Girl Burned Alive: The Quest for Morality in America

[MrPanzerGeneral]

ps - also freezing to death isn't very painful at all..... (and I say that as I very almost died from it - several times - and have lost numerous bits of myself to frost bite - I can't relate any story about a Hot burnng to death as I havn't ever experienced a near death event from it -but I would assume it would be almost the same ) ...I'd imagine the feeling would be the same... utter pain which is (believe it or not) very brief... the pain actually comes from when you're being warmed up, or cooled, again .... the cells and nerve endings in your "frozen bits" are dead (the cells and nerve endings having actually almost exploded !). The culprit to the pain sensation is Oxygen... in the cold burn scenario it (the Oxygen) comes from your blood - flowing again into the cold bits and contacting nerve endings... In a "hot" Burn scenario (and in all essence they're the same thing - the feeling of O2 against your nerve endings) the Oxygen too, comes from your blood..... unless the hot burn isn't so severe that it doesn't destroy your skins nerve endings then the pain giving O2 just comes from the atmosphere......ie: you'll live.... (I'd rather - anyday - have a burn that immediately destroys the feeling of me having it...)

[MrPanzerGeneral]

Also please don't think that what has happened to that poor girl girl I would ever condone. I would be the first person to start the death of a thousand cuts on her perpetrators.

[Metsfanmax]

Even carrots feel pain (of a sorts) when they're pulled from the ground, so does grass when it's mowed, and trees when they lose a branch....

There is no evidence for that claim. The "sort of" pain you're referencing is philosophical and not something experienced by a sentient being.

what's your point about the pain thingey ? There's also lots of "holocausts" going around on this world all the time !

My point is that the very least we can do as moral human beings is to minimize the amount of pain we cause. Nature may be ugly but that doesn't mean we should be ugly too.

[MrPanzerGeneral]

My point is that the very least we can do as moral human beings is to minimize the amount of pain we cause. Nature may be ugly but that doesn't mean we should be ugly too.

I feel that You speak of "Morals" in some sort of ecclisiastical sense. You also infer that nature is "ugly" ??? How can that be so ?

[MrPanzerGeneral]

Oh , and I just realised you referenced "A Sentient Being"... please define that term ?

[nietzsche]

This is gonna get good. I know Mets was blurry there with his argumenting but I also know that he'd do anything to win an argument.

Expect to lose MrPanzer.

[_sabotage_]

There is no way for MrPanzer to lose, unless the entire audience is insane.

Mets is insane. Thanks for the sig, freak.

My great-grandfather worked for the gov teaching chicken farming around the world. In India, he ordered his folks to spray insects. They were butchered to death for it. Don't use the cultural perspective, because it's obviously not one you are suggesting. But, lace up your leather shoes, and explain why they deserved to die for killing insects. And turn off your electric bug zapper while you write.

[owenshooter]

wait... is this the same jessica chambers who is associated with a drug dealing gang member? the same jessica that was at the convenience store the gang hung out at? the same convenience store where the clerk that was interviewed has now been shown to be in pics with these same gang members flashing gang signs?! that innocent sweet little jessica chambers?! oh... i don't give a f*ck... you hang with drug dealers, gang members, convicted felons, you generally meet an early demise... sorry, this story was dropped by the US press after the gang connection was uncovered...-Jésus noir

[Metsfanmax]

My point is that the very least we can do as moral human beings is to minimize the amount of pain we cause. Nature may be ugly but that doesn't mean we should be ugly too.

I feel that You speak of "Morals" in some sort of ecclisiastical sense.

Not really. In basically any moral system other than straight up hedonism, inflicting needless pain on others is a bad thing. We don't need to get all fancy with our morals here -- let's just stick to the golden rule.

You also infer that nature is "ugly" ??? How can that be so ?

I meant ugly in the sense that you were referring to -- that there are lots of painful ways for animals to die in nature. My point was that at the very least we should not be adding to that.

This is gonna get good. I know Mets was blurry there with his argumenting but I also know that he'd do anything to win an argument.

This isn't about winning an argument, it is about saving ten billion animals from death every year.

Oh , and I just realised you referenced "A Sentient Being"... please define that term ?

For our purposes, we can define sentience as the ability to feel pain or pleasure. And by pain, I mean exactly what you think I mean. There are ways to get more complicated, and for people who are interested in this there are complicated ways of thinking about this to help understand what it might be like for insects to live, but for now let's just stick to mammals and birds, who are similar enough to us that we know what pain roughly means because they have enough of the same basic neurological capacity, unlike plants.

