Personally I think many animals experience pain in the same way people do. What would be worse for people is the dread of impending doom. (I'm starting to feel that myself. )

If it is understood that it is causing pain (or other yucky emotions like anxiety) that is the thing to worry about, rather than whether the animal can write poetry about the emotions, DS will realize that something being able to use its words to think about the emotions is an irrelevant rationalization.

You can fool animals into not fearing death until the last moments. You need religion to fool people all the way.

In the end, the 'ethical' meat eater can successfully argue that pain and fear will be experienced no matter what by any animal who lives and therefore dies. Vegetarians reduce that suffering by, en mass, causing there to be fewer livestock raised.

On a utilitarian level (I'm no philosopher, don't yell at me if I use that incorrectly), the vegetarian is arguing that preventing those lives and thus that suffering is better than those lives happening.

On a more abstract level, the vegetarian just doesn't want to personally take part in the suffering.

Still, on a realistic level, what percentage of meat is produced in a cruel way? 99%? 99.99% It's probably not possible to produce enough 'ethical' meat for current consumption levels. Perhaps the 'ethical' meat eaters are crowding out other meat eaters who would be 'ethical' and in order to be 'ethical' they should limit their consumption to a sustainable amount for the entire population.

Holy ****, people still clamoring on ITT about the poor chickens?

BtM2-

There is a spectrum from fruitarians to cannibals. Almost every point on that spectrum is logically defendable.

microbet-

The resources aren't evenly distributed across geographic regions. Think globally, kill ethically locally.

Sorry you frighten so easily, and nice straw-man rant. I've been vegetarian for about 20 years, and during this time about half my friends and acquaintances have been vegetarian, and I've yet to come across a vegetarian who meets all of your criteria above.

Vegetarians are over-represented in social justice and human rights movements (Mat even feels safe in assuming that vegans are predominately "leftists"; who do you think is concerned with human rights if not the leftists). Vegetarians are more likely than non-vegetarians to be aware of and concerned about the environmental impact of vegetable factory farming, the human rights of migrant farm labourers, ethical issues with companies like Monsanto, the social issues connected to quinoa consumption, etc. They are more likely to grow their own vegetables using sustainable practices, and to buy their produce directly from family farmers, either at farmers' markets or through community shared agriculture co-operatives.

If you're coming across lots of vegetarians proudly waiving the pro choice banner while being smug in the knowledge that they don't cause harm to animals, that's probably because they're responding to ignorant statements like the ones you've made above. They're not particularly proud of being vegetarian or smug about it. They're just responding to the defensive rants of meat eaters who regard their choice not to eat meat as some sort of personal affront.

Vegetarians are like snowflakes.

Vegetarians generally being less concerned about human welfare is very far from true.

I hope the aliens are vegans.

I think you probably read something into my post that wasn't there. I wasn't comparing vegetarians to non-vegetarians and I agree that if we are taking the average vegetarian and the average meat eater, the vegetarian would be far more concerned about the entire range of social issues than the meat eater. But that isn't what I said.

Less concerned about human welfare than about animal welfare. I'm comparing their concern for one thing over another thing, not their concern vs. the concern of someone else that eats meat.

I am an advocate for consumptive use of fish and game resources, so yes, I rub PETA types the wrong way on a regular basis.

PETA is a huge scapegoat and I expect even the vast majority of PETA members think hunting is less bad than eating at McDonald's.

That doesn't mean they won't protest hunting.

Scapegoat is not exactly the right word but I think you know what I mean.

Its not just protesting hunting. Its actively trying to ban hunting and fishing and taking away resource management decisions from wildlife managers in any way they can. It is extremely bad in California from a consumptive use and wildlife management standpoint and only getting worse.

The worst part is that it is done without any good science. Its just because sea kittens are cute and we shouldn't hurt them.

It is a pejorative in the circles I run in, yes.

You mentioned how often you come across vegetarians who "are still disconnected from the source of their food. Buying soy patty meat substitute from a multinational conglomerate and proudly waiving the pro choice banner while being smug in the knowledge that they don't cause harm to animals."

The smug vegetarians are not disconnected from the source of their food. They wouldn't deign to consume processed soy fake meat products, and they are the ones that tell you how they buy organic heirloom tomatoes straight from the farmer and make their own soy milk from non-gmo soybeans sweetened with stevia they grow in a window box in their kitchen.

I understand you only claimed that vegetarians are more concerned about animal rights than they are human rights. Many of the human rights/social justice activists I know are vegetarian. They are concerned about human rights at least as much as they are in animal rights--most more so. While there are certainly vegetarians who care less about human suffering than they do animal suffering, and vegetarians who don't care where their food comes from, it's unfair to generalize this as being "often, though not always" the case.

I'm most confused by the pro-choice vegetarians. I don't understand how that works. Killing animals for food is bad, but killing a human fetus for any reason at all is a-ok? If we agree that most vegetarians are left of center politically, then most support abortion rights. Obviously not everyone fits this, but many do. I'll try to have the conversation without generalizing. I agree it wasn't helpful.

Fetuses are barely sentient at the time they are aborted.

I hope we can all at least agree that picking up your cat and moving it is a gross violation of its rights.

This is not true. Vegetarians are often pretty smug about it, and many of them are as bad as Christian with proselytizing in similar proportions. I have many good vegan friends who are entirely cool, but with others, it's not uncommon to have to defend meat eating from being labelled evil or unhealthy.

The odds that their food qualifies as either animal or plant is probably slim.

Yes, it is.

Vegetarians eat eggs.

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2014/11/17...cmp=latestnews

This article has it all. lol Fox News misleading headline, lol trophy hunter, and lol animal rights activists stopping wildlife managers from getting needed funds to manage wildlife. Because animals.

Sure some vegetarians are smug douchebags, but this is not because they are vegetarians. They would be just as annoying were they craft beer connoisseurs, proud gun owners, Christian, drove a Prius, or loved eating meat.

Now that I can agree with.