:: Running from the Thought Police ::

:: Wednesday, May 10, 2006 ::

And Your Point Is?

Clicking through many links in the local blogosphere while avoiding writing my term paper, I came upon From The Gonzo, written by a guy over in DeKalb. I'm bothering to point him out because he makes a big deal over horse slaughtering, in that he (apparently) opposes it.

I've posted before, briefly, in support of slaughtering horses, so I went hunting through his archive to find out his reasoning. I didn't have to look long to find it (scroll down to April 26 - he's a bad boy and doesn't have permalinks on his posts).

Back to the Montana letter.

"We eat cows, goats, sheep, hogs, deer, antelope, elk, buffalo," states the letter writer.

Yeah, no kidding. But guess what we do not eat: dogs, cats, gerbils, goldfish, hedgehogs, snakes, chinchillas, and a host of other companion animals. Those of you who know me know that I am not a pet person, but how the fact that we eat animals raised specifically to be eaten justifies slaughtering horses (a companion animal) I will never know. [emphasis original]

The real issue here is: since when does being a companion animal mean anything of substance? What makes them so special? An animal is an animal is a metazoan is meat that can be eaten. Just because you'd be uncomfortable a certain type of meat doesn't give you the right to deny others the opportunity to take advantage of that food source. Members of Middle-Eastern-derived religions don't eat pork and Hindus don't eat beef, yet they don't try to impose those dietary restrictions on us. Hell, people keep rabbits as pets and those have long been a source of meat for those who could catch the suckers. Who are you to impose your "civilized sensibilities" or whatever you think your have onto others?

Horses are livestock and there's a lot of meat per animal. Myself, I've heard that its rather stringy, but I'd try it once just to be able to say I had. As for the rest, they're either too small to be economically viable as a food source, or I'm simply not interested in eating them specifically. Then again, they can always be ground into sausage - it's not like people much care what's in their hot dogs.

My point is: if you're gonna be an omnivore, at least be honest about it.

:: The Squire 9:33 PM :: email this post :: ::
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