Animal Cruelty?

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''Ask the experimenters why they experiment on animals, and the answer is: "Because the animals are like us." Ask the experimenters why it is morally okay to experiment on animals, and the answer is: "Because the animals are not like us." Animal experimentation rests on a logical contradiction.'' ~Charles R. MagelIn Chemistry today, we were studying Eutrophication (the enrichment of a body of water with nutrients). This results in excessive plant growth, which in turn decreases dissolved oxygen levels in water...la di dah I won't bore you but in the end, all sorts of things die. I was listening to this and I thought to myself, well, you know it's fish, who cares? Right? No, totally wrong. I'm in school, just finished classes and decided to go to the computer lab and check my e-mail before I went to the study-hall/library. One of the messages was one of those forward-me-to-a-million-people-or-risk-sudden-and-imminent-death-by-a-loose-panda-tomorrow-at-one-in-the-morning but I opened it anyway. Turned out to be a forwarding list for PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals), against animal skinning. There was a video link attached (I don't know if I'm allowed to post the link here). It had a warning of being seriously disturbing, but I thought, c'mon it can't be that bad. I clicked the link, switched on the video and went back to my inbox while it was loading up. I went back to that tab just at the moment a guy was bludgeoning the head of a racoon before skinning it alive. Yes, you read right - alive. Then it showed the little helpless eyes staring at you, with blood all over the place, which basically reduced me to tears. I quickly closed the link and re-read the e-mail. Apparently, if I had stuck around to watch the rest of this footage, i would have seen it's heart still beating. Seriously, what the hell is wrong with the world?Now, I think I sound like a hypocrite. I do Biology, I've done a heart dissection three times. I watched a rat dissection at the end of last year as an end of term ''treat''. I eat meat. It's not like I personally went up to these animals and committed the heinous acts depicted in the clip, but by consuming, am I not in some way creating a demand? I've never done Business or Economics, so if I'm wrong, please correct me. On the other hand, what about the circle of life? What was it that Mufasa said to Simba? ''When we die, our bodies become the grass, and the antelope eat the grass. And so we are all connnected in the great Circle of Life.'' I don't know what to think or what excuses to make. But I won't look at a fish dying the same way again. Any thoughts, feelings, belief or ideas?

I'm not the PETA type, I like tasty animals. However, there is no reason not to kill something humanly with as little pain as possible. (I'm aware of the oxymoron "kill humanely")

For those that hurt or kill just cause they get a thrill out of it or cause they're mad, I have no sympathy. I, personally, would have no problem killing someone who torchered a defenseless animal. I never much liked humans anyway.

Now with the PETA stuff remember what they're showing is generally the extreme for the purpose of soliciting the response they want.

By the way I didn't read much of your post. I'm sure it would make me sick and just piss me off. Not at you but at whatever fuck was hurting an animal then I would be depressed the rest of the day.

By the way I didn't read much of your post.

No worries, I wouldn't want to be responsible for that, me or my writing that is!

I, personally, would have no problem killing someone who torchered a defenseless animal.

That's exactly what my mom says about child abuse. How can somebody do something like that though? About the PETA stuff, yes it's pretty extreme, but it's still happening, and it's just so bluntly cruel.

There's a lot of cruelty that goes on that should be stopped. However it does not logically follow that using animal products is innately cruel.The Magel quote contains a logical fallacy, the type Bacon called an idolon fori - it looks like a valid argument, but rests on a word being used with different meanings in the two parts of the syllogism. In this case the word is 'like', and in the first statement 'like' means 'being similar in the aspect I am experimenting with', and in the second statement 'like' has a different meaning.(In fact I've never heard such a bald and vague statement used to justify animal experimentation, so the whole argument is also a straw man.)

I believe in the use of animal products without cruelty. A dumb old chicken or cow should be allowed to have a pleasant exsistance before it it quickly dispatched and fed to mePETA are idiots, extremists and terrorists. According to them, diabetics should go without insuline as it's a product derived from innocent animals. Owning pets is a cruel subjugation... so are guide dogs, police dogs, riding horses, etc etc etcThere's no reason to skin an animal alive but use your own common sense to come to that conclusion. Believe me, if PETA is selling it, you don't want it!

My friend was dissecting a cat in our science class and he chopped the head off of it. Some people are just messed up.

Really? Well, ok in those cases (insulin guide-dogs), maybe they're pushing the boat out too far. I'm not buying what PETA is ''selling'', I don't need an organisation to tell me how to feel about something, it was just something new. Well, not new, but just something I'd never previously thought that much about.

Anyone that remembers how I reacted when the whole Vick thing happened knows how strongly I feel about animal abuse.I will never forget seeing a video a couple years ago where this lady killed this little puppy by stomping on it with the heel of her high heel shoe. I instantly got sick to my stomach and it haunted me for months, even today thinking about it makes me sick to my stomach. At the same time it made me completely irate and all I wanted to do was find that lady and beat the hell out of her with that high heel shoe. Because of this video I’m very hesitate when watching any video that has anything to do with animal cruelty.When it comes to PETA, I agree with their underline message of being humane to animals etc. But over the years since their creation they have become extremists to the point of even endangering humans.

I called the cops on this guy that was abusing his terrier. His dog had come running up to me from across the street and I was petting it. Then the guy yanked him by the tail and beat him across the head with this huge pole stick type thing and stomped on his paw. I was like "what the heck!". And he's practically dragging the dog back to the apartment building. The dog is whimpering and holding his paw up staggering along with the guy yelling "shut the f*ck up" and all that nonsense. So I reported him.People who treat their animals like that don't deserve the responsibility of taking care of any kind of living creature.

PETA is ridiculous. Never pay serious attention to them. Here's my stand on things:I'm what could be called an animal fanatic. I keep many pets, including various exotic types such as snakes and lizards. My lizards eat live insects and prekilled baby mice, my snake eats prekilled rats. I love my animals, but I have to bite the bullet and feed them other animals because it would be cruel on them not to.I used to be vegetarian. I saw that PETA stuff, I was shocked, disturbed, outraged. But PETA have some serious ethical problems. The stuff in their videos is extreme. There will always be sick bastards in the world doing sick stuff to animals. Unfortunately, PETA gets hold of footage and claims every supplier of meat to be like this.PETA is also responsible for damaging lives. Families of scientists who experiment on animals are abused and put through hell. Even families of companies who just breed animals to supply research facilities are threatened. How can you take an organisation who apparently focuses on animal ethics seriously, when they so easily discard human ethics?Moral of the story is, you have canine teeth. Use them.