Ethics, Karma And Dead Deer

Dear You know who you are.

We live in a world where it is socially acceptable to have others mistreat animals before we eat them. Fact.

Unless you have hunted: felt your nervous system change gear and go into predator mode, killed and felt the vortex of emotions, then feasted on the flesh of another being, your opinion is abstract, a fantasy based on accumulated preferences, prejudices, and reactions to social norms. It's your right to engage in that, I'd defend that right to the death if need be. Just, please, please dont eat a burger from a factory farm and tell me killing is wrong.

So you used to be vegetarian, but now you eat some meats, but nothing with a face. A lot of animals died for your vegetables to grow, so it's OK to kill mice and bugs but not deer? I keep searching google images for that 'fish that doesn't look like fish', and the 'faceless animal' (we both know you've never tried worms) and they don't seem to exist. Those soya beans grew in a field where a lot of plants and animals had to die for a mono-culture to exist. Your morality, the same morality your parade in front of me, can only exist if someone else kills and processes animals for you out of your sight.

Oh you like eggs? Me too, lets us put the suffering of the factory chicken to one side for a moment, and think of the Fox who had to die so you could have eggs. Non lethal means? So you'd prefer Mr Fox starved to death rather than the bullet he never saw coming?

Karma: I'm going to spell this out for you. Nowhere in the original concept is there a one-to-one relationship between actions. End Of. Karma is not a concept of fairness, never has been never will be. "Karma's a bitch, she'll get you every time" is an entirely western concept. A comfort blanket for the person who wants revenge, but wants to take no responsibility for seeking revenge and cannot bear to think of themselves as a vengeful person. I'm sorry but life just isn't one plus one equals two.

Now for the emotive bit:

The other day a wannabe Buddhist and I sat down for a chat, I'll admit I was stirring the pot - when I need to spend time with someone who agrees with me I stay at home and talk to myself - I told him about WDM Bell and the 1,100 elephants he shot. Bear with me I said it was the emotive bit.

Wannabe Buddhist pulled his 'oh the pain of the world' face and told me that it was to be Bell's karma to be the last elephant, and to be shot by a fat american. Putting to one side his prejudice against fat people (frankly he could lose a few himself) and his prejudice based on the accident of a persons birthplace.
Bell did it for the money, yes he revelled in a sense of adventure, but fundamentally he shot the elephants because he wanted the money their ivory was worth. As a by product of the way he hunted, he fed hundreds of people. Yep he went to Africa and fed poor people. Where Elephants lived wild and free he shot them without their ever having known he was there, they were dead before the rifles bang reached their ears. The locals ate them. Where the Elephants were trampling and eating the crops of the poorest people on earth, he turned the loss of farmed foods into meat. Now tell me about about your cozy definition of Karma.

Sitting Bull "when the buffalo are gone we will hunt mice, for we are hunters and we want our freedom."

Let's not get started on the racism of your views about indigenous hunting, me and the deer are indigenous to northern europe, maybe if I dressed a little more colourfully you'd show me the same courtesy?

At last when we've talked it over, and you can't overcome the simple honest logic of the meat eater hunting their own dinner, I ask you if your objection isn't simply that I enjoy it, and you've said yes, so I'd like to pose this question

We humans are hard wired to enjoy the things we need to do in order for us to survive, thrive and procreate. Only in industrialised society do people toil at jobs they hate, to live lies that leave them unfulfilled.  I wish to live wild and free in nature, I'd like my dinner to live the same way, it's a freedom I'd extend to you too.

Thanks for reading
SBW

If this post has made you think differently about your dinner, or your more certain than ever, or somewhere in between Leave a Comment I'd like to hear what you think.

Some Consideration For The Lobster

From Gourmet.com an amazing piece about David Foster Wallace's visit to the Maine Lobster Festival, where he chews over PETA's role in publicising the festival, the misconceptions about a lobsters experience of pain, the rules concerning feeding lobster to inmates, and the ethics of that pot of boiling water. Consider the Lobster
Well worth a read
More soon
SBW

Of Porn Stars And Puppy Killers

Yeah I know it's not big or clever to mock idiots.......
But it's fun

SBW

Horrific Bloodsport Video. Yea!

I told you about this before; some of you didn't belive me, the less charitable among you said I was making it up.
Here's some of that old-time Ferret legging action - and still no press release condemning this sickening 'sport' from PETA? Must be a busy week at the slaughter house/press release factory.

Your pal
SBW

PETA - The Press Release Factory

Said it before and I'm sure I'll be saying it again:




You're upset at what you've seen: Me too
You think there must be a fairer way: Me too
With respect, do your own thinking, Ingrid just aint smart enough to do it for you.