Mets is insane. Thanks for the sig, freak.

Think about it this way: even if you think I'm most likely completely off my rocker, if we are killing ten billion farm animals every year for food, isn't it worth at least a little bit of thought whether this is wrong to do, given the vast scale of this issue? If their pain individually is even worth 0.01% of a human's pain, that still means the Holocaust is happening all around us, all the time.

But, lace up your leather shoes

I do not wear leather shoes. Leather is a cruel product -- why do we need to kill cows and take their skin so that we have something to sit on or walk around in? It's 2014, there's an amazing amount of alternatives available if we want to use them.

and explain why they deserved to die for killing insects

I do not know the right answer here. No one does. But the argument might go, if an insect's pain is even worth a hundred billionth of a human's pain, there are so many trillions of insects in the world that their pain collectively matters. I am not going to defend a religious belief in the holiness of animals or anything like that which might have inspired what happened to the folks in India. But yes, it's true that we should at least give some consideration to the issue given how many insects we must kill every year. Still, we don't have to get too deep into this for now. We can just start with cows, chickens and pigs. Let's build up the core of the framework first before we start pushing it too hard.

[_sabotage_]

No, it's not worth considering if it were wrong to do. In the existing animal life we see or can say we have ever known in modern civilization, we are the dominant predator for many kinds of animals. We have invested quite a bit into the development of herd animals that are rather docile, get big quick, and are useful. If this weren't the case, if we didn't do any cruel thing to animals, we would not exist.

Well, now we do exist to the point where we can even ask the question.

My uncle has 400 head for market each year in the badlands of eastern Montana. He lives miles from a village of 150 people. He dedicates more than 100 hours a week during harvests. He's not going to if we say you can't kill those cows. Is he going to let them go and in a few years have thousands of bulls overgrazing and murdering each other in his kids' school playground? India has plane crashes and train crashes and all sorts of issues from cows running free. You should see the size of the bull in Montana. We have guns in our pick-ups. If someone released a large scale pig operation in the streets of New York, it would be a terror attack.

So, we were using these animals for all kinds of things, ensuring and promoting their survival through the resources we got from them. Well, maybe we could put them in Yellowstone and cull them like the bison, the deer, the wolves, and everything else.

Well, my uncle keeps them safe, they have miles upon miles of open land, and he keeps them strong. Just like indigenous people maintained resources to us up to this point, we should pass them along.

[Phatscotty]

My point is that the very least we can do as moral human beings is to minimize the amount of pain we cause. Nature may be ugly but that doesn't mean we should be ugly too.

Nature can be ugly. That's why we cut the testicles off of everything.....to make it beautiful!

[Metsfanmax]

No, it's not worth considering if it were wrong to do. In the existing animal life we see or can say we have ever known in modern civilization, we are the dominant predator for many kinds of animals. We have invested quite a bit into the development of herd animals that are rather docile, get big quick, and are useful. If this weren't the case, if we didn't do any cruel thing to animals, we would not exist.

Well, now we do exist to the point where we can even ask the question.

We can see by analogy why this argument is not fruitful. Modern-day America was built in large part on the backs of African slaves. It is quite accurate to say that if we hadn't had slavery, we wouldn't be where we are now -- life would be quite different, and maybe America wouldn't be the powerhouse it is today. However, no one would agree that it justifies slavery today. We know better -- we know that slavery is unethical because black humans are also people. The fact that we did it in the past does not justify it today any more than the fact that we once believed in the four bodily humors. If you step back and think about our society, it is striking how much the certainty of most people today that mammals such as chimpanzees, apes and pigs are inferior and should not be regarded as people parallels the certainty of most Americans in the 19th and early 20th centuries that black humans are inferior and should not be treated equally to white people. Given the degree to which we understand modern biology and the fact that evolution shows us that the difference between humans and non-humans is one of degree and not one of kind, this view seems remarkably arrogant, the type of view that could very well be laughed at as remarkably quaint in one hundred years. In fact, there are probably many cultural practices we have now that we will recognize the error of as time goes on. When we are fortuitious enough to recognize one early on, we should pay attention to it.

My uncle has 400 head for market each year in the badlands of eastern Montana. He lives miles from a village of 150 people. He dedicates more than 100 hours a week during harvests. He's not going to if we say you can't kill those cows. Is he going to let them go and in a few years have thousands of bulls overgrazing and murdering each other in his kids' school playground? India has plane crashes and train crashes and all sorts of issues from cows running free. You should see the size of the bull in Montana. We have guns in our pick-ups. If someone released a large scale pig operation in the streets of New York, it would be a terror attack.

