Ok... this tripped my anger button

[XXXWriterDude]

We use live fish as bait. We raise live animals in some pretty atrocious conditions for food. We do a lot of messed up things to animals. We get pissed off when dolphins get caught in drift nets, yet don't much care for the tuna.

What determines what animals shouldn't suffer and which ones we're willing to put through some pretty rough shit for our own convenience? Lotta cows live pretty miserable lives before slaughtered, but because they're nothing but food to us no one really much cares.

Hamilton_Steele doesn't take issue with hunting, so has no problem blowing a bird outta the sky for sport. (I hunt too, so am just using that as an example).

What makes dogs and cats so special? That they're pets to us here in the West? Other parts of the world don't share that perception.

And so us using our own cultural viewpoints to condemn other cultures for what they do that we do not approve of is, I feel, prejudiced and ethnocentric.

I definitely see your point. But there's a difference in slaughtering a cow quickly for meat and hooking a hook through its snout and dragging it through water so a shark can eat it.

My problem is not so much in the killing of animals for food but in the way they might be treated, abused, tortured and or harmed in the process.

If you're going to do it, then just do it. But do not torture them beyond pain for the sheer sport of it. That it what is absolutely atrocious. And trust me, if I was anywhere near that and I had a gun, I'd fuckin' shoot the humans just to make a point. Inflicting unnecessary pain and suffering on any creature--fluffy and cuddly or not--is absolutely unacceptable to me, and it infuriates me to no end. There is no acceptable excuse for it, plain and simple.

[basschick]

i thought my point was pretty clear - fish don't drown. i didn't say anthing about pain.

fish also don't have the same level of attachment and intellegence as cats or dogs. but i was trying not be be reactionary on this thread. i don't believe anyone should fish - for shark or anything else. i'm a vegetarian who doesn't buy products that animal test and hasn't bought leather since 1994. i thought i'd leave my politics off this thread and respond only to the points made.

So they don't suffer or feel pain?

[Hamilton Steele]

I definitely see your point. But there's a difference in slaughtering a cow quickly for meat and hooking a hook through its snout and dragging it through water so a shark can eat it.

My problem is not so much in the killing of animals for food but in the way they might be treated, abused, tortured and or harmed in the process.

If you're going to do it, then just do it. But do not torture them beyond pain for the sheer sport of it.

We better get a weather forcast from Hell. It's got to be frozen over because you and I are in agreement.

[CorbinFisher_BD]

B
If you depend on the sea for money and food. Plus you grow up a boat-scont from bumfuck no where, with a bunch of other people that lived and died on that rock. You damn well know what the creature feels or doesn't feel and what it is like.

Because it's your job to know.

Well I'm still gonna go with the study over you.

I grew up in the desert but that don't make me the world's foremost expert on sand.

[CorbinFisher_BD]

I definitely see your point. But there's a difference in slaughtering a cow quickly for meat and hooking a hook through its snout and dragging it through water so a shark can eat it.

My problem is not so much in the killing of animals for food but in the way they might be treated, abused, tortured and or harmed in the process.

i thought my point was pretty clear - fish don't drown. i didn't say anthing about pain.

fish also don't have the same level of attachment and intellegence as cats or dogs. but i was trying not be be reactionary on this thread.

I hear what you both were saying. I wasn't really talking about any of those, though. My initial response in this thread was the very first response to H_S's post. That's the one I was responding to, and that I felt was unfairly critical of a different culture. The comments about geese, for example.

Not to mention the fact that I felt the tabloid Sun wasn't the best source to go to for information on the story because they're pretty well known for sensationalism.

I didn't see why a discussion over dogs being treated horribly and tortured had to be about bashing another culture. Reunion Island is made up of a diverse array of ethnicities and religions - Malays, Indians, French, so on. Different cultures have different values and as often as our own cultural values taint what we do in the eyes of the world and as often as we behave in a manner we feel is appropriate through our own culture, we should be respectful of others as well.