1. The smallest form of life, even an ant or a clam, is equal to a human being.
-Ingrid Newkirk, PETA

2. We feel animals have the same rights as a retarded human child.
-Alex Pacheco (PETA)

3. Six million Jews died in concentration camps, but six billion broiler chickens will die this year in slaughter houses.
-Ingrid Newkirk (PETA)

4. Pet ownership is an “absolutely abysmal situation brought about by human manipulation.”
-Ingrid Newkirk, PETA

5. Arson, property destruction, burglary and theft are “acceptable crimes” when used for the animals’ cause.
-Alex Pacheco (PETA)

6. Even if animal tests produced a cure for AIDS, “We’d be against it.”
-Ingrid Newkirk, PETA

7. “Animal liberationists do not separate out the human animal, so there is no rational basis for saying that a human being has special rights. A rat is a pig is a dog is a boy. They’re all mammals.”
Ingrid Newkirk – Founder, PETA

8. “Humans have grown like cancer. We’re the biggest blight on the face of the planet.”
Ingrid Newkirk – Founder, PETA

9. “…Eventually companion animals would be phased out, and we would return to a more symbiotic relationship, enjoyment at a distance.”
Ingrid Newkirk – Founder, PETA

10. “We have a lazy, sick society. People bring diseases on themselves. [People should] avoid getting the disease in the first place.”
Dan Mathews – PETA spokesperson

11. “Homelessness drives me crazy! I take responsibility for everything that happens to me. Everyone can pull themselves up. I have more sympathy for animals because they don’t deserve anything that happens to them. They’re innocent.”
PETA member – “What Becomes a Zealot Most?”, GQ Magazine November 1993

12. “In a perfect world, all other than human animals would be free of human interference, dogs and cats would part of the ecological scheme.”
PETA’s Statement on Companion Animals

13. “Probably everything we do is a publicity stunt…We are not here to gather members, to please, to placate, to make friends. We’re here to hold
the radical line.”
Ingrid Newkirk – Founder, PETA

As I said; Ingrid just aint smart enough.

SBW

PETA and PETEO

"You choose to exploit animals by keeping them as pets to satisfy your emotional needs. I choose to exploit rabbits by killing and eating them to satisfy my dietary needs. The rabbits I exploit roam free until the moment they’re killed, the ones you exploit are kept in some sort of confinement. Don’t pretend you’re somehow morally better simply because you choose a different form of exploitation".

Stonehead

Dear PETA supporter

Can I ask you a question? A question about the things we do to be who we are.

If I am to understand you. You are a courageous defender of those without a voice. You strive to be a benevolent hand, altering the rules, leveling the playing field, so nature conforms to your sense of fair play. You look into animals eyes and see the goodness of a soul that knows none of the cruel ways of man, a soul that looks back in gratitude for your efforts.

I think you're wrong, Walt Disney was an entertainer, David Attenborough is the educator, but I salute your passion and stand in defense of your right to be wrong.

I am a participant in the wonder of nature, the often violent wonder of nature. I have hunted to fulfill my dietary needs, and given the opportunity will do so again. Taking what I need to live, letting everything else live the life it was born to live. Regretfully accepting that life for wild animals will be short and either end in starvation or violence. Sorry but that's just the way it is, always has been and always will be. Wild free animals either starve or are eaten alive by predators. My personal ethic in my role as predator is make sure that when i kill, i do so as suddenly and as comprehensively as possible. I don't wish to see any more suffering, I've seen enough and the human world provides more of that than I can bear to watch most days.

My default setting is to support the underdog, especially when the underdog is trying to act beyond the narrow confines of the accepted wisdom. So naturally my interests and sympathies lie with the Greens. I've even voted for them.

Once upon a time a very nice woman (we've never met, but I project very-niceness on to her) sent me a letter explaining that in the Peoples Republic of Hackney the Labour Party (as it was then known), would be getting elected sure as eggs is eggs. But if I so pleased, my vote (for her) could be used as a gentle reminder that the natural world mattered and was worth preserving and defending. If enough people sent this message such issues would move into the mainstream of political thought.

WOW it's not every day you get to vote for an honest politician! I took up her offer, imagining it to be a once in a lifetime opportunity. Sadly it was, it seems a once in a lifetime opportunity. As I WILL NEVER VOTE FOR CRUELTY.

The thirst for votes, votes at any cost, means The Green Party is offering it's self up to the 'single issue activists' a strategy that will keep them sidelined, just at a time when they should be finding their natural authority.

Instead of moving to the centre of political debate the Green Party have decided that we should first: have so many rabbits that we are unable to grow crops, then as the food source has multiplied, we should have lots and lots of foxes. Foxes who when they've eaten the rabbits will eat, what? Chickens, Ducks, Geese and then?

