Are Canadian law makers less sentient than pigs?

As a preteen during a Manitoba winter that was so cold, I swear only 2 or 3 minutes outside burned the only bare skin I had which was my face - I walked by a steel trailer filled with screaming pigs.  I watched as a farmer lady pulled the farm truck up near the door of the shopping center so she could get into the warmth quickly. 

The sound of those pigs screaming in agony has echoed in my memory to this day.  Back then I consoled my empathy by attempting to think that there must be a reason no one seemed to care.  Maybe pigs always screamed like that, and maybe it couldn't be more than a few hours until they got to the butcher who would end their suffering.

Today... I have learned that these poor beings often spend more than two days in steel trailers even if it is so cold outside that they become stuck to the sides of the steel trailer.  I found out today that the Canadian Government has no intentions of improving the extreme suffering imposed upon animals that usually endure severe conditions such as freezing temperatures and dehydration FOR UP TO 52 HOURS.

Once again the Canadian government has proven it is more than a decade or two behind other developed countries in terms of ethics in Government.

I don't think the question is whether pigs are sentient beings but rather if Canadian politicians are sentient beings.

http://www.rushprnews.com/2010/07/26/global-nationals-no-country-for-ani...

I agree lonewolf, and we have to add ourselves as lacking in the sentient being department, not just politicians, given we are allowing this to happen to them.

Ironically, it is being this out-of-touch that is imperiling human survival as well.

On the Island News a couple of nights ago, there were two prominently featured stories.  One was about a three-legged rottweiler at the local animal shelter waiting for adoption.  The other was about an orphaned racoon whose mother and sibling had been beaten to death by a homeowner with a hockey stick.  I am quite sure I was not the only one wanting to adopt the dog and have the stick-weilding homeowner punished.

Because, fool that I am, I think most people - maybe not (clearly not) people with power, but ordinary people - are basically good and decent.  (I know, lots of evidence to the contrary.)  And these decent impulses have to be channeled somewhere, somehow.  But we don't see and hear pigs in a truck freezing to death.  We don't see chickens stacked in cages with their beaks cut off so they don't peck each other.  We don't see calves in pens so small they can't move.

And I posted something in the Omar Khadr thread about a Canadian teen incarcerated in Cuba. I don't know the story, and I don't know the young man. It's not that our government shouldn't be providing support - but why him and not Khadr?

And, unless we look, we don't see the broken bodies on Afghani, Iraqi, Palestinian children.

So, we care about stories the media lets through.  And what we're educated about.  (Media and education.  Yep.  There's a revelation for the board.)  But, I agree with remind - it doesn't absolve us of responsibility.

I just stepped outside in downtown Vancouver and there is a foul smell in the air.  An ILWU electrician has told me it is a cattle ship from Australia.  The live cattle will then be moved onto trucks and shipped to Alberta (?) for slaughter.  How does that make an economic, ecological sense.

Good points all around - especially this one.

been talking this morning to several people about the plight of food animals in Canada and the show last night.

Frankly, I think it will take very little effort by Canadians who care, to change things around and quickly, they just need to be told how to go about it...

The plight of the  pigs and their rocking their heads back and forth to self-sooth prompted strong emotion in some women I know.

Pork will be coming off of their meal menu, they had absolutely no idea such a thing was allowed in Canada.

the answer is clearly yes

but they are quicker to get their snouts in the trough..

perhaps we're butchering the wrong ones, although I wouldn't want to eat one as they're impossible to clean..

The other day I was walking my dog and I heard (within a couple of blocks) two dogs cry with physical and emotional pain as their humans hit them (for barking). I felt sick. I wanted to take some actions it would be unwise to describe on the internet. (I do not plan to do these things - let me make that point for the security and police forces.) It's not illegal to hit your dog so there's not much I can do. (I once saw a man punch his dog in the face for some fault the dog apparently committed in playing frisbee.) 

The root of this terrible attitude toward our mammal cousins is the dogma of the prevailing religion. According to the bible, Adam was told by God that he was to have dominion over the beasts of the earth. According to Christian theology, humans have been gifted with an immortal soul by that same God, while other animals have not. Thus, the suffering of these lesser beings is a matter of little consequence. Combine this hateful brew with the profit imperative of international Capitalism, and you have a veritable Hell on earth, as described in earlier posts on this thread. It is hard to decide whether Christianity or Capitalism is more to blame, but both are fully culpable.

