thegentleartofchoking:
Wish I could go vegetarian, I fully stand for animal rights and despise animal cruelty but I’d just miss all the meat! I think as long as you buy meat such as free range where the animals are at least treated nicely, that’s a good step in the right direction.
Wrong. Going vegan is a step in the right direction. Anything else is just wasting time while animals are still being exploited and killed for your own selfishness. You liking meat is not an excuse for why others should die. Almost all of us loved meat before, we just realized that our taste buds don’t dictate our ethics. There are plenty of alternatives you can eat that mimic meat without harming animals. You can’t stand for animal rights while eating and exploiting those who you supposedly care about. Also, vegetarianism is a transitional phase to ultimately get to veganism, not a solution to animal cruelty nor does it support animal rights.
Tell me, how is punching or kicking an animal considered cruelty, but slitting their throat and killing them is considered a “step in the right direction”? Eating meat or animal products from any source (regardless of treatment) is animal cruelty at its finest. Humane animal agriculture is all a lie anyway.
(Source: negative-youth)
So I’ve been told by Aaron that “teacup pig appreciation” posts have been circulating again, and I know it’s been addressed before, but I figure a reminder about it can never hurt.
I get it. I really do. Teacup pigs are painfully adorable. Pigs are one of my favorites and there is nothing cuter than a tiny baby animal, let alone a little pig like the ones above. Teacup pigs are a fad among a lot of people who don’t seem to understand that these pigs are only in existence due to a lot of severe premature inbreeding and their growth is intentionally stunted by breeders in order to produce smaller animals. These animals, while adorable, are an unfortunate result of human greed and their health and well being is sacrificed in order for these breeders to profit off of them.
For those of you who don’t know, here are some facts on the truth behind “teacup pigs” (source):
The word “Teacup” is often associated with tiny dogs, being poorly bred, runts, or stunted through poor nutrition, the breeders price the animals high because cute sells, and small is cute.
In recent years the word “Teacup” has been applied to other animals, including pigs. Make no mistake, Teacup Pigs are not healthy pets.
Trouble With Teacup Pets
Some of the problems common in teacup pigs, and other teacup animals are listed below:
- Heart Deformities, often resulting in a short lifespan.
- Digestive system deformities (very common in teacup pigs).
- Liver deformities, known as shunts.
- Prone to Hypoglycemia.
- More at risk to head/brain injury as the soft spot on their skull may not harden correctly.
- More susceptible to illness and stress.
- Tend to have more fragile bones.
- More dental problems.
- Higher rate of Epilepsy.
- More prone to dehydration.
- Other deformities in offspring due to inbreeding often used to get such small animals.
One of the worst things that happens is their outsides stop growing, but their insides (intestines) continue to grow so by the time the pet is an adult, it has full sized organs in a part sized body. As you can imagine this causes the pet great pain, distress, and possibly illness, requiring expensive surgery.
In the teacup industry, not only are abnormally small animals bred but they are also often stunted through poor diet and nutrition. Fed only enough to stay alive, but not so much that they grow at a proper rate.
I hope that all of my followers already understand how unethical the breeding of any animal is, regardless of their health. Treating animals as commodities and breeding, selling, and/or buying them is confirmation that you do not see animals as beings, but rather as items to profit or benefit from. This erases their stance as individuals who deserve rights, and that’s obviously not okay.
However, I think it’s still important to bring to light the fact that these teacup animals are bred in especially horrible circumstances and these animals end up living miserable lives just by existing. They are predisposed to a great deal of health issues and their mere existence is guaranteed to be miserable due to human exploitation. These animals may be adorable, but we really have to stop creating a hype about them. Constantly talking about how adorable they are and how much you want one only gives others a reason to want to do the same, while both of you appear ignorant to the reality of these pigs’ intentional ailments and disgusting history. There is nothing cute about an animal who was born sick and genetically mutated for the sake of being more appealing to humans.
If anyone wants to care for an animal, the only compassionate way to do so is through adoption. There are various types of animals currently in need of homes and desperate for human care, so if you have interest in caring for a pig or any other animal — adopt. Remember to always spay and neuter your animals, and do not support breeders of any kind.
Anonymous asked: Do you believe there is a way in which you could humanly produce animal products for consumption. Because you your body needs calcium, cows make milk, yes the industry's are bad but humans evolved to be able to harness the world around them.
No. There is no humane way to take an animal out of their natural environment and force them into serving you for all of their lives. There is nothing humane about thinking that an animal’s entire existence is purely for your own benefit while erasing them as individuals. You can’t deny an animal their right to life and freedom “humanely,” ever. Confining and farming animals for any product is cruel in and of itself. Any sort of animal agriculture works completely against animal rights.