Apparently we are also to have more of those lovely deer, with their honest soulful eyes, they will eat anything the rabbits can't reach, and for a few years there'll be more and more of them. Many will die agonizing deaths after road traffic accidents. The survivors will starve as soon as their numbers are greater than the food sources will support.

Sadly that's what a total ban on hunting means. I could not support animals being treated in that way. It would be cruel.

I have never met a vegan who knew as much about animals as the hunters I've met. Although I have met vegans who advocate violence towards people who eat meat. Not all vegans are fascist hate mongers, not all people who kill animals do so for the thrill of killing.

I'm not going to dress it up as anything it isn't. There are people who lust after the thrill of killing, you may think of them as a subset of 'hunters' I think of them as criminals. Criminals who are most likely to be reported to a disinterested and under resourced police force, by hunters. Why? Because hunters have the most to lose if 'thrill killers' are afield. Thrill Killers don't need a license, they don't need to put anything back in terms of supporting habitat or managing resources. They are the kind of people who are involved in other acts of cruelty, to humans and animals.

Not all vegans or vegetarians are supporters of PETA, and its immediately obvious that not all PETA supporters are even vegetarian, let alone vegan. I believe myself to be a person who wishes to see the ethical treatment of animals. I just don't happen to be using the same definition of ethical as Ingrid Newkirk and her unthinking supporters. Some people see the horror of factory farming and want never to eat meat again, I see the same horror and wish only to eat meat that lived wild and free. The way i wish to live myself, a freedom I'd extend to you too.

To me there are certain forms of coercion that are way outside of any ethical position I could ever defend. Causing shock and terror in children then telling them that the only way to stop the feeling of fear is to comply with the wishes of the person causing the fear is despicable. It's despicable in a 'religious' children's home where the wrath of the big bully in the sky will be visited on any child who dares to speak out against the nocturnal visits of that bullies emissaries on earth. Just as it's despicable to show children exceptional images of animal suffering while implying those images are the norm. To me it's not right to attempt to traumatize children in the hope that what marketers call 'pester power' will coerce those children's parents into your chosen belief. It would not be ethical for me to treat another person in that way. That's why I propose 'People for the Ethical Treatment of Each Other'.

All comments welcome, even from those of you whose rage needs to hide behind anonymity.

The Bushwacker.

PS This post was influenced by posts from Hubert Hubert, well worth a read.

The Karma of Hubert? On PETA, Suicide Food, the Cathars and Road Rash

PETA: Your Daddy Kills Animals.

Hunting & Politics: I won't be voting 'Green'.

PETA - Bullying Again

What is it with these people? They have the word ethical in their name and yet they behave like this. Again and again.

Coercion using stress, or coercion using the fear of consequences is BULLYING.

At last someone has given them a slap on the wrist: The Advertising Standards Agency have called a halt to their latest bout of scaremongering where they refer to a number of diseases, two of which were known to have originated from eating contaminated meat and two that did not.

"Although we understood the intention was to refer to livestock and meat production rather than just eating meat, we considered that the message was, at best, ambiguous," ...."We considered that some readers might infer from the poster, and in particular the claim "Meat kills" in conjunction with the claim "Go vegetarian", that eating meat caused swine flu. We concluded that the poster was likely to mislead and could cause undue fear and distress to some readers."

Notice how the words 'swine flu' are highlighted to be the first words the reader sees after the headline?

What was ethical about that?

Dear PETA supporter reading this, please consider this question.

If you have to lie to convince others of the rightness of your cause, maybe your cause is dishonest? Just a thought.

SBW

Celebrity Feeds Rabbit To Coyote

Yawn, it's that time again. Another numpty has tried to cast themselves as a defender and guardian of all that's fluffy, cute [and delicious].The utterly meaningless Leona Lewis, (or 'The Butcher of Hallelujah' as music lovers know her) was, it's reported, enjoying a breath of fresh air between shops in LA when she saw a homeless man sitting on the sidewalk with the rabbit on a lead. She asked him what the was planning to do with it.
Being hungry and homeless he gave the only logical answer '... probably eat it.' Appalled, not by his suffering but, by the idea of one of Disney's little creaures being dinner, she offered him $100 for it. Being poor not stupid he accepted.
That most trustworthy of news sources 'a friend' is quoted as teling whover passes for a reporter these days that the bunny-wunny is now living in Ms Lewis' garden where she fondly imagaines it to be safe from any culinary adventures.
Rumors that Ms Lewis is completely ignorant [of Cats, Dogs, Bob Cats, and Coyotes] are yet to be proved.
Question "Who are these people?" on second thoughts ...GROAN we're surrounded. Modern Life is, as they say, Rubbish
SBW

Thanks to Holy Moly who found the story

Here's a useful guide to hunting rabbits from BASC, who also get the picture credit