As much as enjoy I digs at the prevailing religion(s), I am going to have to disagree with you MM. It doesn't take an extensive background in either anthropology or history to come up with examples of peoples whose attitudes towards animals are just as terrible as those who have been exposed to the dubious benefits of the prevailing religion(s). Forcing animals to fight for the amusement of people watching (as an example) was widespread well before Christian missionaries intruded on the people in question (indeed, these "sports" usually pre-date Christianity itself). Certain religious beliefs probably exacerbate the tendency towards such callousness and cruelty, but I don't agree that they are the root cause.

I think you would be well served to employ Sociology 101 in creating an explanatory model of peoples relationships to animals. While I haven't researched it exhaustively, I am hard pressed to find an example of hunter-gatherer societies demonstrating callous cruelty towards animals (though, by definition, they will kill them for food), nor can I easily find examples of the same amongst pastoralists. I think you have to move on to agriculturalist societies (and their urban offshots and industrial successors) before you find abusive practices towards animals coming to the fore. While both pastoralists and hunter-gatherers exploit animals as resources, they also typically have a respectful attitude (often expressed in religious terms) towards the animals they herd/hunt.

Hi remind, this is something you wrote in another thread that I think may now be going off topic.  I think though it fits well here.

I agree with this. I have no ethical problem with hunting for food. Predation is part of the natural order on this planet, and probably everywhere else. Indeed, we humans, through most of our pre-history, were apparently as often prey as predators. As long as we viewed ourselves as part of the natural order, no different in principle than any other animal, this was in my view healthy and ethical.

My point was that this respect for the complex ecology of which we are a part has been undermined by many religious beliefs which set humans above the rest of creation. In the real world of today, such religions are overwhelmingly the "Abrahamic" ones, which are based on the bible: Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Others have also been as guilty, but not as influential. A few modern religions, such as Buddhism, have insisted that all sentient beings are entitled to consideration and respect, but I agree with you that these are the minority.

In any event, in our own society, I think it is clearly the case that Christian beliefs are used to assuage the consciences of most people to the immense cruelty associated with the meat production industry. My point really doesn't go much further than that.

I think we suffer a collective delusion that we are discrete entities, nearly mechanical in nature, and that food has become some kind of fuel that just has to fill us up and keep us going.  Combine that with the idea that it should be cheap, the chemicals to mess with brain chemistry and the  advertsing to keep everyone believing in "farms" and you have the perfect recipe for corporate control of our food supply. 

Once upon a time you could order a hamburger rare because it had no shit in it, now you must cook the shit out of it.  Literally.

We are all responsible. Find any thread on babble discussing industrial agriculture and you will find the progressive defenders who cite the need to keep food cheap. And we must trash our earth to keep energy cheap. And we must poison our bodies to keep stuff cheap. And we must beat and jail people to keep labour cheap. Let's hope our collective funeral is cheap.

Since religion entered into this discussion I must ask if anyone has much knowledge of halal and/or cosher meat.

I know they are killed relatively humanely... but are they also raised and transported that way?

If so, personally I will spend the little extra money necessary to ensure I am not supporting what I consider pure evil.

There are a few halal shops around my city with reasonable prices.

I know some vegetarian sites are very negative about ritual slaughter. The suggestion is that it is cruel, i.e., not "relatively humane" in the present context, though that was almost certainly the original intention. But I don't know the details. (They always seem to involve videos and I just can't take any more.) But if you google, you can find out about this. If I were a meat-eater, I'd investigate. (Actually, I'd probably just get my meat from a farmer I know and trust.)

i don't think there's any way to "humanely" eat animals, any more than there is a humane way to eat humans.  Not to mention meat is absolutely horrible for the environment and overfishing is going to kill the oceans before climate change will.

eating animals because otherwise you will starve is one thing, but there really isn't any justification for eating them just cause we "like it".

It's kind of like racism, we do it because they are "them" and not "us", therefore their suffering isn't really on our radar.  

Well, I don't eat meat, even meat slaughtered "humanely" by inlaws. But there are degrees of cruelty. Some people believe that the greater and the more prolonged the fear and pain of the animal the better and more efficacious the meat: hanging, blowtorches, and other things are involved. (I'm talking about dogs. And I'm talking about a process that goes on for hours.) A quick cut to the throat or blow to the head would be better than that. (Note that I am not suggesting that the process of animal slaughter as it exists here is a matter of a "quick cut" or "blow". It's a long and horrific process.)

