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From Vegan Soapbox. It's just a wonderful contribution to the discourse:

I had to bite my tongue when I read this:

"it's frightening that people show more compassion for tomorrow's dinner than for the chef,"

I wanted to scream. Because "in the oppression olympics, non-human animals win, paws down."

It's a shame Prop 8 wasn't defeated, but that's got NOTHING to do with the measly little bit of extra room some animals will get in 2010 in their factory farm cages before they're cruelly slaughtered and eaten by people who have the option to choose otherwise and whose only valid reason for eating animals is that animal flesh tastes good to some people.

Prop 2 is a step in the right direction, but it's only an inch. We've got MILES more to go. Prop 2 isn't some great gesture of compassion; it's an extremely modest animal welfare reform. All it does is let animals turn around in their tiny cages. It's PATHETIC that the majority of humans aren't willing to do more for animals.

Does anyone really want to pretend that Californians who voted for Prop 2 and Prop 8 "care more" about animals than people? Is the newly granted privilege of some animals to stand up in their cages truly a sign that people have more compassion for animals than people? Is the right to marry the person you love even close to as basic a right as the right to not live in one's own filth and the excrement of one's neighbors? Really?

GET REAL. And by the way, this group of people who voted for Prop 2 and Prop 8 are a small segment of the population. The majority of animal people lean to the left, not the right. If you want to see real progressive change in the US, you'd behoove yourself to alienate and make enemies with animal people. As another pro-animal, progressive writer, Seema Rupani, wrote:

"The movement against Prop 8 is a powerful, unstoppable force. Hundreds of thousands of people have been out in the streets these last few days, myself included. But negative references to Prop 2's victory are diverting attention away from the issue at hand, and are not going to help us overturn Prop 8. We're all in this fight for justice together, let's do it right."

We're often on the same team. There's no reason to attack animal advocates when trying to gain rights for the LGBTQ community. Attack the root source of the problem: anti-gay people, not pro-animal people. Stop attacking vegans and other animal people.

GET HONEST.

Get real. Get honest. Get vegan. Live your values. Stop eating animals. It's not kind, it's not fair, it's not right.

Having your relationship recognized by the state confers a kind of existentialist benefit upon the couple (because the other benefits (e.g., tax breaks, hospital visitation) are available in civil unions). Having this right removed, is a tragedy. Marriage is an important institution in civil society for its civic component, among others. And allowing homosexuals the opportunity to participate in this institution follows from our understanding of "equality" and "freedom." I can't think of a valid reason for denying these individuals their chance at this kind of happiness. However, the harm experienced by the passage of Proposition 8 is abstract: the suffering isn't actual pain, but something different.

Proposition 2, on the other hand, is about real pain, hurt, torture, and unimaginable agony. There isn't an existentialist component here. Proposition 2 is meant to give a chicken the opportunity to not rub her skin raw on wire mesh because she is so tightly confined; her feet will no longer grow around the bottom of her wire cage because she will now have a little room to move around. Baby cows will now be able to turn around, and perhaps see the sun.     

Assuming the validity of oppressing one group as a means to challenge the validity of oppressing another, is bad reasoning and unethical. "Ism's" in any form (e.g., racism, sexism, speciesism) or the common argument, "They are just...," are simply different ways of being prejudiced. 

Oklahoma state senator Earl Garrison is promoting a change to the state constitution that would protect hunters and fisherman from animal rights activists, also known as the Hunters Bill of Rights.

"We're trying to put in our constitution the right for Oklahomans to hunt, fish and trap like we always have," he said. "For most Oklahomans it's a heritage we can pass on to our children and grandchildren" (emphasis added).

The practical purpose - it is, after all, purely instrumental - of the law is to constitutionalize an explicit ban on any sort of hunt saboteur activities.

