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So you're saying that an activity done with friends, which involves a LOT of prep time and cost (scouting, tracking, setup, licensing and taking time off work, cost of rifle, ammunition, gas, butcher) and has been a socially acceptable thing to do for thousands of years is depraved and ugly behavior?
Hmm.
Alright, then.
Hunting just to kill is rather questionable, when it happens. That said, it might help your point to look more into how hunting is done and why. There are people who enjoy hunting (for whatever reason) but ultimately it comes down to what I outlined in my earlier post(s)- for food or for a cull. Money for conservation and wildlife projects comes from hunting, fishing, and fowling licenses.
Groups like Ducks Unlimited and the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation are made up of hunters, biologists, and rangers/game wardens and often contribute just as much money IN DONATIONS to go towards conservation. I know because I work with these people; I am (or rather, was) an officer in a local chapter of a national/international conservation group. I'm also a land owner who has to deal with things like poachers coming onto my property to get animals out of season/without my permission/without a license. I've even walked my fenceline with a big rifle, and I wasn't looking for animals... but hey, when you hear the report of a rifle at 5:30 in the morning very close to your house, what else are you gonna do (besides call the warden)? You're confusing poachers with people who have legitimate reasons to kill another animal.
I am quite curious, though... where do you get your food from and what kind of food do you eat?
...extremely ugly behaviour... ...deeply cold nature of their hearts... ...seriously depraved...
By your reckoning, almost all humans are depraved. Have been for tens of thousands of years. A whole lot of animals are depraved as well, if they're carnivorous. In fact, the history of your planet is abject depravity. Eating meat is a pretty effective way to capture energy, after all.
It's funny though. I've known vegans in the past (most of whom eat meat now) who respected hunters and had little problem with hunting; what they were rebelling against, instead, was corporate farming, treatment of livestock, inhumane techniques, labor practices, etc. I think you'd have more luck shifting your thinking away from responsible, necessary hunting and toward how the vasty majority of the meat (and poultry etc.) gets harvested and delivered to markets and restaurants. That is much more "depraved."
Nothing wrong with responsible hunting. I think everyone who eats meat should go hunting at least once. Confront it. Think about things. Experience the world.
But here's the real point I wanted to make: what are YOU going to do to feel peace about this? You seem very angry and uneasy (about a lot of things). Hunting is necessary. Hunting is entrenched, steeped in hundreds of years (arguably thousands of years, or if you think about it MILLIONS of years) of tradition. It is not going anywhere. There will be "legalized" hunting when you're 82 years old. How are you going to generate some inner calm about this and move on? How are you going to understand people are diverse and have thoughts and activities that differ from yours, and be okay with this?
I think you should shift your own internal thought processes toward searching for a way to come to terms with the world yourself. You will not have changed anything external (much as this thread hasn't changed anyone's mind), but you will have achieved and embraced peace about it and broken down old notions and grown and stopped letting it rile you up.
Quote:
Originally Posted by JordanJP
I am quite curious, though... where do you get your food from and what kind of food do you eat?
Don't worry, the OP has been a vegan since age 12.
Last edited by Oldhag1; 06-27-2014 at 08:11 AM..
Reason: Deleted quote and response to it
Yeah and like I already said a few times, if they are unaware that their happy social times are extremely ugly behaviour displaying the deeply cold nature of their hearts, there is a problem there.
If serial killers got together and enjoyed planning their kills, would that make the killing any more acceptable? Um nope.
Is this really so hard to understand?
I mean, if you can kill something without even THINKING about it, that is even worse in a sense.
Seriously depraved.
Yes, it is hard to understand how you equate hunting animals to serial killers.
Do you kill bugs, snakes, spiders or have a problem with rats and mice in your house. Do you draw a distinction between what creature is acceptable to kill and which ones are not. If I squash a spider I'm perfectly normal but if I shoot a deer that is ugly and I have a mental problem?
I'm sure it's difficult to understand if you have committed yourself to a perspective and personal philosophy that fails to recognize what we, as humans, actually are...
I think this is a part of it. In our modern mode, people can get the idea that we're some "higher" form of life, that we're ascended, that we can be pure, that maybe we'll live forever, that we're not just biological machines participating in life (and ultimately just trying to absorb energy from the sun and propogate the species) as it has existed for eons on this planet. You have to LET GO. Let go and see it how it is and has always been. Letting go is a process.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ozgal
Vegetarian. She eats dairy and eggs and wears leather. Beyond that she hasn't clarified her stance on any other animal byproduct.
I was close. I got the age right.
To expand on my own post above just a little, two more points.
