I dare you to visit the URL above. I double dare you. I triple dare you. I dare you to have the courage to look at what humans do to animals, at where your milk and meat and cheese and eggs come from. If you can’t look at it, don’t ever again describe yourself as brave.
We are so damned fond of saying that “Most people are generally good.” But isn’t’ true. Not even close. Humans are monsters.
This is where your dairy milk comes from. It is just one part of the gigantic mass torture and slaughter mechanism that is America’s cattle-for-food industry. This kind of cruelty is what we don’t like to think about when we pour our glass of milk, crack open an egg or throw that steak on the bbq.
This is what and who we are. Yes. All of us. Because we all allow it.
I’m not going to argue the right or wrong of eating meat, milking cows. But I’m going to say this to you, and if you don’t like it, I invite you to unfriend me.
The animals that provide the food so many of us love, as I did until I opened my eyes and had the courage to look at the real cost of that food, deserve to be treated with kindness and respect and then, if they are to be killed, to have it happen unexpectedly and as painlessly as possible.
If you think that your Bible gives humans free reign, dominion, to treat other animals in this manner, don’t tell me you’re a Christian. Anyone who thinks this is “okay” is a monster. If your God tells you it’s okay to treat other sentient life forms like this, your God is nothing more than the monster that raised you.
Yes, a monster. It makes us monsters, like I was, and like you still are if you think this is acceptable. And here’s the thing that makes us monsters. As a “higher” intelligence, we can see that this is so wrong, and monstrous. We can see it, understand it, and change it. And we don’t.
Know this: these animals may not be able to build sky scrapers, or cruise ships, or send a man to the moon, but they are intelligent. They feel happiness, and comfort, and fear, and pain, and terror just as keenly as we do. They love their young and each other.
They are at our mercy. They cannot fight back. We have complete power over them .
And this is how we use that power.
We can do better. And knowing that we can, every day that we accept this kind of torture makes us willing accomplices. It makes us monsters. I want you to remember that. I want you to think about it every time you pour a glass of milk or stab your fork into a sausage or take a bite out of your Big Mac. I want you to remember it when you go to bed.
I want it to haunt you.
Only then can you, and I become ex-monsters. Until then, don’t even think about calling ourselves civilized. We are the enemy of every other living thing.