Rob Lyman has a great post on PETA, meat, and hunting (I’ve always subscribed to the People for Eating Tasty Animals version, myself). I made a shorter comment:
2) It is moral. I came to the conclusion a long time ago that people who eat meat and have never killed anything are morally suspect. Some creature gave its life for the chicken Andouille sausages in the pasta sauce I made tonight. Pork chops and salmon dont start out wrapped in plastic on the grocery shelf. I have hunted deer, wild pigs, and birds, and I can say with certainty (and I imagine anyone else who hunts can say) that it fundamentally changed the way I look both at my food and at animals in the world. I respect the death that made my dinner possible in a way I never would have had an animal not died at my own hand.
but his is more thorough and pointed. Check it out.
He also catches the amusing point in the ‘Uppity Negro’ comments:
And why in heaven’s name would you issue death threats against a guy called Armed Liberal?
Is he on my blogroll yet??
Date: 10/02/2002 00:00:00 AM
Wow, Rob – that was well put. I need to expand that…I’ve been thinking about the issue of ‘sacrifice’, and this gives me a nice path into it.Thanks!!A.L.
Date: 10/02/2002 00:00:00 AM
Nick, the message is:I like eating meat, I do not intend to stop, and I recognize that my choice requires sacrifice on the part of another living thing.I choose to be party to this sacrifice (by killing animals myself) in order to remain humble and stop myself from ever forgetting that something has died for my benefit.
Date: 10/01/2002 00:00:00 AM
I think the concept of respecting the life of a creature you have just killed might have made sense in the days when a vegetarian diet was not possible, but it seems rather absurd now, doesn’t it? I mean, what’s the message here, “I really respect your life, but killing you will bring me pleasure so I’ll do it anyway”?But I’d certainly agree with you and Rob on the main point here: you don’t suddenly get worse just because you do the killing yourself. Would Matt Labash say that a mob boss who orders a hit is less (morally) culpable because someone else pulls the trigger? Hardly seems reasonable to me.