From Open Salon:
If you’re going to kill an animal, at least have the good sense to honor it by appreciating the sacrifice it made.
Would you call it an honorific if your pet was killed, skinned and cooked? Would it really honor your dog or your cat – presumably a companion animal you shower with love and affection – if that animal was served to you on a plate and you ate her?
Of course it wouldn’t.
I’m well aware that most people will not go vegan today, tomorrow, or ever. But please: ideas matter. Eating animalsdoes not honor them. Pretending that it does may be something humans need to tell themselves to try and dance around the ethics of doing it, but it’s not “kind” or “honorable” to the animal to consume her flesh.
I’m aware that many of you may choose to see eating animals as a “personal choice,” but it’s not really about you. It’s about the animals you’re killing. I don’t mean to be tedious and pedantic here, but ideas matter.
I’m not drawing a comparison to pets to try and draw on your heartstrings. The point is that we routinely do things to pigs, cows and chickens we’d never dream of doing to dogs or cats. This makes absolutely no sense. My aim here is just to get the people I can get to see to open their eyes and see. Most people, mired in conventional thinking, are unreachable.
But it’s not really about the unreachable.
If I can get even one person to open their eyes and see, to really see, then it’s worth it. I understand that it’s not a popular idea, and like all unpopular or unusual ideas, it’s easy to write all of this off as just the ranting of yet another moralizing vegan.
Most of the people reading this will only read that into it. I accept that.
But a few people won’t.
I have a moral obligation to try and drag this culture, kicking and screaming, if need be, out of its selfishness and wanton sadism where its treatment of animals is concerned. Killing and eating animals is optional. It’s completely optional. Causing optional suffering and death to sentient life – life that is not, in any meaningful way different from the pets we shower with affection – is not an honorable act. It will never ever be honorable. Merely calling it honorable does not make it so.
I know many people choose to see eating animals, and the ethics of eating animals as a “personal” choice. But it is not, in any way, personal. Lives are taken for no purpose other than satisfying our tastebuds. That’s not a personal choice. It’s not honorable.
Open your eyes. See. Really see.
babble 