Now in a pushback led by the meat and poultry industries, state legislators across the country are introducing laws making it harder for animal welfare advocates to investigate cruelty and food safety cases.
Animal rights is one of the biggest swept under the rug ethical issues of our day, and one in which I see lots of smart rational people stumble over themselves to justify their habits (or uncomfortably turn a blind eye). Recommended listening is Peter Singer's Philosophy Bites interview, which links animal suffering to utilitarianism: <a href="http://philosophybites.com/2008/05/peter-singer-on.html" rel="nofollow">http://philosophybites.com/2008/05/peter-singer-on.html</a>
I think United States v. Stevens (2010) provides interesting context for this story.<p>The case concerned the constitutionality of a bill banning so-called "crush" videos: brutal films in which naked women use their high heels to crush small animals to death.<p>The Court struck down the bill because it was too broad, banning the sale and transport of videos that depicted an animal being maimed, tortured or killed. They cited the fact that such broad language would include hunting videos and factory protest videos like the ones in question.<p>Although crush videos are clearly horrifying and wrong, I felt a strong sense of patriotism when I learned about the Court's verdict. You know that the First Amendment is strong when the Court will consider freedom-of-speech issues even in the face of something that is universally despised.<p>Hopefully, the bills in question now will be challenged and same constitutional principles will be applied.
I just completed 13 months of being a vegetarian. I wanted to convert since 10 years prior to that, but couldn't get myself to do it because I grew up eating meat as a treat once to twice a week. It got progressively worse after I moved to the states as I started eating it three times a day and expanded from Chicken to all other red meats.I loved it!<p>Fast forward to last year and we were having a baby and that's when it struck me - Animals often watch their family being slaughtered. The young ones before they're even allowed to walk. They scream all along. They're mistreated extremely inhumanely and the people handling them - let's just say there's a special place in hell for them! I NEVER watched a single video until I had converted and people kept asking me if I saw any videos....they're horrible!<p>We grow up being masked from how animals are killed. If you can't even watch your meat being slaughtered, you shouldn't be eating it! Luckily, we're raising our child a vegetarian. We've found great vegetarian alternatives and yes they don't taste anywhere as great as a steak or smoked ribs, but they're still very very close and I think I can make that sacrifice because I don't ever want to see another animal deliberately hurt because of me or my family. I truly hope our society can make the necessary changes to treat animals humanely. Granted, there's no humane way to kill anyone, but I'm sure there's a quick/painless way to do it.<p>I'm not trying to change anyone. I just wanted to share my story.
I just watched "Food, Inc" this weekend, it's a very well made documentary. Much more evidence-based and non-preachy than I expected.<p>They talk at length about what they call 'veggie libel laws' and other laws introduced by food producer lobbies that limit free speech and surveillance about food productions. There's a long history of this, unfortunately it's nothing new.<p>If you have amazon prime, you can watch it for free: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Food-Inc/dp/B002VRZEYM/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1363576916" rel="nofollow">http://www.amazon.com/Food-Inc/dp/B002VRZEYM/ref=sr_1_1?ie=U...</a>
+100 for corporations
-1 for consumers<p>According to the book "Diet for a Small Planet" the beef industry gets $50 billion a year of free water from the federal government. Doesn't sound like fair market capitalism to me. It does sound like our elected officials can be easily bribed.<p>The super rich have won. Hopefully not too far of topic, but a friend just sent me this video link about income inequality - an eye opener! <a href="http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=QPKKQnijnsM&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DQPKKQnijnsM" rel="nofollow">http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=QPKKQnijnsM&desktop_uri=%...</a>
<i>At the end of the day it's about personal property rights or the individual right to privacy</i> After finding out about Ragtime-A and Ragtime-B, the abuse of National Security Letters, and seeing the number of surveillance cams that litter downtown Denver, I no longer believe it when officials (private or public, federal or state) say things like this. "Personal property rights" and especially "individual right to privacy" is just duckspeak at this point.
Reminds me of David Foster Wallace's classic "Consider the Lobster" piece on the morality of eating animals, interesting read - <a href="http://www.gourmet.com/magazine/2000s/2004/08/consider_the_lobster?printable=true" rel="nofollow">http://www.gourmet.com/magazine/2000s/2004/08/consider_the_l...</a>
I have never posted comments about whether a particular action has made me lose my faith in humanity, or whether it restored my faith in humanity.<p>But after reading the linked article, my faith in humanity is definitely shaken.<p>The meat industry's focus is not on ending animal abuse, but on making it more difficult for animal abuse to be discovered and proven. In other words, they are determined not to change their ways, because (I imagine) doing so will be inconvenient, and might cause them to make slightly less money than they make now.<p>How can any state legislators support such moves (and introduce these bills)? Do they have no ability to empathize with another living being? If no, are they fit to be our leaders?<p>Edit: Typo.
The problem with attempting to create ethical arguments against all eating of meat (even with human slaughter practices) is that it leads inexorably to the conclusion that we should exterminate all predators to prevent the cruelty they inflict on herbivores.<p>While these things are horrific, it's not much more horrific than what continuously goes on in the animal kingdom.
I really do not understand how people can stand to eat meat.<p>I try not to be sanctimonious about it but the idea of eating animals has put me off since I grew conscious as a teenager. I don't even consider myself vegetarian, I drink milk and eat products that have eggs (not eggs directly)<p>Just the smell of meat turns my stomach.<p>I assure you, it's very possible to live a well-fed life without any meat.
wow, 215 comments for now - and I can not find the word censorship... have no time reading, what people are actually discussing here, but if the word censorship is missing, something goes wrong.
Lets be clear, if you don't like animal abuse don't eat animals.<p>Murder is worse than abuse.<p>These videos in essence are propaganda tools and I see little value in the so called animal rights movement that promotes clean killing as an ethical good.<p>But at the end of the day there should be free speech no matter whether it's right or wrong or for good or evil.