I keep up with some of PETA's campaigns on animal rights every now and then. I can understand most of their campaigns except for one. The one that baffles me is the meat industry. They want to convert humans into vegetarians. Why don't they also campaign against animals eating animals? You can watch the animal channel and see one animal viscously attacking another one and then eating it's flesh while it is still alive and conscious. I don't get why they don't go after animal to animal cruelty too?
Because animals lack any ability to make moral judgments. Some might go further and say that humans are not animals.
This coming from someone with a huge affinity for animals: Because PETA, while having good intentions, tends to go overboard. I wonder when they'll realize that in some instances, such as livestock, animals are serving their purpose. I mean, what the hell are cows for anyway? For milk, beef and leather. PETA just needs to STFU on that matter. Now, I do agree with them 100% about lab testing on animals. I cannot stand for that. Cattle, pigs, chickens and fish, are food. Period. Humans are omnivores. We eat all kinds of stuff. We are not, by nature, strictly herbivore or carnivore.
Maybe, but it could be argued that animals, in general, are good natured to start with. They cannot rationalize in great depth (if any at all) the consequences that result from a large set of past actions. Do they have a concept of a higher being? Do they care?
Animals are neither good nor bad natured. Evolution (or higher intelligence) created/designed/programmed them to instinctively survive. In the animal world, anything goes. They don't have the sophisticated emotions that we do to conceptualize morality.
It's not just about whether or not humans should or need to eat meat, it's about the conditions in which animals are bred for their meat. PETA and other animal rights groups first and foremost demand better laws to protect the rights of all animals, including those bred by humans for meat. Curt Johnson has made a documentary on the subject, I'm not sure when it's due for release but the trailer is out there..... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQcVwhOmGxk&mode=related&search=
Since you ask, it's because some animals have no choice but to kill and eat other animals. It's either that or they starve to death.
Well if they are trying to convert people into being vegetarians, it would seem to me that they do need to STFU. IMO, if they want credibility, then they should raise hell about animals being mistreated, not eaten. And what exactly is their version of 'ethical treatment' of cows? They can make a stink about how the animals are kept, but they can keep quiet about vegetarianism. I like meat. I will bite the hell out of a steak if it's on my plate. I think PETA stands for a good cause, they just go overboard quite a bit.
As a matter of diet, I am almost a vegetarian myself, but find Vegi-nazism/Veganazism to be quite counterproductive. I do believe that humans should eat lower down the food chain, but that doesn't mean sprouts breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Why? I believe humans should be able to eat what they want to eat (within reason, i.e. not another human). Humans were actually scavengers back in their first/early days of existence. I don't knock vegetarians one bit for their diet and expect the same tolerance from them.
Hehe...then I guess that means we're lower on the food chain to some animals, such as bengal tigers, crocs, great whites and polar bears.
Because PETA is a political organization of hypocritical nutters set on controlling the behavior of humans with no logically consistent ethical position. ~Raithere
We can kill them and eat them quite easily, if we have our technology. If we don't, then they can kill and eat us quite easily. This means we're about on the same level.