That’s the problem. Humans did not evolve to dominate and take entire control of the earth and every other life within it. Humans do not own the earth, we are part of it. People need to understand that and stop treating the earth and animals within it as if everything and everyone exists just for us. That’s an anthropocentric view and it’s not only horrible, but it’s beyond detrimental. It’s what is currently destroying the world and everything in it.
Cows make milk for their babies. Not for us. It’s for their calves, in the same way that humans produce breast milk after they have given birth for their young. If we needed a constant supply of breast milk all of our lives, why would our bodies stop providing it for us? If it were naturally required, we would have constant supplies of milk for ourselves. If adult animals needed to drink milk, why does every mammal always wean their young? How could animals in the wild survive without milk if it were mandatory for survival? No adult animals need milk. This is why all animals are weaned past infancy and move on to other diets that are necessary for them while excluding milk from their diets since they don’t need it anymore. If drinking another species’ milk throughout adulthood were natural, we would see bears drinking goat milk or cows drinking pig milk and so on. Do you not see how bizarre it is for humans to drink cow’s milk?
The dairy industry is more than just “bad.” It’s abhorrent. It treats cows as exploitable objects instead of sentient beings. It revolves around rape, kidnapping dairy calves from their mothers only to kill them, and stealing cows’ milk; just to continuously repeat this process over and over until they’re no longer “profitable” and then they’re killed regardless. The dairy industry is responsible for the veal industry because of this influx of “useless” male calves that are by-products of the dairy industry. It’s a system that treats cows and their babies as garbage. There is not a single humane thing about it.
If you don’t understand why the dairy industry needs to stop, check out these: Ohio veal investigation | Texas dairy calf “disposal” methods | Ohio dairy farm footage | Mercy for Animals dairy calf rescue
Of course we need calcium. There is actually about 50% more calcium in soy, almond, and other plant-based milks than the amount in cow’s milk. There is also plenty of calcium in leafy green vegetables and other plant foods. Here’s a good resource for vegan sources of calcium. It’s beyond silly to think that calcium = cow’s milk. It’s such an easy thing to attain from so many other foods.
Anonymous asked: Feminists always make me chuckle a little, vegan ones significantly more. So for one you're a total nutjob for animals, adoring their lives and promoting that they are equal to humans (excuse me, """human animals""" (triple qms on purpose) ), correct? Isn't it a tiny bit hypocritical of you then to slap this belief in the face by promoting feminism, an idea claiming that males=females, a notion completely unheard of among animals? Or is it the lioness that hunts and I'm mistaken?
Well, first off I can tell you are a complete moron yourself because you understand that feminism means “males = females” (even though it goes far beyond just males and females, it’s total gender equality for all, but I won’t go into that). Yet you still for whatever reason view feminism as laughable and wrong despite the fact that you yourself just acknowledged it simply aims for equality and no person in their right mind would oppose equality, but I’ll indulge your idiocy nonetheless.
I wasn’t advocating for non-human animals to adapt a feminist mindset among themselves, because clearly wild animals aren’t on the same intellectual level as humans and therefore they are unable to form the same kind of ethics that we are obviously able to. It’d be like asking children to think and act on the same level as adults, which obviously isn’t possible given the ways that we understand their intellectual abilities to be lesser than ours and therefore we expect less from them ethically since they don’t know any better. This reason is the same answer that’s applied when dumbshits like you throw in that whole “BUT LIONS EAT MEAT SO WHY CAN’T I???” argument.
I was speaking directly to feminists who proclaim that they want body autonomy and don’t believe that any person should have rights and dictatorship over someone else’s body, all while supporting animal agricultural industries which do exactly that to billions of other females who are victims beneath a patriarchal system just as much as they are. Animal industries such as dairy farming, egg, and meat industries are based completely around the subjugation of countless animals, but female animals especially. If you examine the ways in which humans condemn non-human animals to a life of suffering and incessant reproduction and use the females’ bodies excessively for products such as milk and eggs, you’ll see that it is identical to the type of things that feminists oppose (such as the way they completely oppose the regulation of humans’ reproductive systems, females especially). I was not directing my post to wild animals and questioning their ethics, I was directing it toward humans. [Note that the title of my post was “Some questions for ‘feminists’ who aren’t vegan.”Not “Some questions for lionesses who aren’t feminists.”]
