[Morthoron]

Originally Posted by skip spence

See, that reasoning I can't quite understand. How is kicking at a cat, or a dog, and giving it a few unpleasant moments, often in retribution to an unwanted behaviour, somehow worse than slaughtering pigs on an industrial scale after having spent their brief life in a cramped dark space, and these are animals capable of feelings and of intelligence similar or more developed to that of a cat or a dog?

The comedian Denis Leary put the dividing line between animals that we 'save' and animals we 'eat' quite succinctly:

*WARNING: PARTIALLY EDITED FOR OBSCENITIES

Eating meat is an instinct! Yeah! And I know what it's about. "I don't want to eat the meat because I love the animals. I love the animals!" Hey, I love the animals too. I love my doggy. He's so cute. My fluffy little dog -- he's so cute -- there's the problem. We only want to save the cute animals, don't we? Yeah. Why don't we just have animal auditions. Line 'em up one by one and interview them individually.

"What are you?"
"I'm an otter."
"And what do you do?"
"I swim around on my back and do cute little human things with my hands."
"You're free to go."
"And what are you?"
"I'm a cow."
"Get in the ******* truck, ok pal!"
"But I'm an animal."
"You're a baseball glove! Get on that truck!"
"I'm an animal, I have rights!"
"Yeah, here's yer ******* cousin, get on the ******* truck, pal!"

We kill the cows to make jackets out of them, and then we kill each other for the jackets we made out of the cows.