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In anticipated defense of what I will do tomorrow on Thanksgiving, IE “Dear PETA”.
I will eat a Turkey. I will sit across the table from my own Daughter and future Son in Law, and their young friends, all of whom are vegans, on the side of the over 40 human beings who will be –according to them-, committing “Turkacide”.
I should mention; my own Daughter, god bless her overly compassionate little heart- is not only a Member of Peta, but her photo appeared recently on the front page of Yahoo, and in every major news paper in the country. I love her dearly, and I even love her for her misguided extremism, because in truth, passion just runs through family blood. I digress. I am going to explain here, what I explain to her, each and every time I see her, and my wife and I buy our Kids their vegan meals when they visit, and she attempts to “convert” me.
I am a major league animal lover and appreciator of nature. I have owned a Wolf hybrid. I currently own a ten year old Bobcat. I have three of the most beautiful show quality pure bred dogs you’ve ever seen: A Shiba Inu, a blue-eyed Siberian Husky, and most recently, a wolf gray Alaskan Malamute I purchased this summer as a 5 week old puppy. My wife and I have spent at least $15,000 on our three dogs alone, and rest assured, 75% of that has been medical bills. Anyone who has ever owned a so-called “primitive breed” (all 3 are) dog, in particular, Malamutes and Siberian Huskies, well knows that they are so close to the wolf in appearance, genetics, and most importantly, behavior, that they are irredeemable “thieves” of anything remotely scented by food, incredibly intelligent, phenomenally stubborn/strong willed, and curious doesn’t even begin to describe their keenness of interaction and exploration with their surroundings. Add another $5,000 for a 500 square foot Kennel. Oh yeah, the “missing ten grand: Medical care. Repeated ingestion of foreign objects. Plastic. Styrofoam blown into the yard, or stolen in an instant. An entire can of green raisins; HALF A POUND. So you know –please take note of this, it really warrants it’s own article- GRAPES KILL DOGS. Three to five raisins or grapes, can kill your 50 pound dog. Thanks to GOD, I caught the Siberian literally MINUTES after he’d finished the entire can, when I came home and found him sitting there proudly with the can between his paws wagging his tail. I rushed him to the vet and $2,500 and three days later, he was fine, no sign of kidney damage.
I have spent the last four years working with a top animal behaviorist at considerable expense, to insure that I received a useful education to “balance my pack”. That’s the other thing about these “primitive” breeds; Like the Asian and Arctic Wolves who’s blood still runs fresh in their veins, they will quite literally fight to the death, if not understood and ruled with an iron fisted alpha; give them an inch and you’re in deep shit. Oh, yes, I was bitten –literally- to the bone by the Malamute when he was just 12 weeks old. Not his fault, mine. The Bobcat, well, suffice it to say that it’s the single most absurdly accused and misunderstood cat on the planet. I got him as a kitten, I did my home work, and in ten years, including actually taking baths WITH him, right in front of the family jewels, I have never been so much as deliberately scratched. He is not de-clawed, nor can I even tolerate an argument from anyone who advocates such brutal mutilation against one of God’s creatures.
Now I realize that this was a lengthy expose on my animal lover status, but since you don’t know me personally as my Daughter does, I thought it to be of import that YOU know about me, what my daughter and her friends already know: Esbe is no ordinary animal lover, but someone to whom animals are friends, family members, and of a value BEYOND money. I do pretty well. But I’m no multi-millionaire. Oh, one more: $5,000 for my beloved rescued and hand raised from 3 days old, buff colored house cat. He developed a very rare cancer in his eye socket at the ripe old age of 12. The vet said he had only a couple of weeks. Chemotherapy via daily interferon injections and magadoses of B-12 gave him 9 more months. In retrospect, I should have just had him put to sleep sooner than I did. I tried to hard for too long. I loved him that much. O.K., I am done with establishing my cred as a lover of animals. On to the point:
Animals are NOT, repeat, NOT human beings. And the WAYS in which they are not human, are incredibly relevant to any argument that killing them for food, is innately morally wrong. It’s not.
Does an animal feel pain? You bet. But consider this: A human being feels much, much more than pain; a human being is CONSCIOUS and AWARE of his own mortality, and that of those he loves. A human being is an animal who spends it’s entire life, ANTICIPATING it’s own death, anticipating the death of it’s loved ones, and comprehending the suffering of others and responding with…..COMPASSION. What, apart from a few moments of physical suffering, IS an animal by ANY and all available evidence?
