> The cruelest thing you can do to an animal is to make it extinct.
>
>> The vegetarian movement has nothing to do with the health and well being of
>> any animals or humans.
>>
> They live a much longer
> average lifespan than do wild pigs, suffer much less from parasites and
> diseases, and have much kinder deaths than do their wild counterparts.  They
> live a life of leisure in a climate controlled enviroment surrounded by
> their friends.  They probally see it much in the way protrayed in the
> beginning sequence of the movie "Babe".
>

Are you prodding us, Ray?  (Pun intended)

Hmm.  Picture this:  You pin down your hawk, squeezing him
so tight he can't struggle because he can't get a breath.
Then, take a hot knife and slice his beak off, right where
the most sensitive nerve endings are.  Do the same with his
talons. Will you take note of his muffled screams?  Now, let
him up and see how he does with hunting for the next few
days.  Does't seem like a natural state for him to live in,
does it?  Of course, he dies, since he can't get food for
himself.  Or maybe you care for him in his crippled state by
clipping his wings and confining him in a tiny cage where
his feet are rubbed raw by the wire beneath him. As his
condition quickly deriorates, and the antibiotics keeping
his infected wounds in check are getting expensive at this
point, you figure, "Better kill him before he gets too
skinny and there's not enough meat on him to make him worth
the pluck."

This is a kind picture.  The animals in our modern farms
aren't given the choice to run or fly away and live
naturally.  They don't get to ask the guy with the captive
bolt pistol to put them out of the misery of their short
lives when the arthritis that grips legs that don't get to
move on the cold concrete causes inflamed joints to swell,
collapsing grossly obese bodies into their own waste.  I
worked for years as a veterinary technician.  My job was to
treat individual animals, not entire species.  When it comes
down to holding one animal in your arms, trying to convey
the message that you're working to ease it's pain and not
meaning to hurt it, this is when your commitment to
vegetarianism is cemented.  It is reaffirmed when you
investigate the appauling living conditions:  Have you ever
seen or treated a bird with bumblefoot?  Funny name, but not
a pretty picture.  Have you ever seen a hog live to
adulthood whose leg bones that were designed to hold 300
lbs. finally split and crumble under its 1500 lb. weight?
Do you want to see some "good" video of these leisurly,
climate-controlled habitats?  Not very natural, I'm sure
you'd agree.  How about some close-ups of the individuals
who live in these habitats?  Is this what you would call a
life of leisure if you lived in it?  Parasites?  Hah!
Nothing compared to oozing skin infections, mutilated bodies
and hobbled legs.  Artificial insemination - wow, sounds
like life on a tropical island!  How kind of a death is it
when your body still has life in it - all it needs is access
to some water to rehydrate it - but instead, as a prisoner,
your're tossed onto the "deadpile" with the heat of rotting
bodies beneath you further dehydrating you?

The desperation of these pictures is what the vegetarian
movement is about.  Serfdom lies behind the walls and fences
that we build to house our "food", and behind the walls in
our minds that label it a life of leisure.  Serfdom lies
within our own species'  intellect that is too flawed to
learn to control its own population, which would eliminate
the need for agriculture.  When our species crashes, as we
cruelly make ourselves extinct, it will be interesting to
see if our descendants evolve into vegetarians.  I will be
smiling up out of my scattered pile of dust and through
every organism of which I become part.  I became paleo for
health reasons and because the facts of evolution are out of
my control in my blip of time.  Do I become a slave when I
respect every animal that becomes my flesh and go out of my
way to make certain it was not treated like those noted
above?  (Who would want to eat an animal with all that
sickness in it anyway?) Or am I freed from the burden of
guilt of taking a life as precious as my own?

Kaplah,
Lois