"Marcelino" > wrote:


> Please examine what we do to animals on factory farms and in
> slaughterhouses, denying animals everything that is natural to them and
then
> killing them in gruesome ways, and try to tell me that this is moral.
Nature
> 's law is, without a doubt, Darwin's "survival of the fittest." Some
animals
> may procreate by rape; other animals may fight territorial battles to the
> death. But we hold ourselves to a higher standard in our interactions with
> one another. We even hold ourselves to a higher standard with regard to
> animals we often form special bonds with, such as dogs and cats-readily
> granting them some basic protections. What animal welfare advocates
suggest
> is that we should also be compassionate toward all animals.

Do you assume that factory farms producing vegetables do not harm animals? I
would think that they do and in great numbers. Machines used to both prepare
the land as well as harvest the food can do a lot of damage to the animal
population in a field. Never mind pesticides used in non-organic farming. Of
course most of these animals are little things like lizards, rodents,
snakes, etc. that we don't like anyway and we can't easily get video of them
being ripped apart or exposed to predators when we destroy their cover.

The point I'm trying to make is that if any of us choose to live in modern
society, vegetarian or not, we are killing animals. It's next to impossible
to avoid. Probably the way we could kill the least number of animals in our
diet, without growing it all ourselves, would be to add hunted meats to our
menu. Of course, there are plenty of other things we use in day to day life
that cause the death of animals.

-Mike