Note that the standard I advocate for is minimizing pain. That is not necessarily the same as saying that we should allow natural populations of animals to grow arbitrarily large. For example, population control through painless euthanasia or forced neutering/spaying could easily be preferable to the same result achieved through starvation of excess animals, a much more painful way to go. In fact, one might argue that human industrial expansion has been a good thing from the standard of reducing pain, since with fewer wild animals there are fewer that go through the agony of death that often comes in nature. If the solution to this problem is simply to gradually decrease the population of domesticated cattle until it has reached a sustainable level, I would gladly take that over the status quo.

But again, a slavery analogy is helpful. We would probably laugh at those in the early 1800s who said "but if we let the slaves be free, they'll take over this country! Better to just keep them in chains."

So, we were using these animals for all kinds of things, ensuring and promoting their survival through the resources we got from them. Well, maybe we could put them in Yellowstone and cull them like the bison, the deer, the wolves, and everything else.

The problem I am mainly targeting is that we largely didn't trade nature for sustainable agriculture. Instead, we traded it for an industrial agriculture system that exploits animals to be an efficient source of food, and usually that is much better for us than it is for the other animals. Factory farming results in miserable conditions for pigs, chickens, cows, turkeys and more, and the vast majority of people get their meat from these sources and not from your father in Montana. Furthermore, the tempting answer of immediately advocating for sustainable agriculture (where animals are supposedly treated ethically) raises lots of questions -- we have already devastated lots of America's ecosystems because of grazing. What's going to happen when we release tens of millions more cows? Do we really have the land and resources to do this? And it's not obvious that this is really even a solution to the ethical problem anyway. For example, most people think that surely there's nothing wrong with having a backyard chicken and eating the eggs it produces. But where did you get that chicken from? It came from a hatchery that sells female chickens for this purpose. What happens to the male chicks, who don't eat eggs? They are killed, often by being ground up in a machine soon after birth.

[_sabotage_]

I agree, the factory farms suck. But it's the fault of lobbyists.

My uncle (not father) has zero attachment to a free market. He's carefully regulated, heavily subsidized and a dying breed. Regulation and subsidies enable large corporations to dictate the laws and create chicken coops where the chickens will never see daylight. A chicken factory down the road sold it's license for $5,000,000. As a competitor, you can only get a license for 500 the first year, and need to reapply every year for an increase. It's just not worth it.

Blame globalization, blame lobbyists. Nova Scotia no longer has meat processing. A farmer has no choice but send the meat to Alberta to get graded. The small farms are all disappearing. A guy bought a 6,000 acres valley farm and shut it down. When lawyers can earn a farmer more through government regulation then through quality of production, then you get shit. When the sector can buy up local competition through their higher profit off shit just to close it down, then you get little choice but shit, and it's now more expensive shit.

So the slavery comparison is apt: farmers enchained by lobbyists and regulators intent on a dumpy unhealthy population. Doesn't make raising animals wrong, makes your special interest groups in the food sector, including those who get gov jobs, a corrupt lot. Undo those chains, lobby against the lobbyists, bring down barriers to healthy food markets. Long live deep cut bacon.

Comparing animal husbandry to slavemaster is just wrong to anyone who was ever a slave. They poured hot lead down slaves throats. This wasn't just a wicked way to kill a guy, it was a message, communicated amongst themselves that left a vivid image in their heads. And their head is like ours. We know exactly what they know.

To compare a slave to an animal is just low self-esteem on your part. Stop hating people. I know, you're blaming lobbyists for this, and you're a lobbyist, so the self-hate is understandable, but you can change.

[Metsfanmax]

So the slavery comparison is apt: farmers enchained by lobbyists and regulators intent on a dumpy unhealthy population. Doesn't make raising animals wrong, makes your special interest groups in the food sector, including those who get gov jobs, a corrupt lot. Undo those chains, lobby against the lobbyists, bring down barriers to healthy food markets. Long live deep cut bacon.

I am not going to blame government or lobbyists for this problem, because independent of those institutions, people have a real desire to consume animal flesh. The only sustainable way for animals to be treated ethically is for people to stop thinking that they are machines to provide us food, and start treating them with the respect one would accord to another human. The horrors of factory farming are maybe especially bad because of industry practices that help preclude competition and prevent consumers from seeing what happens to animals, but this isn't some accident. We believe that animals are food and not people, so it is completely unsurprising that we treat them like tools instead of sentient beings with individual personalities (which they are).

