NinjaDeathSlap said:
The extreme to which they took that argument was idiotic. However, I would be lying if I said that it has never pissed me off how some people can gorge themselves silly on meat without a care in the world, but will recoil in disgust if they're ever told to do so much as pluck a chicken. I mean really, how hypocritical can you get? You want to be an omnivore? Be an omnivore. But don't then act like the farmer who has to cut Miss Piggy's throat in order to put yet another bacon roll in front of you is some kind of brute.
I agree with you on this. People have a weird way of "loving" animals, considering how some are unable to touch an animal unless the difference between "cute pig" and bacon is clear, and they seem to throughly ignore any indication that the meat they are eating once was that cute little piggy.
Another problem is that while most people claim to love animals, few are actually able to put an animal down when it is necessary.
An example from real life: A deer crossed the road and got hit by a car, causing it to get severely hurt and it was clear it wouldn't make it. Someone I know arrived a few minutes later, and saw the people around it. When he asked them what they were going to do with it, they said they had called the vet to come kill it "humanely" with a shot, but it would take at least an hour for the vet to arrive. The person who told me this went into his car, and got a blunt instrument that I can't remember accurately what was, and killed the deer instantly, making it so that it wouldn't have to suffer for at least another hour. The people were shocked, even though it should have been obvious.
To love an animal shouldn't just require you to not eat their meat and not kill them, it should be to treat them well. Treating an animal well would require you to do your best so that it didn't suffer. I bet there's vegetarians that wouldn't have been able to kill that deer, or even suggest it, even thought it was clearly suffering and was going to die. It's the same with pets, my grandmother told me about someone who left their beloved dog on the mountain to starve, because it was either that or paying the vet to kill it (or taking care of it themselves). It was because it bit people it had to be put down. The reason my grandmother knew about this? That someone bragged about it, while saying they loved the dog so much.
I'm not saying that the meat industries treat animals as they should be, I'm saying that vegetarians that give an argument like the one in the OP should ask themselves whether they would be able to kill an animal if something like this would happen. A lot of the animal-lovers I know wouldn't be able to even think it.
But anyways, I believe you can love animals and still eat them when they're dead, the important thing is how they are treated while they are alive.