1. Perhaps the best way to work with something you don't know a lot about but which causes you great consternation and dissonance is to confront it head on. Not through condemnation. But through curiosity, questioning, open-mindedness. Get at the heart of why there are fellow humans who seem to think and act so differently, and why it bothers you so. Think beyond the confines of what you've been taught, what you've learned in your short life thus far, beyond the confines of your own skull. It could be really good for you. It could be restorative.
You might even [gulp] embrace it by participating in it. This, I think, is how eyes get opened. This is how personal perspective and growth can be achieved, and complexity in thought instead of strident dogma can be sought. The world isn't going to change because you open your mind a bit more, or participate yourself once or twice - but YOU might. You might not become a hunter, but you might learn to accept it - and yourself. And isn't having MORE perspective, MORE information better than having less? Always.
2. I thought about this on my drive in today. This is an analogy. My girlfriend was an angry driver for a long time. She drove fast, and furiously, and it caused her great perturbation. By always trying to go faster faster, she was causing her OWN disquiet. The other cars weren't ever going to change, but how she approached them could.
I always drove much more sedately -- slowly, if you like. And the drive was always so much more calm and peaceful. She eventually learned that she was in control. She couldn't control the other cars. They still do what they do. But her reaction to them was entirely under her control. By not trying to fight it, by not rushing headlong (with a bit of an extremist attitude about driving), she was able to see her own inner peace was something she had control of. By slowing down, by accepting the way things and other people are, she turned her drives from frustrating and stressful times into much more restive and serene experiences. The other traffic didn't change one iota, but her place in that world changed entirely.
Yeah and like I already said a few times, if they are unaware that their happy social times are extremely ugly behaviour displaying the deeply cold nature of their hearts, there is a problem there.
If serial killers got together and enjoyed planning their kills, would that make the killing any more acceptable? Um nope.
Is this really so hard to understand?
I mean, if you can kill something without even THINKING about it, that is even worse in a sense.
Seriously depraved.
Welp, then I guess I'm a redneck, knuckledragging, mouthbreathing neanderthal sociopath. Here's the thing, OP, you aren't going to convince me. You aren't going to convince a staunch conservative to vote democrat and you won't convince an Atheist to go to church, most of the time.
I've put lots of thought into it. I've spent time on farms working with beef cattle, hogs, etc, and ate said cows. THEY AREN'T PEOPLE. THEY DON'T COMPARE TO PEOPLE. Ask me how well I sleep at night.
You, OP, are too far removed from the reality of life on Earth. Should we experience any significant degree of failure of technology, the luxury of a veg or vegan lifestyle and imaginary enlightenment will vanish.
There is nothing depraved about pride or enjoyment in the honing of any skill - including that of taking meat.
You stated early on the "most American hunters" don't do it to eat. You are unbelievably wrong. Travel inward 200 miles from either coast and you will find hundreds of thousands of chest freezer of venison, elk or boar, feeding families.
You, OP, are too far removed from the reality of life on Earth. Should we experience any significant degree of failure of technology, the luxury of a veg or vegan lifestyle and imaginary enlightenment will vanish.
There is nothing depraved about pride or enjoyment in the honing of any skill - including that of taking meat.
You stated early on the "most American hunters" don't do it to eat. You are unbelievably wrong. Travel inward 200 miles from either coast and you will find hundreds of thousands of chest freezer of venison, elk or boar, feeding families.
I grew up with this and I find your line of thinking somewhere between hilarious and disgusting.
I don't think you have to go 200 miles from the East or West coasts. Particularly not the gulf coast.
Lot's of ducks, deer, bear and pigs in freezers all along the Eastern seaboard. It can be tricky to kill enough to eat in California (they have seasons and BAG LIMITS for feral pigs there, if that tells you anything), but there are lots of blacktail and elk hunters in Oregon and Washington. There's something to hunt anywhere you go.
To the OP, what would you suggest, how are you going to control the animal population? Are you suggesting we just let them manage themselves and have nature do the thinning. Nature is one of the most brutal serial killers on the planet, it kills without forethought or remorse, it will wipe out a whole species just to make room for another. I really don't think you have thought this through very well.
It is okay to kill as long as it isn't a sentient being, so this mean you are going to define what has the right to life, plants are living entities, so do they have the right to life? What about insects? Do they have the right to life? So you are suggesting that only thinking entities have the right to live on this planet. Your vegan ideologies really fall short when it comes to defining what life has the right to live.
Last edited by Terryj; 06-27-2014 at 10:47 AM..
Reason: to add an afterthought
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