I was reminded the other day that the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus had closed recently, and it got me to thinking about animal rights, particularly from a libertarian perspective.
Ringling Brothers…no more.
First, a bit about where I stand: I eat meat; I’m fine with employing animals for their labor; I’m also fine with keeping animals for companionship. We have an English bulldog who’s pretty awesome, if occasionally stubborn and flatulent. I hunt and fish, and I don’t have a problem with killing an animal that I’m not emotionally attached to for food. But, I don’t want to cause any unnecessary suffering to any animal, and I don’t think anyone else should, either. If someone intentionally hurt my dog, I’d inflict as much pain as possible on them, and maybe on their children, too. Ideally, I’d eat free range meat, but I haven’t done my research yet to figure out what that entails (or even means) and how to go about it.
Circuses are out for me. I don’t want animals to be kept in captivity for my entertainment. Zoos require some nuance. Some zoos exist purely for entertainment, and there are many examples of cases in which the animals in these zoos aren’t treated well. However, there are also many zoos (and aquaria) which have multiple functions of research, education, and, entertainment. I’ve had the privilege of visiting some excellent ones, including the San Diego Zoo and Safari Park, the Monterey Bay Aquarium, and the Vancouver Aquarium. These zoos have biologists on staff who conduct studies to better understand the animals, as well as biologists charged with the care and well-being of the animals. As an added benefit, those of us who aren’t biologists can visit and learn about, and, yes, be entertained by the animals.
I’m torn on medical experimentation on animals. While I realize that medical experimentation can cause suffering to animals, I recognize that it can also relieve the suffering of humans.
Now, on to the perspectives on animals rights that I was aware of beforehand. One perspective is that animals are not humans, and thus have no rights. Another is that there’s no special sauce that distinguishes humans from other living creatures (indeed, we share an overwhelming percentage of our genetic material with most other living organisms), and thus animals should have the same rights as humans. I think that these are both extreme views.
Given that western civilization is heavily influenced by Judeo-Christian values, it’s not a coincidence that the origins of some western values on animal rights can be traced to the Bible. Genesis 1:26 says “And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”
Saint Francis preachin’ it.
However, there are also many examples in Judaism and Christianity that hold that humans should care for and protect animals (see Francis of Assisi, patron saint of animals, and the analogy of Jesus as the shepherd). (Aside: ZARDOZ seems mostly concerned with grain production, but what does He command about animal rights?)
So, what are the libertarian perspectives on animal rights? It seems to me that a libertarian’s view on animal rights is largely dependent on whether one views animals as “individuals” that are afforded rights, or property, which has no rights of its own. In this respect, libertarian viewpoints on animal rights parallel libertarian viewpoints on abortion (which come down to whether one believes that a fetus has rights). My research seems to indicate that, as with abortion, the majority of libertarians seem to come down on the side of animals having no rights, but it’s certainly not unanimous.
NAP! NAP!
What say you, Glibertarians?
How are circuses different than owning pets? Honest question, not snark or a “gotcha” or anything.
Most complaints center on the treatment – living conditions, etc.
No disrespect to Chipping Pioneer, but this seems the more reasonable justification. Getting enjoyment or entertainment from an animal doesn’t strike me as an evil in and of itself.
I second this. And anyone that tries to make me feel guilty that I actually am smart enough to see that nature is beyond cruel itself and that the natural state for most animals can be far worse than being in a zoo or circus, can go take a long walk off a short pier.
I think I fired you up this morning!
I am always fired up man..
I think I stand pretty much in the same place in terms of animal rights. I suppose the way I think of it is that a being has rights commensurate with its ability to meet its moral responsibilities. So, I have dogs, and I love them, and I believe they have the right to be free from unjustified harm. After that, it gets murky. My dogs don’t have the right to come and go as they please because they can’t not, for instance, respect the property rights of others, or in a more specific case not attack black Labs for walking in front of our house. But by taking that right away from them, I become obliged to provide care for them.
Short form, I’d say they’re not just possessions that do stuff on their own. They’re living creatures with minds and souls and the works, but they can’t operate on their own in a human society and so necessarily take a back seat to other humans.
I agree with that. Animals have no rights on their own, but in the case of dogs, which formed an alliance, sort of entered into a contract with humans, thousands of years ago, it can be different. For instance, what you just shared, by taking the dogs as pets, you entered into a contract with the dog to protect and provide for it and in return you get it’s obedience.
There was a Penn and Teller Bullshit! episode that talked about animal rights, and the example they gave was the domestic cow. Basically, a cow isn’t capable of behaving morally, so, lacking moral agency, it lacks the rights that moral agency engenders.
Can a baby behave morally? Can a brain-dead adult?
Not arguing, just poking.
A truly brain dead individual can’t act at all, and babies have a limited ability to do so. Neither is a moral agent, though assuming normal development the baby will eventually become one.
So by implication, do you believe that neither one of them have human rights?
Addendum – Yes, by brain-dead, I mean 100% without consciousness but unarguably a homo sapien.
So, a proggie, then?
Well, I was thinking CNN viewer, but six of one…
Did I advocate such a position? I don’t believe I did. I just answered your question as to whether either were moral agents. I do believe that some rights are continent upon agency, as those rights require some responsibility. As an example, contracts. We would not allow a contract to be entered into with a brain dead person, nor with a baby, as neither would be able to understand the contract or give reasonable consent to it. Is right to contract a human right?
A∩B pretty close to unity.
Rights aren’t an all-or-nothing package deal, so to answer your question and second Caput’s position. I would refine it maybe to say that all cultures accept that rights can be inherent or natural and yet also only exercisable once they’ve been “earned”. Parents routinely deny babies the ability to exercise natural rights because of the greater moral good of protecting them from making poor decisions as a result of their limited capacity. When your friend comes to your house having just been dumped by his girlfriend and drinks himself into a stupor, you hide his keys, denying his right to property under the auspices that he is temporarily unable to exercise rational judgment.
OMG, I’ve never won anything before in my life! I’ll remember this day forever!
*gives Bill a cookie*
I wouldn’t eat that cookie.
Or even touch it.
My assessment on the question of animal rights stems from the nature of our rights. We have rights because we have agency. We have agency because we have an intellect. And before anyone asks, yes, we assign less rights for lower intellect all the time. We don’t allow children or the mentally challenged to enter into contracts, for just one example. So, an animal has rights to the extent it has some element of agency. And an animal has agency to the extent it has an intellect.
That means, ideally, about 75% of species would have more rights than your average progressive.
CNN: “Libertarians believe those who don’t think like them are worse than animals. Women and minorities hardest hit.”
80% of species would have more rights than your average CNN reporter.
They are probably smarter too.
Progressives must know deep down that they are no better than wild animals morally. This is why they are so loud about giving animals equal rights to humans because they know damn well they are no better.
I think you put what I was trying to say upthread in a much better way. The agency issue is what it boils down to, and I don’t think there’s a conflict in assigning rights according to agency.
