The best way to skin a cat

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Given the emotional attatchment people have to their pets I must say that this particular subject matter and the way it was presented in the OP is EXTREMELY PROVOCATIVE and twoshots, you really shouldnt be suprised that others including myself have a strong emotional reaction to it! I suspect that Mr. Fred2670 probably KNEW this and created it just to get people riled up. Just because emotions can be irrational Does NOT mean that they are always irrational! I find it somewhat amusing yet midly irritating that many people online try to pretend that they have no emotional bias or sway at all.

I have had many different kind of pets throughout my life and in accepting them as pets they became a part of my family. I have accepted tropical fish, lizards, rats, mice, seagulls, cats, dogs, hedgehogs, a muskrat, a praying mantis, and even had a rather dismaying attempt with a large American cockroach and in each case I attempted and was reasonably successful in understanding them and giving what they needed and desired. The idea of harming them or causing them distress was totally repellent but I do not kid myself as to how the world works.

I see the difference as just how far from postulates one starts. Reductionism isn't always helpful. Complex intellectual frameworks inevitably seem to lead to conclusions that are ludicrous or abhorrent. If people decide that they want to engage in that particular game, that's fine, but I don't personally see it as having meaning too much outside of the game.

That does leave a problem in how to articulate moral stances, though. I guess I need to modify my previous statement and say that it can help to communicate moral stances in a compact fashion -- just that it's tempting to incorrectly view that the amount of 'compactification' as reflecting a better moral stance.

In my view the many paths (to deciding about eating cats) are due to language and human conceptual frameworks being poor represenations of the actual thought. I think the underlying truth is about bonding, what it means to be alive, projection, death, life, evolution, etc. etc. (as best it can be put to words) Everybody knows what 'it' is, but as soon as you go to put it to words, it's not quite that anymore. (a bit OT, but: maybe this is why in some religeons the name of g-d can't be written)

I know that to talk to anybody else about moral views requires language; it's just easy to get so bound to that that the view of the original thing is lost.

So I don't think it's a lousy construct; it's just one that isn't easily put forth -- in terms of the language and the set of common constructs we have to communicate.

i love you.

but seriously, i respect that statement so much. it's something that the peta and a.l.f. activists just don't comprehend.

Ive done a little bit of googling on the subject & the OPs method is a LOT more humane than some traditional techniques!

The way in which you all jumped down Fred's neck upon reading only the title and first post of this thread (the second post MAKES IT CLEAR that he was talking about catfish, and yes, I know Aspies are bad at reading between the lines, but some of you are right hateful little sods without EVEN CONSIDERING the possibility of ulterior meanings) highlights the fact that you'd much rather attack someone than consider their point of view- and you've done the same- created threads with racist titles to provoke people and draw them in. Hypocrite of the day, I think.

me too lol, you can hear the lyrics right lol

The cattle industry does not equal animal cruelty and we are all quite aware of this.

The Cattle Industry is one thing, but torturing / killing animals for one's own sick pleasure is quite another. For this BS logic to hold, wouldn't the cat-killer have to process and consume the carcass after ripping it apart? That would certainly be no mean feat. I doubt any aminal sadist could be bothered. No, the creep would probably just bury the cat in a garbage bag.

Don't believe me? Ask Temple Grandin if cows are killed and mutilated just for fun. I guarantee she will have an interesting answer. Dr. Grandin is responsible for the improvedly humane slaughter of cows.

Would a cat really be that good to eat, anyway?

Whether killing is done for sadistic or commercial reasons, if you think there is not extreme suffering involved you are indeed gullible. I have seen videos of the type of activity that commercial slaughtering requires and performs and it involves tearing trachea from living animals, Skinning live and conscious animals, brutally whacking terrorized animals in such a way as to require several attempts, etc. Beyond that the jobs are poorly paid and workers who are horribly injured in the process slip around in blood covered floor and are rarely compensated for their injuries. That's why I applauded Fred shoving in your face the realities of that end of the food industry, whether he was serious or not.

Temple Grandin is professionally involved in a process she considers inevitable and she probably does her best to keep the animals calm before they are slaughtered but a kindly concentration camp guard during the holocaust that assured the Jews they were merely going for a shower is in somewhat the same position. Grandin is realist enough to know she cannot stop the slaughter but I can only feel it is nothing but a dirty job that may make the animals feel not so frightened.

What does skinning cats have to do with the cattle industry? They are not the same. How arew they same? Is there an entire inustry devoted to skinning cats? BY the way I have a pretty good idea how slaughterhouses work. I understand it isn't a day-spa for the cows. You try to shock me, but you can't.

Hmm, here's a harder arguement for vegtarians.

If we stopped eating meat, we'd actually have to slaughter pretty much all farm animals. We wouldn't be able to afford to keep them, we'd need the land that is used to produce their food for growing crops for humans to meet the new demand. We could probably keep a few small herds for historical purposes, but ultimately most would have to die. How do you feel about that?

To assume that humanity could be persuaded to become totally vegetarian is a cloud cuckoo land assumption on the level that we could all become animal lovers. We know well it won't happen. The meat industry is a powerful organization and it has the overwhelming bulk of the public on its side. Economics might do it if current technological projects gain any success in producing bulk meat in vats instead of animals but I don't see this happening soon. If it happens it will happen gradually and probably there will always be people who prefer eating animals which might become a luxury for the rich.

That's awful.

We need those animals just as much as they need us. We exist symbiotically in that we give them what they need and they give us what we need. There will be no Vegan Paradise, for neither man nor beast. Not as long as humans beings are omnivores ...

with meat-ripping canine teeth!

It sounds as if you enjoy ripping out the throats of squirming animals with your teeth. Not my thing.

Not live animals, dead ones. I like my meat dead and prepared by someone else. I do not use my canine-teeth to kill live prey. If the animal is dead and on my plate, it's squirmin' days are done.