I was aiming my post towards human females or other oppressed genders who know precisely what it feels like to be treated as nothing but a body and are victims of a patriarchal society, all while turning around and treating non-human animals in the exact same ways they fight so hard against. They absolutely loathe the way that the patriarchy treats us, but for whatever reason think it’s perfectly okay for us to use our position to dominate and completely exploit animals that are less powerful than we are. That is, precisely, what feminists work against and want to tear down within our culture. The way that males currently dominate human culture is parallel to the way that humans dominate non-human animals. I was pointing out the hypocrisy within the mindset of people, women especially, who have experienced objectification firsthand themselves; but then turn around and use those same concepts they want to destroy and project those concepts and those detrimental superiority complexes onto the way that they treat and view animals (solely because they aren’t human, which is no different than unfair treatment based on gender).
It’s the exact same concept that exists among humans and yet somehow it’s “different” and “acceptable” simply because the victims were born into different skin than we humans were. Which, correct me if I am wrong you non-vegan “feminists,” is the exact same concept that all of you fight so strongly against in terms of gender inequality. That’s what my post was challenging, and I thought it was incredibly clear. Given some of the responses I’ve received from that post, I guess I assumed many of you to be far more smart and intellectual than you actually are. I suppose I just assumed that, you know, you guys who identify as feminists wanted equality. Apparently not though.
Oh, but just a tip, anon: next time you might want to actually try reading my entire post, and then you can attempt to make stupid comments on it.
Anonymous asked: Have you ever considered the possibility that some of your views could be wrong? Or that questioning what you think to be 100% true can lead to even greater truths with more understanding? As Bertrand Russel said, "The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts." (not attacking anything, just want to get you thinking).
Of course, I think that a lot of my views could be wrong. I’m just one person, and the thoughts that flow through my mind are not absolute fact.
But the things I think you are trying to question are not “views.” I assume you’re trying to tell me to second guess my stance on animal rights, and that’s something that isn’t debatable in the slightest. That encompasses a myriad of factors that are not views or opinions, and therefore they can’t be disproven. It’s not a “view” that an animal wants to live free from exploitation and that animals can feel fear and sadness and a whole range of emotions the same as we do.
Is it arguable that when you cut an animal, they will bleed and cry out in pain? Is it up for debate that animals try to fight back the second they realize their life is in danger, and do they not immediately try with all their might to defend themselves and their family? Is it questionable whether or not an animal can feel sadness and suffering just as a human can? Is it false to say that non-human animals can think, feel, and experience many of the same emotions we can? (The answer is fucking no, if you didn’t get that.)
The problem with the world is that too many goddamn people lack compassion and are only capable of empathizing with others who are exactly like themselves. Instead of acknowledging the blatant facts right in front of their faces, they’re trying to come up with any means possible to argue their way out of doing what’s right because it isn’t what they want to hear.
Anonymous asked: For some people, yes, even feminists, it is simply too expensive, difficult and sometimes even damaging healthwise to become vegan. In fact, saying that to be feminist, one MUST be vegan comes from an incredibly privileged position, of a person who has never had to scrimp and save for the next meal, one who has never known starvation, or not had the bank of mum and dad. Veganism is also dangerous for those with medical conditions and pregnant women. check your privilege. please.
Where do I even start?
My blood is seriously boiling right now. You social justice league members need a fucking pickaxe shoved down your throats, seriously. You’re so fucking blinded by wanting to so badly be viewed as some sort of noble steed in shining armor by those with less privilege than most that you’re seriously almost as bad as any kind of oppressor out there (key word: almost). In trying to mindlessly defend your causes, you assume so much about people without knowing the first thing about them.
Vegans can belong to any race, social class, or privilege. The fact that I am vegan means nothing by default. It does not predetermine anything about what kind of life I have lived, and you have absolutely no idea what kind of shit I’ve been through. Literally. YOU KNOW NOTHING. For you to fucking come to me and tell me what I have or have not experienced makes me want to strangle you. I can’t even tell you the kind of struggles I’ve been through in the last few years of my life. Right now, my life is exponentially better than it previously was, but you can’t even begin to imagine what kinds of situations I have been in before.
Yes, I am white. Yes, I am a cis female. Yes, I am lower middle class. In those senses, I am privileged, but those have nothing to do with veganism. And do any of those things mean that I am incapable of being in a position of desperacy and despair? Do they mean that I am incapable of ever being broke, or being left hungry for days, or laying awake every night for months on end because I have no idea when my life is going to improve in even the slightest bit or when I will have my next source of income to sustain myself with? Does it mean that my parents are not also capable of barely scraping by on the verge of bankruptcy? Does it mean that my parents don’t have constant crises within their own lives by trying to come up with money for food? Does it even mean that I have parents in my life that I can contact? Fortunately for you, I do still have both of my parents so you’re safe in that regard. But how the fuck would you even have known that, just based off of the fact that I’m a vegan? Seriously, fuck. you. for being such an overly assuming prick. All of those experiences I just brought up (aside from not having parents) do apply to my life and the things I’ve been through. So, really, fuck off.
