average church members have indicated their support for the document by signing it.
“Growing numbers of people around the globe are also adding their own personal declaration of support by forwarding their names to the covenors of the confession.”
“Increasingly, during this century Christians have come   to understand the gospel, the Good News, in terms of   freedom, both freedom from oppression and freedom   for life with God and others.  Too often, however,   this freedom has been limited to human beings,   excluding most other creatures, as well as the   earth.
“This freedom cannot be so limited because if we   destroy other species and the ecosystem, human   beings cannot live.  This freedom should not be   so limited because other creatures, both species   and individuals, deserve to live in and for   themselves and for God.  Therefore, we call on   Christians as well as other people of good will   to work towards the liberation of life, all life.”
---World Council of Churches“The Liberation of Life,” 1988   In “The Liberation of Life,” the World Council of Churches, a politically left-liberal organization with worldwide influence, has taken the strongest animal protection position of any Christian body.
This document urges parishioners to avoid cosmetics and household items that have been tested on animals; to buy “cruelty-free” products, instead.  This document urges parishioners to boycott animal furs and skins, and purchase “cruelty-free” clothing as a humane alternative.  This document asks that meat, eggs and dairy products be purchased from sources where the animals have not been subject to overcrowding, confinement and abuse, and reminds parishioners they are free to avoid such products altogether.  Parishioners are also asked not to patronize any form of entertainment that treats animals as mere objects of human usage.
In a 1989 interview, Reverend Linzey insisted, “...my primary loyalty is to God, and not to the church.  You see, I don’t think the claims of the church and the claims of God are identical...The church is a very human institution, a frail human institution, and it often gets things wrong.  Indeed, it’s worse than that.  It’s often a stumbling block and often a scandal.”
Linzey expressed optimism from a study of history:  “Let’s take your issue of slavery.  If you go back in history, say 200 years, you’ll find intelligent, conscientious, loving Christians defending slavery, because they hardly gave it two thoughts.  If they were pressed, they might have said, ‘Slavery is part of progress, part of the Christianization of the dark races.’
“A hundred or perhaps as little as 50 years later, what you suddenly find is that the very same Christian community that provided one of the major ideological defenses of slavery had begun to change its mind...here is a classic example of where the Christian tradition has been a force for slavery and a force for liberation.
“Now, just think of the difficulties that those early Christian abolitionists had to face.  Scripture defended slavery.  For instance, in Leviticus 25, you’re commanded to take the child of a stranger as a slave...St. Paul simply said that those who were Christian slaves should be better Christians.  Almost unanimously, apart from St. Gregory, the church fathers defended slavery, and for almost 1800 years, Christians defended and supported slavery.  So, in other words, the change that took place within the Christian community on slavery is not just significant, it is historically astounding.
“Now, I give that example because I believe the case of animals is in many ways entirely analogous.  We treat animals today precisely as we treated slaves, and the theological arguments are often entirely the same or have the same root.  I believe the movement for animal rights is the most significant movement in Christianity, morally, since the emancipation of the slaves.  And it provides just as many difficulties for the institutional church...”
Christians have found themselves unable to agree upon many pressing moral issues—including abortion.  Exodus 21:22-24 says if two men are fighting and one injures a pregnant woman and the child is killed, he shall repay her according to the degree of injury inflicted upon her, and not the fetus.  On the other hand, the Didache (Apostolic Church teaching) forbade abortion.
“There has to be a frank recognition that the Christian church is divided on every moral issue under the sun:  nuclear weapons, divorce, homosexuality, capital punishment, animals, etc.,” says Reverend Linzey.  “I don’t think it’s desirable or possible for Christians to agree upon every moral issue.  And, therefore, I think within the church we have no alternative but to work within diversity.”

Why not think the same way when attacking people using animals for a greater good of mankind, those men, women, children, someone's father, aunt, uncle, brother, grandfather, grandmother or whomever else doing what they believe is right?

Very well written Stephanie. You're awsome

In regards to the posts on Veganism being garbage:   I have known several people over the years that were vegans and they were just as healthy as meat eaters, if not more so.  Just because it doesn't work for you for whatever reason, doesn't make it garbage.  Please don't post such garbage.   The famous Phoenix family is a perfect example of vegans and how healthy they are.  

As for the article here about animal rights people.....it truly is sad how people will vindicate others who are just trying to make this world a better place and be inclusive of others in our animal kingdom....remember, humans are a part of the animal family.   If you don't want to make the change and aren't brave enough to do it...then we can't stop you.  But to try to make others who make that brave step, out to be bad people, is just sad.  I remember how I felt when I made the first step.  It felt so right...the only problem was how other people were going to ridicule and make me feel about it. It wasn't easy.  Why does it have to be that way?   I'm sure that's how most that don't make the step feel too and instead of acknowledging that and letting go of the ego, they just continue to disconnect themselves and stay where it's comfortable.  Comfortable from ridicule from others.   Hopefully if the time comes for them some day when they need someone to step up to help them, and that the other person will risk being riducled to do so, they will finally understand what it's all about.  And will they truly not blame that other person who just could'nt take the risk of ridicule.   It always sucks to be on the other side of things.   Personally...I quit worrying about what others think of me.   Each day I get up I feel the satisfaction of knowing I'm doing what I feel is really the right thing.  I can look animals in the eyes now and finally feel that I am their equal, maybe even a friend to a few....but if nothing else, respectful that they are just our brethren on this rock we all live on.  

In his 1975 book, Animal Liberation, Australian philosopher Peter Singer writes:

"Killing an animal is in itself a troubling act. It has been said that if we had to kill our own meat we would all be vegetarians. There may be exceptions to that general rule, but it is true that most people prefer not to inquire into the killing of the animals they eat.

"Very few people ever visit a slaughterhouse; and films of slaughterhouse operations are rarely shown on television...Yet those who, by their purchases, require animals to be killed have no right to be shielded from this or any other aspect of the production of the meat they buy.

"If it is distasteful for humans to think about, what can it be like for the animals to experience it?"

In his 1987 Pulitzer Prize nominated book, Diet for a New America, author John Robbins writes: "We do not usually see ourselves as members of a flesh-eating cult. But all the signs of a cult are there. Many of us are afraid to even consider other diet-style choices, afraid to leave the safety of the group, afraid when there isn't any evidence that might reveal that the god of animal protein isn't quite all it's cracked up to be. Members of the Great American Steak Religion frequently become worried if their family or friends show any signs of disenchantment. A mother may be more worried if her son or daughter becomes a vegetarian than if they take up smoking." 
 