Comparing animal husbandry to slavemaster is just wrong to anyone who was ever a slave. They poured hot lead down slaves throats. This wasn't just a wicked way to kill a guy, it was a message, communicated amongst themselves that left a vivid image in their heads. And their head is like ours. We know exactly what they know.

I think that the analogy is perfectly valid, and does not belittle the experiences of real slaves but brings to light the horrors of modern animal agriculture. We rip off the testicles of newborn piglets without anesthesia. Female pigs are kept in so-called gestation crates that give them barely any space to move or turn around. They develop sores from repeatedly biting on the cage bars. Chickens are completely exempt in the US from the normal animal welfare laws that affect mammals (this one is definitely due to lobbying), and there's 900+ million chickens killed for food every year. They are kept in tiny cages in dark barns where they don't have much room to stretch their wings, and their feet grow sores from having to permanently stand on a wire mesh. Dairy cows are repeatedly forcibly impregnated so that they can keep producing milk, and their newborn calves are taken away from them, leading to prolonged distress for both the calf and its mothers. Cattle are killed by being lined up in a slaughter house and killed by a bolt gun strike to the head, but many are not killed this way and are still conscious as they are sliced up. The cows can see what is happening to the ones in front of them and get visibly scared and try to run away, to the extent that it has prompted many slaughterhouses to come up with elaborate designs so that the cattle do not know what is coming. The horrors of human chattel slavery are being permanently lived by farm animals across the country all the time, so that we can enjoy our bacon.

If you reflect, it is strange that this is the situation we have. Most of us who have had companion animals would never dream of inflicting such atrocities on them, and those who do are rightly condemned. We may like cats and dogs more because we find them cute, but that's not the reason we don't beat them, torture them, or eat them -- it's because we know they have personalities, and have emotions and can feel pain. Cats and dogs are not dissimilar from cows and pigs in any meaningful moral respect, yet the former are our friends and the latter are our food and our clothes. There is no way to defend such an arbitrary system once you take the time to reflect on it.

I know, you're blaming lobbyists for this, and you're a lobbyist, so the self-hate is understandable, but you can change.

The only reason my level of activism (writing letters and going down to DC a couple times a year) could be considered "lobbying" by anyone is that most Americans are politically completely apathetic beyond voting (and a substantial fraction don't even do that). That is not democracy -- democracy requires active participation. Real industry lobbyists would have no substantial influence if all of us were active beyond the ballot box every 2-4 years. Most people are quick to blame special interests for what our situation is now -- but the whole problem is that the ordinary interests of you and I are not represented in Washington, which leaves only the special interests. If you want to fix politics, start with yourself.

[2dimes]

It's pretty fun to see owenshooter ignored.

Yet slightly less in this instance where he may have a poignant set of facts relevant to how much empathy one might logically direct to the matter in the original post.

While mets ignores a possible ally in the "bugs are more innocent than humans." concept. He presents a position with his pseudo Hindu Buddhism. "Harming insects is at least just as bad because of the volume." Then deliciously participates in the human domination/insecticide.

So many bugs committed no crime. Why do you ride man made vehicles slaughtering so many of them, just to travel from where you were born, to live on another side of the planet and then go to school? Eating mass marketed food sold in the united states of america, grown, produced and transported by insecticidal maniacs. Congrats on participating in the Insect Holocaust.

There is a potential in owen's post to support the opinion that Jessica may have made some bad choices leading to this, unlike the innocent bugs mets has participated in crushing, probably eating and poisoning.

Now I'll mention how "the black jesus" and I are opposing the Jewish Jesus with our lack of empathy toward Jessica and metsfanmax.
They made their beds, let them get wrinkled. Vs. "Love even your enemy."

[mrswdk]

Cats and dogs are not dissimilar from cows and pigs in any meaningful moral respect, yet the former are our friends and the latter are our food and our clothes. There is no way to defend such an arbitrary system once you take the time to reflect on it.

Some people keep cats and dogs as pets because they think they are cute, or friendly and fun, or whatever. Likewise some people keep mini pigs for similar reasons. Some people eat dogs and pigs because they taste good. Few people eat cats, probably because there isn't enough meat on them to be worth the bother of raising for food. It isn't really arbitrary or nonsensical at all until you get to all the herbivores who protest outside dog meat festivals because 'dogs are our friends'.

[_sabotage_]

Not going to blame government or lobbyists. Let me guess your solution...let me think...almost there...government and lobbyists? Perhaps telling people what is bad for them? And then protecting them against their badness? And showing them how it is bad from the barrel of a gun?