Reminds me of this:
In 1967, Polish mercenary Rafal Ganowicz was asked what it felt like to take a human life “I wouldn’t know, I’ve only ever killed communists”
I think you glibly touch on a fairly important distinction: treating all animals as if they have the same level of agency is ridiculous. Dolphins may not have as much agency and intellect as humans, but they have far more than tuna, or sheep. Personally, I think once agency is established* I think all rights are conferred (a “right floor” if you will) but until then rights exist more on a sliding scale, with dogs, elephants, etc. having more rights than cows, which in turn have more rights than clams and sponges.
*And before you ask about babies, I personally think an individual’s (not species’) potential to obtain those rights should be considered; so while babies may not have intellect or agency now, they will a few years down the road, and that should be considered in the rights scheme.
When you say agency, what do you mean? Under the presumption you mean “action to produce an effect” agency is insufficient. The base definition of agency is uncorrelated with intelligence. Rights, presuming we are discussing natural rights, are inherent only in a being with moral agency – something capable of acting to produce an effect with reference to right and wrong. I am not convinced any animals are moral agents, especially because none we have studied have analogous structures (putting aside those marginal cases of spindle cells which warrant particular analysis).
As an aside we, in fact, do allow children and the mentally challenged to enter into contracts.
As an aside we, in fact, do allow children and the mentally challenged to enter into contracts.
And those contracts are voidable at their discretion.
https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/lack-capacity-to-contract-32647.html
That’s not a meaningful contract in any sense.
Actually its completely on point, they are allowed to enter into a contract because they have agency under the law otherwise they would not be able to press the contract on the counter-party. There is clear and particular reasoning carried through the early decisions on the topic. In particular, a voidable contract is not a void contract and there are distinctions between capacity and agency.
Personally, I don’t attribute rights to anything that doesn’t believe in them, which obviously encompasses anything that doesn’t have the capacity to believe in them (e.g. animals). That’s not to say that I oppose efforts to deter animal abuse. It’s human nature to feel empathy for animals, especially higher ones.
Personally, I don’t attribute rights to anything that doesn’t believe in them, – so where do you stand on commies and helicopters?
The jump from believing that anyone that feels that animals don’t deserve rights on par with humans to the accusation of not just condoning but enjoying animal abuse, seems to share a parallel with the belief that not wanting big government equates to wanting Somalia. And both arguments come from the same type of assholes.
The way I see it, is that animals do not have language. Therefore they cannot argue their case for rights. In the wild, there are no laws other than the laws of nature. Therefore, animals have no natural rights.
Say what?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNuZ4OE6vCk
So the gorilla has some basic communication with a human. Just like a cat or dog. But let’s see the animal understand what rights are and the moral obligation necessary to sustain them.
Documentary proof?
was a good movie to 7 yr old Bobby.
Ok, I’m convinced now.
Where are the clips of the Japanese whalers or the Tuna fishing boats?
Language and communication are different things. The latter requires an internal model of the other entity, there is little evidence any animal can successfully model a human.
So what about property rights? Do animals consent for you to build cities and houses?
And what about animal crimes? Dolphin rape, fighting for mates, etc. They have no legal system of restitution.
That hinges on animals having a concept of consent. Dolphins, and many other animals, only rape in the sense that we have anthropomorphized their actions. Sitting through a screed against humanizing animals is step one in behavioral biology.
I think that’s a key difference. The most intelligent animals (besides us) on Earth still haven’t demonstrated that they have something like a sense of morality, and without that you don’t have the concept of justice. Without those, you can’t really talk about the concept of rights. A dolphin “rapes” another dolphin because it seems like the thing to do at the time for whatever dolphin reasons, and the dolphin on the receiving end isn’t thinking about it as a violation of its rights. Neither dolphin considers the moral element to the deed.
They may not read Kant (and that may be in their favor), but elephants have a communal sense of morals.
Elephants are quite intelligent enough to realize when they’re being abused.*
* Warning – reference is at the end of the story.
As do chimps
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/0591-2385.681997068/full
And a chimp might just decide one day to eat your face and so the question is, does it feel remorse after eating your face or understand it has done something wrong? I highly doubt it. Chimps are very aggressive dangerous animals.
Not reading Kant is decidedly in their favor. That man was a buffoon of the highest order.
As for their “morality”, I find most of it dubious, and hinging upon the aforementioned anthropomorphizing. Unfortunately, as we have no means of effective cross species communication that doesn’t inherently color the responses, it is incredibly hard to separate evolved behavior from reasoned behavior is animals. Hell, it’s hard to do in humans.
>it is incredibly hard to separate evolved behavior from reasoned behavior is animals.
You say this like there is a difference. The capacity to reason is a product of evolution. Reasoned behavior is evolved behavior.
Fair enough, the distinction I was attempting was between reasoned behavior and instinctual behavior. Mortality requires the ability to reason, to step back and consider the morality of an action before committing it. Whether that step is taken or not is a different story as our prison system will attest too, but the ability to do so is necessary.
It’s all evolved behaviors. Empathy is something that evolved in humans. Understanding laws being able to respect other’s property and rights are higher evolved traits in humans and no animals as far as I know has those traits.
Can they gambol?
They at least do not live in the agriCULTural City-STATE!
No Uplift — No Rights!
Surely, someone with your avatar should recognize that all mammals should be able to enjoy copryright.
My avatar is partially risk avoidance. I love the photo. Even more, I love that the courts have already ruled that it is public domain.
I feel like it was JATNAS who elucidated it some time ago, and his conclusions made me uncomfortable, but I couldn’t argue against them. Basically, once we accept that it is ok to raise a creature solely for the opportunity to kill and consume it at our leisure, it is exceedingly difficult to also say someone shouldn’t be mean to it.
(Apologies to JATNAS if it wasn’t you!)
I think there’s a clear distinction between ‘shouldn’t’ and ‘couldn’t’.
You may own cows, and you may have the right to beat them with a stick, but I also have the right to consider that what you are doing is barbaric, and in order to signal that disapproval, I will purchase my milk from someone else, along with my veal.
But how can it be barbaric to beat them with a stick, and not barbaric to determine, at our druthers, that it’s time to kill and eat them? If livestock can appreciate a “pleasant” life, wouldn’t it be wrong to kill it on a whim?
I get what you are saying, but I’ve killed many fish and fowl and never considered it a ‘whim’. I don’t see a disconnect with affording an animal respect, even if ultimately you will kill and eat them.
When I buy a Quarter-Pounder, it is most definitely a whim. (And an immediate regret, but I digress.) And I can’t imagine the fish and fowl appreciate your respect all that much, to be fair.
It’s not for them, exactly. I don’t care to make any animal suffer. Personal code, clearly, not a libertarian position.
There is a bit of the NAP (emanations, penumbras?) about that as well – why are you using force against something that has done you no harm, or poses no threat?
Being cruel to an animal also sets off lots of alarms with me, as it would make me wary of the person being violent to humans too.
I have seen a guy trip on a crack in the sidewalk, then stomp on it and yell at it. I can only imagine what that guy considered threatening or a harm.
There’s a longer response below, but in essence, mine is a utilitarian argument.