Peter Singer concludes in Animal Liberation that "by ceasing to rear and kill animals for food, we can make extra food available for humans that, properly distributed, it would eliminate starvation and malnutrition from this planet. Animal Liberation is Human Liberation, too."

"The way you're trying to incriminate all Animal rights activists because of a couple organisations actions"

I never said anything of the sort.
Find a quote from me that says anything like that.

I DID say that if you give them money, then it is fair to assume that you agree with them.

Here, I'm doing a Robert Norris ad hominem attack:
Your response demonstrates a clear lack of comprehension of what you recently read.

You're saying its fair to assume things, yet criticising my assumptions of you? Must be convenient for you to have double standards all the way from the wesbsite forum to the dinner table.

I'm not going to look through your troubled words to quote you bro. I've read everything I need to of yours.

While you may be used to talking to people getting them all confused because they are like you, trapped in a small minded view able to be fooled by a guy pretending to have a clue about life because he can say fancy words, you're talking to people who see through the discrimination and fear. Your wordplay won't carry much mileage around these parts.

If you don't like being discriminated against, why do you do it?

If you payed any tax in the last 8 years, you're george bushes wingman. Thats about as accurate as saying if you give money to an organisation you agree with them. Actually carl, the world is quite twisted and its almost impossible to find an organisation that fits the bills of anyones entire suite of ethics. I give my money to businesses who's owners eat meat because they are the only local provider of a certain thing. In your black and white world though, you might find that challenging to realise... you can help people or organisations without being into everything they are on about, no?

For 53 years I ate meat.
One day in July 2008 my live changed.
What I saw and what I suddenly realized will be with me forever.
That day I stopped eating meat.
It was for reasons of my conscience and I did not even consider any health reasons then.

Withing one week of totally eliminating meat products I "to my surprise" was rid of my life long digestive problems and their side effects. Problems that I had learned to live with but were troubling nevertheless.

Since then I found that animal protein in form of meat and milk products were the cause of my stomach and digestive problems.

I am also suffering from high blood pressure. I am taking two medications for it.

Within two months my blood pressure was drastically lowered.

I eliminated almost all milk products except for cheese. I have to admit being French born I love Camembert and eliminating cheese is difficult.

But whenever I eat any cheese my stomach problem is right back for a few days until I get it out of my system. Little by little I have switched to meatless products of which there are so many now available that I do not miss meat in any way. This is coming from a lady who loved her pork roast, schnitzel, steaks cordon bleu, bratwurst and of course all the cold cuts, ham and liverwurst.


If someone had told me in 2007 that I would change like this, I would have ask them "what are you smoking?"

Never say never.

The sad part is that even though I have changed and am healthier for it, many people have prejudiced view of non meat eating people and make fun of folks like me.

If I mention what prompted me I really get looked at weirdly. Luckily I never looked down on vegetarians when I ate meat, I just always though I could never give up that good meat taste.

I knew enough about nutrition to know that protein can come from vegetable and legumes and not only from animal. One source of whole protein meaning it has all essential amino acids if quinoa (Quinoa is 12% to 18% protein and four ounces a day, about 1/2-cup, will provide a childs protein needs for one day. The 6-7% fat of quinoa is relatively high when compared to other grains, but it boasts a low sodium content and also provides valuable starch and fiber. Quinoa also contains albumen, a protein that is found in egg whites, blood serum, and many plant and animal tissues. The seeds are gluten-free) .


It is also a fact that too many people eat too much protein and the animal fat that comes with it, the unfortunate cause of heart disease and obesity. With so many unsubstantiated claims that vegetarian aren't healthy, by people participating in dietary behavior that leaves so many of them obese and ridden with heart disease , high blood pressure, arthritis, gout, diabetes, not to mention that now children and young adults are beginning ot show signs of heart disease adn are obese, I woudl say maybe it is time to learn better ways.

I wish everyone could open their minds just a bit to experience what I have.

At the end we are better off for it. Physically and Spiritually!
Please support my cause in the animals rights section
"Stop Skinning live Animals Everywhere"
http://www.change.org/ideas/view/stop_the_live_skinning_of_animals_everywhere

Robert Norris asks:
"You're saying its fair to assume things, yet criticising my assumptions of you?" 

  It's certainly fair, when someone writes, "I am  an animal rights advocate,"  to assume that the writer is an animal rights advocate.    If someone claims to be a vegan is it a fair assumption that that person won't be wanting steak for dinner?  OF COURSE it's fair to assume things.

The assumptions go beyond what you've highlighted though Cynthia. The assumptions being made is that Animal Rights activists are either PETA or HSUS and the assumption is that since there have been a few over zealous actions over the years by either these orgs or other individuals, that therefor renders all animal rights people as over zealous and hipocritical. Thats not a fair assumption at all... its as discriminatory as thinking every german has a hitler inside them.

The power of individual thinking is what convinces most of us here that you can have a separate view than the whole of an organization.  It's not a far stretch to think that people who belong to  the NRA don't agree 100% with that organization, either. 

"I'm not going to look through your troubled words to quote you bro. I've read everything I need to of yours."

In other words, you refuse to engage in rational discussion, refuse to let yourself be confused by facts, and refuse to base your allegations on facts.

"While you may be used to talking to people getting them all confused because they are like you, trapped in a small minded view able to be fooled by a guy pretending to have a clue about life because he can say fancy words, you're talking to people who see through the discrimination and fear. Your wordplay won't carry much mileage around these parts."

Your words are filled with the very discrimination and fear of which you claim to be free. My "wordplay" might make sense to you if you had the first clue about the proper conduct of a debate.

Because you refuse to consider any facts that are inconvenient to your viewpoint, refuse to use fact-based arguments. and consider ad hominem attacks fair game, I refuse to continue this discussion with you.

And if you don't know what that "wordplay" means,
then your ignorance is deep. Go back to school.

"The power of individual thinking is what convinces most of us here that you can have a separate view than the whole of an organization.  It's not a far stretch to think that people who belong to  the NRA don't agree 100% with that organization, either."

