Do the badgers die?

because it's an animal...a right is a philosophical concept that humans can understand, animals can't.
animals are animals. some are cute, some make good pets, but they are still animals.
if a person wishes to think of an animal as human, go for it, but don't blame anyone else when you're rights are taken away because of an animals
animals should be respected, treated as one of God's creation, but not as a human.
this is my view, not an attack or anything, but after all, if God didn't intend for us to eat cows, why did he make them out of steak?

 

True! But still, most farms are not like that

 

You may be right about the number of small farms but the majority of food comes from conglomerates. Things have changed drastically since 1997 with Roundup ready GMO's, biofuels, land prices and such.

http://www.ewg.org/featured/8

I really appreciate the small farms and your Grandmother and her animals are lucky. When the Hutterites come to town I stock up.

 

Animals are not given rights so they can feel empowered or human or anything like that. They need rights because people are stupid. People are not allowed to starve or fight their dogs, if they do they will pay a huge fine or spend time on jail or both. This is in place because when a person owns an animal they are responsible for not being cruel to it. Just because a dog is a dog doesn't mean it does not deserve the right to live, yes it could survive without us but not when it lives in a house. There are laws against fighting dogs because I'm sure no one would be too happy if everyone was allowed to train their dogs to attack anything. I'm sure if a group of fight dogs were unleashed in a pre-school it would be very clear why there are laws for animal rights. If some people were not so selfish or so incapable of feeling empathy for other living things then we might not need rights for animals, but it just takes a few stupid people to screw things up for everybody.

 

If the meat industry wasnt run the way it is, you couldn't afford to live your life style and eat the way you eat.

 

Well yes and no, 40% of the farms are small farms but how many animals does that account for? odds are the vast majority are in big farms being treated like crap. I love small farms, they are great but they just aren't as profitable as squishing tons of animals into a small disgusting space and force feeding them until they are fat enough to kill.

 

The US industry is not too bad anymore. Google "The Jungle". It is a book by Upton Sinclair that was written about the meat industry.

 

Thanks for the link! I appreciate the info, I don't live on a farm myself and don't keep up and pretty much took a leap of common sense when I guessed that most farms were still like my grandmother's. Rural life in general is still pretty rural nationwide even in the face of the giant conglomerates

Excellent. I just like to point out that most farms are like hers because what happens at the giant farms does not represent what happens at the vast majority of farms and with farmers out there. After all, that could be an unfair stigma

Whoa, this is so off-topic...

 

I very very rarely eat meat, so it doesn't really matter how the meat industry is run as far as my life goes.


edit: Lee I could have sworn that somewhere in this thread I gave credit to small farms and how they are truly doing a good thing, but if I didn't then here it is. Farms like your grandmother's are good for not only the animals but the people who buy from them. I have a lot of respect for that

 

If it weren't for millions of farmers polluting the envirionment with pesticides and fertilizers each year millions of animals wouldnt die every year.

 

so what you describe, and what I suggest, is not animal rights, but human responsibility and accountability...something that is more and more becoming scarce and rare. We don't put band-aids on heart attacks, we don't pull horses with buggies, why are we doing it backwards in regard to this?
again, I'm not disagreeing with you on the issue, but the implementation some dumbfart somewhere said "I know, let's give animals rights" instead of holding people to answer for their actions.
that's how I see it anyway, YMMV et al

 

It's basically the same thing, when you think about animal rights what do they do? animals can't sue people for money and houses. People just go to jail for being stupid.

Which is why I eat organic when it is available

 

"Of the two million remaining farms, only 565,000 are family operations."

http://www.sustainabletable.org/issues/familyfarms/

I

Edit: Oops double post, I didn't think the last one went through

Sorry, I'm trying to do three things at once and usually won't give out partial information. Cooking breakfest (yummy), talking to Mom and here.

 

Here's the way I see it, how it all breaks down in this whole debate.

Both sides have legitimate concerns, but don't think for 1 second that if everyone in the world suddenly stopped buying badger hair brushes, that fewer badgers would be killed.

The badger is a legitimate source of the food chain in a few countries, and the hairs we buy are simply by-products of the meat industry (and a very small portion of that by-product as well). If the hairs could no longer sell, they'd be thrown out with the trash, instead of being used in brushes. The badgers would still die.

As a personal stance against using animal-sourced products, I can see where people are coming from, and if that's what they choose to do, fine with me. But that wouldn't mean more badgers get to live, especially in the countries in which the badgers are slaughtered to begin with.

 

Actually, that quote is from a linked non-source. Or a source that used to exist but is no longer found at that web location (the President of which source is Willie Nelson? hehe) - and what is a family operation? Some of them are quite large, and operate like giant corps. It certainly looks like the face of farming is changing rapidly though....

 

Most organics come from other countries and contribute vast amounts of CO2 emissions which will sway climate change and eventually lead to our demises.

 

Yes, rights isn't the right term but that is what they are called