No, I am not a vegetarian, nor do I plan to be one. Animals don't have rights. In order to have rights, you have to be able to respect the rights of others.

Or do you? I'm not that sure anymore. What about when you are sleeping? One could argue that you could just wake up, but what about people in comas? they can't just wake up.

I really would like to hear anyone's opinion on this, especially Penn's or Teller's.

I don't understand the whole sleep/coma thing but I'll try and give my opinion on the vegetarian thing.

Animals most certainly do respect the rights of others. Picture a large Python who has just eaten a pig for example, that meal may satisfy it for a 6-8 weeks. In that time, it has no interest in killing every small mammal that passes by just for the hell of it. If it doesn't feel threatend it will leave it be.

Respect amongst animals can also lead to something called a 'symbiotic relationship'. This is when 2 or more different species will help each other out if there are benefits to doing so. My favorite example of which being the Honeyguide, which refers to a bird that leads another species, say a honey badger, to a bee hive. The Badger will open the bee hive and take a portion of the honey or bees wax and leave the rest for the Honeyguide. I guess you could say that they honey badger didn't respect the rights of the bees but unfortunatly it doesn't work like that. The persuit of food will always prevail any kind of symbiosis or 'leave it be' attitude. I think vegetarians (who are so because of a moral conviction) who preach that we are somehow not respecting the animals rights are misguided.

Cheers

Jamie

*The best song ever written goes G D A D.
You can figure out which one I mean.*

So animals have rights? And murder is okay as long as you don't do it again for 6-8 weeks?

I think we are supposed to eat animals because they just taste so damn good, unlike, say, tree bark.

You've just switched tact completely. The 'meat is murder' argument is a classic of the animal rights movement. What I say is, it is illogical to call the slaughter of livestock for food, murder. Maybe we should change the language here. I think 'rights' is a confusing word because in a minute you'll be asking me if Lions and Tigers respect video piracy laws. Let's stick with 'respect'. It seems to me, in order for there to be such a thing as an ecosystem, say a rainforest, there has to be a certain amount of respect from one species to another. Don't get me wrong I'm not picturing a giant tea party but the animals must be respecting something, if you wanna call that something, 'rights', then that's up to you.

Can I suggest reading 'The Naked Ape' It's a book written by a zoologist who examined human behaviour just like any other animals behaviour. It's a nice perspective to have when equating animals with humans.

Cheers

Jamie

*The best song ever written goes G D A D.
You can figure out which one I mean.*

That's a pretty stupid leap of "logic." What are you getting at here?

Animals may not have "rights" as we usually think of them in our society: The right to free expression, the right to refuse to testify against one's self, etc. Primarily they don't have those rights because they aren't really in a situation to appreciate them.

I think every person who isn't a complete jackass recognizes that it's sick and sad to treat other living things like commodities. It isn't something that educated, civilized animals like ourselves should do to other animals. That doesn't mean we shouldn't eat meat; we've been shaped by evolution to eat meat. We should do it conscientiously, recognizing that it came from a sentient being who valued its own life in its own way. We should try to support humane animal raising and processing practices rather than the kinds that treat animals as products, if we're fortunate enough to live in an area where that is even possible. (I am, and I do.)

But how do you equate a snake eating with murder? Are you just here to stir up shit and act like a badass? We're all gonna laugh at you, I guarantee it.

He said that animals have rights and I said what logically followed from that.

I don't see what is morally wrong with sticking an animal in a cage, pumping it up with drugs, force feeding it, and then slaughtering it in a painful way. They sure do taste good after they've been through that.

You really think it's good to do that to an animal, just because you can. That is cruel. Let's not even get into if the animal has rights to be treated better; think about what that says about a person who would do that to a defenseless creature. Torturing animals isn't good for people. Children who take pleasure in torturing and killing animals are very disturbed and behavior like this has been linked to antisocial personality disorder (if you don't know what that is I suggest you google it). It is as ridiculous for you to suggest that people should be able to do whatever they want to to animals for whatever reason, as it is for animals rights activists to suggest that apes should have the right to vote. I think that there needs to be some middle ground and if you cannot see that, then there probably isn't any point in having a discussion with you and I think that you are probably just trying to stir up trouble.

I never said it was a good thing, I just said it was not evil. Would I be disgusted by someone who tortures animals for fun? Yes, but I don't think they should go to jail for it.

"Rights" is a legal concept specific to humans; application to other species opens a can of worms. Even with humans it's a fogged and slippery concept.

What is clear is that we have a moral obligation to be humane. Humans can and should go to jail for animal cruelty--it's not about rights.

Vegan is ok; carnivore is ok. The point is to be decent.

"He said that animals have rights and I said what logically followed from that."

Sorry, dude. That is not what logically follows from what he said about snakes. In fact, your comment was quite illogical.

You don't really know what "logical" means, do you?

"You don't really know what "logical" means, do you?"

Mr Jones.

"Sorry, dude. That is not what logically follows from what he said about snakes. In fact, your comment was quite illogical.

You don't really know what "logical" means, do you?"

"Animals most certainly do respect the rights of others. Picture a large Python who has just eaten a pig for example, that meal may satisfy it for a 6-8 weeks. In that time, it has no interest in killing every small mammal that passes by just for the hell of it. If it doesn't feel threatend it will leave it be."

He said that animals have rights, and that the python was respecting the rights of others by not killing anything for 6-8 weeks after murdering a pig. It follows that it was okay for the python to kill the pig because he wasn't going to kill anything else for 6-8 weeks. What's not to understand about that?