True. But you have been shown evidence that HSUS deliberately and with intent habitually embezzles funds that [b]you[/b] donated for a particular purpose. That's different than not agreeing 100%. That's fraud.

And just to be clear, I have [b]never[/b] bashed AR advocates during this discussion. I bashed the HSUS and PETA. Then a bunch of people who claimed that neither of these organizations speaks for them rushed headlong and screaming to their defense.

The HSUS is a fraud. PETA wants to save all your pets by killing them, and runs the front operation for ALF. Neither of these organizations lift a finger toward helping the actual work of [b]animal welfare[/b]. Well intentioned contributions are redirected into deceptive fund-raising advertisments.

If you want to be taken seriously as an "animal rights activist", you must divorce yourself from these criminal frauds.

Ok, if *you* say this is what I/we should do, then you get the final say?  And it doesn't matter if you take me seriously as an AR, I'm not doing this for you.  I'm doing this for a bigger purpose than pleasing random people.

The HSUS was instrumental in passing legislation in MA to ban greyhound racing, Prop 2 in California and continues to investigate abuses at slaughterhouses & industrial farms.  I agree with THAT, therefore I continue to give money.

As it was stated above, and again & again by me, there is no way to find an organization that allies itself 100% with your personal beliefs.  And show me any lobbying group, any charity, any organization that doesn't mess around w/the money they get?  Even our government is known to squander our taxes and we are REQUIRED to pay those! 

Yes Carl, you got me sorted.. I'm worried about having a debate with you. Phew. Somebody wipe the sweat from my forhead and find a take this thesaurus out of my shaking hands.

You know I had a lot of anger like you when I still ate meat Carl. I'd also stick my nose into places I didn't belong acting like a supreme person. The diet reflects the actions. Micro / macro connections etc. This rational may go beyond you. They don't teach you this stuff at school I'm sorry. If you want to debate with people who 'swallow'ed the almight school teachings... hey, thats your issue you don't want to interact with adults.

The very act of coming into a personal thread to highlight a remote organisation is actually not rational at all like you'd like to be convinced. Here's another analogy for you... You've written a blog on what its like being an american and as an american person you are pushing for peace in your local paradigm. But there are these guys from overseas who keep coming into your blog about you and they just keep referencing George Bush quotes as a way to highlight that you are supporting the wrong thing: america.

If you can't see the rational in my post, thats your issue. Funnily on christmas day when I showed this thread to both veg's and pro-meaties alike they understood where I was coming from and they mentioned "that Carl guy sure seems angry and out of place".

So you're talking about rational, yet random other people out there are going "why is that guy even here?". And you think you just have the right to be here invading a space with your negative supremecy... that same supremecy that you think gives you permission to take like.

Explain the logic and diplomacy of coming into an individuals thread who has explained her perspective of receiving abuse as an AR person, to preaching your gospel about the evil actions of another organisation. Explain that great logic Carl to show how you actually give 2 cents about offering anything contributive here and not just blindly and reactively falling into the opposite of the very most simple request the author asked for: respect.

You've showed no respect to myself or any other individual in this forum. What you have shown is your ability to judge people based on their intelligence and how if somebody lacks even the slightest supreme connection to you, then undermine them by talking about the greater bodies out there that are on the same wave length.

You're bashing us by going beyond us. You're bashing us by not respecting us individually and engaging on a real human level where people have emotions and insecurities and the desire to be heard. You're bashing us by ignoring that and preaching some gospel about the 'higher powers' in the world. Dude, its not me who needs to learn about rational... I've got every excuse and argument already in my mind from over 25 years of putting out the fear dribble like you. See, its not discrimination because I actually KNOW where you are coming from. There's no guess work... I could break your defenses down to a scientific proof that you are coming from a place of ignorance and fear nicely gift wrapped as confidence and supremecy. If you want to make this a public display, I'll be happy to oblige and turn your seeming intelligence into what it really is... gospel and gossip... a guy who's become great at copy and pasting other negative things that have been passed around. Like I said, you read the cover while debating with people who read the book.

Evidence of criminal wrongdoing doesn't sway your opinion of HSUS.

You ignore that, then start in on calling me a meat eater and dragging in some "gospel about the 'higher powers' in the world", atrributing that to me. I never said that or anything like it.

Rational???
Have you bothered to google "ad hominem" yet?
Vasu Murti on 12/23/2008 @ 03:31PM PST Got in the first "Nazi" and "Hitler". Not me.

I didn't know of HSUS until this thread. My personal mission goes forward regardless of them. I actually just see everything you say about PETA and HSUS as a distraction and irrelevant to the topic at hand. You're telling me I need to respond and consider your arguments but your forcing a debate in here that was never the issue.

gospel = the newspaper clippings you read and write off as fact
higher powers = peta, hsus

Does that make sense to you?

Does evidence of criminal wrongdoing sway me? Of course it does... yet still, here I am, talking to a criminal. Thats you. In my mind, you're murdering animals... you're even defending them. And yet the funny thing is, while one hand you are saying these actions which cause disruption, death etc, that these are criminal, you seem to think its ok that you do it behind closed doors. So its the most horrible contradiction to you for these companies to at some point engaged in a over zealous activity and hurt or mistreated somebody, yet you somehow manage to say its ok for yourself?

You are a criminal. And yet, here I am... swaying you.

The reason you said you refuse to discuss this anymore I really don't think is a matter of you feeling the debate isn't going anywhere... its that you've run out of discourse to copy and paste and you'd hate to be forced to examine yourself and your own actions showing the very things you'd like to tell others are criminal.

So that must be why your line of attack so far has consisted of almost entirely of name-calling, misquoting, and failure to rebut facts.

Although it is an agnostic (i.e., no recognition of a personal God) moral philosophy a few centuries older than Christianity, Buddhism teaches a consistent ethic of reverence for all life. No wars have ever been waged in the name of Buddhism. The act of abortion is also explicitly condemned in the Buddhist canonical scriptures. Sir Edwin Arnold's poetic biography on Siddhartha Gautama, The Light of Asia, caused quite a controversy in Victorian England: centuries before Jesus, an earlier teacher lived "the Christ life."

The ethical teachings of the Buddha are quite similar to those found in the Gospel of Jesus: One must never be proud nor harbor anger against anyone. He who humbles himself shall be exalted, while the one who exalts himself shall be degraded. Harsh language must never be used against anyone.