I enthusiastically eat meat, and I am sickened by the sight of animal cruelty. But I don’t think there is any way to reconcile those two sentiments other than “FEELZ”, which is properly mocked in other cases.
It bothers you because you feel empathy. In nature, there is no empathy among animals, it’s pretty much eat or be eaten among predators. And humans are predators, it’s just that we’ve evolved to the point we don’t eat each other anymore and we can even feel empathy for lower animals.
In nature, there is no empathy among animals
Non-domesticated animals? Because my dogs and cats have demonstrated empathy to each other and to me. They’ve comforted each other when one of the other pets has died, and a lot of times when I’m sick or even just crying because I’m stressed, they’ll come up to me and try to comfort me. Even my pet rat as a kid did that. So I wouldn’t say that animals aren’t empathetic. Maybe you don’t see it as much in the wild because the circumstances are tougher. Even humans in dire circumstances are less empathetic than humans who are comfortable.
Your dogs and cats are not living in the wild. Well, maybe they are, I’ve never been to your house, so… (:. Ok, all joking aside, your animals exist in an environment you have created and they’ve been domesticated species for thousands of years. Have you ever seen dogs and cats hang out together in the wild? Me neither.
Also, let me add that the argument I have been making here is not that pets should not be *bestowed* the right to be treated well, because I think they should be and as a society most of us agree to that. What I’m saying is that wild animals have no rights because they are unaware of rights and unable to behave in a way that would preserve those rights.
That’s what I was asking, if you meant in the wild. I would argue that by creating a lifestyle that allows so much leisure, we domesticated ourselves as well. Early humans were much more violent (not that modern humans aren’t, of course, but to a lesser degree – we don’t see widespread cannibalism, for example). Pre-writing, we can’t say what their behavior was like (other than what is evident in the fossil record) or how much empathy they demonstrated. I don’t know if I’d say animals don’t have empathy – I’d say that their situation in life can enhance or suppress those traits. If an animal (including humans) doesn’t have to fight for survival, aspects of their personality not related to survival or even possibly contrary to it, like empathy, are able to develop.
This has nothing to do with the rights argument, btw. I just would be hesitant to say animals don’t have empathy by virtue of being animals, but that humans do by virtue of being humans. Of course I’m being pedantic, that’s what we do here!
How do you define empathy?
This is what Webster has to say.
That is a pretty good definition to work from. So the next question is what is required, structurally, to vicariously experience the feelings of another? Presuming that ‘feelings’ are anchored in the physical structure of our brains and are not received from aether.
When I was about 12, we had to have one of our cats put to sleep. She was 17 (in human years) so she had been around my entire life. The day before I she was going to be put down, I was holding her and crying, and our dog came up and started pressing her snout up against my shoulder, something she’d never done before.
Who’s cutting these fucking onions in here??
Well, I see no utility in the farmer indulging some whim upon his possessions unless there was some benefit. I’d welcome him doing it if there was some proven benefit in bruising the cow before it was milked.
I agree, there’s a ‘feelz’ dimension to it, because if he was a furniture maker and I went to his workshop and I saw him flailing at a tabletop with a horsewhip, I would probably still buy from him, even if his objective wasn’t to ‘distress’ the wood.
I don’t live my life attempting to reach an optimax solution. I discriminate. There are behaviors I disagree with, sometimes for sound, logical reasons, and some for purely aesthetic reasons. I don’t wake up every morning and ask myself what a totally rational individual would choose to eat for breakfast. I eat what I want, based on a whole raft of subjective preferences.
I’d prefer to buy from a farmer who doesn’t beat his cows.
I am there with you, I just hate holding views I can’t rationalize.
If only because stress spoils the meat.
Why is it “feelz” to oppose causing unnecessary pain and suffering to an animal? You’re losing me here.
It’s “feelz” to oppose causing pain to an animal without opposing the idea that I can kill and eat it whenever I want. Either the animal has a right to exist or it does not.
It’s not. Especially in the case of the animals you wish to consume. Undue stress and abuse upon the animal often ruins the meat’s quality.
The real issue arises when you find a situation where stress and abuse has no effect on the meat, or has a positive effect.
How – if at all – does that change your decision?
In the instance of eating meat? Not much to be honest with you. Stress and minor abuse was and still is par for the course for beasts of burden. It’s a necessity in fact. As far as pets go, the usual reason for owning a pet is comfort and companionship. General abuse would seem to negate those purposes.
Where do you stand on making sweet sweet love with your veal?
Heh. I rarely eat veal. Not for emotional reasons, I’m just not a fan of the bland taste and ‘meh’ texture.
Osso buco is a rare treat – has to be done ‘right’ though.
That’s pretty much how I ended up viewing stuff like bestiality. Yeah, it’s really gross if you want to screw a chicken, but it’s kind of ridiculous to talk about violating the chicken’s rights when it was raised and sold to be slaughtered and eaten.
Also slightly OT, it’s really hard to talk about the ethics of the legality of stuff like bestiality and necrophilia without people immediately jumping to the conclusion that you just want to screw beasts* and corpses. Just because I think people shouldn’t get thrown in jail for something doesn’t mean I like it, or even think it’s moral. It’s Bastiat’s lament, but with anything taboo snu snu.
*Though considering this sight, I would be quite disappointed if at least a STEVE SMITH joke wasn’t made.
You should have seen my Dad’s face when I asked him “Do you think it should be legal to eat a human corpse if the guy agreed to it?”
I guess he wasn’t a fan of The Cook, the thief, his Wife and her Lover then.
STEVE SMITH NO RAPE CORPSES. BEASTS ANOTHER STORY. ONLY IF NO HIKERS, CAMPERS OR LOST PEOPLE AROUND.
once we accept that it is ok to raise a creature solely for the opportunity to kill and consume it at our leisure, it is exceedingly difficult to also say someone shouldn’t be mean to it.
Not sure “You are allowed to kill it” is a green light for “You are allowed to torture it”. We don’t torture enemy soldiers or people on death row, after all.
Great topic. Thank you for posting.
I 100% agree with you that there is no libertarian position on animal rights, because that would depend on determining if an animal can be agressed against and the NAP doesn’t answer that particular question. In fact I had like 4 paragraphs saying so until I reread your post and realized I skipped over you saying that.
So how do we answer that question? Well, there are lots of other frameworks.
“My gut says so” doesn’t sound like the most philosophically rigorous way to go, but its the framework that 99.9% of humanity uses to solve 99.9% of their ethical questions, and we haven’t nuked ourselves out of existence yet. So the engineer in me can’t discount it.
Looking to Judeo Christian ethics has the same arguments in their favor.
The classic liberal in me asks “how would society change as we increase or decrease the rights afforded to animals, no matter the legitimacy or origins of those values” and I have to think that humane testing, food stock, lots of wilderness when we can afford it, and lots of pets living apparently great lives sounds like a pretty optimal outcome.
So if we treat animals as private property with some rights, but not to many… have we done that in America? Maybe we have got this one right, from a libertarian perspective. At least as far as I’m concerned. I never really realized that.
