h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Non-sky fairy methods of animal slaughter also requires the animal to be bled. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_slaughter

RF

Sorry, should have said bled while still conscious rather than stunned as in non-sky fairy methods.

I just find it a really odd thing to get worked up about.... for me it fails the "so what?" test.

Cultural groups want exemption from a very minor law about animal butchery on cultural grounds which gives them no financial or other unfair advantage as far as I can see, though I'm open (as always) to correction on this. I really don't think that a few minor tweaks to insignificant regulations makes much difference, or is too much to ask.

There are objections on the grounds of animal cruelty that may or may not be legitimate. But in my view, you're only entitled to complain and campaign about this if you have a general commitment to animal rights in a much broader context - otherwise it just looks like picking and choosing. Mostly picking. On one group in particular.

Another example. Islamic mortgages work differently because usury is forbidden - I believe that they have a system where they don't pay interest (oh dear me no), but instead pay some kind of fee, or have the bank buy a property and then buy it from them for a higher fee in monthly instalments over, let's see.... say... 25 years? For some reason (because it's sold twice?) this can have tax implications that normal mortgages don't, and I think the regulations were changed so that this did not happen, and they're on the same footing as mortgages or similar arrangements.

On one hand, I think rules against usury are sensible in the sense of forbidding extortion and exploitation (and I'm sure that was the original intent), but crazy in terms of forbidding fair lending between consenting informed partners. I also think that performing evasions to technically avoid the letter of religious law is a bit crazy too. But on the other hand.... it's not costing me anything, and I really don't care and don't see why anyone else should either. So why shouldn't we tweak the rules in ways that don't mean anything or cost anything or disadvantage the majority, but will benefit minority groups a great deal?

> But in my view, you're only entitled to complain and campaign about this if you have a general commitment to animal rights in a much broader context - otherwise it just looks like picking and choosing. Mostly picking. On one group in particular.<

In my view I feel entitled to object to it on the grounds that higher mammals quite clearly perceive pain in the same way we might. They have well developped areas of the brain that perceive pain; their behaviour would seem to indicate it as well. And we're not talking a few peasants without access to modern techniques of humane slaughter methods. We're talking a modern, mechanised country, using modern farming techniques to supply millions of people with what is one of the great pleasures in life, namely eating meat. Over time using technology we have arrived at the point where, as far as we can tell, the most humane form of slaughter involves stunning first. Society isn't going to turn veggie; I'm certainly not. I do all I can to buy meat from animals that have been farmed with welfare in mind eg outdoor reared pork, free range chicken.

I don't know what you mean by 'animal rights'. I certainly would never describe myself as someone who took the label, animal rights campaigner, not knowing what animal rights are. I just look at what seems to me the most rational way of dealing with modern mass slaughter, in terms of minimising pain. Unless you call a sense of caringness about animals, an animal rights thing. (You did actually put that in your list as a "British' characteristic).

It has nothing to do with 'picking' on one group, it's just about using reason. And doing it the way of Halal or Kosher isn't using reason. It's something superstitious and unnessecary. Are Muslims and religious Jews, really suggesting that their religion would fall apart if they had to use other methods? Can they not adpt just a teensy bit to the modern world?

And no it's not the biggest thing in life for me to get rid of Halal, but I have a view on it, and I'd prefer to see it discontinued, and I feel fully entitled to complain without some kind of general mindset of campaigning for animal rights. And it's in context that I don't think it in any way threatens Muslims' way of life. In another context such as seal clubbing in some Canadian communities, I might take a different view because it would so affect their way of life.

And as for those who claim Halal actually tastes better, I'd love to see blindfolded experiments to test that claim out. It'd have to be done with people who aren't practicisng Muslims of course, but I've heard it said by people who aren't Muslims as well. So lets see. If it actually does appear to, if it does, I might have more sympathy with its continuence..at least there's be a good rational reason for it.

And I will laugh if someone pops up again and suggests I'm encouraging fellow travellers by holding this opinion.

Cut in half, jam on both sides, cream in the middle.

Err should that have been in the Scone thread? Or was it deliberately here?

FB

Ah.

I'm just off to cook a cheeky sirloin..with sliced tomatoes, capers avec some new frozen chunky oven chips I'm trying out, that the packet claims are gorgeous; they're basted in beef dripping.

Oh the convenient gorgeosity of the modern world.

Let's not get distracted by the religious inhumane slaughter canard: the traditions of butchery in the eastern Balkans is pretty horrific and yet you don't get the halal opponents up in arms over that.

Scratch the surface a little and you find the halal outrage is just racists looking for an acceptable way to attack Muslims. Not saying that's the case for everyone, but certainly the majority.

>>I can only assume from this that you don't know what "ad hominem" means.<<

And I you. You have given one example of an ad hominem, the other being insulting a person instead of their arguments. Telling someone to get an education, calling them 'dear', telling them they are incapable of understanding something are all ad homs. So come down off the high horse there.

>>You, on the other hand, have insinuated I'm a BNP supporter.<<

Well, no, you've done that by talking and acting like a BNP supporter and I am far from the only person to come to this conclusion.

>>Suppose a bunch of guys dressed up in white robes and pointy hoods, and went and burned a cross outside a black family's home, you'd have NO problem with that at all... so long as they paid for the cross themselves?