Avoid lust, anger and greed. One should not scrutinize the mote in a neighbor's eye without first noticing the beam in one's own. One must "turn the other cheek" if attacked or abused. One's own possessions must be shared with the less fortunate. If a man obtained the whole world and its riches, he still would not be satisfied, nor would this save him.

In 261 B.C., the Indian emperor Ashoka witnessed firsthand the innumerable casualties he caused during one of his many military campaigns. His heart was filled with grief. He converted to Buddhism. 19th century scholar and writer H.G. Wells considered Ashoka's conversion to Buddhism one of the most significant events in world history.

Ashoka, formerly a bloody and ruthless emperor, became a remarkably kind and gentle leader. Ashoka established some of the first animal rights laws. He stopped the royal hunt, the sacrifice of animals in his capital city, the killing of animals for food in the royal kitchens, and gave up the eating of meat. Ashoka made it illegal to kill many species of animals, such as parrots, ducks, geese, bats, turtles, squirrels, monkeys and rhinos. He forbade the killing of pregnant animals, or animals that were nursing their young. He declared certain days to be "non-killing days," on which fish could not be caught, nor any other animals killed. He established wells and watering holes, places of rest and hospitals for humans and animals alike.

Ashoka educated his people to have compassion for animals, and to refrain from killing or harming them. He sent missionaries to all the neighboring kingdoms to teach mercy, compassion and nonviolence. Through Ashoka's patronage, Buddhism was spread all over the Indian subcontinent. Buddhism would eventually reach the rest of Asia; today there are an estimated 300 to 600 million Buddhists worldwide.

The first precept of Buddhism is:  "Do not kill, but rather preserve and cherish all life."  There is an ancient poem, reputed to be the only text ever written by the Buddha himself, which states:

"Let creatures all, all things that live, all beings of whatever kind, see nothing that will bode them ill.  May naught of evil come to them."

The Buddhist emperor Ashoka (268-223 BC) declared in one of his famous Pillar Edicts:  "I have enforced the law against killing certain animals..The greatest progress of Righteousness among men comes from the exhortation in favor of non-injury to life and abstention from killing living beings."

Mahayana Buddhism supports the vegetarian way of life.  According to the Mahaparinirvana Sutra:  "The eating of meat extinguishes the seed of great compassion."

The Lankavatara Sutra says:

"For the sake of love of purity, the bodhisattva should refrain from eating flesh, which is born from semen, blood, etc.  For fear of causing terror to living beings let the bodhisattva, who is disciplining himself to attain compassion, refrain from eating flesh...It is not true that meat is proper food and permissible when the animal was not killed by himself, when he did not order others to kill it, when it was not specifically meant for him...Again, there may be some people in the future who...being under the influence of the taste for meat will string together in various ways many sophisticated arguments to defend meat-eating...But...meat-eating in any form, in any manner, and in any place is unconditionally and once and for all prohibited...Meat-eating I have not permitted to anyone, I do not permit, I will not permit..."

The Surangama Sutra says:

"The reason for practicing dhyana and seeking to attain samadhi is to escape from the suffering of life.  But in seeking to escape from suffering ourselves, why should we inflict it upon others?  Unless you can control your minds that even the thought of brutal unkindness and killing is abhorrent, you will never be able to escape from the bondage of the world's life...After my parinirvana in the final kalpa different kinds of ghosts will be encountered everywhere deceiving people and teaching them that they can eat meat and still attain enlightenment...How can a bhikshu, who hopes to become a deliverer of others, himself be living on the flesh of other sentient beings?"

The Dalai Lama has said, "I do not see any reason why animals should be slaughtered to serve as human diet when there are so many substitutes.  After all, man can live without meat."

For further reading:

Dr. Tony Page, Buddhism and Animals
Norm Phelps, The Great Compassion:  Buddhism and Animal Rights
Steven Rosen, Diet for Transcendence

Misturu Kakimoto of the Japanese Vegetarian Society writes:  "A survey that I conducted of 80 Westerners, including Americans, Englishmen and Canadians, revealed that approximately half of them believed that vegetarianism originated in India.  Some respondents assumed that vegetarianism had its origin in China or Japan.  It seems to me that the reason Westerners associate vegetarianism with China or Japan is Buddhism. It is no wonder, and in fact we could say that Japan used to be a country where vegetarianism prevailed."

Gishi-wajin-denn, a history book on Japan written in China around the third century BC, says, "Thre are no cattle, no horses, no tigers, no leopards, no goats and no magpies in that land.  The climate is mild and people over there eat fresh vegetables both in summer and in winter."  It also says that  "people catch fish and shellfish in the water."  Apparently, the Japanese ate fresh vegetables as well as rice and other cereals as staple foods.  They also took some fish and shellfish, but hardly any meat.

Shinto, the prevailing religion at the time, is essentially pantheistic, based upon the worship of the forces of nature. According to writer Steven Rosen, in the early days of Shinto, no animal food was offered in sacrifice because of the injunction against shedding blood in the sacred area of the shrine.

Several hundred years later, Buddhism came to Japan and the prohibition of hunting and fishing permeated the Japanese people. In 7th century Japan, the Empress Jito encouraged "hojo," or the releasing of captive animals, and established wildlife preserves, where animals could not be hunted.

There are many similarities between the Hindu literature and the Buddhist religions of the Far East. For example, the word Cha'an of the Cha'an school of Chinese Buddhism is Chinese for the Sanskrit word "dhyana", which means meditation, as does the word "Zen" in Japanese.  In 676 AD, then Japanese emperor Tenmu proclaimed an ordinance prohibiting the eating of fish and shellfish as well as animal flesh and fowl. Subsequently, in the year 737 of the Nara period, the emperor Seimu approved the eating of fish and shellfish.

During the twelve hundred years from the Nara period to the Meiji restoration in the second half of the 19th century, Japanese people enjoyed vegetarian style meals. They usually ate rice as staple food and beans and vegetables. It was only on special occasions or celebrations that fish was served. Under these circumstances the Japanese people developed a vegetarian cuisine, Shojin Ryori (ryori means cooking or cuisine), which was native to Japan.

