DOG -Maltreatment- little girl - TAIWAN

Damn! I never would have voted for the Donald if I knew I’d be caught in his law enforcement dragnet.

My practice is more along the lines of alternative medicine, but that doesn’t mean I don’t provide a valuable service to my “patients.” Good thing my main clinic is in Tijuana. Hey, at least I’m not a fake racoon.

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Fair enough, maybe ‘completely’ is an exaggeration. Still, I have a couple of acquaintances who are also mental-health professionals and have a similar attitude to mine, so I don’t think it’s too far off the mark.

Things are probably better than they were: I’ve heard a few stories (from people who grew up here and went through the school system) of classmates doing despicable things to animals, teachers being shocked by it, but unable to do anything about it because they knew The System doesn’t (or didn’t) recognise such things as being a problem.

Anyway, as the other fake doctor said, I’m not making a diagnosis here. Just pointing out a possibility based on the (limited) facts in the story.

The biggest problem is when a person’s worth, intelligence and social standing in general is based on academic performance. Grades have never told the whole story but given the rat race competition here, people believe they do and that is all you need. So many troubled youth’s issues are swept under because of their high grades, while capable kids are branded just because their numbers are not high enough. Sigh.

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Not saying that what she did was right. But you do know that billions of animals are killed every year for being tasty. That’s hardly any better than swinging g them around for fun. Personally I’d rather be swung around for fun rather that killed and eaten and made into shoes. Just saying.

We all do it every day, its a fact of life. Kind of interesting that people compartmentalise so much that there is zero concern for the animals the we pay people to torture and kill every day, yet concern about the way a child plays with a pet. If you ask me its collective insanity.

Good point. This is of course the Morrissey argument. All meat eaters are co-conspirators in a campaign of extermination every bit as horrific as the Holocaust.

(Note: I have no opinion on this, just quoting Mozza.)

It’s a fine line, isn’t it. It’s interesting to speculate why we find pointless cruelty repulsive, but not meat-eating.

Bear in mind that many people do find factory-farming repulsive - that is, the wanton cruelty involved in raising and killing the animals, as opposed to the actual meat-eating part. And they do protest about it. But then along comes a government guy with a clipboard and says, move along people, nothing to see here, it’s all lawful. Which it is. Because clipboard guy says so, even though according to the letter of the law it probably isn’t. Horrible things happen to the average Large White destined for bacon - things that would be 100% illegal, and prosecuted as such, if they happened to a pet teacup pig. It absolutely is insane.

Actually it’s a bit worse than that. In the US at least, it’s basically illegal to raise a small herd of pigs, treat them kindly, and slaughter them yourself as humanely as possible … at least if you wish to sell the meat. Reason being, you have to have a six-inch high stack of certifications to operate a slaughterhouse, plus an inspection from the gubmint when pigs are going through the line. If the inspector doesn’t want to turn up (which he won’t if you’re processing four of five pigs) then he won’t turn up. Your operation becomes de facto illegal and can be instantly shut down. A lot of small operators, who set up with the explicit intent of providing a cruelty-free service, have been quietly put out of business via this gambit.

Anyway, I think the point here is that we do (in theory) aim to kill a meat pig quickly and without suffering. There is (in theory) no malice or enjoyment in the act of killing. Humans are omnivores. We eat meat. I think most people would prefer their meat to be cruelty-free. It’s just that governments, mostly, encourage cruelty in the name of “efficiency”.

Yea, there are people who say that all use of animals is needless and cruel. We’ve been doing it for thousands of years though. Regardless of whether or not it is justifiable to use an animal for your own taste buds or convenience. its still doesnt make much sense to point out some other societies or persons use: dog fighting, fox hunting, fur, the cove, yulin dog festival, that kid, terrible! Now how about those sausages? Yummy. And yea the whole factory farming thing is pretty twisted, all sorts of terrible things happen. Like for example slaughter of pregnant animals resulting in slaughterhouse births. Nice

I don’t think so. We have to eat. We have always eaten animals. We have developed factory farming methods that produce meat for human consumption. We seem to be capable of doing that–to be totally clear, enslaving another species and murdering them at will for purposes of our consumption–without developing any sort of bloodlust or impacting our ability to live peacefully with others of our own species. Call that compartmentalization perhaps, but it seems to be a fact. On the other hand, a propensity to torture and kill small animals is a noted sign of a lack of empathy which can eventually develop into a propensity to kill other human beings. That can actually turn out to be a bit of a problem :slight_smile:

I would have to say, the very problem with factory farming is that it breeds people without empathy. As well as the cruelties inflicted on the animals, there are also cruelties inflicted on the slaughterhouse workers. Most of them end up developing horrible psychological problems.

