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Path: utzoo!hoptoad!ihnp4!chinet!rhonda
From: rhonda@chinet.UUCP
Newsgroups: alt.flame
Subject: Re: Imported woman's Fox Fur Coats
Message-ID: <1878@chinet.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 20-Nov-87 16:21:09 EST
Article-I.D.: chinet.1878
Posted: Fri Nov 20 16:21:09 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 22-Nov-87 22:05:47 EST
References: <132@blic.BLI.COM> <4830@elroy.Jpl.Nasa.Gov> <1841@chinet.UUCP> <357@gethen.UUCP>
Reply-To: rhonda@chinet.UUCP (Rhonda Scribner)
Organization: Chinet - Public Access Unix
Lines: 69
Keywords: Fox Coats, Devil's Advocates, Hypocrisy

In article <357@gethen.UUCP> farren@gethen.UUCP (Michael J. Farren) writes:
>>The hypocrisy of these "friends of animals" is often very amusing.  They often
>>wear leather shoes, they eat meat, they keep animals as pets (denying them
>>the right to live free lives on their own), and THEN scream about other
>>people and the horrible things THEY do to animals.  Sheesh!
>
>"wear leather shoes":  Yes, although my current ones are canvas.  The 
>leather they are made of probably came from cattle which were slaughtered
>to provide food (see "eat meat", below).  As such, they represent efficient
>and maximal use of the products that animal died to provide.  Fox furs, on
>the other hand, were likely cut from the body of an animal which was then
>discarded, possibly to be eaten by scavengers, but more likely to become
>food for flies.  

Let's dissect the value judgments in this paragraph.  Slaughtering an animal
to make clothes and food for YOU is all right, but killing an animal for
clothing for someone else and food for SCAVENGERS or FLIES, that's not all
right?  Are you sure you're phrasing your argument correctly?  Are your needs
more important than those of scavengers or flies?  Efficient and maximal
based on what?

>"eat meat":  Yes.  The human animal evolved as an omnivorous one, and I
>have never seen a reason not to eat meat.  The thing that I ask is that
>if an animal (or a plant!) is going to die for my benefit, then it should
>be treated with the respect due its sacrifice, before, during, and after
>its death.  Sadly, many are not, and I object to those practices as much
>as I do the sales of fur coats.

What respect do the animals whose meat you eat actually get?  How do you know
this?  What respect would you hope they would get?  For instance, most plants
(you did include plants) are just yanked out of the ground and shoved into
containers to be sold as food.  Is that respect?  Rodney Dangerfield gets
more respect than a turnip. :-)

>"keep animals as pets":  Yes.  My cat would much rather be in my house,
>being fed regularly, and having a lifespan some five times longer than
>the average cat living in the wild, I'm sure.  I am denying her the 
>right to live a free life on her own, it's true, but that free life,
>in reality, means one which will be short, painful, and a continual
>struggle.  Do you seriously contend that keeping this from happening
>to my cat constitutes cruelty to the animal?

Replace the words "my cat" with "a human being."  Does this argument still
hold?  You trivialize what you are denying to your cat, but I doubt you
would dismiss free life as a human as being "short, painful, and a continual
struggle," justifying the confinement of a person (combined of course with
care and regular feeding) the way you justify it for your cat.

>And I definitely am going to scream about animals who
>are killed only for their skins, and only so some rich bitch can wear
>something fashionable.  Those animals died for NOTHING, and all of us
>are diminished by their deaths; do you expect me to sit quietly and
>say "Well, that's all right, though.  Rhonda NEEDS her fur coat"?

Someone else could just as easily say that the animals and plants that YOU
eat and make clothes out of died for NOTHING, and that the rest of us are
diminished by their deaths.  And what would you respond?  Might you say
"That's all right, though.  I NEED my filet mignon?"  On what basis do you
decide what constitutes "dying for nothing" and what constitutes dying for
a worthwhile, maximal, efficient, or useful cause.  And do you consult with
the animals themselves about this to ask how they feel?

>>Not amused.
>
>Nor sensitive.  Nor reasoning.

I guess not.  At least not by your personal value judgments on the subject.
And that's what matters, right?
								--Rhonda