I Smell Bacon:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJb3JiLFgTg&feature=related

Well that's good for you.  Here's a pat on the back...

If I see an ant on the ground I for one will actually sidestep to avoid it but I don't condemn everyone else because most people don't bother.  (Now a kid that would burn them with a magnifying glass for kicks that is different but...)

I know a couple fanatics that try to turn their dogs into vegans too.  Those dogs won't live long because they are carnivores.  Humans are carnivores.  Those that go against their instinct to eat meat end up skinny, pasty and weak.

Many of the people that devote their lives to fighting for animal rights happen to eat meat.  They are fighting to end suffering of animals.  Pasty weak fanatics do nothing but piss people off and cause people to turn their backs on ALL animal rights activism.

I seen a video of that lady that started PETA.  She emptied out one of her offices to put a turkey in it that she "rescued".  She filled it with straw and played soft classical music for it.  Do you think that did anything but turn many people off to the idea of ending the suffering of animals?

Meh, people will come around.  I'm a meat defender myself but milo204 and others have a lot of healthy stuff to teach us.

I'm willing to listen and I'll keep having my occasional steak medium rare.

Chicken is the thing for me.  Mostly chicken if I eat meat.

Okay, I'll try to not to put every vegan in the same category of the PETA lady playing soft music for a turkey.

Cheers!!!

For the record I have nothing against veganism. I know if everyone in the world lived off a diet of lentils, chick peas and beans the world's cropland could support 4 billion more people than we have now.  But that is not gonna happen in our lifetime.

Ending preventable and extreme torture to animals due to greed of corporations, it CAN happen in our lifetime.

Nice thread title but really, its a no-brainer. Would a pig - even a chief pig - spend 16 billion dollars on useless fighter aircraft?

when pigs fly?

Four legs good. Two legs bad.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCnWZncHH2Y

"...So I think that people need to become aware and become awake.  Power is always in the people's hands.  They need to come of one mind and they need to challenge the values that are being (shoved)[?] at them today because this has become a consumer society.  It's driven by economics it is not driven by common sense..."

"We are now placing in your hands - all life.  And it is your responibility and it is your duty - to look after all life.  
And so when he was speaking like that he wasn't talking about our Aunts and our Uncles... ...he was talking about all life.  He was talking about the trees. He was talking about the fish, the animals..."

Why not?

The meals my family ate last week were based on chick peas, lentils, and whatever grows in our back yard.  Such a diet isn't difficult, if you really want to do it.

It's great that some people live that way but I'm refering to a hypothetical of the entire world changing their diet in our lifetime.  Billions in India have.  But the rest of the world doing it in this lifetime - I just don't see happening.

In the past I stopped eating meat for a year or so but I am a carnivore.  When the day comes that there is peace on earth, all wars end and I don't need physical strength to fight off crack head muggers I will surely stop eating meat. 

In the meantime - I think REALISTIC goals must be looked at instead - such as ending the tremendous suffering involved in the meat industry today.

I also must say that great steps forward in protecting animals from torture would be taken if carnivore animal rights activists and vegans would put their greatest difference aside and work together.

Is this a joke thread?

I bet I could go one-on-one with a hotdog-eating crackhead and kick her butt any day.

Now that you've posted that...someone, somewhere will get the idea to release "Hotdog-Eating Crackhead Fights!" dvd's.

Some pig farmers would probably be cheaper.

The PMO has hired another 20 people in the last year, including more staff to handle regional and ethnic media, as well as direct government communication, such as the ad blitz on the economic action plan.

Control over whole-of-government messaging has also come to reside within the PMO, keeping staffers busy approving requests for information and interviews with every single government department. [36]

Pure bullshit.

Exactly.  Our meals are all beans, grains, legumes, veggies.........excellent wholesome food that is cheap to grow or buy, easy to prepare, filling and completely nourishing.  Comes with lower calories, great health, and the added bonus of not adding to the pain and suffering of another being.

Seems to me that being a carnivore was actually a lot MORE difficult.

Very true milo204.  Surprising too how many people actually still believe (or want to believe) that meat is a necessary part of their diet and that they will somehow perish without it.  Although that is easier I suppose, than accepting that you are eating meat only because it is tastey and you like it and you don't want to go without :)

Another thread on a POSSIBLY related subject here:

http://rabble.ca/babble/babble-banter/would-canadian-lawmakers-be-tastie...