Mr. Garrison doesn't seem to be relying on speciesism to justify killing another being for sport, which is so often the case, and therefore, he deserves the recognition. However, he does assume that because a practice has been apart of a community's tradition, it is good. Indeed, his argument premises the inherent goodness of "heritage." His defense of sport-killing tries to follow from this premise. To challenge this defense, then, we must consider the initial assumption that tradition = right.

Consider this assumption as it relates to our other "heritages." Slavery was once defended on these grounds; the subordination of women to men still is. It is undeniable that gender and racial discrimination is rooted in tradition. Does it follow that sexism is inherently good then? Of course not. If a practice is harmful or if it violates other ethical premises we hold, the practice ought to be challenged. Therefore, Mr. Garrison must either accept the conclusions that follow from his own argument and thereby regard Southern sentimentalists of the 'good ol'days' as advocating a valid argument, or reject his primary assumption out of hand and find another defense of killing a deer because it's fun.

Mr. Garrison mentions another defense as well - animal populations must be "culled" for the good of the animals themselves. However, this defense is superfluous because it has nothing to do with his primary premise, therefore, I'll leave it for another day.

Hunters don't need a Bill of Rights, they need a valid defense.

Will be crossposted @ Vegan Soapbox   

Here's yet another example to counter the, "But animals are exploited to cure cancer," crowd. (Heed my warnings though when attacking these assumptions on this front.)

From PETA:

"In only a few days, children around the world will be ringing doorbells and looking for Halloween treats. As scary as some of their costumes might be, the true horror this holiday will actually be the M&Ms, Snickers, or Skittles candies that lie in your child's candy bag. All these candies, along with many other candies sold under household names, are manufactured by Mars Inc., a company responsible for the deaths of numerous animals in unnecessary animal tests.

The experiments funded by Mars, including the following examples, are truly the stuff of Halloween nightmares:

• Rats have been force-fed chocolate chemicals and had needles jabbed directly into their still beating hearts.

• Rabbits have been cut apart to determine the effects of cocoa on muscle tissue.

• Guinea pigs have had cocoa ingredients injected into arteries in their necks to measure the impact on their blood pressure.

And these are only a few of the tests that Mars has funded. Perhaps most disturbingly of all, not one of Mars' experiments on animals is required by law.

"But," the defenders of wanton animal exploitation argue,

"it's better that these animals suffer and die than cute little human babies who just want to enjoy a tasty piece of candy. So, I'm sorry, but humans are at the top of the hierarchy - they have to be."

Subtext: A) The interests, no matter how fundamental they may be (e.g., not being in pain), of animals don't count when weighed against human interests, no matter how trivial they may be (e.g., I want another flavor of jolly rancher). And B), it's clearly the only way to do it. My evidence: Because these industries continue to do so and they wouldn't unnecessarily torture animals. Right? Wrong: 

"Thanks to PETA's hard work and pressure, many of the world's major food corporations--including Mars' chief rival, Hershey's, and Coca-Cola and Pepsi-Co--have pledged not to fund or conduct experiments on animals."

Competing interests ladies and gentlemen: As our prejudice determines the outcome, "taste" trumps not "being in pain". Defend that. I await a response. 

Will be crossposted @ Vegan Soapbox

"In the video footage from the investigation, workers at the Chinese farm pull rabbits out of cages by their ears and shoot the screaming animals in the head with captive-bolt guns, often multiple times. Rabbits with slit throats can be seen twitching and shaking, with their eyes wide open, before they die."

"...selective use of an argument we would reject in other contexts." From, The Ethics Of What We Eat. 

This single statement, it seems reasonable to argue, underlies the reasoning (Or lack thereof?) of all those, or at least the vast majority, who deny the existence of the rights of nonhuman animals.

For proof, let's consider some examples:

"The natural order dictates that some are predators and others are prey; therefore, as we exist within this "natural order," we are fulfilling our role. Ethics, then, cannot go to challenge our part in this order. Or put differently, this very nature of things answers the question, "What is ethical in this situation?""