Or if someone dressed up in a WWII german army uniform and burned a star of David outside a synagogue? As long as they paid for the uniform and star, eh, just a harmless nutter?<<

Outside someone's home would count as intimidation, so that's not the same thing. Before you even try to claim the book burning was intimidation aimed at you, it wasn't and the analogy, yet again, is flawed. Doing something offensive *outside someone's home* is aimed directly at them. Doing something offensive in the most public place in a city is a gang of gleetards expressing their delusions to everyone.

As for the synagogue example, it doesn't have to be a hypothetical because we have the EDL doing similar right now in the UK. I find it distasteful in the extreme but I've learned to ignore the pathetic tantrums of those beneath my contempt.

I forget who it was who said that the biggest threat to liberal democracy isn't terrorism, but that democracy's response to the terrorism but I agree whole-heartedly with them and you are giving an object lesson in why.

Hootoo has its own Muslim fundamentalist in the shape of warner and I attack him and his perverted beliefs relentlessly, but I consider yours to be more of a threat.

"talking and acting like a BNP supporter"

Thus neatly demonstrating you have little to no idea EITHER what the BNP stand for OR what I think about things.

One of my favourite hobbies is ridiculing people who say they're in favour of the death penalty. Guess what the BNP stance on that is?

I'm basically in favour of privatisation of most industries. Guess what the BNP position is on that?

I find homophobia, and in particular the canard that homosexuality is "unnatural", hilarious and disgusting in equal measure. Guess what the BNP stance is on that?

I'm fundamentally a republican, and would prefer the monarchy (or at least the civil list) to be abolished. Guess what the BNP stance is on that?

Calling someone "dear" isn't ad hominem, it's called being patronising. (That means talking down to someone...). And I only come to the conclusion that you can't understand something when you've demonstrated an inability to understand it. Example: characterising me as a BNP supporter when on practically every important policy, I'm the opposite.

Try harder.

HonestIago - Sandalista


And the Jews...they do the same thing they just use different words.

And Muslim is not a race it's being part of Islam...maybe you mean attack 'Arabs'?

>>Thus neatly demonstrating you have little to no idea EITHER what the BNP stand for OR what I think about things.

One of my favourite hobbies is ridiculing people who say they're in favour of the death penalty. Guess what the BNP stance on that is?

I'm basically in favour of privatisation of most industries. Guess what the BNP position is on that?

I find homophobia, and in particular the canard that homosexuality is "unnatural", hilarious and disgusting in equal measure. Guess what the BNP stance is on that?

I'm fundamentally a republican, and would prefer the monarchy (or at least the civil list) to be abolished. Guess what the BNP stance is on that?<<

The raison d'etre of the BNP is racism and xenophobia, exactly the sort of nonsense you have posted in this thread and others. Those other policies are simply decoration and do nothing to distract from this main reason for being. You whole-heartedly embrace this ideology and have defended it vigorously on many occasions.

I disagree with the Labour Party on academies, on university funding, on security policy and on Trident and yet it would be entirely accurate to describe me as a Labour supporter because I agree with their main ideological conceit: the State should actively redistribute wealth and support its least-off members and that the poorest citizen should be given the same opportunities as the richest.

>>Calling someone "dear" isn't ad hominem, it's called being patronising<<

Now think a little deeper sugar plum: patronising is ridiculing someone and their abilities which is an attack on them. A very passive aggressive attack on them, but an ad hom nonetheless.

>>And Muslim is not a race it's being part of Islam...maybe you mean attack 'Arabs'?<<

If I'd have meant Arabs, I'd have said Arabs. For the purposes of describing hate crimes and speech against Muslims, the legal profession has decided racist may be used. I choose to follow that.

Going back a few posts to pick up on this:

>>The thing is apart from the possibility of being blown up I really don't care what immigrants do particularly (as long as I don't get a Mosque or Temple (or even church) built round the corner.)<<

This what I truly don't get - how is it any of your ing business?! If they've bought the land, paid for the building themselves and obeyed all relevant laws, why should your opinion on the building count for anything?

I can't stand Primarks as they are invariably chav magnets and I'd rather sandpaper my own eardrums than listen to a chav, but that doesn't mean that Primarks should be banned. It just means I'm an intolerant, grumpy misanthrope who should grow up.

Incidentally, until my recent move I lived within a mile of about half a dozen mosques. In 32 months I didn't hear the call to prayer once.

Off on my hols for a couple of weeks.

So long.

swl: <>

I read this first in the Scone thread where FB then commented: <> That struck me as a pretty random comment at the time but when I just read swl's comment here I almost spat out my coffee!

<//offtopic>

Deb

One day, we'll have an edit button on here.


Then no doubt I'll be one of those moaning about these new features changing everything.

My neighbour downstairs occasionally puts what I imagine is a call to prayer on in the morning. It doesn't annoy me in the slightest - his predecessor in that flat was a crackhead whose nightly fists-n-furniture fights with his "friend" drove me to drink. It was NINE MONTHS before the police finally acted and barred entry to him for three months, when the little girl on the ground floor brought a crack pipe home to mummy. He was evicted a while later.

Instead, now I get a beautiful lilting muezzin to wake up to, when he's not drowned out by some idiot's car stereo.