What's happened to PALE&IF?. 'They'll' usually be all over this stuff like flies on shiznit...

I do not believe that “public pressure” has anything to do with the conscience (or lack thereof) of man’s inhumanity to other species. And why do livestock owners deny the suffering they inflict on their victims? Why do they influence captive and immoral governments, persuading them to ignore the objections of compassionate citizens who complain of the cruel methods in factory farming?

One must ask how morally retrograde is the agricultural and bioscientific institutes’ claims that nonhuman creatures have to be tortured and killed in the billions for the sake of health benefits to humans.

Even the almighty Nature never intended any animal's food source to be reduced to this... horrific bastardization of life. The industrialisation of animals - a blatant disregard of other living things and their rights.

Livestock owners in Australia do not provide anaesthesia or analgesics for surgical procedures. Procedures which include debeaking, castrations, ovarectomies, branding, tail docking, teeth filing, mulesing etc. These procedures are institutionalized and legal. Livestock owners remain insensitive to the pain they inflict on their victims.

No ends can justify such means. And who in Australia is heeding the advice of the United Nations FAO which urges all countries to drastically reduce their livestock numbers to salvage what’s left of the planet’s biodiversity? Certainly not the Australian Meat and Livestock (MLA) cabal who are actively promoting their product worldwide. This is the MLA who dumped 414,000 export animals overboard between 2000 and 2007.

And we remain in a delusive state believing there’s no problem letting animals suffer for one’s culinary pleasures.

In case posters suspect I’m a bleeding heart, allow me to say that if we could attenuate the suffering of the critters we eat, I'd have no problem with people who wish to eat dead rotting flesh on a daily basis.

Dickie, you had me until the 'dead rotting flesh.'

Honestly. Do you really think this emotive style of language wins people over?

By the same token, I could describe the rotting process that occurs to vegetables when they enter the stomach. Then think about how cabbage and beans produce so much noxious gas while passing into the bowels.
Or we could describe how the fertiliser used to grow plants is really rotting sh!t, with an awful smell.

Sure, it would be 'accurate.' But would it really? Or would it sound more like I'm attempting to denigrate another persons choice?

You claim not to have a problem with it, but your use of words belies that.

TRTL

You are known on this thread for arguing against the reasoning of those who object to animal cruelty.

And you are presumptious in suggesting that those people who object are vegetarians. This is an unethical and vacuous argument. I am not a vegetarian.

However, I am working towards a goal of not consuming meat for I can no longer support an industry that enormously augments disharmony, chaos, extreme cruelty, and environmental degradation.

If you are endeavouring to argue deductively, then your argument would need to be a little more plausible. You have ignored the substance of my argument by latching onto just three words from a post of 254 words - hardly a valid argument on your part - particularly when you selectively omitted the end of that sentence which stated: "on a daily basis."

The US justifies the slaughter and torture ("emotive" but factual) of nine billion animals per annum simply because they are addicted to eating meat "on a daily basis"- often three times a day.

The frequency of meat consumption was the basis for my argument and I suspect you understood that.

Australians too are similar in their meat consumption but I recall a recent media release which claimed that Australians are now the most obese on the planet.

And incidentally, my family and I ate chicken (free range) once a year, on Christmas Day. Very little meat was consumed and steak was never on the menu so to which good fortunes can I attribute my excellent health?

Like I said...

Hi all
Antiseptic and Country Gal, I suspect the wider community prefers not to know about the wretched lives the animals it eats have endured before ending up on their plate. But grab a hold of their cat or dog, and treat it the same way and they would be screaming for the RSPCA's instant attendance.

It is not especially about a vegetarian or vegan agenda. I know, for instance, that PF runs a welfare-friendly, ethical enterprise, and presumably is able to make a living from it (am I right, PF?) That would seem to indicate a strong case for a) free-range farming and b) truth in labelling. I'd personally like to see something like the warnings on cigarette packets - pictures of pigs in sow stalls and battery hens - on the packaging of these intensively-farmed products, and it would need to be monitored and enforced. That way, those in the community who do care can make an informed choice, but Minister Burke has apparently "knocked such a notion on the head."

There will always be an apathetic multitude, unfortunately, but we can at least keep working to get the right information out there. Surely, if we must slaughter these creatures to eat them (or put them to other abhorrent uses), the least we owe them is a humane life and a humane death. I think I have quoted the "Five Freedoms" before, but here they are again:-

# Freedom from Hunger and Thirst - ready access to fresh water and a diet to maintain full health and vigour.
# Freedom from Discomfort - providing an appropriate environment including shelter and a comfortable resting area.
# Freedom from Pain, Injury or Disease - prevention or rapid diagnosis and treatment.
# Freedom to Express Normal Behaviour - providing sufficient space, proper facilities and company of the animal's own kind.
# Freedom from Fear and Distress - ensuring conditions and treatment which avoid mental suffering”.

StG, I don't know about PALE, but its often cited websites appear to have "fallen over" as well, for anyone who is interested.

Cheers
Nicky