The word "shojin" is a Japanese translation of "vyria" in Sanskrit, meaning "to have the goodness and keep away evils." Buddhist priests of the Tendai-shu and Shingon-shu sects, whose founders studied in China in the ninth century before they founded their respective sects, have handed down vegetarian cooking practices from Chinese temples strictly in accordance with the teachings of the Buddha.

In the 13th century, Dogen, the founder of the Soto sect of Zen, formally established Shojin Ryori or Japanese vegetarian cuisine. Dogen studied and learned the Zen teachings abroad in China, during the Sung Dynasty. He fixed rules aiming to establish the pure vegetarian life as a means of training the mind.

One of the other influences Zen exerted on the Japanese people manifested itself in Sado, the Japanese tea ceremony.  It is believed that Esai, founder of the Rinazi-shu sect, introduced tea to Japan and it is the custom for Zen followers to drink tea.  The customs preserved in the teaching of Zen lead to a systematic rule called Sado...a Cha-shitsu or tea ceremony room is so constructed as to resemble the Shojin, where the chief priest is at a Buddhist temple.

Food served at a tea ceremony is called Kaiseki in Japanese, which literally means a stone in the breast.  Monks practicing asceticism used to press heated stones to their bosom to suppress hunger.  Then the word Kaiseki itself came to mean a light meal served at Shojin, and Kaiseki meals had great influence on the Japanese.

The "Temple of the Butchered Cow" can be found in Shimoda, Japan. It was erected shortly after Japan opened its doors to the West in the 1850s. It was erected in honor of the first cow slaughtered in Japan, marking the first violation of the Buddhist tenet against the eating of meat.

An example of a Buddhist vegetarian in the modern age:  Kenji Miyazawa, a Japanese writer and poet of the early 20th century, who wrote a novel entitled Vegetarian-Taisai, in which he depicted a fictitious vegetarian congress...His works played an important role in the advocacy of modern vegetarianism. Today, no animal flesh is ever eaten in a Zen Buddhist monastery, and such Buddhist denominations as the Cao Dai sect (which originated in South Vietnam), now boasts some two million followers, all of whom are vegetarian.

The Buddhist teachings are not the only source contributing to the growth of vegetarianism in Japan.  in the late 19th century, Dr. Gensai Ishizuka published an academic book in which he advocated vegetarian cooking with an emphasis on brown rice and vegetables.  His method is called Seisyoku (Macrobiotics) and is based upon ancient Chinese philosophy such as the principles of Yin and Yang and Taoism.  Now some people support his method of preventative medicine.  Japanese macrobiotics suggest taking brown rice as half of the whole intake, with vegetables, beans, seaweeds, and a small amount of fish.

In his 1923 book, The Natural Diet of Man, Dr. John Harvey Kellogg writes:  "According to Mori, the Japanese peasant of the interior is almost an exclusive vegetarian. He eats fish once or twice a month and meat once or twice a year." Dr. Kellogg writes that in 1899, the Emperor of Japan appointed a commission to determine whether it was necessary to add meat to the nation's diet to improve the people's strength and stature. The commission concluded that as far as meat was concerned, "the Japanese had always managed to do without it, and that their powers of endurance and their athletic prowess exceeded that of any of the Caucasian races. Japan's diet stands on a foundation of rice."

According to Dr. Kellogg: "the rice diet of the Japanese is supplemented by the free use of peanuts, soy beans and greens, which... constitute a wholly sufficient bill of fare. Throughout the Island Empire, rice is largely used, together with buckwheat, barley, wheat and millet. Turnips and radishes, yams and sweet potatoes are frequently used, also cucumbers, pumpkins and squashes. The soy bean is held in high esteem and used largely in the form of miso, a puree prepared from the bean and fermented; also tofu, a sort of cheese; and cho-yu, which is prepared by mixing the pulverized beans with wheat flour, salt, and water and fermenting from one and a half to five years.

"The Chinese peasant lives on essentially the same diet, as do also the Siamese, the Koreans, and most other Oriental peoples.  Three-fourths of the world's population eats so little meat that it cannot be regarded as anything more than an incidental factor in their bill of faree.  The countless millions of China," writes Dr. Kellogg, "are for the most part flesh-abstainers.  In fact at lesat two-thirds of the inhabitants of the world make so little use of flesh that it can hardly be considered an essential part of their dietary..."

Misturu Kakimoto concludes:  "Japanese people started eating meat some 150 years ago and now suffer the crippling diseases caused by the excess intake of fat in flesh and the possible hazards from the use of agricultural chemicals and additives. This is persuading them to seek natural and safe food and to adopt once again the traditional Japanese cuisine."

I haven't quoted anybody. So how did I misquote? No my friend, I see through the veil and shoot straight with an arrow to the intention. You want me to rebuke your facts, I'm telling you that you're being a manipulative double standard short sighted forum troller who tries to divert the posts onto your own self centered little focus.

The only way one can connect to a discriminatory person is to highlight the discrimination. Thats my view anyways. Mate, I'm just giving you back your own medicine. You think these firey qualities are what I am about? I'm just reflecting. Its called tough love.

All the best with your endeavours of slandering organisations who are on a mission of world peace and happiness. I'm sure thats going real well for you and probably, if anything, just pushes people away from the close minded aggression and superiority. So keep on speaking. The animals are grateful for it.

What an awesome pots Vasu! Wow. Thank you.

"I haven't quoted anybody"
You certainly never quoted me.

Lisa says that she will continue to support the HSUS despite the undisputed fact that they have, with intent, embezzled some of her earmarked contributions. So Lisa will knowingly and willingly continue to support a fraudulent, probably criminal organization.

Your "organisations who are on a mission of world peace and happiness" are frauds. While your personal mission may be admirable, the association of your movement with these fraudulent organizations is a stain on it. Free yourself from them.

As for any "good" that the HSUS may do, even the mafia contributes to the church. Would you buy heroin from them just because 5% of profits go to charity? They are still criminals who use the other 95% of profits for themselves.

And to your previous point about the government, I agree with you. The US government is an international terrorist organization as defined by US Federal law. It is therefore a federal crime to provide "material support", which includes money, to them.

Do you give blood?  Then maybe this will convince you stop?  http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/07/29/eveningnews/main516700.shtml

They don't actually ask for a blood alongside the money donation at the HSUS or PeTA.  But I still give blood to the Red Cross because it's the right thing to do.

