PETA

as an outsdoorsman i have a better understanding of nature that say a city dweller. yes i do love to hunt but hunting has also taught me much about nature's ways and in general more experence equates with more knowledge and understanding. i have seen firsthand the kinds of death and suffering nature in capible of and i honestly belive that there is a need for competent caring sport hunters. i have no use for killers that care only about the blood and have no respect for their prey. ditto for canned hunts or the newest peversion of on-line hunting.

we can disagree about sport fishing all day long but again i would like to point out that here in the US it is the hunter and fisherman that pays the vast majority of the bill for conversation. without their money we would be in much worse shape that we are in

while i was refering to the shape of the ecosystem in general i can address the drug issue instead. almost every new advance in drugs and other medical advances has some kind of animal testing involved somewhere along the line. even paremedics use newborn fittens t leard how to insert an ET tube in newborn babies. heart operations ane perfected on doge first. without animal testing we would have very few advances in medicine. cosmetics and shampoos are not widly tested on animals anymore and havn't been for years now. of corse animal testing is not the reason for all the improvements in life over the last 25 years but they do have a very necessary place although other ways of testing are being developed but are not yet online and may never replace every use for lab animals

if market hunting or fishing is the only way a person has to meet the needs of his family how does that differ from a person who eats what he catchs? in many places there is no other work to be had. i'm talking about the one small boat fisherman that is following in the path of his father and grandfather with everything he has tied up in his boat. are you willing to get off your wallet and help him move and support him while he learns to do something else? if you eat fish there's a good chance that it was caught by the very methods you profess to hate. the man who eats meat cannot hate the butcher for he is also the butcher.

humans have rights because we have decided between ourselves what they are to be and what the limits and responsiblties connected with them are. there is no such thing as universal rights anyway. they do not exist except in the minds of dreamers. we have certain rights we try to spread but they by no means are universal. rights vary as to both the time and place. you may have a right to medical care but in the case of a mass casulity accident there is something called triage. someone like me looks at you and places you in one of 3 groups. first group in badly hurt but saveable, second group is hurt but can wait, third group is too badly hurt to mess with because we do not have the time, manpower, or equiptment. in other words you just lost your right to medical care and you are going to be left off to one side to die. sadam's victims had no rights at all except to scream. we extend rights to babies and incompentent people because they are by extension a part of the group involved and in most cases there is someone to speak for them as well as to insure that they live up to the rules. animals have never taken part in any discussion as to what rights they should have nor have they ever agreed to follow any rules involved with having such rights. we do extend certain protections for animals but they are not rights as we normally define them. nature does not belive in "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness". for the critters to have rights they would have to agree to things like lions not eating people for example. to the best of my knowledge this has never happened with wild animals. we do have a sort of understanding with certain animals like the dog and horse in that we use them and in return give them some protections but even those are not rights in the same sense that people enjoy.

we should treat all animals humanily because we think it is the right thing to do and not because they have rights which they do not. we do it because it makes us better people. the problem is understanding what humane treatment is. it goes far beyond simply banning hunting or circuses. we need to look at the whole picture and try to understand the reality of nature today and how each action will impact upon it. there are no perfect answers in this problem. all we can do is muddle along looking for something that works with each problem as it arises. as i said earlier hunting and fishing, zoos and circuses bring people closer to nature and animals and that cannot be a bad thing in itself. the more people understand about and know nature and animals the better off we are and the better our answers will be.

one last thing- mother nature is a cold bi*ch that will kill you in a heartbeat. red is her color just as much as green and gold. we are a part of nature. she is in out genes and still controls much of what we do. we are the deadliest form of life on the planet by far. the fact that we realize this and work to control ourselves speaks well about us and is the difference between us and the rest of nature.

PS Roel, i suspect that some of your thoughts on the subject may be shaded by where you live. there's not a lot of wild land around you so you may have been bambized into a distorted view of nature just as i grew up in a place where hunting and fishing were and are everyday things. its hard for a city person to understand nature since they rarely get to see much of it in the wild. there are almost no books or movies in the popular press that are not slanted one way or another and much is outright false. you may not live in a city but your chances are still limited by your location. are we still having fun?

