Anti-slaughter: Is There A Case?
Progged on by blog comments I've spent two days considering. Is there a case for anti-slaughter? (hereafter "AI"). I'd say yes and no.
Is AI for love or money? I believe it's a two headed movement, i.e. a mixture of both. If you doubt the profit motive log onto the constant nonsense on the Tim Woolley website where every other post is a plea for "donations".
Yet motives aside, if slaughter is inhumane we should end it. The problem of course lies in the animals left hopelessly to fend for themselves or such substandard care that death becomes the preferable option. It's the PETA quandary were we practice animal genocide or give as many of them good lives for as long as we can. Regards horses, short of a national taxpayer supported abandoned horse preserve(which merits some consideration), the only question we have is the most humane treatment for ill cared for horses. Again, ignore those on pasture. The cruelty lies in the show barns and AI folks recruiting people that should be anything but horse owners.
How do we approach the issue? The specious reasoning on the AI websites, in addition to destroying all credibility, reminds me of another great line from Goethe where the 100 year old Faust opines "that to one's agonized disgust, one has to tire of being just."
Let's take a closer look.
The typical AI site commences with great effect to communicate the negative emotions surrounding horse slaughter and skips on to argument to ban the plants. One of those sites was so good at this it had me rethinking my own position. Non-thinkers visiting the sites will be swept up by the absolute horror engendered in the scenes.
Yet, on reconsideration, the first thing that strikes, the videos are by and large from plants outside the USA. They have nothing from Cavel or the Texas plants to my knowledge. We are thus required to make the inductive leap that our USDA inspectors are permitting animal torture at the U.S. plants. One website makes fun of an Illinois U.S. Congressman and horse owner (11 of them) who says he visited Cavel on three occasions and saw nothing inhumane in the slaughter process. Think I believe the Congressman.
Is AI correct concerning the level of abuse at the plants or are they exaggerating.? My own guess, they are possibly about 10% correct and their main premise of inhumane slaughter is steeply overstated, in all likelihood.
From there it gets even murkier as the AI lack of logic leads us further astray. Instead of considering birth to death horse welfare, AI instead focused on the last days, hours and minutes of life. Was it Samuel Johnson who avoided giving one minute of thought to his own death. We're talking 15 minutes opposing a life time.
Anybody who really cares about animals (instead of e.g. money) would take note of the horrible conditions of most of our horses. I'd include in this those at the race tracks kept day after day, week after week, being driven many of them insane in their small enclosures. They claim they take care of them. In reality the prisoners at Alcatraz get better treatment. Just a wild guess--of all the stalled horses in the USA, maybe 10% of them have any kind of life. For many of the rest they reside in the solitary confinement sections of their own prisons.
ABUSE--CAUSES-EFFECTS
We first need to measure the above before reaching any conclusions.
AI acknowledges this process to some extent by giving us John Holland's recent research project. Unfortunately, that document is so flawed and so biased imo it does more harm than good for it paints an overall scenario that is incorrect by every objective observation. The document destroys the credibility of AI to any person that cares to give it some logical thought.
My conclusion is to support those that want to investigate the use of bolt guns and to try to solve the problem of transport. The plants are simply a false bogeyman, and concentration on the them as opposed to the real issues in all likelihood creates a level of harm to horses over a lifetime (or will create it) that defies comprehension. Eventually the plants will come back because people will decline to put up with what's happening.
Training:
Fri 6/21: Off.
Is AI for love or money? I believe it's a two headed movement, i.e. a mixture of both. If you doubt the profit motive log onto the constant nonsense on the Tim Woolley website where every other post is a plea for "donations".
Yet motives aside, if slaughter is inhumane we should end it. The problem of course lies in the animals left hopelessly to fend for themselves or such substandard care that death becomes the preferable option. It's the PETA quandary were we practice animal genocide or give as many of them good lives for as long as we can. Regards horses, short of a national taxpayer supported abandoned horse preserve(which merits some consideration), the only question we have is the most humane treatment for ill cared for horses. Again, ignore those on pasture. The cruelty lies in the show barns and AI folks recruiting people that should be anything but horse owners.
How do we approach the issue? The specious reasoning on the AI websites, in addition to destroying all credibility, reminds me of another great line from Goethe where the 100 year old Faust opines "that to one's agonized disgust, one has to tire of being just."
Let's take a closer look.
The typical AI site commences with great effect to communicate the negative emotions surrounding horse slaughter and skips on to argument to ban the plants. One of those sites was so good at this it had me rethinking my own position. Non-thinkers visiting the sites will be swept up by the absolute horror engendered in the scenes.
Yet, on reconsideration, the first thing that strikes, the videos are by and large from plants outside the USA. They have nothing from Cavel or the Texas plants to my knowledge. We are thus required to make the inductive leap that our USDA inspectors are permitting animal torture at the U.S. plants. One website makes fun of an Illinois U.S. Congressman and horse owner (11 of them) who says he visited Cavel on three occasions and saw nothing inhumane in the slaughter process. Think I believe the Congressman.
Is AI correct concerning the level of abuse at the plants or are they exaggerating.? My own guess, they are possibly about 10% correct and their main premise of inhumane slaughter is steeply overstated, in all likelihood.
From there it gets even murkier as the AI lack of logic leads us further astray. Instead of considering birth to death horse welfare, AI instead focused on the last days, hours and minutes of life. Was it Samuel Johnson who avoided giving one minute of thought to his own death. We're talking 15 minutes opposing a life time.
Anybody who really cares about animals (instead of e.g. money) would take note of the horrible conditions of most of our horses. I'd include in this those at the race tracks kept day after day, week after week, being driven many of them insane in their small enclosures. They claim they take care of them. In reality the prisoners at Alcatraz get better treatment. Just a wild guess--of all the stalled horses in the USA, maybe 10% of them have any kind of life. For many of the rest they reside in the solitary confinement sections of their own prisons.
ABUSE--CAUSES-EFFECTS
We first need to measure the above before reaching any conclusions.
AI acknowledges this process to some extent by giving us John Holland's recent research project. Unfortunately, that document is so flawed and so biased imo it does more harm than good for it paints an overall scenario that is incorrect by every objective observation. The document destroys the credibility of AI to any person that cares to give it some logical thought.
My conclusion is to support those that want to investigate the use of bolt guns and to try to solve the problem of transport. The plants are simply a false bogeyman, and concentration on the them as opposed to the real issues in all likelihood creates a level of harm to horses over a lifetime (or will create it) that defies comprehension. Eventually the plants will come back because people will decline to put up with what's happening.
Training:
Fri 6/21: Off.
posted by rather rapid at
11:38 AM
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