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Culture War Roundup for the week of December 25, 2023

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The main argument about the cruelty involved in agri-business intensive factory farming and the suffering caused is the best of their case. That does raise legitimate points to be answered, and to see and understand what is really going on for the production of cheap, plentiful animal protein for us to consume.

It's when they get into "of course you're an immoral heartless monster if you don't immediately this second give up all meat and animal products", and when some of them get into the sentimental theatrics around weeping cows etc. that turns me off.

Especially the double standard when it comes to keeping pets; they don't let their cats outside, which seems to me very cruel to animals that are not meant to be indoors all the time. That's because they don't want the cats killing birds and other small animals, which okay maybe, but that's nature. But they want to go against nature when it suits them when it comes to being able to exploit animals, such as pets, as unconditional-love-production machines. Then we get posts about having to put the cat on a diet because it put on too much weight. Well, yeah, of course it did! It's inside literally 24/7 with nothing to do but eat, instead of being put out at night at least, or let out during the day, to run around and be an animal. Though part of that is as much that the people are living in places where they don't have a back garden or any way to let their cat out. But the human at least can get out of the house.

Okay, that's a side track, but the point I think still stands: they're willing to be cruel in a small way to animals for companionship, so their morality isn't 100% perfect. Nobody's is, of course, but they don't get to call other people immoral for not living up to their standards then.

There's also the route of "how dare you take medication when you're sick, that virus needs to replicate inside you to survive, by taking medicine you're essentially conducting a genocide".