Now I ain't saying putting hooks through dog snouts is a cultural thing. But eating dogs is. Not viewing dogs as pets is. Viewing dogs as pests and nuisances is. Seeing them as just another beast to be used for whatever purpose we see fit is. Those are all ways in which different cultures view dogs. Just like we view cows as food yet some cultures view them as sacred.

[XXXWriterDude]

I'm not saying putting hooks through dog snouts is a cultural thing. But eating dogs is. Not viewing dogs as pets is. Viewing dogs as pests and nuisances is. Seeing them as just another beast to be used for whatever purpose we see fit is. Those are all ways in which different cultures view dogs. Just like we view cows as food yet some cultures view them as sacred.

Good point, and it's one that is well taken. It's also why I don't get so high up on my horse when I hear that an older man is caught with his pants down with a 16 or 17-year-old teenager, because in other cultures, such behavior is condoned and often practiced. Hell, Rome was built on it. You're absolutely right in your assessment that Americans are typically arrogant people who see the world only through the eyes of our culture, and that is definitely a ridiculous way of thinking. American culture is built upon sexual repression, hypocrisy and moral sanctimoniousness. It's a culture that tells us that we are free to live our lives as we want, yet penalizes us for doing so. It's a culture built on building monopolies and intolerance, and I personally have very little respect for American morals and values. I am much more European in my way of thinking. Well, except when it comes to eating dog and cat.

[jIgG]

we have a problem with stray cats and dogs back home a lot.
I've had to carry pepper spray and/or gas gun to keep these pests off my dog being attacked.

My grandmother has been attacked by stray dogs. I've almost been attacked by stray dogs so many times I lost count.

I'm all for castration or putting them to sleep, humanly not beating the crap out of them.

[Hamilton Steele]

Well I'm still gonna go with the study over you.

I grew up in the desert but that don't make me the world's foremost expert on sand.

So I take it you didn't grow up in a village of glass blowers?

And I'm sure some expert on sand can catagorize, break down what sand's chemical compounds are, work out the atomic weight, etc.

But they wouldn't be able to turn that sand into so much as a simple glass to drink out of.

Same can be said for studies on fish, fishing villages and fishing.

I've seen some species of fish bite a hook, rip part of it's mouth open and still go back over and over again for that bait.

Trust me if they felt pain the same way you and I do, they would have left the hook alone after the first strike. Most animals do.

[XXXWriterDude]

Regarding fish:

Trust me if they felt pain the same way you and I do, they would have left the hook alone after the first strike. Most animals do.

Yeah, but isn't the theory that because their brains are so small, they don't retain the memory of pain? I guess if we were fish, we would know for certain just how much pain it is possible to feel, but I would suspect that a big ol' hook through the mouth would be plenty painful for just about any creature with a circulatory system.

[Hamilton Steele]

Regarding fish:




Yeah, but isn't the theory that because their brains are so small, they don't retain the memory of pain? I guess if we were fish, we would know for certain just how much pain it is possible to feel, but I would suspect that a big ol' hook through the mouth would be plenty painful for just about any creature with a circulatory system.

I don't want to get into another one of these debates.

Right now I'm living in France and watching it degenerate into a facist Nazi state. I'm really up to my eyeballs in work, problems and controversy.

How about someone tell some Newfie jokes.
Or spam my french yahoo group with gay porn so I can laugh at homophobes.

I really need a laugh right now.

[Paco]

Cute or not. Intelligent or not. Something (a being) you appreciate or not.
No matter which way you look at it, it is simply wrong, and a THEORY about whether or not some beings feel pain is meaningless. I am not interested in theories, only fact. The fact is, the being is (or was) alive and another being decided to end it for them.

I have a theory that the persons or fisherpersons (and those that see nothing wrong with it) feel no pain because (as far as I am concerned) they are thinking with their ass, therefore they should be the ones dragged behind the boat with a hooks through their skulls & genitals.

Using that mentality, I guess babies (undeveloped brains) hanging from hooks at the local playground is a good idea and acceptable... merely bait for land sharks (child rapists).