Of course there are certain experiences that I will never know, as I will probably never know actual starvation, nor will I know what it means to be a person of color or what it means to live in a third world country, but that doesn’t mean that everything in my life has been a piece of cake. I have to steal most of my food and other things in order to be able to provide for myself. When I do buy food, I can only afford the lowest quality of foods, and having fresh foods is a luxury for me. I have to often go to food banks or churches and accept donated food in order to be able to eat. Many times, the only way I get to buy food is if I can find change somewhere or if I can ask a stranger for a dollar or two. So don’t you fucking even try to tell me that I don’t know what it’s like to scrounge for food or that I don’t understand how it feels to not be financially supported, because I can guarantee you that I’ve been there before countless times throughout my life, and I know for sure that I’ll be there again. I can’t even tell you what type of shit I’ve been through when it comes to money and supporting myself.
I’m not mentioning this in an attempt to throw a pity party, however, because I know that my situations could have been a lot worse than that. I am bringing these things up to say that it is with these experiences that I can also tell you how many times I have denied food from someone who has offered it because it was not vegan (or vegetarian back when I was one). I have turned down free meals plenty of times because they did not align with my ethics. I have never once let my misfortunes be thrown onto someone else, and that is all I am asking that people do. You cannot, cannot, cannot use your own shitty circumstances to give yourself some kind of false sense of entitlement to someone else’s life or body. To claim that you have the right to eat the flesh of someone else or the products of their torture is never justifiable, I don’t care what kind of life you’re living.
Veganism is not dangerous to anyone with a medical condition nor to anyone who is pregnant. You seriously have no idea what you’re talking about. You know what’s fucking dangerous, though? Assuming that you know everything about a person’s life and attempting to tell them that you know what they’ve been through.
You want to talk about what privilege is? Privilege is being a human being in a world where society’s complete foundation is based around the enslavement of non-humans. Yes, certain humans have been through some absolute hells and there are certain groups of people who have had it so inexplicably much worse than other groups. But every single human has a kind of privilege that no non-human animal will ever know. A human will not once in their life have to worry about being a dairy cow. A person doesn’t have to worry about being locked in a cage with 4 other women after having their noses cut off so that they will be forced to live their entire lifespan providing someone else with their eggs. A human doesn’t have to dread the day when they will be thrown into a pot of boiling water alive in accordance with standard legal procedures. A human is never going to be bred and born within a factory farm, nor will they have to worry about being hoisted upside down by their ankles onto a hook while their throats are slit because someone out there wants to eat them. Humans don’t have to worry about the vast majority of the population viewing them as food objects or pieces of skin to wear on their backs. Humans don’t have to worry about their entire lives being viewed as completely worthless, exploitable objects by almost every person out there.
And most of all, a human is never going to have to wonder if there is someone out there who is not only purposefully supporting the industries that do these things to them, but also laughing at their experiences within this horrific system and counting their entire existence as nothing of any significance. To be part of the dominant species and to live in a world where your species is viewed as the utmost superior life form in existence and to know that your rights are inherently more respected than any other being on the planet by the entire fucking world of human beings? That is privilege beyond all else.
Honestly, if I saw you in front of me, I’d punch you in the goddamn face right now and knock that stupid, anthropocentric, egotistical mindset right out of your head. Sit the fuck down.
I’ve been meaning to write about this for a while, because I seem to never be able to escape all of you illogical so-called feminists who aren’t vegans. I’m really trying to wrap my head around you guys. I keep coming across “feminist” blogs who are self-proclaimed cheese lovers or dairy fanatics, or feminists who are so enthralled in defending women’s rights, all while completely disregarding the ways in which they themselves are supporting an entire system that exploits billions of females’ bodies every year. The dairy industry being the main one you all seem to so shamelessly have some sort of sick infatuation with. I’m just so sick of your bullshit, I really can’t take it anymore.
I can safely assume that you all are strong proponents for body autonomy, and you all believe (as a major aspect of feminism) that no female’s body is someone else’s for the taking, right? You all so blatantly promote the idea that only the individual gets a say in what happens to her body and no one has the right to use a woman’s body or treat a woman as if she’s simply a vessel for reproduction. And this is an absolutely valid and essential fight that needs so much more attention than it currently has, I’m a feminist myself and I back these struggles 100%.
