Anonyms – I appreciate your posted comment. You make a lot of sense concerning this issue.

junior

http://maxent.org/ch/monkey_brains.html

Hey! That’s not fair! I’d be an expert in the art of filibuster by your logic.

SMS

My view is that there are few “farmers” anymore, very few “old MacDonald’s farms” and little species rights from birth to grave for most plants and animals and certainly nothing that could possibly be considered normal or natural for a consumable animal or plant without human intervention.

The food supply has become riskier with the transition to modern agribusness too. Pickers die in the fields of California (several this year), consumers die from e-coli because the agribusness needs to tighten the money spent on harvest so port-a-potties and potable cool drinking water are in short supply in the fields. Additionally, these agribusinesses are a huge employer of and attractor to illegal immigrants and the industry previously embraced the brutal and discriminatory bracero programs now illegal.

No animals do not have inherent rights, except perhaps the right not to be brutalized but isn’t that more of an obligation we impose on humanity? Don’t we require in a civilized society that we conduct ourselves in a non-brutal way with almost everything in our world?

I agree “no on Prop 2″ but I also think that we need to become more suspicious of our agribusiness suppliers and not be afraid to listen to science and not eat cows six or fourteen times a week.

Whatever you do don’t watch videos of how the animals are treated living or dead. I did and boycotted all meat for a year and even now I cook beef and chicken really well. We might want a more nutritous and safer food source in the future (Soylent Green anyone?).

Oh yeah, our entire agribusness economy is heavily dependent on oil too, so the price of a barrell of oil is going to come home big time in increased food prices. The time will come when you have to shell out ten bucks for your in and out and then you might choose a salad at home instead.

Actually, monkey brains would be permissible under my commitment to not eat live animals. Since in order to eat monkey brains the monkey would have been dead.

You do understand that I have committed to not eat live animals. This does not apply to animals which may have been alive at one time and are now deceased.

I see it is now lunch time. I think that I will go to Taqueria de Anda and get tacos de cabeza. Love those brains.

Here is something on which I think we can both wholeheartedly agree.

The Winships say: “Do not eat any living animal ever in your life.”

I hereby commit to never eating any animal which is living – promise.

junior

Clearly that’s something we as a society would have to discuss. I’ve already conceded that animal rights would not be like human rights, but in this case, by giving animals rights, people don’t lose any, so I think it’s worth talking about.

SMS

OK – for the sake of arguement, say animals have rights. Does that included the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness?

Just where do those “rights” stop?

I’m not going to argue the former point, but to say that animals shouldn’t have rights is just plain cruel, I’m sorry.

SMS

Of course animal protection laws are intended to protect animals – as well as protecting their owners from loss. But, that does not confer an inherent or granted right to the animal.

If you want to say that animals have rights, fine no problem. But you will not find any laws which define rights as belonging to an animal – and that is as it should be.