The animal is not capable of understanding what a ‘right’ is. Therefore it can’t be bestowed rights because it has no ability to understand and respect the rights of others. In my opinion, that settles the matter. When we can prove that an animal can understand these things and be able to act accordingly, then we can revisit the issue.
Hmm, in my founding document, rights are universal and inalienable and a result of human dignity, not contingent upon a certain level of mental sophistication. And in fact, they are not bestowed, but a inseparable feature of being a human.
When you say that an animal doesn’t deserve these rights until they understand these things, do you include the human animal? Because there are many adult human animals that can not or chose not to understand this.
That’s the current situation. Minors aren’t afforded certain rights, adults that are adjudicated mentally incompetent are denied certain rights, (those that cannot understand) and feelings are denied certain rights (those that choose not to, though there is significant overlap with those that cannot). Not advocating these positions, just pointing out that these positions are currently the norm, and have been for quite a while.
Bah. Felons, not feelings. Damn phone.
No, I don’t include humans because humans (except in the case of retardation or a mental disorder such as being a psychopath ) understand rights and can behave accordingly. Humans were in the same condition in the beginning. Rights are not something that just happened out of nowhere, we first had to develop the concept of what a right is. Animals in the wild have no rights because they are not aware of what rights are.
Great, now I’m getting Bo flashbacks.
I have a solution for the cross-species NAP violations.
LOL
In re: keeping animals in captivity for our entertainment:
It’s the Sea World paradox. Sea World helped a generation fall in love with orcas, which, in turn, led to the widespread belief that orcas shouldn’t held in captivity.
That’s only a problem because Sea World is a theme park and not a lunch buffet. KFC doesn’t have this problem.
I fell in love with chicken, and I don’t call my tummy ‘captivity’.
Number.6, as a small child.
SIV signal lights up
Not a specific chicken though.
When I go to the zoo, I don’t think how awesome it would be to eat a tiger. But when I go to an aquarium, I spend the whole time thinking about how much melted butter I can afford.
Well, yeah.
If those fish got the chance, they’d eat you and everyone you care about.
I have some thoughts on this. First, my take on the Biblical sources.
My take on this is that it’s all about Genesis and Revelation. Before sin (death coming to the world, etc.), mankind was given dominion over the animals, but that meant we were given the responsibility of caring for them. That all changed with the fall. The first animal killed in Genesis was killed by God and the skin was given to Adam and Eve to cover themselves once they became aware of the nakedness. Interpret chunks of that however else you like, but the fact is that killing animals was a consequence of sin. Because of sin, mankind started killing animals for clothing, food, etc.
This fact is further reinforced by the rites of sacrifice. Christians see the foreshadowing of Jesus’ sacrifice throughout the entire history of the Old Testament. God instituted the sacrifice of lambs, in particular, as an example of the price the innocent unfairly pay for your sins –by something as innocent as a lamb. God accepted Abel’s sacrifice of a lamb but not Cain’s sacrifice of veggies. When Abraham was told to go sacrifice his son, a lamb was substituted at the last moment. When the Children of Israel were to leave Egypt, they were told to sacrifice a lamb and spread its blood across their doorway, so the Angel of Death would pass them by and not kill their first born sons. When the Children of Israel were wandering in the wilderness, a sacrifice of a lamb was instituted on the day of atonement. That sacrifice was maintained for centuries. When Jesus was killed on the day of atonement, the sacrificial lamb escaped the temple in Jerusalem, and the temple was soon thereafter destroyed.
Point being, whether we’re talking Islam, Judaism, or Christianity, the sacrifice of innocent animals was instituted to atone for sin. Something innocent had to suffer because of your misdeeds, and Christianity became what it is by assuming that Jesus of Nazareth was the real sacrifice of which sacrificial lambs were merely symbolic. Now that the real sacrifice has been made, Christians see no need for the sacrifice of lambs anymore.
Using the sacrifice of lambs to justify treating animals with cruelty is getting it all backwards. The act of sacrifice was intended to provoke remorse for the unfairness of sin–not to justify inflicting cruelty with impunity.
The Book of Isaiah has something to say that’s relevant. It’s widely interpreted as a description of the world after the end of time.
—-Isaiah 11:6-7 KJV
Long story short, according to the Bible, the killing of animals is a consequence of sin–like all death. You can find passages in the Bible about how to kill animals and how not to kill them, etc., too, but if you zoom out to look at the big picture, killing animals isn’t justified any more than death, disease, hatred, or any other consequence of sin. The big picture is that our job was supposed to be to take care of the animals, and as it was in the beginning, so shall it be in the end. If the Bible justifies death, it’s only to the extent that it’s showing that death isn’t a natural consequence of God’s world as he created it. It’s saying that the death in the world isn’t God’s fault. It’s ours.
Incidentally, I’m jonesin’ for a steak burrito right now, but Chipotle doesn’t open for another hour.
May God have mercy on your GI system.
He means “steak” “burrito”.
I like to think the relationship between Hagbard Celine and Howard The Dolphin serves as a good example of Human-Animal relations.
I wonder what Ted Nugent would say about Hagbard and Howard’s adventures in The Illuminatus Trilogy. Surely he has a soft cover copy for when he gets bored in his tree stand?
For a second there I thought you were talking about that woman who jerked off a dolphin on acid.
I only approve if said woman was on one of Q Continuum’s lists.
And for those unaware of what Mr Titor is alluding to –
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/jun/08/the-dolphin-who-loved-me
LOL. Nice alt text.
that woman who jerked off a dolphin on acid.
How did she get the dolphin to take the acid? If she slipped it to him on the sly, or tricked him into it, that’s not okay.
That’s how I ended up on acid the first time.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/jun/08/the-dolphin-who-loved-me
Dolphin pr0n.
1) Not human, no rights.
2) Abuse of animals is an indication that the human is defective. It is not a violation of some natural rights held by the animal.
3) Legal prohibition of animal abuse is not justifiable. However, I wouldn’t vote to convict anyone that beats the shit out of a person that abuses animals.
You don’t think it should be illegal for me to test my blowtorch on puppies all day? For my own amusement?
We can’t make all evil things illegal.
And again, I wouldn’t vote to convict if your neighbors burn your house to the ground.
Are the puppies yours?
Let’s say that yes, they are his property.
Naturally, if they aren’t his, then he has done something illegal (unless he has permission), but what he has done that is illegal is steal and/or damage someone else’s property. This offense stands regardless of whether he is mean to the puppies.
So, really, the answer to this question doesn’t turn on who the puppies belong to, since the issue of ownership only raises the question of whether some other law, unrelated to animal cruelty, was broken.