 

sorry

my keyboarding is bad. i'm typing one handed with the wrong hand so sorry about the mistakes. my good arm is in a sling while it heals.

 

You seem to have the facts mixed up. Animals are not human beings. Human beings are animals. Whatever we don't wish to do to ourselves we shouldn't wish to do to other animals. We may be an educated and intelligent bunch who understand rights and laws but even those who don't still have them for their protection. Anyway this is quite a problematic issue for me since like I said I'm not entirely done shaping my opinion in an explicable manner.

However, the argument you and lynn1212 use about fishing is void to me because I hate the taste of fish and never ever eat it. This is why I won't fish for food either, and this is why I can condemn fishing in general - I'm not the one who's using it. This is also why I haven't brought up the issue of industrial farming - because I do like meat, and I couldn't defend the rights of farm animals while eating them at the same time.

Don't worry, I enjoy a good debate.
It may be true that I have no experience with hunting, but that doesn't mean I don't understand it. It is perfectly clear to me how hunting keeps animal populations at levels not harmful to humans (or to themselves). I don't see why I couldn't, because it's purely a thing of reason, not of information.

By the way, I like the word "bambized" that you have created.

 

bambized

i wish i could take credit for it but i picked it up from some hunting or anti peta board. it is nice though isn't it.
another question- can you understand sex by reading about it? outdoor sports have a certain amount of commonalty is some respects. it feels good, has a rush, and leaves you relaxed when its over.

 

Re: bambized

I've never even actually seen the movie, would you believe that?

Trust me, I have no illusions about nature being a struggle to the death like Darwin described it. Nothing cuty and fuzzy about the wild.

Wouldn't you say this is kind of an odd question to ask a 16-year old?

If hunting to you is about thrill and adrenaline then I have no further inclination to debate it with you, because that's just not right to me.

 

I suppose the alternative is that we turn the entire world into one big 'farm', totally managed by us humans.

 

Re: bambized

I think what lynn1212 is trying to explain to you is that it is about human nature. It´s more fulfilling to eat something that you have killed or caught yourself, than something you have picked up from the supermarket. You of all people, who say that humans are just another animal, should understand that.

All animals who are predators hunt, even when they are fed and don´t need to. It´s all about instincts and being in tune with nature.

 

shooting for blood

yes there are moments of adrenaline involved with hunting / fishing and i doubt if anybody would claim otherwise. shooting for blood is serious and is not easy to do right. but it is a small part of the whole experence. you often hear about becoming one with nature. hunting and fishing does that, you have to become closer to nature than almost any other activity to be sucessful. it does feel good just to be out there enjoying the day, fun, relaxing, and quiet. at the end of the day you feel content and refreshed.
i'm fond of telling people that the difference between a good day of fishing and a great one is on the great one you catch something. the same for hunting. i've been cold, wet, tired, and hurting after a day of either hunting or fishing and loved every minute of it. for one day i am in command of my life, no boss, bills, phone calls, or honeydo lists. somedays i just sit and listen, look, and watch. i pass shots on a regular basis because i'm just enjoying myself too much to to want to change anything. as for being an adrenaline junky- perhaps i am. i've spent about forty years as a fireman and as an EMT. lots of rushes there but its not the same. the rush in hunting or fishing is more the pleasure in the completion of a long stalk or finally figuring out what that big ol bass want to eat and bringing him to boatside. lots better than the rush from worrying if the way out of the burning building is still open or busting your ass trying to save some drunk kid upside down in a half filled ditch in january.
look guys i'm not really very good at trying to explain this. its all fuzzy feelings and i never got good at talking about them. its not simple to discribe what goes through you and i doubt if anybody can really capture it in words.

 

Sorry if I got hold of the wrong end of the stick. I just say a comment with no quote and assumed it was for the previous post.

I woundered why it took me so long to understand you post.

 

Re: shooting for blood

Deer hunting is easy, get some bullets with lights on and the deer will run in front of them.