Returning to the statement quoted above, we find a simple rebuke founded on solid reasoning: "But this "argument from nature" can justify all kinds of inequities, including the rule of men over women and leaving the weak and sick to fall by the wayside." Therefore, are we willing to accept the logical conclusions of our own premises, such as, for another example: Social Darwinism dictates that all welfare programs ought to be abolished because, as in nature, natural processes will select out the weak - those individuals putting downward pressure on our society - from the gene pool, which will result in a stronger population as a whole. This, the argument concludes, is the natural order of things. If we are not willing to accept this, we must define a sound principle that separates the two situations. Reason demands that we defend this inherent contradiction.

"It is Western tradition to exploit nonhuman animals. Indeed, many of our cultural practices are predicated on the notion that this exploitation is "good." Therefore, because animal flesh, for example, is so significant to us, there's something intrinsically okay about the practice."

"But," as Singer and Mason write, "when cultural practices are harmful they should not be allowed to go unchallenged. Slavery was once part of the culture of the American South" (and still is throughout the world today). They continue, "Biases against women...have been, and in some places still are, culturally significant." Therefore, it follows from our reliance on "Because it has always been this way" as a moral defense of torturing a bull to death for entertainment, for example, that similar claims can be made to justify a policy that homosexuals ought to be socially chastised into submission, and refused entrance into the public sphere. It follows, but should we accept this logic? 

"Yes, nonhuman animals have interests in not being harmed, however, human interests, because we are human, always trump the interests of nonhumans, no matter how fundamental (e.g., a cows interest in not suffering simply because I happen to enjoy the taste of his flesh), because they are not human."

Singer replies: "If we ignore or discount [nonhuman animal] interests simply on the grounds that they are not members of our species, the logic of our position is similar to that of the most blatant racists or sexists - those who think that to be white, or male, is to be inherently superior in moral status, irrespective of other characteristics or qualities." If we accept speciesism as valid, how can we reasonable reject other forms of bigotry?

"Okay, but nonhuman animals cannot reason, or do mathematics, or speak human language..."

A response to this is as simple as it is persuasive: What of human infants, those in the advanced stages of senility, or the severely mentally handicapped? Surely they are less self-aware, and more unreasonable, than an adult hog. Therefore, how can we use these criteria to draw a distinction between all humans on the one hand and all nonhuman animals on the other? We cannot, lest we accept demonstrable arbitrariness as ethically valid or we reject "intellectual capacity" as a necessary characteristic for entrance into the moral community (i.e., distinguishing those who count from those who don't).

"Nonhumans were bred specifically for our ends. Such is the reason (and cause) of their existence. So, as long as we aren't unnecessarily harming them, because this isn't rational given that it's not the best use of them as things, it doesn't make sense to argue that we shouldn't be using them."

This same defense, verbatim, was employed by Southern plantation owners when defending their "right" to enslave Africans and black Americans. Further, would we accept this claim if the 'slave' were a child and the 'plantation owner' a mother: "I specifically bred," the mother argues, "this child for X, Y, and Z purposes. So I will exploit her accordingly"? There are clearly some missing premises here: What justifies the breeding in the first place? and How does the act of bringing a being with interests into the world justify refusing to acknowledge and respect those interests? Doesn't it, in fact, work the other way: Because of the mothers actions, she must accept the duties or obligations associated with bringing a defenseless being into this world. Such as, for example, protecting her child from harm.

This list could go on, however, my intent isn't to exhaust our excuses but to illuminate the underlying contradictions in the hopes that we can look internally and try to avoid these logical and ethical traps ourselves.

Will be crossposted @ Vegan Soapbox

POINT:  "All this talk about animal liberation, animal rights, and speciesism is an insult to women and minorities. How can you equate sheep and women, cows and blacks? How can you compare raising animals for food to denying our fellow human beings the attainment of their most fundamental aspirations. Farms animals can't feel humiliated. They can't feel robbed of their dignity. They can't feel the outrage that humans feel when denied recognition of their worth. They can't know what it's like to be treated like a thing instead of a person. They have no idea what it means to be a person, to have rights, to be treated fairly." 