Also, Carl, why spend so much energy over here?  Do you have something you actually care about that you'd rather be praising?  I don't spend time bashing other people's causes because I have enough of my own to focus on.

Hi, Carl.

I'm just wondering why it is that you (very eloquently, to be sure) seem to feel the need to hammer the same points home over and over again?

Are you arguing for argument's sake, or is there a higher purpose to your dedication to repeatedly pointing out the evils of PeTA and HSUS?

If the people here who support those organizations - monetarily or in whatever form they choose - weren't swayed to distance themselves from them the first time (or the first several times), I can't imagine that bludgeoning them with the same information is going to make a difference.  If anything, you just might succeed in driving them deeper into their own convictions, misguided and uninformed though you may feel they are.

You have your beliefs.  Is it possible to allow others to have theirs - right, wrong or indifferent - without trying to control them? 

My guess is that, were I to donate to PeTA, HSUS, the KKK or the International League of Gratuituous Eye Pokers, this would not directly affect you in any way.  So... why all the fuss?

I'd also like to say one more thing about the HSUS - they are probably the LOUDEST voice for animals in Washington.  One of my senators, John Ensign (R-NV), is allied with the HSUS in his fight to end horse slaughter in the USA (by ending the tax funded USDA inspections of horse slaughterhouses), he introduced S. 1915 along w/Mary Landrieu (D-LA) to hopefully meet this end. 

T Boone Pickens (of Texas) was also involved deeply with this movement - since 2 of the foreign owned slaughterhouses were in his home state.  There was bipartisan support for both measures (in the House & Senate) which eventually led to the passage of the bills & ended horse slaughter in the USA. 

Now, why am I bringing this up?  Because the HSUS was instrumental in keeping this issue in the agenda on capital hill.  Without the HSUS, how would someone like me, who has now political power whatsoever except one measely vote once in a while & a computer on which to write letters to my representatives, be able to be a part of important legislation?

Unless you can name for me another large lobbying party in Washington that only speaks for animals on my behalf - and of course having gone through the rigorous screening process that you would personally oversee, thereby protecting my status as a serious AR advocate.

Time to quote.

"As for any "good" that the HSUS may do, even the mafia contributes to the church. Would you buy heroin from them just because 5% of profits go to charity? They are still criminals who use the other 95% of profits for themselves."

No I wouldn't... but its hardly a comparison. Do you really think Peta or HSUS spend 95% on their funds on dodgy stuff? I would say not even 5% of their funds has gone into investments that can even harm another being. Compared to any other company on earth, this makes them relatively saints. Its a useless argument. Its like trying to nail mother theresa for smoking pot when she was 18. What a discovery you have made!

Once again however Carl, you are using your double standards to make a point. It really does seem like purposeless argueing. Like I said, a distraction... You yourself through your diet, through your actions, you run around basically intruding, disrespecting, raping lives, killing families, attacking movements... you do this daily I am sure. Yet you somehow gather the gall to then think you have the almighty judging stick to say its wrong, to call out people on their lack of integrity, to judge a whole movement of people who once in a decade make a decision that just begins to touch on the infringement that you actually are totally cool with and live within.

So you're highlighting a contradiction. Good for you. But its a weak argument coming from a "do as I say, not as I do". I'm not saying its not valid what you are bringing up. But you're honing in on a peaceful bunny in the relative scheme of things and vindicating it as an evil sea monster. You are demanding perfection while being an ocean apart from it yourself.

You're wanting it to hold ground that 'such and such did this bad thing' yet you musn't really think its bad because you're ok with rape and murder. So basically, you don't really have the follow-through to back it up and you will, like many contradictory communicators, wind up silencing yourself and doing some contemplation... on yourself because even people who eat meat, they read things like what you wrote and realise things like "wow, that guy is really stuck and fixated on this one idea... relative to the animal activists, he doesn't seem diplomatic or expansive in any way whatsoever... I'm going to look into Animal Rights".

There's no anti-animalrights conversation that really lasts long. Because generally, its all defense for the sake of defense... there's no plan... there's no vision from you Carl... there's no purpose. Its just fear. You're afraid of losing this conversation... you're afraid of losing your next convenient burger.... We on the other hand (and I mean we as in the animal rights people I tune into in my life) don't have this fear... if we were afraid, we wouldn't step into a movement where its 10 - 1 on your side. You really think we are afraid of you? Or worried about what you think? We are 10 men in 1. No b12 deficiency. No iron deficiency. No mental lethargy. And we're coming in strong, powerful, collectively and dynamic... the more we go, the greater the voice grows... while on your side of the fence, the less intelligent it comes across to even those truly locked into the mass ignorance, that being anti-animal rights is just purely outright moronic... and you think you're in a supreme and righteous place. Sometimes I think the key is just get more people to speak up like you because you help people shift through repulsive polarisation.

I really think you should write a book Carl. Call it "how the rug got swept out from under MEat". It can be a memoir about how you got publicly dissected one day when you thought you had a point to make against a movement and idea who's time has come.

Take a leaf out of Lisa's book. Get a life. Actually work out what you are pushing towards and focus on that. You will find that being for whatever it is you are truly for will be much more resourceful for you. You know like discover what really gets you happy and inspired... childhood regression etc... whatever it takes for you... perhaps keep a daily journal talking about infringements you feel in your own life and make it personal. At least 3 pages of honest soul searching first thing in the morning. I believe you will uncover something special about yourself. The key though is be honest... if you don't want to be honest with yourself, to bother with the morning pages. If you do want to have a purpose though and not just yell "crime" on mother theresa, then take this little bit of advice from me. You just might find there is a little jewel inside you.... a new movement... hey, maybe instead of slandering these organisations you could focus on their contradictions and work out a way to help rectify the hurtful image this has put on the world. You could be like a saintly image repairer. Coming from a place of judgement though, and especially when you're judging negatively on disrespect, when you obviously have quite a close friendship with disrespect, its just not going to work very well.

Take this conversation for example. Do you know that by talking to you I have actually worked out a handfull of new realisations about the contradictions of an anti-animalrights person? And I'm a better communicator than you. So essentially, you have lost because I could go for days on this and my learnings are going to impact many many more people than you. I have a person in my life weekly making the shift to animal rights... even the most adamant meat eaters have changed. I've become incredibly persuasive talking about this, simply by talking to people like you. You are the fuel to my flame. You are the lint to my spark. Your words are the subject of my thesis. Your ignorance is the inspiration to my awareness. This isn't a battle or a debate... its an affirmation of where we are and why we do what we do. Can you see that?

