Animal Slaves
by Roedy Green ©1999-2008 Canadian Mind Products
Introduction
The man who composed Amazing Grace was a slave trader for many
years. During those years it never occurred to him that he was doing anything
immoral. He was just earning a living. We find it surprising he did not notice
how much suffering he was causing. It was only after he retired did it dawn on
him the horror of what he had done. Yet today we blindly do that exact same
thing, mistreating domestic animals. We tell ourselves that the suffering does
not count, because it is not human suffering.
Chickens
Domestic chickens are confined seven to pen. The pens are so crowded, the
chickens cannot even lift their wings. Sometimes we cut their beaks off. They
never see the sky even once in their lives. Sometimes we wire their feet to the
bottom of the cages to stop them from moving and wasting precious calories. We
kill them by scalding them to death. Sometimes chickens emerge from the scalders
still alive. Particularly egregious is the treatment
of chickens destined for KFC (Kentucky Fried Chicken.)
Veal
We keep young cows penned so they can’t move. This makes the meat more tender.
We deny them water so that they will eat the maximal feed. They never once see
the sky in their entire lives.
Dolphins
Dolphins are more intelligent than us, though we treat
them as nuisances. We fish for tuna with nets that entrap and drown millions of
dolphins every year. We cynically stomp “dolphin friendly” on some of
the tins of tuna, though they are caught in identically the same way.
Whales
Whales are more intelligent than us, though we treat
them as food animals. We kill them with harpoons.
Indian Elephants
There are about 10,000 Indian elephants left in the world, 3000 of them in
captivity. The forests that the elephants used to browse have all been converted
to tea plantations. They are headed rapidly for extinction, squeezed out by
India’s teeming billion humans. The villagers shoot the elephants if they come
to “steal” their crops, when in a broader sense it is the villagers
who have stolen the elephant grazing lands. Indians also still capture wild
elephants and “tame” them, much as Americans captured and “amed”
negroes for slave labour.
Pests
Man has gradually commandeered nearly all arable land for food crops. Originally
these lands supported thousands of others species besides man. They don’t
recognise man’s exclusive right to those lands. We refer to all those animal
species as pests from insects to rodents to elephants.
We poison, gas, trap and kill them with zero regard to how much suffering we
inflict. It does not matter because these animals are pests stealing “our”
food. They deserve suffering. Technology such as sterilising male screw flies
exist that effectively and humanely reduce pest populations, but we prefer to
use ones that cause maximal suffering, taking revenge I guess.
Ethics
If we treated humans this way (caging, restraining, scalding, drowning and
harpooning) we would consider this treatment sadistic and inhumane. Surely
animals suffer just as much as humans even if they cannot articulate their
complaints. We are as deliberately blind to that suffering as our forefathers
were to the suffering they inflicted on slaves. I suppose it is a bit much to
expect people to treat domestic animals well when they ignore even the pleas of
fellow humans living in other countries. It is a long slow evolution to becoming
a compassionate species.
We use the same blather that our forefathers used to justify mistreating slaves.
Slaves have no souls, therefore they cannot feel pain, they just appear to feel
it. Slaves are not intelligent like us. We are more important than slaves. It is
only fitting to sacrifice the welfare of a slave for the well being of a human.
Slaves have no rights in the law, so it is preposterous to talk of the rights of
slaves. Slaves are chattels. It is nobody’s business what you do with your own
property.
Some of the same rhetoric used to justify the persecution of native peoples
pervades the justification for the torture and exploitation of animals and
expropriating their habitats. Heathens don’t have souls. They are just savages,
not civilised like us. They are inferior in intelligence. The only good Injun is
a dead Injun.
It is only a matter of time until we recognise the right of all species to co-exist
with man, unmolested.
Action
I eat only free range eggs. This is probably still nowhere near ideal, but at
least I vote with my money that factory egg producing completely unacceptable. I
don’t eat veal at all. I have not seen the equivalent free range beef and pork,
so I eat it rarely.
At some point more direct action may seem appropriate, freeing slaves, smashing
slaving equipment, and harming slavers, but for now I am almost as caught as my
fellows in the trance of feeling foolish about my squeamishness over sadism to
animals.
People put up with these horrible practices because they buy on price alone.
Perhaps if such products were labelled with pictures of the suffering used to
produce them, people would be more willing to pay a little more for humane food
production. Perhaps one could insert pictures inside the egg cartons to wake
people up.
Conclusion
Even before it became economically viable to stop slavery, people started
pushing for it on moral grounds. Surely that time has come now. The marginal
costs of humane livestock treatment is easily borne by society. There is no need
for the ever increasing sadism that goes on to shave prices.
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