This is why in a latter post I wanted to focus on the word 'respect' rather than 'rights' because rights is a misleading term. A Python doesn't know what the fuck a murder is. It's just a hungry preditor, like humans. Also read 'The Animal Contract'. There's a lovely few pages about vegetarianism.

Cheers

Jamie

*The best song ever written goes G D A D.
You can figure out which one I mean.*

Ever hear of people coming out of a coma? Thats waking up.

Sleep and a coma are different things to begin with.

Sleep is almost always welcomed, a coma isnt.

Yes, people come out of comas, but that is generally a lot rarer than people waking up from sleep. And it doesn't answer whether or not they have rights while they are in a coma. And what about babies and mentally challenged people?

Of course people who are asleep and in comas as well as children and the mentally disabled people have rights. What is wrong with you? Do you think we should be able to mistreat/ torture/ kill/ eat any being that cannot defend itself? How would you like it if you were to sustain a traumatic brain injury and subsequently became mentally disabled and people then treated you as if you were somehow less human or even treated you like an animal? It is EVIL (as in morally wrong) to mistreat defenseless animals and people. I have arrived at this conclusion based on Kant's categorical imperative: "Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law." If you do not agree with this philosophy, please tell me what philosophy it is that you live by.

Of course I know it's wrong, I just wanted to know the argument behind it.

Well, is the argument I gave you, based on Kant, good enough?

Anyone who is incapable of expressing their medical wishes still retains legal rights. That could mean, for example, someone who has had a stroke and due to temporary paralysis is unable to speak or write down their wishes. Legal rights extend to people in comas as well.

Oftentimes, people fail to give any advance health directives on whether they should be kept on life support or given tube feedings if they are terminally ill or in a persistent vegetative coma. In such cases, a spouse or nearest family member can take on the role of a "proxy" (also known as a "surrogate") to make decisions on behalf of the patient. The patient still has legal rights.

Many comas are not vegetative. A coma is a defense mechanism our bodies use to shut down or reduce the demand of less necessary functions to allow self-repair of vital functions. Once the body is sufficiently healed, then the patient comes out of the coma.

A persistent vegetative coma is when a person has no hope of recovering consciousness. The real question is at what point is someone truly dead. You can keep a body functioning on life support, but if the brain is dead, is that death? I think so.

And, I can't help giving in to a moment of facetiousness, but if brain death isn't death, then are zombies alive? If zombies are alive, do they have legal rights? I'm pretty sure that someone has given zombies the right to vote. That would explain a lot of election results...

So, since this topic is Vegetarianism, you guys are saying we shouldn't eat people who are in a coma, if they are truly in a vegetative state?

Ok #1 that's only part one of kant's categorical imparitive and #2 it's a dumbshyt idea to begin with as just about everything doesn't work by it.

Next as far as animal rights... Most past philosophers go with the belief that any creature that is not reasonable to x level is not human and thus has no rights. By that alone most people would be deemed animals that could be eaten...women, children, coma, retarded, handicapped... it's really a stupid thing to argue it as most philosopher don't consider most Homo Sapiens Human and are almost never talk about anything non-human related.

Now as far as my thoughts on animal rights... All animals act within the same instincts pretty much so there are a number of things you can say that any creature will do. Some animals are more in tuned to other animals... For example your snake example a rat will walk rat in front of a snake if it thinks it is full. This is what you are calling respect... it's more apathy or disrespect than respect. You have to realize an animal really doesn't care to eat if it's full a lot of times.

Now some of you are saying it's wrong to mistreat animals even if it is for food, but the thing is you have to define mistreat. Even if you consider the most painful, horrible things we do to animals it is still not as bad as an anaconda or shark or cat or certain insects eating you. They eat things alive shattering bones and digesting you while you are still conscious. The fact is I would rather have my head slice cleanly off or live in a mutated form than having a snake bite me... I've never had it happen before but I've had some very painful anesthetic (that sounds weird but yeah it was cuz of the area i think and yes it was the fluid not the needle piercing) injected in me so I have to imagine that that is very weak in comparison to something designed to hurt. By comparison animals that we eat live a relatively peaceful and well treated life no matter how painfully we rip apart something...though we can kill worse than regular animals.

Killing for fun is wrong imo, but anything they do for food...that's alright imo.

Getting back on topic, I think that, being a species of omnivores, for humans to kill and eat other animals is normal and natural. Cooked meat has been staple of the human diet since the caveman days of homo erectus; humans have evolved to eat it, like it, and be nourished by it.

It annoys me when vegetarians and vegans try to say it is immoral or inhumane to eat meat. I love to annoy them by showing them YouTube clips of guinea pigs squeaking in agony as they're crushed by pythons. To eat meat is human, not inhumane. Animals look after their own species first. I think the animal rights movement takes compassion for others too far by extending it to non-human animals.

Except for moi's fish oil pills moi 'tis a veggieTORian.

It HURTS TOO MUCH to eat fat and after a shït-load of heart-attaks, and a quintuple by-pass, [Really three opertions in two days] veggies is just fine.

Oh, BTW on the subject of "Rights"
insert insane laughter here
RIGHTS!
more insane laughter

Your song, hmmmmmmmmm?
Is it 'Beethoven's 5th?

Stay on groovin' safari,
Tor Hershman

To quote Penn from the PETA Bullshit episode; with rights, come responsiblitites.

Can animals sustain on a daily, waking basis, uphold the responsiblitites that come with rights?