Wouldn't dream of such atrocities. You mean like putting our own dog to sleep with a bullet to the back of the head? I don't know what folks in New York imagine a farmer in Montana does, hint: bang! We raise rabbits for...shooting practice.

You can sit in the comfort of your college dorm and think whatever you want about this. You can say how evil it is and what we should do about it. My uncle is a state senator. Perhaps you should lobby him. Explain to him, maybe get his teenage son on board, that it's wrong that his son shot his first coyote at 7 after training on rabbits from 4.

You have no more right to dictate his life than he has to force a piece of Kobe beef down your throat. Trust me, Kobe beef is good for you. Maybe we should enforce this goodness on the section of the population that doesn't know better. Maybe it's time for the bulletproof automatic toting enforcement agents to show up at your door and say you are posing an economic threat and disturbing the peace.

But of course I don't agree with this. I agree with improving and then being a role model for others. I agree with level playing fields and promoting competition to find what improvements improve. Instead we change definitions to meet market appeal while doing the same old shit lead by a few massive corporations whose top execs run between regulatory positions, lobbying positions and the major corporations that are being lobbied for and regulated for.

[2dimes]

Why would it be any different morally to eat Kobe Beef than to dine on a dish prepared from the flesh of Kobe Bryant?

Then again, have you really eaten either?

[_sabotage_]

Kobe Bryant fan: WTF?
Kobe beef fan: WTF?

[2dimes]

Just playing metsfanmax advocate there. I googled Kobe Beef and the other dark meat came up faster. So have you actually eaten either?

[KoolBak]

Kobe beef is most excellent ;o)

[owenshooter]

go ahead and ignore me to push your little agendas through... all of it is mute, unless you can tell me why this was dropped after it was found out she associated with a drug dealing gang and had a felon boyfriend... nobody cares... you reap what you sew... she was not an angel.. the chickens came home to roost and they fried her up real nice... the end.-eJn

wait... is this the same jessica chambers who is associated with a drug dealing gang member? the same jessica that was at the convenience store the gang hung out at? the same convenience store where the clerk that was interviewed has now been shown to be in pics with these same gang members flashing gang signs?! that innocent sweet little jessica chambers?! oh... i don't give a f*ck... you hang with drug dealers, gang members, convicted felons, you generally meet an early demise... sorry, this story was dropped by the US press after the gang connection was uncovered...-Jésus noir

[2dimes]

You guise hear something?

Kobe beef is most excellent ;o)

Where did you allegedly eat it?

[KoolBak]

My bride allegedly brought home a package of kobe beef steaks from her work (who distribute them)....any other questions Great White Hoser?

She also scored 6 lbs of tuna loin, 6 lbs of sea bass and 6 lbs of shrimp (free)....also very tasty....

[_sabotage_]

I have had Kobe beef in Japan. They might have pull a tourist trick on me, but it was a nice place in downtown Tokyo. Kobe's wife is pretty hot, so if she were offered on a platter, I might take a taste.

A true story, mostly.

My wife's uncle is a butcher. While we were visiting, he had a client and several people went to watch. This guy is sure of himself in a way that is hard to convey. He learned from his dad, and the generations before. He had a tool belt and carried a rod. The tools were ageless. They may have been hundreds of years old or a thousand. He checked them over and we walked about 200 m down roads that have been crafted into the landscape. The land has been made into natural pens/gardens/paddies.

He had a crowd of 10-15 people. He tied the pig and got it propped up in a moment. It was docile and barely grunted. It had been raised on the scrapped food and it's rootings. It had help tumble the soil, speed the food waste into plant nutrients. It hung out, used its predecessors crib, and had its place in the hood. And then my wife's uncle pierced deeply into its throat. It looked like you'd stepped on its tail and quickly faded.

They dried that baby, salted some, had a feast and gave the butcher his share. That is going to be the bulk of their years supply of meat.

Their daughter (here is where it's mostly true, since I don't know if it was their daughter or the neighbour on the other side) worked in a factory in Dongguan. My wife and her roomed together for a time. She was found tied up and beaten to death in her apartment that she owned last Tuesday. She'd last been seen a week ago heading home from a mahjong game. They suspect someone followed her in and tried to get her PIN for her bank card and she refused to give it.

Comparing these two events is just utter stupidity. Comparing my wife's uncle and this girl's killer is the depth of moral baseness. Her killer will be arrested, without needing to shoot him. He will be tried and he will have a bullet put in the back of his head. Comparing shooting him with killing the pig is not right either.

To compare them equally is to deny the very heart of what we consider wrong and right.