COUNTERPOINT:  "My point isn't to compare animals just to women and minorities, but to all humans - and that includes white men. It's not to insult anybody either. Nobody wants to demean humans. I just want to give nonhumans the respect they deserve. And all that stuff about a sense of dignity and the the rest is irrelevant. All it shows is that some things that matter to us don't matter to them. But other things do. Avoiding pain, for instance. And freedom. And to many of them, their lives. Animals want to roam free, have enough space to do what comes natural to them, and lead pain-free lives. Their aspirations may not be precisely the same as ours, but they're equally real." 

"We all have a tendency to complacency with our own ways..."

A brief conversation I had yesterday illuminated this argument well:

"I don't want to talk to you because you always have a way of making me want to be vegetarian."

"Why?", I asked politely.

"Because it's not right what we are doing. I was a vegetarian for about three months but a friend made some food one time, and well...I just don't think about it anymore."

Consider for yourself what this response reveals, and if it parallels your own arguments against those who ask, "Shouldn't the suffering of everyone capable of suffering count?"

Simon Blackburn writes in Being Good,

"We do not like being told what to do. We want to enjoy our lives, and we want to enjoy them with a good conscience. People who disturb that equilibrium are uncomfortable, so moralists are often uninvited guests at the feast, and we have a multitude of defenses against them. Analogously, some individuals can insulate themselves from a poor physical environment, for a time. They may profit by creating one. The owner can live upwind of his chemical factory, and the logger may know that the trees will not give out until after he is dead.

Similarly, individuals can insulate themselves from a poor moral environment, or profit from it. Just as some trees flourish by depriving others of nutrients or light, so some people flourish by depriving others of their due. The western white male may flourish because of the inferior economic or social status of people who are not western, or white, or male.

Insofar as we are like that, we will not want the lid to be lifted."

We exist in an ethical environment:

"This is the surrounding climate of ideas about how to live," Blackburn writes. "It determines what we find acceptable or unacceptable, admirable or contemptible...It shapes our emotional responses, determining what is a cause of pride or shame...what can be forgiven and what cannot. It gives us our standards - our standards of behavior...It shapes our very identities (emphasis added).

This environment enables the monster of a paradigm animals-as-property. It justifies our collective speciesism. We avoid, because of the prevalence of this standard, the question begging nature of making species membership - a human genetic code - the necessary requirement for membership in the moral community. This, then, results in fallacious reasoning and undefended assumptions that are generally accepted, often unconsciously, as perfectly valid.

These are stories we tell and re-tell to defend our actions to ourselves. Therefore, when the pattern is interrupted our intuition responds with A) anger, B) "I don't want to talk to you because...", or C) mere dismissal, which is made possible by the majorities' position of numerical and power superiority.   

As Blackburn argues, "Ethics is disturbing."

Will be crossposted @ Vegan Soapbox

Thanks go out to Vegan Soapbox and PETA

"This video exposes the cruelty that goes into every piece of leather, fur, wool, and exotic skins used for 'fashion'."  

Or rather, our culturally defined, and thus wholly arbitrary, understanding of what accounts for beauty.

Below is Gary Francione's pithy response to a "happy meat" peddler.     

From Animal Rights: The Abolitionist Approach:

Earlier today, Anna and I went to Whole Foods...On Sundays, there is an outdoor market in the Whole Foods parking lot. Local vendors sell fruits, vegetables, baked goods--and animal flesh and products.

One vendor had decorated her "organic meat" stall with pictures of her "free-range" chickens, pigs, and cows. We stopped to look at the pictures. I pointed out to her that there were no pictures of the slaughtering process.

"Oh, well we slaughter our chickens on the premises and our cows and pigs go to a slaughter facility that is only six miles away. They don't stay overnight and we try to make it as stress free as possible."

Another shopper had appeared and said, "I feel so much better about buying this my meat from farms like this."