This is not a trivial question, IMO. As a hunter, I do reserve the right to kill animals for food, pelts etc. that are for human use. However, I object to hunting strictly for trophies if the animal is not going to be used in some way for human sustenance. I am also strongly against wanton violence and cruelty. Do animals have the same rights as humans? No. Are they purely property with no rights? I’d like to think not. If that were the case, you could buy a dog expressly for the purpose of getting sexual gratification by torturing it and face no sanctions. From a principled legal standpoint, perhaps they should be treated as property with an individual’s conscience guiding what is acceptable behavior toward that animal. Again, I think cruelty and wanton killing is morally reprehensible but should we lock people in cages for it? Maybe? It’s certainly worse than drug use since there is most certainly a victim, even if that victim is not human.
I’m surprised I made it this far down before somebody mentioned hunting.
I bought my wife a Silver Fox stole – am I a murderer? Or just a shitlord?
I don’t know how much silver fox costs, but if there are more expensiveness furs out there it makes you poor. What is wrong with sable is all I’m asking
That’s for doing gardening. My wife normally wears http://www.neimanmarcus.com/Maurizio-Braschi-Seamed-Sable-Fur-Stroller-Coat-with-Belt/prod203660173/p.prod while cooking.
argh – real link
I figured that, unless she’s cooking bacon, it was just bra and G-string.
From a purely libertarian perspective, my take is shorter but probably more controversial.
Morality and rights are both born of the same thing–agency. Earthquakes, volcanoes, hurricanes, and comets striking the earth are neither moral nor immoral because they have no agency. They can’t make decisions about whether to kill people. They simply follow the physical forces that effect them.
People are different from earthquakes and volcanoes because they can make choices. From their ability to make choices arises questions that are simply absurd if applied to things that can’t make choices. Because people can make choices, it’s not absurd to ask what choices they should make, and asking what choices people should or shouldn’t make is the very stuff of which morality is made.
Hence, there is no morality without agency.
Agency, likewise, is the mother of all rights. In fact, I would argue that our rights (not our legal rights but the real thing our legal rights protect) are in fact choices, which isn’t surprising considering that they arise from agency. It may come as a revelation to some people that rights are intrinsically linked to morality, as well, but when we say that we all have a moral and legal obligation to respect other people’s rights, what are we talking about if we’re not linking morality, rights, and agency all together? Mens rea means you are guilty of a crime if you willfully violate someone’s rights. Even in cases of criminal negligence, I’d argue that what the criminal is guilty of is willfully disregarding someone’s rights.
What does this have to do with animals? Well, there are distinctions between homo sapiens and other species, but if animals have rights (not legal rights, but the ones that arise naturally as an aspect of our agency), then they arise from the same source as they do with homo sapiens. We are obligated to respect the right of others to make choices for themselves–and if we’re obligated to do that for animals, too, then it must be tied to their ability to make choices. Some animals have a higher capacity for that than others. The mirror test is one way we can differentiate those various capacities. Certainly, any organism that is incapable of comprehending itself in a mirror probably shouldn’t be held criminally accountable for the choices they make. We make the same allowances for children and the insane–people who are incapable of comprehending their choices for whatever reason.
On the other hand, there are animals who can comprehend themselves in a mirror. Surely, Bonobos have the ability to make choices and are cognizant of the choices they make. Because of that, I believe we are obligated to respect the right of Bonobos to make choices for themselves–which is another way of saying that they have rights. If we have an obligation to respect the rights of animals with lesser powers of comprehension, it’s because they have lesser powers to make choices. Because severely retarded children have too little comprehension to be held criminally responsible for failing in their obligation to respect other people’s rights, that doesn’t mean others don’t have an obligation to respect their rights. Yes, even if dogs can’t pass the mirror test, you are obligated to respect their right not be be beaten to death. Meanwhile, I’m not sure Salmon and Geese have much of any comprehension at all, less than dogs, even. Ants and other things even less still–and, hence, a lesser claim on our obligation to respect their rights.
I have to caveats to all this:
1) Yes, I’m well aware of determinism, which holds that the outcome of our choices is determined by the external factors that contributed to them. However, there’s a big difference between holding that the outcome of our choices are predetermined and holding that we make choices. Our rights would arise as choices as an aspect of our agency even if the outcome of our choices were predetermined. Free will may be incompatible with determinism, but agency may not be incompatible with determinism at all.
2) Just because we’re morally obligated to respect someone’s rights doesn’t necessarily mean that the government needs to get involved. Abortion might one example of what I’m talking about. I’m convinced that elective abortion is immoral, but that doesn’t mean the government should use the law or criminal courts to protect a fetus’ rights. In the case of abortion, I’m not sure there is a way for the government to make and enforce such a law that isn’t authoritarian. Are we going to imprison pregnant women and force them to carry a child they don’t want to term against their will? I’m not interested in getting into the abortion debate, just using it as an example of how it might be possible that something violates someone’s rights–and it’s still none of the government’s business. IF IF IF a deer has rights, maybe it’s still not the government’s business to stop hunters from shooting them for other reasons. Conversely, just because the government has no business prohibiting bear hunting doesn’t mean that bears don’t have any rights.
So I’ve offered an article for Glibs and I want to know what people think I should focus on.
I had my right hip replaced in the States and my left down two years later in Korea.
I kinda want it to just be about my experience and people can see the difference in the two systems from a patient POV. The piece is written but being edited and I want to get the structure correct. It probably needs to be broken up into 2-3 parts: Background, US experience and Korean experience. Two parts might work as well.
If y’all could tell me what about this foray into health care you’re most interested in I can tweak it to include such things. Thanks and I’ll take it to heart and hopefully you can read about it soon.
Sorry about OT.
I am going to go stereotypical glib and say where the nurses are hotter is quite important. Other than that …
Guardian Angel Nurse in SoKo was hot as fuck…But that’s for me, dammit!
I think I’d be most interested in
-the quality of care
-waiting times
and
-the attitudes of the employees who treated you
In general, I say more submissions, regardless of topic.
I just sent one to Riven myself. Go for it.
I thought I was writing a first draft for them to approve, and they just published the first draft.
Make sure you want them to publish whatever you send to them.
They’re on top of things.
Cost information, details regarding care, equipment, supplies – highlight differences.
I’m torn on medical experimentation on animals. – I am not. not anymore than farming. As in I would not like it if they inflicted unnecessary suffering on animals, but this is quite essential to human civilization.
I also eat foie gras occasionally , and while I prefer to know its is a not cruel farm, i don’t go out of m,y way to ask the restaurant where they source it. And medical experiments are more important than foie gras, so I have little issue with them
How do you make foie gras production ‘uncruel’ (at least by the definition most animal rights activists use)? From what I know the force feeding process negates the possibility of it ever being so.
But let’s be real here, Pie’s only pushing the animal rights angle because he’s hoping to get the Masters to treat their blood cattle with a little more dignity.
well there is this
https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2016/08/01/487088946/this-spanish-farm-makes-foie-gras-without-force-feeding
It’s possible to get foie gras without force feeding. Geese are greedy, gluttonous birds and are more than happy to eat themselves into obesity, but the profit margins are lower.
Wow I wish I linked that
Fatökű lepkevadász.
Should’ve refreshed.
Also
http://www.seriouseats.com/2010/12/the-physiology-of-foie-why-foie-gras-is-not-u.html
I think that, since they are geese, they were asking for it.