Well it happened to me in a Landrover. :lol:

 

What is Peta going to do next ? tell lions to stop chasing those poor gazelles :lol:

 

no, there's no money in bugging lions

 

good one , but true

 

I didn't read this whole tread because I have to do stuff for my dad, but this is my opinion.

PETA is stupid. When God made humans he gave them dominion over the earth, and ever for of living thing on it. That means the creator of the univers thinks its ok to eat meat and fish in the ocean and hunt foxes in England and kill animals for a purpose, but it also means that as the rulers of the world human beings should amintain, not wastefully destroy. Nobody likes a king who sits on a golden throne, but starves his peasants so he can feast.

I am also of the opinion that the world is going to end soon (I am not crazy though). So I do think it is ok to do things like exploit every natural resource around. I think that the US should drill for oil in alaska. We own alsaka, we need oil. I also think that we should built a few more refineries so gas prices in AMerica will drop, but that is not here or there.

PETA is dumb, queerer than a $3 bill. The real meaning of PETA has already been mentioned. People Eat Tasty Animals.

 

I like the way you think.

 

I think you already know what I think about gods, and so this reasoning of yours is nonsensical to me. However, we can also approach this from a nonreligious point of view. What you're saying is that if some external authority, even if the very existence of that authority is unknown, would arguably have approved of man using animals to its benefit, it would be ok to do so. It sounds more than a bit dodgy to me to base your line of thought on, especially if you consider a vague and generalizing statement to this effect written down thousands of years ago to have absolute and final authority over present-day troubles in Britain.

About the oil in Alaska, it's off topic but I'd like to say this much: Alaska belongs to the US, true. The US made large parts of this terrain into national parks, in which animals are free to roam under human supervision, and thus prevented from being hunted to extinction. You can't afterwards say "no, sorry, we need to wipe out this habitat because we need to haul a miserable little bit of oil from the area, all the animals we sent here need to **** off now". It's inconsistent, irresponsible, and ungainly, not to mention the suffering inflicted on the animals there.

 

Seen froma logical point of view, man is an animal, whose existance is based on hunting and gathering. It is natural tohunt and gather, and evolution has made it natural for us to boost the output from gatherng and hunting by centralizing the food resources in fields and stables to make it easíer to hunt. Gathering is still gathering and hunting is still hunting, and those are the only two sources of foods - it is only the means which have changed.
Furthermore, as humans are still a part of nature, any progressive act, including territorial struggles, are natural - and are a part of evolution. Therefore, no human can do anything unnatural, as long as this is for the progress of specific tribe.

For humans to live without meat is not natural. It is a part of the original Homo Sapiens, and evolution has not yet changed the humans into natural vegetarians. Therefore, hunting has nothing to do with barbarism, it has to do with following nature. To not eat meat, because of the desire not to (and not for medical purposes) is not natural - it goes against nature, and doing so creates an imbalance in natures ecosystem.

Christian

 

Everything up to this point - agreed.

With this I disagree. The only thing that is currently causing imbalance in worldwide ecosystems is what you describe as modern hunting and gathering techniques developed to sustain an ever growing world population of human beings. If these were to collectively stop eating meat, then the amount of farm animals would collapse because their population is too high to sustain naturally; however, it would never damage any ecosystem that wasn't already destroyed and rebuilt within tighter limits by humans.

 

correct

population pressures both human and animal are the major cause of the problems. human because there's so many of us and we often choose to live in marginal locations. animal because humans force wild game into smaller and smaller habitats and because we tend to bring our food animals with us into marginal areas and excede the carrying capicity of those habitats. slash and burn farming and eat everything grazing are causing huge amounts of damage. as a side note a lot of the problem arises in areas with bad governments and a severe class structure. when the money and power is held by a choosen few the rest have to live in such a manner that often causes damage to the ecosystem. things such as the farming practices already mentioned and others such as improper waste handling and disposal, poaching, rebellions, and overcrowding.

 

Roel
In case all the humans on the planet should chose only to eat vegetables, the amount of farmland would need to be expanded rapidly, and I would consider it doubtful that enough farmland would be available.

Christian