But why is it that you constantly fight for your rights to your own body, and you vehemently insist that no female’s body is up for subjugation and manipulation at someone else’s discretion, all while doing the same to countless other females? Why are you allowed to cast aside all of the plights and utter manipulation so many female animals are currently facing? What makes their suffering so different from your own, or any other woman’s? Are their bodies not being turned into machines? Are they not being objectified? Are their reproductive systems not being exploited and claimed as public property under a patriarchal system? What gives you (or anyone else) the right to have complete domination over another being’s body like that?
You cannot claim to be against the oppression of females and fight against gender inequality while eating animal products or supporting animal exploitation of any form. It’s just so absolutely outlandish given the ways that our patriarchal culture is so heavily rooted within animal agriculture. It is debatable that perhaps the animal agriculture system is where the entire patriarchal system began. Do you not understand that the meat, dairy, and egg industries flourish off of the subjugation of females and their reproductive systems? Can you not see that this entire system is built around the principle of reproductive control of female bodies and the objectification of them? They literally thrive off of female oppression. In fact, they wouldn’t even exist without it. The ways that these animals are treated is the exact same as the way human females have been treated since the dawn of time. Having compartmentalized compassion and only believing that some females should be respected as individuals is so ass-backwards I can’t even comprehend it.
Sows are thrown into gestation crates and their entire miserable lives consist of nothing more than being viewed as incubators and units of mass production. They live in stalls so narrow that they can’t even turn around, most of them spend the duration of their lives wallowing in their own feces. They are repeatedly inseminated, again and again, only to give birth to endless litters of piglets until they are “spent” and their bodies are no longer “profitable,” so they are then killed. Egg-laying hens are seen as nothing more than items and their bodies are also abused and their lives are stolen from them so that they can be forced into mass production for agricultural businesses.
Dairy cows are treated as mere milk machines. They’re continuously impregnated just like sows, and they are repeatedly milked throughout their lives. Dairy cows are intentionally kept underweight because all of the energy from the food they consume goes right out of their bodies and into the milk they secrete, which is supposed to be feeding their babies. Instead, their babies are stolen from them, their babies are slaughtered and disposed of, while the mothers are kept alive in order to be used as production vessels. Animal agriculture robs all animals of their individuality and body autonomy, but especially female animals. Female animals have arguably some of the worst treatment inflicted onto them all because of the fact that they have a uterus which deems them to a life of reproductive exploitation and commodification. Whether it’s their milk, their eggs, or simply their uterus that the government is after, being able to produce any of these things guarantees that animal a life of absolute hell as a reproductive slave.
Tell me that is not exactly what you claim to be against as a feminist. Tell me that these industries don’t profit off of the exploitation of females, I fucking dare you. If I see one more “feminist” who so proudly supports the subjugation of other females and rants about how much they just “LOoOoOoOoVe cheese and milk and eggs~!” (i.e. products which are the epitome of our patriarchal system), I’m going to have to start breaking some necks. You are not feminists. You’re fucking hypocrites and nothing more. Either fight for the right of every individual’s body autonomy and refuse to continue supporting industries that revolve around the oppression of females, or shut your mouths and admit that you don’t truly believe in equality.
Most of you know exactly what it feels like to be treated like dirt, to be told that you’re a lesser gender. You know what it means to be viewed as nothing but a body. You understand how awful it is to be objectified constantly, to be looked down on and to be cast aside all because you’re viewed as less powerful and less important and less worthy of consideration as men are. You know what it feels like to have your autonomy denied to you. So why the fuck are you turning around and doing it to these animals? By supporting animal agriculture and other industries that oppress and exploit animals, you are treating these animals exactly as I just described. You are brushing aside another female’s suffering. You’re ignoring the ways in which other females are being exploited and taken advantage of. You’re saying it’s okay to treat another female as nothing more than a body. The very things you want to destroy, you are constantly perpetuating every time you consume animal products of any kind. It is only through a vegan lifestyle that one can truly embrace feminism for what it genuinely is.
I really can’t do anything but scoff at those of you who claim to support gender equality and women’s rights all while you blindly shovel things down your throat that were produced through the rape, reproductive system manipulation, and exploitation of such a vast number of other females. Those females are just as worthy of your consideration as anyone else is. Their bodies and their lives are just as much their own as yours is. So next time, before you want to start talking about how the government needs to stay out of your body and your life, you sure as hell better make sure that your own lifestyle doesn’t entirely revolve around objectifying other females and exploiting someone else’s body.