I’d like to preface this by saying that I don’t like foie gras, and therefore, don’t eat it.
That said, production really isn’t that cruel compared to other factory farming practices that are far more commonplace.
Is a feeding tube very uncomfortable to humans? Yes, very much so. To geese, not so much. They swallow giant fish whole.
I’m not saying it ISN’T cruel at all; it’s just lower on my list than other practices.
I find foie gras rather decadent in a good way, iof something can taste decadent that is. Foie gras or roasted bone m arrow on good toasted bread can be quite the treat. There was a Gordon Ramsay recipe of foie gras with caramelize apples with Calvados that was quite tasty
Sorry, pressed for time:
This is a good issue for drawing a distinction between immoral and illegal. I think people who torture animals are immoral. My gut reaction is that it should be illegal, but I struggle with a principled minarchist basis for such a law.
For animal torture to be immoral, you’d have to identify a generally-accepted moral principle that was being violated.
Certainly, I could see animal torture being worthy of social opprobrium. A variant of the scenario I provided earlier, if I see a guy beating his dog, I believe that the appropriate behavior for me is to shun the guy.
I have no right to stop him, or to direct the police to stop him, or even to get his priest and congregation to stop him.
All I may morally do is to deprive the guy of my company. At a stretch, I might be justified in influencing other people who know me that he’s a shit, if I decide that I can justify risking my reputation in doing so, because I feel that there should be a social cost associated with sullying another person’s reputation on a freelance basis.
For animal torture to be immoral, you’d have to identify a generally-accepted moral principle that was being violated.
First, I don’t think morality is determined by how many people agree with the principle at hand. Just because tens or hundreds of millions of commies think forced abortion are A-OK doesn’t mean I have to then abandon my belief that they are immoral.
Would the statement that cruelty is wrong count as a moral principle? I think so.
That was kinda-my point.
Morality is in the eye of the beholder, and there are many people who have to live and function in societies which are, in their own eyes, immoral.
Is cruelty *immoral* in absolute terms? Not so sure. It’s a derivation of the golden rule, ultimately. But as I understand it, the objection here is that the golden rule is – at its heart – a clear tactic to serve self-interest rather than a principled stand.
Not sure I’ve completely thought this thru’, but OTOH I’ve been called amoral a number of times over the years, so it’s not likely I’ll be able to figure it out :/
Is cruelty *immoral* in absolute terms?
I’m not sure what morality “in absolute terms” would be.
I take it as a given that cruelty* is immoral. To me, the interesting question is whether it should also be illegal. My gut says yes, my forebrain reminds me that I generally don’t like to make things illegal just because they are immoral, although I generally oppose this most strongly for things that I don’t personally think are immoral.
*Defined somewhat narrowly as the unnecessary infliction of suffering, whether through negligence or by intention.
This is a good distinction to make, and one I’m probably going to roll with. The animals I come in contact the most are my dogs, and quite frankly I have an emotional attachment to them and as such treat them similar to people. Others, it will depend on the circumstance and the type of animal it is. If it is dangerous, and the under the circumstances it is belligerent, I might be inclined to kill it. Otherwise, torture for trivial reasons seems to fall under the immoral but not necessarily illegal category.
Except scorpions. Fuck them.
One perspective is that animals are not humans, and thus have no rights. – this is basically my position. Animal are not sentient. Now they feel pain and inflicting unnecessary pain is wrong. But I do not lose too much sleep over it to be fair.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirror_test
Are you a creationist?
no
One of the most interesting subjects to me is the question of how we became self-aware.
How did life forms that were not self aware come to develop self-awareness?
Sentience probably isn’t like pregnant, where you either are or you aren’t.
To use Mr. Garrison’s analogy, one retard didn’t have a retard baby that was suddenly born sentient.
There are different levels of what I think you’re calling sentience, even among people.
How did life forms that were not self aware come to develop self-awareness? – bad luck I guess
It appears to branch from the neocortex, which is thought to have expanded to comprehend religion and language.
Those must have been useful adaptations.
I assume but honestly I rarely spend time thinking on things I know I cannot answer.
Pie is Romanian. He doesn’t have a reflection in the mirror.
I wonder what the position of some glibs is on cruelty to Canada Geese
The Canada Geese who are assembling a southbound fleet in the big pond across the road from my house seem to have no trouble being audibly cruel to me.
I wrote about geese above.
They used to be a protected species up here that you couldn’t get a permit to hunt, so it was basically illegal to kill them, national symbol and all that.
Then they pushed their luck too far by being the assholes nature intended them to be, so they were rescheduled to Class 5, lost all protective status, and now you can basically do whatever you want to them.
My position is highly misunderstood.
Froggy style?
Apropos
Composition of free and peptide-bound amino acids in beef chuck, loin, and round cuts
https://www.animalsciencepublications.org/publications/jas/articles/94/6/2603
Eat more quality beef
INTRODUCTION
Lean meat is a food for human consumption, but beef consumption per capita in the United States has steadily declined by >14% over the past decade (USDA, 2012). This reduction may result, in part, from a lack of understanding of meat as an important source of AA and antioxidant peptides in human diets as well as other factors (e.g., economics and consumer perceptions about fat content).
or maybe consumer perceptions about strokes and heart attacks. maybe. maybe not. just spit-balling here.
I blame the government. Then again as a libertarian I always blame the government. Wait no I sometimes blame the Jews.
The government is full of (((them))).
If you blame the government for every social problem, you will be right way more often than wrong.
Animals lack moral agency or even the capability to understand morals, natural rights, etc. And by “capability” I mean “biologically possible” (unlike the unborn or the mentally-handicapped, who lack the present capability but would normally be able to, or grow into being able to, appreciating morals and rights). For this reason, I think animals enjoy rights only to the extent that we bestow rights upon them. They are our property, but the fact that they are alive and can form bonds with people means that different animals enjoy different protection based on their circumstances. Because people can empathize with animals, a sense of morality requires one to be as respectful as possible to animals and to minimize their suffering where possible, but never requires us to fully subordinate our interests to theirs. Slaughterhouse and animal testing practices should be made humane as possible, but I doubt there would ever be an imperative to end those practices.
I am curious, however, as to where non-human intelligence reaches the level of complexity necessary to appreciate morality or rights. A chimp may not be viewed as a person under our legal standard, but I have a feeling that a Neanderthal would be. What is the precise dividing line between “ape” and “person”?
STEVE SMITH UNDERSTAND WHERE YOU ARE GOING, AND NOT LIKING THE INFERENCE.
I Romania there is a tradition to slaughter a pig before Christmas, to have meet for the festive season.I often went to the countryside to the traditional pig slaughtering. I can’t say I ever felt bad about it. Then again these were pigs that generally had a good life, they were raised by a small farm holding- we still call em peasants in Romania – so it generally has a much better life than factory farmed, a fairly sizable place to sleep and a small yard to wander about. It gets decent food – grain and weeds and pumpkin and such.