Do you own a dog?

With so many issues I could have commented on here at change.org this is the one post I felt compelled to register for.

There are two sides to the animal rights coin and sadly, having worked at a sanctuary, I saw the business and not the empathy.

"For the love of the animals" was the motto and yet it turned out it was all for the love of the donations and not the welfare of the animals in  question. I won't name the particular sanctuary at which both myself and my wife had worked for a short time but I will relate my experience in the hopes that others who take the position that animals are just animals will see just how humanity is anything but sensible.

The above article isn't about the animals but about the perceptions of a society towards the activists. I am not a militant nor am I particulalry active in animal rights,... what I am or more to the point what my caapability is with regards to animals is a gift - a blessing.

My rewards for having an affinity with animals is something words alone could describe but the feeling could never be conveyed unless one could share the experience. In my limited way allow me to translate that feeling and perhaps more of you will come to appreciate life in all its forms.

This sanctuary was like much of the world is today, dysfunctional and psychotic. If taken as a lump sum of all perceptions (I'm talking about people here for the most part) then the entire world is schizophrenic. Is it any wonder it is dysfunctional?

The sanctuary housed dogs next to exotic cats - lions, tigers, cougars, bobcats, as well as over 200 domestic cats (the domestic cats were Katrina rescues).  All were in confined spaces and all aware of each other. It wasn't conducive to serenity. (Remind you of people?)

My bigger issue was in the food preparation. Most of the exotic cats had dietary supplements as well as medications for various ailments. The standard procedure was to simply dump the supplements on top of the raw meat and a lot of food was thrown away. If I made a meatloaf and you bit into a vein of seasoning you wouldn't eat it either. When I first started I would take the extra few seconds to thoroughly mix the meds in with the meat and the animals not only ate all of what I gave them, they got all of their medicine.

Enter the politics. I was put on domestic cats and my rewarding job then was washing urine off the walls since I was having better success at feeding the exotics than the ones who had seniority and people are funny that way,... it isn't about the animals but about looking good.

The local university would come out and spay/neuter the domestic cats for free (training) and when the surgeries were done the students were given a tour.

Our paths crossed at Niko's enclosure. Niko was a cougar who had been declawed by her owner and was taken by authorities when the owner was arrested on drug dealing charges. The claw removal wasn't entirely successful and Niko had a life of walking on her wrists since the nerves had been severed. She walked (hobbled would be more apt) slowly.

Anyway, here were about a half-dozen students and the sanctuary director all calling Niko to come to the fence... Niko was indifferent. The Director then asked me if I could call her and when I did in my own way Niko got up and ran to me. We both had communication between us and her way of talking to me was her meowr as well as her purring. Amidst the amazed laughter by the students I went on about my work.

There were three other cougars directly opposite Niko and only one of them actually showed me any hostility, probably more out of a remembered fear than actual threat. Caesar used to follow me as far as he was able, his purrs so audible you could almost feel the vibration through the air.

Tiphany on the other hand would hardly (if ever) come out of her wooden box that was all the home she had. I always called her out since I was able to get her to come to me and I was always worried she had died. Her purrs and rubbing up against the fence while I scratched her behind the ears or under her chin (brushing her teeth sometimes) made me feel more than loved, it made me feel needed.

Sanctuary workers are mauled and die every year due to their complacency and not comprehending an animals nature. Animals know I am not a threat and are actually a better judge of people than people are. I have hand fed most of the lions, some of the tigers, some of the cougars, one of the bobcats. The others I showed that respect in not kidding myself as to just how much they wanted to like a human.

There were two male lions there. Gunther used to be a sideshow at a roadside stand where the owner would prod him with a shovel handle to make him roar. ... good for business but not so good for winning trust. If he didn't like you he would spray you and although the director had him for over a decade the best she was able to do was gain his indifferent compliance. He simply ignored her.

 Although I have scratched him on occasion I was always wary of what his capability was and have seen his ferocity at feeding time as he tried to chew steel bars when you placed the food down and opened that section of the pen.

Valentino (a Rhodesian black mane) was a different story. I always played cat/mouse with him and you know who was who. All animals are aware of their surroundings and Val used to see me coming a long way off. I used to slowly stalk him and watch him crouch down, the only thing visible were his eyes and ears.

Slowly I would approach him like I was a cat about to pounce and as soon as I got next to the fence he would pounce and then rub against the fence, roll over on his back and let out a mournful chewbacca sounding wail. The one time I remember the best was when he was so focused on me another worker had slapped him on the rump and he jumped at least six feet in the air.  I felt bad for the blow to his ego.

Animals don't belong in cages and although in the wild many of these creatures wouldn't have survived it still seemed cruel to take them out of their environment. Unjustly sentenced to a life of captivity all because of man's vain attempt at bringing what, envy? Money? Security?

There were a couple of coyote's there as well. One would always come to the fence for me and was like a big dog with his loving attention. The other was never allowed near the fence by the former. Yes, animals get jealous too. Animals also let you know how they feel about you and his jumping repeatedly off the side of the fence at one particular worker showed he just didn't like her... I didn't know the history there.

Several of these animals are now dead "kidney failure" was the common excuse and personally I think it was losing the will to live. (aside from the probable negligence)There wasn't any common sense demonstrated by the owner and had even put a male tiger (750 pounds worth) in with a female lion (450 pounds) because hey, they got along while on opposite sides of the fence. The original female tiger was taken out of the pen and moved when the male had bitten her fairly badly. The method of transport was to prod them with sticks and spraying them with a garden hose to get them into the carrier.

Although I could get them to come to me when called and could have easily gotten her into the carrier I wasn't granted the opportunity to even try because hey, people feel threatened when they are incapable.

She wouldn't eat after being prodded and shoved around and I was eventually asked to feed her which I did , by hand. She ate almost everything, about 12 pounds of meat, and took it from my hands but if I dropped any on the ground instead of getting it past her teeth she would growl at the miss.

Animals are thinking, feeling forms of life. They can demonstrate emotion, have characters unique unto themselves, have memory, and like man, are a reflection of their environment.

Put yourself in their place...