It is possible to kill an animal without causing it any fear or suffering, and perhaps even with respect for the life taken. One-man farmers could do that. They did do that, in times gone by. Five baconers. Three porkers. Not 1000 pigs on a production line.

Factory farms allow no room for humanity, which amounts to a resolution of our human conflict between the need to eat and the need to respect our fellow beings. Their rules mandate cruelty, and people who are told to inflict cruelty become cruel people who invent new cruelties. You honestly don’t want to know what happens in industrial slaughterhouses. That’s why you’re not allowed to know.

I did not know that; I’ll definitely look into it. I must say though I don’t recall ever hearing anything about a slaughterhouse worker turning into a mass-murderer, say. I do recall hearing about a German or Danish slaughterhouse recently though where pains are taken to protect the workers psychological health.

That’s a bit dramatic :slight_smile:

Finleyman comes to the rescue of non-existent entities once again! :grinning:

I would have to say, the very problem with factory farming is that it breeds people without empathy.

Which came first, factories breeding people or people breeding factories?

But then along comes a government guy with a clipboard and says, move along people, nothing to see here, it’s all lawful. Which it is. Because clipboard guy says so, even though according to the letter of the law it probably isn’t.

Which came first, the governments regulating factories or the factories regulating governments? (I’m just asking the question, not proposing an answer btw.)

Put it this way: could you kill a few hundred pigs a day, with tools that only work 9 out of 10 times, killing the pig by hand the other 1 out of 10 times, and come out the other end sane after doing that 250 days a year?

They don’t necessarily turn into serial killers, but they end up living in their own private hell.

Yeah, it’s still true though. If you don’t believe me, waltz up to a CAFO or a slaughterhouse sometime and ask if you can look around. It is now illegal in the US to take a job in a slaughterhouse with the express intent of revealing what happens there (or, at least, the law has been re-jigged so that slaughterhouses can achieve that end result).

I would say it’s the usual deadly embrace. Each feeds off and justifies the other.

The time is soon coming when we’ll be able to just grow meat in vats, making these ethical issues obsolete (I’m pretty sure there’s a metaphor for Taiwan’s education system in there somewhere). The technology is already here, but it may take a while before it becomes economically feasible.

But this will raise new ethical issues. What happens to all the livestock that are suddenly put out of “work”? Most of them will probably cease to exist, as they’d just be a burden if they’re not providing protein for our consumption. Is it better not to exist at all than to live a short, confined life that ends in slaughter? They can’t tell us which they would prefer, and we probably wouldn’t listen even it they could.

Maybe larger livestock could be bred into smaller, cuter breeds that people would want to keep as pets, ensuring their continued existence.

[quote=“finley, post:33, topic:158264, full:true”]
Put it this way: could you kill a few hundred pigs a day, with tools that only work 9 out of 10 times, killing the pig by hand the other 1 out of 10 times, and come out the other end sane after doing that 250 days a year?[/quote]

I have no idea. But it seems obvious to me that the great majority of people who do so must remain sane. It seems very unlikely to me that the entire enterprise would work otherwise.

Yeah, it’s still true though. If you don’t believe me, waltz up to a CAFO or a slaughterhouse sometime and ask if you can look around. It is now illegal in the US to take a job in a slaughterhouse with the express intent of revealing what happens there (or, at least, the law has been re-jigged so that slaughterhouses can achieve that end result).

That they don’t want people videoing what happens in slaughterhouses doesn’t support what you’re suggesting IMO. I certainly understand what’s happening in industrial slaughterhouses, is my main point here. It’s not a great leap to figure it out and there is a great deal of information about it available.

It happens now and then. Vegetarians buy farms and keep the animals as pets. But your vision of the future omits one factor: people who can afford it will pay more for the real thing.

This is true, so I guess it does make sense to see it as a step on the way to harming people and therefore a worrying sign. However to say that harming an animal in such a way is wrong of itself doesn’t make any sense in a world where 60 billion land animals will loose their - often miserable - lives just because it suits us.

I think that animal expolotiation is generally associated with mental and violence issues. check out this link for example: its links people like timothy mcveigh and jack the ripper to animal exploitation. Like you say, stepping up to killing people. It includes children seen to treat animals in cruel ways but also the other more regular uses like in research and food production et cetera. http://www.curezone.org/forums/fm.asp?i=2082954

:bowing:

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Yea the woudn’t exist argument was one of the justifications for slavery. Black Americans literally wouldn’t exist if they hadn’t been kidnapped and sold as slaves and “bred” by their “owners”. However no one would buy that argument today as a justification for owning a person.