But then it is dragged out of the sty or how you call it and stabbed in the throat with a knife. Makes a lot of noise. That does not stop me from eating practically raw pig skin with a bit of blood on it followed by pig meat fried in pig lard mere hours after witnessing the sacrifice. So I dunno judge if you will. Also lots of tuica is consumed.
I think if you’re eating almost raw pig skin, you deserve the tuica.
well the process of removing the hair involves fire and lots of scraping so maybe that cooks it a bit but it is mostly raw
http://www.doctorulzilei.ro/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Sorici-de-porc.jpg
In civilized lands we have a device that negates said animal freakout.
I don’t thing the country dude doing the stabbing is so enlightened. Usually they enjoy the stabbing
We used them and I think our ‘country dudes’ aren’t exactly enlightened either. What is country in Romania anyway? One hour out of Bucharest?
Half an hour if their is no traffic… But there is country and there is country. But Romania is not that big. We just have shitty roads and it seems that way cause you are going slow.
“so it generally has a much better life than factory farmed, a fairly sizable place to sleep and a small yard to wander about. It gets decent food – grain and weeds and pumpkin and such”
How do you know what a pig considers a much better life? Maybe pigs like the factory life. Maybe some pigs do and other pigs dont. We have no way of knowing.
well I guess I just assumed. But it is trivial that any creature does not like to be immobilized
practically raw pig skin
Is that like foreskin?
off topic but hot take
https://twitter.com/Girlwhohow/status/937536053438685191
OT again, but Twitter bans women spouting hate speech.
REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
Well, I’m against anyone getting banned for posting any kind of offensive speech, but if we’re gonna ban people make it consistent.
I liked the comment
“Our trolls are virtuous and employ linguistic subtlety. Theirs are evil and every word they say is literally literal.”
yeah. I know it won’t happen but I so secretly;y hope Facebook collapses and goes Away
Consistent like this?
Oldie but goodie. SFW
@Popehat
The FBI is not in tatters! It’s still the same old frequently-competent, MLK-suicide-urging, junk-science-promoting, ratfucking, dissent-targeting, strategic-leaking, mom-holding-baby-assassinating bunch of mostly humorless misfits as ever.
7:28 PM – 3 Dec 2017
It’s concise rants like this that make me want to break down and get the Twitters. Too bad the other 98% of the twitverse is pure idiocy.
Just lurk. Joining is inviting insanity into your life.
I think it no coincidence that many serial killers torture animals as children. I also find the argument that it’s ok to torture animals (ie cockfighting, dogfighting) since we kill animals for food lacking of any sense of empathy (see my first point). Dogs are some of the best people I’ve known.
Dogs are better than most people.
Mark Twain — “If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and man.”
I also find the argument that it’s ok to torture animals (ie cockfighting, dogfighting)
SIV and Michael Vick are disappointed in you JB.
+ Kmele
Did SIV’s cockfighting involve animals?
Don’t be a dick. Don’t inflict unnecessary pain, unless it’s to ticks.
Hey, I made a poem.
a laconic one at that
Then we will fight in the shade.
So if animals in the wild have rights, what do we do when another animal violates those rights? Do we have a jail for lions and tigers? I think I’m seeing a problem here. So we declare that all animals have rights. No humans are allowed to kill any animals. But we won’t be able to build the lion/tiger jail because if all natural predators disappear, we get an over population of the good animals that don’t eat the others. There’s going to be a problem with herds of bison roaming the freeways.
Chicago NEEDS those superpredators Hillary told us about, or the Chicagoans will outbreed everyone.
We’ll just send Baltimore’s population over, that should fix it.
I would like to see every mosquito on the face of the earth sent to a labor camp. somewhere far away from me. Maybe in Canada.
I’d second this, but I’m too weak from blood loss and malaria.
You should have gotten a brain slug instead!
I mentioned it in the AM lynx, but congrats on the new puppy. Cute as hell!
I rarely get a chance to read the morning lynx. Thanks! We just had a minor breakthrough when he whined at the back door. I opened it for him and he went outside to pee. Good boy!
BTW, as of this morning, my wife has decided henceforth he shall be known as Zeus. I don’t see any need to mention the dogs from Magnum PI to her.
Hah! Great news!
I liked Tank, but Zeus works. Now you can get him a pal named Apollo and refer to them as the ‘lads’!
And they can have steak at every meal!
Do we have a jail for lions and tigers?
What about bears!
oh my
I see animals as property with no rights. My cows are mine to do as I please with them, because I own them. My dogs the same. If I wanna beat my dog and fuck my cows, there should be no legal reason I can’t.
would fucking as cow really hurt it though?
in the way that a hotdog clogs up a hallway.
Depends on if you fist them first.
I ain’t visiting that link ….
I’m totally not clicking that.
It’s purely scientific. I was tempted to post video but I thought you normies would freak out.
I have stuck my arm shoulder deep into a cow to see if she is pregnant many many times. They don’t seem to mind too much. I doubt a cow would even notice someone steve smithing it.
eeewww gross
I remember when I was a wee lad one of our cows had a stillborn. For some reason she didn’t birth and was just walking around with this little hoofed leg sticking out her back end. My dad had to maneuver it out mostly by pulling and through said shoulder technique up the butt.
Sheep are harder. DAMHIKT.
Have fun biting sheep genitalia off.
EYES CLOSED – LA LA LA LA!
When my wife was 7 or 8 months pregnant, she watched my father in law and I pull a calf out of its mother with a calf puller. She said it made her uncomfortable.
OT Request – I’m not aiming to generate a vast sub-thread … but …
Has anyone got a link to a really good fisking of fair-trade – especially if it’s coffee-related – from a free trade perspective?
Try this.
Perfect. Thanks.
Now, time to forward it to this cow orker.
FEE also just covered this in a podcast.
FEE is always a good resource for this kind of stuff.
The Christian Scientists obviously have a shorter attention span than FEE’s subscribers.
This too: https://fee.org/articles/is-fair-trade-a-fair-deal/
Same guy – thanks.
Wow. a free markets economist at SUNY-Purchase. Whodathortit?
OT:
FoundationPlumbing ProblemsAs some of you may remember, I had a mysterious water leak through a basement wall (on the other side of which is an inaccessible crawlspace). Well, I busted a hole in the wall (non-load bearing). I put on a ski mask, a hoodie with the strings pulled tight, goggles, a headlamp, denim coveralls, and my 18″ Carolina lineman boots with the coverall pantlegs tucked into them.
From this hole, there looked to be about 1.5 – 2 feet of vertical clearance. I climbed in. I was hoping there would be more room elsewhere in the crawlspace, but there wasn’t. My initial concern was that there was old cast iron piping that had rusted out, but that wasn’t the case. The whole drain line was PVC.
I had to army-crawl around some ductwork and over to the area of the pipe where the leak was. The fucking thing was mummified in spiderwebs, and there were brown recluses, black widows, and wolf spiders the size of my goddamn fist as well as a ton of baby spiders and egg sacs everywhere. Fun fact: I’m afraid of spiders. If I were claustrophobic, it would have been a proper nightmare.