No dog, Carl. Unlucky attempt there to try and keep the argument going and make it personal about me. Sadly, the picture is bigger than me. What is your plan for this Carl? In the whole scheme of what is happening on earth, whats your overall advice for everybody? Or what is it you have learned in life that you think is worth sharing? You know, why are you here... what is the change you want to see? Is it you want to see people not talking about animal rights? Is that the sum of your life? Or do you think there is something more important to focus on? By all means, go and start an idea and a cause and get the show rolling or join with one.

Here's an idea...

You could change legislation that doesn't allow people to own animals if you obviously agree that its a bad thing.

Robert says:
   "You could change legislation that doesn't allow people to own animals if you obviously agree that its a bad thing."

  Robert, you're confused.  That's what the AR people are trying to do.  We're constantly having to defend our right to own animals, against AR groups that equate animal ownership with slavery.  There is an endless stream of legislation being introduced in an effort to make animal ownership difficult or impossible.   One person on this forum has proudly admitted her contributions to greyhound genocide through anti-dog legislation she helped pass in her state. 

  One person here mentioned "The Animal Rights Movement, whatever that is..."   People who don't know what it is ought to do their homework before they align themselves with it. It looks to me as if most of the people writing here don't even know what the Animal Rights Movement is all about, while happily labeling themselves as "Animal Rights advocates," thinking it's got something to do with kindness to animals.   This is where the accusations of hypocricy come in, when people who own and enjoy  pets are fighting for the side that wants to end all animal use by humans. 
   To Stephanie, who started this discussion and admits to owning animals:  Keep on fighting for  Animal Rights, and after you win, your  grandchildren will be living in a world without dogs and cats or any other domestic animals.  People are being hoodwinked into thinking that AR is about kindness to animals.  It isn't.  People are being distracted from the real issue with talk about diet choices. 



 

I want to see the animal rights agenda exposed for what it is, a brand of religious zealotry.

One can be opposed to factory pig farms without being opposed to all animal ownership and use. There is a big difference between a factory pig farm and a backyard chicken flock or a pet dog. There is a big difference between animal welfare and animal rights, but many if not most self-described "animal rights advocates" don't know what it is, including the author of the original post, who proudly announces her pet ownership. Since she cares for several animals, I assume that she has an interest in animal welfare, while PETA, which wants to take her pets away and kill them in the name of "animal rights", does not.

Here is what your high priestess, Ingrid Newkirk, has to say about reverence for life, and reverence for human life:

“I am not a morose person, but I would rather not be here. I don’t have any reverence for life, only for the entities themselves. I would rather see a blank space where I am. This will sound like fruitcake stuff again but at least I wouldn’t be harming anything.”
 — The Washington Post, Nov 1983

“Humans have grown like a cancer. We're the biggest blight on the face of the earth.”
 — Washingtonian magazine, Feb 1990

So apparently, it's OK to be an animal, but her misanthropic final solution is the extinction of the human race. Zealotry at its finest!

If you are in favor of being a vegan, then be a vegan, but don't tell me what to do. Your radical vegan attitude is no different than that of the antiabortion movement, who want to impose their own morality on everyone. If you are opposed to abortion, then don't have one. If you are opposed to eating meat, then don't eat meat. It makes no difference to me, but I respect your choice, because I respect your right to choose your own lifestyle. But trying to impose your morality on me is a direct assault on my freedom, my choice, my morality, and constitutes an act of zealotry.

It is not possible to legislate morality. If you want to change the world, then be the change you want.

Ingrid wants to be dead. I wish her nothing but the best of luck in that pursuit. I wholeheatedly agree with her that the world would be a better place without her. But I'm not going without a fight. I prefer to be alive.

If you would kill to defend your own life, then you are not opposed to all killing. If you would swat a mosquito, then you are not opposed to all killing. You can not live without killing something, whether it be animals or plants. Eating sunflower seeds is killing the potential sunflowers. And don't get me started on the gruesome mass murder by dismemberment of helpless, living, alfalfa sprouts. Then if you decide that you've had it, and want to put a final stop to your daily raping and murdering spree, you still have to kill yourself. So something is going to be killed. This is the real world, not utopia. Get used to it.

Guess what, folks? Time to close the comments. This has become a back-and-forth conversation between few, and anti-AR commenters keep repeating the same tired, already-responded-to and disproven arguments over and over again.

For the record, to those of you who keep insisting that I, the author of the original post, don't know what "animal rights" really is, I'm trying my best to keep my cool here and not say to you what I really, desperately want to say. Instead I'll say this: you have absolutely no idea what the hell you're talking about. I am an animal rights advocate. I know the difference between animal rights and animal welfare quite well. You can keep throwing around your rhetoric about the "real" agenda of animal rights all you want--it just makes you seem hysterical and desperate.

For the FINAL time, as various commenters have already pointed out, here and on other posts, PETA and HSUS are not the "leaders" or the representatives of the animal rights movement at large. Quit taking their positions (mostly out of context and twisted, by the way) and actions and using them to attack animal rights in general. I personally disagree with a lot of HSUS and PETA's positions and strategies, but even I can see when those positions are being completely misinterpreted and twisted to serve the agenda of people opposed to animal rights.

And don't dare take your speciesist language and apply it to me personally and to the relationship I have with the animals who share my home. I do not "own" any other living, sentient being in this world. I own the dogs and cats in this house no more than I own my younger brother. Caring for the animals whom humans have domesticated and made dependent on humans--doing our best to save lives by bringing animals into our homes (not animals whom we have forced into being by paying a breeder, but animals whom we have rescued from death in shelters and on the streets)--is not in opposition to the idea of animal rights. Caring for animals--making the best out of the situation that we humans have created for them--does not make those of us who share our home with animals believers in only animal welfare instead of animal rights. Caring for the animals we are able to care for in the here and now is not inconsistent with working to end the exploitation of animals.

Animal rights is about kindness to and respect for animals. Your positions, Cynthia, Carl, et al., are about selfishness, about the ways in which you wish to use animals and treat them merely as objects you can own and manipulate. You are writing here and elsewhere not on behalf of the animals, but on behalf of our own selfish interests.

There will be a new post expanding on this one and clarifying the points and intentions of this post that were missed, misinterepreted, or intentionally skewed in the comments. When it's published, I will likely come here and post a comment to that effect. Until then, comments will be closed.