The vendor remarked, "Oh, yes, these animals are our dear friends."

I responded, politely but seriously: "That's an odd thing to say; I hope that you don't treat your other 'dear friends' this way." (emphasis added)  

The vendor laughed. She thought I was joking.

"These animals are our dear friends." Think about that. Think about what terrible confusion such a statement reveals.

This is where the happy meat/animal products movement is leading us.

This is where the PETA-KFC controlled-atmosphere killing campaign is taking us.

We are moving backward. (emphasis added)  

Go vegan. It's the baseline of the abolitionist movement and is nonviolence in action.

Such a response could be employed when discussing ethical veganism with those individuals who argue that they "love" their horse companions while simultaneously forcing them to compete with others in events that are inherently dangerous. As these events occur for the humans' financial gain and "entertainment" alone, the horse is forced to accept their potential harm and death because we enjoy doing so. Therefore, this begs the response: "I hope you don't love your mother in this way."  

To what extent we are "moving backward" is contestable in my opinion. However, as an anecdotal matter, I have experienced first-hand Mr. Francione's fear: "Humanely" murdered nonhumans are more palatable - morally speaking - to otherwise compassionate - and therefore potential vegans and vegetarians - humans, which directly challenges the realization of our end: A vegan world.

Mr. Francione assumes a sort of hierarchy of importance. We have a) the premise: suffering is inherently evil, and b) the conclusion: a vegan world. Abolitionists often exist in the conclusion while forgetting the premise as a very thoughtful individual once said. Therefore, efforts to reduce suffering, which is an empirical matter of course ("Does X actually reduce suffering?"), are derided because they don't sufficiently address the conclusion: ending the property status of nonhumans. I agree in the abstract. However, in the practical, we cannot forget the suffering. Indeed, this, in my opinion, accounts for Mr. Francione's unjustifiable challenge to direct action campaigns by the ALF, for example. As such, holistic approaches are defensible and necessary.

I wouldn't, however, argue that Mr. Francione is harmful to the AR movement in his manifest divisiveness. This discourse is necessary and has been an important impetus for animal welfare organizations such as PETA to articulate an explicitly abolitionist platform: "Animals are not ours to X, Y, and Z." That means nonhumans are not our property.  

The effectiveness of PETA turns on the empirical matter motioned above and on the extent of the issue raised by Mr. Francione about "happy meat" = people feel better about killing nonhumans unnecessarily. Therefore, criticize and disagree; substantive dialogue is important. Perhaps Mr. Francione is correct and the death and suffering of nonhumans is more acceptable today than ever before, which suggests the failure of welfarism. Could be true, indeed. But veal crates, gestation crates and battery cages are being phased-out as well. This may only lead to more rational measures to exploit nonhumans, but it allows us to broach the subject on a national platform, which is important. Coupled with "new environmentalism," and informed, principled information campaigns, it could be a paradigm shift.       

I'm not implying that the abolitionists, a group that I self-identify with, forget the suffering. I am saying, explicitly, however, that they prioritize the conclusion and thus fail to truly consider all the wretched evil on the farm and in the lab.

Will be crossposted @ Vegan Soapbox   

Thanks go out to Vegan Soapbox.

It's unimaginable...until you see it. And then it's unbelievable. But, indeed, you saw it and thus it must be believed. It cannot be denied.

Eccentric Vegan correctly writes,

"...if it's good enough for your stomach, it's good enough for your eyes. If you eat pig(s)...you have a responsibility to watch this video."

From PETA:

"PETA's latest undercover investigation, at an Iowa pig factory farm that breeds and supplies piglets to be grown and killed for Hormel products, reveals cruelty to animals. During the investigation, sows were beaten, spray-painted in the face, and left to suffer from painful wounds and other conditions, and workers attempted to kill piglets by slamming their heads against the floor."

Creature Talk has an excellent post about this, with many additional details that will disturb even the coldest amongst us.

Get active here.