Tuesday, December 8, 2009

Activists owe thanks to factory farmers

If you want to hear a new stance on the pros of factory farming check out this link.

Well, I will give this guy a few points for trying a completely different tact from the usual anti-veg, pro-big-ag arguments.

But, unfortunately not enough points to balance out the huge deficit he's taken by presenting his completely nonsensical point.

His premise is that animal activists should thank farmers because, through farming, they have given activists time to pursue their activism as opposed to spending their time hunter-gathering.  In a roundabout way this makes sense.

But then he goes off on such an irrelevant tangent with this quote:
"Pacelle spends his days trying to abolish animal agriculture. Even as he spends his time in this manner, he should be thanking farmers that he's able to do so. If he had to find his own berries and leaves, not much time would be left for working against the so-called "factory farms.""

Perhaps the farmers could grow berries and leaves (because that's all veg*ns eat) instead of killing animals - this would also free up time for Pacelle to do his thing. Does it really follow that farmers have to kill animals to free up other peoples' time? Is this why they do it? So it's not about profit after all? (And what does he mean by 'so-called "factory farms"' anyway?)

Beat this even more irrational argument:
"Let's take this a step further. While Pacelle and other animal rights activists do not agree with meat consumption, they should at least realize the contribution to society. How many engineers, scientists, teachers, doctors, etc. were able to purchase a turkey at the grocery store for the holidays? Without animal ag, these folks would have had to raise their own turkey. To me it's a no brainer. Society is better off with these folks working in their chosen field, not raising backyard turkeys. "

No brainer? Try no brain. I think this guy has completely missed the point. Just don't eat a turkey. Then no-one has to raise it.

I'm not sure if this is a joke, but heres the next well-thought-out logical conclusion to be made:
"Unless Pacelle and the other animal rights folks have completely surrounded themselves with vegetarians, they should be thanking our country's meat producers. That means the postman, car dealer, waiter, mechanic, etc. Unless all these folks are vegetarians, animal ag has benefited Pacelle."

Why don't we also thank the tobacco producers? Whatever would we do without them? Imagine if the smokers had to quit their jobs to grow tobacco. Probably better thank the fast-food giants while we are at it. Would suck if we had to grow our own greasy burgers.

3 comments:

  1. Oh, how stupid of me. If there weren't factory farms to give me meat to eat, I would have no time to protest about factory farms.

    Honest to god, did these people have logic bypasses?

    ReplyDelete
  2. It appears so.

    Would you believe he's got a communications degree in journalism??

    I guess even the lowest pass mark means you still get to be a journalist...

    ReplyDelete
  3. I might even suggest that the lowest possible functional intelligence means you still get to be a journalist!

    ReplyDelete