I already told you. My three dogs, under my leadership, APPEAR to love each other. They frolic together with great joy, and my wife and I have never ceased to be amazed at their intelligence, and capacity to just make us laugh our asses off. That said though, were it not for me, there would only be two dogs left alive. The little Shiba, fierce though she is (she is actually the alpha between the dogs, and when you envision a little 20 pound dog which resembles a red-fox or small dingo, actually dominating an Alaskan Malamute who can at 5 months, fit her entire head into his mouth, you grasp the hilarity), the Shiba would not only be dead, but certainly have been consumed as food. I do not speak here of Apes. No one advocates we eat apes, for they have shown evidence of having human capacities. No, I speak of dogs first, highly intelligent creatures at their best (and I chose the best), and then “livestock” and Turkeys; These creatures, even dogs, have ZERO “compassion”, and zero evidence exists that they are aware of anything resembling “morality” or mortality. “Love” in these animals is a HUMAN PROJECTION onto them, not a reality. My Bobcat, perhaps the closest “love” relationship I have ever had with any animal, views me as his Mother. But were I to meet with a violent bloody death in my home, I have no doubt whatsoever, that failing someone removing my corpse and continuing to feed him, he’d start feeding on me with ZERO remorse. Notice I said that HE regards me as his mother. Indeed I am. But I am NOT human to him. I am simply comfort and survival. The relationship then, gives two completely different benefits in it’s mutuality.
I agree with my daughter and Peta this far, and ONLY this far: The CURRENT standards and regulation regarding animal slaughter, are cruel. But I am not now in possession of any evidence, nor do I anticipate any, that on a fundamental level, killing an animal to EAT, is innately wrong; I too am an animal. Part of the food chain as it were. Not to drag religion into this, but I can not disagree with the notion that we have “dominion” over all that creepeth and crawleth upon the earth. WE DO.
I do not wear fur, and will not. I will not use any animal I do not have to use to keep warm. I believe that so-called “sport hunting”, “canned hunts”, killing ANYTHING you do not need to eat, bow-hunting, and any other “ENJOYMENT” of the act of killing animals, is a wickedness, utterly evil, and that it should be banned and those responsible for it, prosecuted.
But I will eat a Turkey tomorrow, and I will not feel an ounce of guilt for it; I will eat a man-made descendent of an infinitely smarter wild relative which is so unaware of it’s surroundings as to defy any reasoned argument that it’s death to sustain Esbe, is not fully justifiable; Esbe works to save wildlife. Esbe works to protect God’s creation and his fellow human beings from those who’re Godless and without human conscience. I will thank the farmer tomorrow. I will also thank nature herself for the propensity to
”de-evolve” that which we feed upon, into states so unrecognizable to us as “conscious”, that we might KNOW that the Turkey spent it’s life filling it’s belly, NOT running from anything, warm, and sheltered from the rain in which it’s too dumb not to inhale, before having it’s almost empty head removed. The Turkey never knew it was coming. I could only hope to die so easily. I watched both of my parents die agonizing deaths over a period of months, within the last two years. PEOPLE: I KNOW what real suffering is.
I have a love/hate relationship with Peta. I love that some of what they’re doing, has raised awareness. But I hate their sheer stupidity in “Real Politik”: They will NEVER achieve what should be achieved, with arguments that “meat is murder”. No, it is not. It’s MEAT. It comes from biological sources with none of the attributes we logically require to label a killing, “murder”. Killing. Meat is killing. Killing is not always murder, and in the case of animals who are killed for NEEDED food, for the sustenance of other animals, it is NEVER murder. Is the Lion a “murderer”? No it is not. He lives by his own nature as do I. I have a higher level of awareness than the lion. I do not –like the Lion- murder the off-spring of my rival males by eating their infants. But Esbe INSISTS, no one has an argument which justifiably actually removes him from the food chain as a “predator with a conscience”.
Peta could make so much more difference were the acronym actually something they lived up to. It’s not. They do NOT treat animals “ethically”. They treat them not only with complete ignorance, but INSIST that you and I actually willfully EMBRACE that ignorance. No. I AM the “ethical” treater of animals. “Ethics” are HUMAN. Unless you’re willing to call the Lion, the Wolf, the Polar Bear, the Fox, your dog or cat, a “murderer”. Peta are STUPID, scientifically, politically, and last but far from least, “ethically”. My Daughter, God love her, she resides in a cult as far as I’m concerned. She wouldn’t hurt a fly. Even if it were sucking her blood.
Peta, seriously; There are human beings suffering and dying in this world under the hand of evil and THIS is what you want to stop? The sudden lack of awareness of a TURKEY who’s got a brain the size of a peanut? Look at a photograph of an INNOCENT Iraqi or Palestinian child who’s been maimed or murdered by U.S. or Israeli colonialism, and you tell ME, this is your priority. Look into the tear filled eyes of a child who parents are buried under the rubble of American bombs; know that this child who will live, will suffer for perhaps 80 years with the psychological trauma of seeing her parents die before her eyes. Look into the eyes of an Iraqi Father who’s daughter was gang-raped and sodomized by rogue U.S. mercenaries in front of him before he’s shot. And you want me to feel guilt tomorrow for eating a goddamned turkey.
It’s not going to happen. I think –collectively- Peta is morally insane, divorced from humanity and even divorced from what makes us human. Tomorrow, my tears are reserved for the people of Iraq, of Palestine, and unfortunately, probably for the people of Iran as well, if people like you, do not STOP MISUSING the CONSCIENCE that God gave you, and START using it where it was intended.
I don’t feel guilty. “Vegans” intent on lecturing ME? Good luck with it. You are…”HERBICIDAL MANIACS”.