Anyway, I swept away the spiderwebs and wiped off the pipe with some rags I had stuffed in my pocket. Lo and behold, there was just a small drip. That water must have been soaking into that soil for months and finally seeped through the wall (supporting a whole damn ecosystem of spiders in the process.
My plan was to try and fix it myself, but it looks like that 4″ PVC has those glue joints, and I don’t know how to do that, and frankly I don’t want to go in there again. The plumbers come out Thursday; should be a quick and fairly cheap job. I’m just glad it wasn’t a major leak requiring them to re-route the line.
Thanks for all the tips!
Shit. I about crawled out of my skin just reading that.
Good news, though!
“The fucking thing was mummified in spiderwebs, and there were brown recluses, black widows, and wolf spiders the size of my goddamn fist as well as a ton of baby spiders and egg sacs everywhere. Fun fact: I’m afraid of spiders. If I were claustrophobic, it would have been a proper nightmare. ”
Did you bring Sting with you? Was it glowing?
Replacing schedule 40 pipe isn’t hard, when you have plenty of room, light and you’re arachnid-free.
And you remember to take all the tools you need into the crawlspace. This last gem of wisdom is possibly the most important.
And yeah, even a small drip, over time, can create huge problems (e.g. Arlen Specter)
What boggles my mind is how anyone got in there to begin with. While I was down there, I looked on the ceiling for where an access hatch might have been, and I couldn’t find one. The wall hadn’t been tampered with, either. I have no idea how a person could get down there to run that pipe in the first place.
Munchkin plumbers.
No other explanation.
I’m not particularly afraid of spiders, but that gave me the shivers.
Nope. Nope. Nope.
You couldn’t pay me enough to do that. I used to jump out of airplanes for fun, but that would freak me the hell out.
Glad to hear it’s a small fix.
That’s great news, except the crawl space. I always hated crawl spaces.
They really do seem like the worst of both worlds – you have to worry about the structural integrity of the floor, but you can’t use it for anything whatsoever.
When this problem began, I swore that my next home would be on a slab… But I’ve heard that slabs can be just as much of a pain. A friend told me about someone whose slab had cracked, and they had to tear up the carpet, jackhammer it, and pour new concrete to prevent water from seeping up into the house. And plumbing lines would be a fucking pain in the ass if you had to tear up the slab to access them…
That sounds like my most recent home issue. Underground plumbing lines collapsed so they had to tear through the tile floor and foundation to access it. Concrete is great but once it cures, there’s no turning back.
They do this if your foundation shifts too. Ours did, and they put in 44 concrete piers to level it out. Most of them were outside, but there are 4 in the hallway, and 2 in the master bedroom. My son (day sleeper) ran a cord out to our van for the fan, and slept out there during the repair.
Claustrophobia? Not a problem.
Spiders? Swarms of them? Fuck that. I’d have probably backed out, thrown in a fogger, and gone in the next day after the chemical genocide had taken place.
Fuckin’ wolf spiders, man. We’ve got ’em, and holy crap can they get big (most people have no idea). And fast. Man, are those things fast.
Fortunately, I no longer have a spider phobia, because scorpions made it seem kinda silly. Now I have a scorpion phobia, which I’m pretty satisfied with.
I remember this. I figure they got in there the same way you did and just patched the wall back up. No idea why they would do that as they had to be aware that they may need to get back in there. I’d fog those spiders out man, you don’t want those in the house. Or at least tell the plumbers so they can do it. When I had to go into my crawl space like that, I fogged it out before going in there because I hate spiders.
I might throw a fogger down there once in a while.
The thing is, the spiders are only congregating around the area that is wet from the leak. I’m guessing that it only supports life because that water is there… There is probably mold and fungus, which is being eaten by tiny bugs, and the tiny bugs are being eaten by spiders, which are getting fucking huge on the insect buffet.
The rest of the crawlspace was dry as a bone, and there was not a spider to be seen anywhere. I’m guessing that once the leak is fixed and the water is dried up, they’ll die off.
Long time lurker.
I think most on this thread are responding to how extreme animal activists are defining the animal rights debate. There is another, more interesting debate when it comes to animal rights.
In mainstream agricultural circles the debate isn’t whether animals have human rights, it is whether animals have the right to live out their existence based on its own nature. For example, does a cow have the right to live like a cow. What this means in practice is should a ruminant like a cow be fed grain, contrary to the function of its digestive system? Should herd animals like cattle be separated from their herds and sent to feedlots or fattened on the farm on high energy spring grasses and legumes like alfalfa?
The same holds true for hogs, chickens, and turkeys. The argument is they should eat the foods they evolved to eat, live in the environment they evolved to thrive in, and take part in the behaviours they evolved to do such as hogs rooting and chickens roosting.
All good points, prairieboy. It seems that the end product of such arrangements makes for much better meat and eggs.
I believe there is this thing named ‘free range’ actually going on these days. So I would say that at least some people believe that. Question is, is there enough room on earth to feed everyone if we used only that method? I don’t know, but it’s an interesting question. We’ve been domesticating animals for thousands of years. Civilization may have never made it to this point if we had continued to hunt and gather. And not everyone wants to be a vegan. I’ve also heard some anthropologists argue that we would have never gotten to our level of intelligence without meat.
This isn’t really about free range–it is about adapting industrial systems to improve animal welfare while maintaining productivity and meeting customer demand. As with most things government intervention has distorted agricultural production, making it impossible to know whether such a system could meet demand for meat. I’ve seen operations up here in Canada with 500 to 1,000 cow-calf pairs that are successful finishing on grass to Canada AA marbling standards (don’t know US standard anymore) but most of that is largely due to timing breeding to fatten yearlings on fresh grass, intense range and pasture management, etc. There are also industrial scale hog operations in Ontario with indoor/outdoor facilities allowing animals access to the outdoors to do what hogs do.
“In mainstream agricultural circles…” Perhaps, mainstream activist circles, and certainly not from anyone who understands evolution.
I am definitely not an activist, having made my living covering and investing in agriculture for a decade before turning to oil and gas. This type of “animal rights” is a common discussion at cattle association meetings, hog association meetings, etc. up here in Canada. Many of the presenters come from the US so I assumed it was common there as well. I’ve also seen numerous efforts to incorporate this line of thought in industrial-style operations up here, some successful, some not.
Your response to Hyperion is more rational – obviously, those issues/questions are discussed extensively in both the US and Canada.
Gronkowski just got a one week suspension.
Sounds about right, assuming there’s a game during that week.
Correct. There is no special sauce that makes humans different from other critters. Some of us are smarter, that’s about it. If we have inalienable rights, so do they, but we are still higher on the pecking order.
*crunches some delicious bacon*
My snarkiest daughter (youngest, natch!) used to mock me with the St. Francis appellation. I didn’t care then and I don’t care now. When I was a bullied child animals were my pals and I feel no shame in the fact that I have an affinity toward them (don’t be gross, I just like them but not in that way).
This is me:
https://pjmedia.com/blog/the-myth-of-the-ethical-vegan/?singlepage=true