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Originally written by USA-se Xenerali-veiratu CUSITURA:
Plants are alive, yes, but they're not conscious; neither are eggs or cheese. (If you're against it on the basis of no explotation of animals, I'd be more than happy to point out that chickens would have eggs anyway.)

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Most fish, conscious or not, are not capable of feeling pain on a level similar to that of intelligent land creatures.
And quite frankly, to say that an animal has a similar life to you is biologically sound but otherwise ridiculous. Cows are stupid, stupid animals, and the same goes for chickens; they feel pain, they bleed, but to say they have a common thread with humans on more than a biological level is preposterous.

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I personally happen to fall in more to the exploitation angle (being a good socialist, and also not wanting to tangle with the implication of eggs having anything to do with grown humans); I might be a vegetarian if I thought it would do any good for the animals in question or for humanity as a whole; but overall, people in America are still going to eat twice as much as they need while people in Africa are still going to starve for want of half of it.

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And one consumer's difference won't change the policies of the meat industry.

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The conscience-food market is and always will be dominated by the upper-class, who have the money and time to waste frittering away about how horribly we're exploiting animals, and at the same time supporting the exploitation of migrant farm laborers.

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Originally written by Distantly Bemused:

Ah, but is cold-blooded murder wrong if it saves more lives than it ends? And can you equate all life to be of equal value, amongst humans or indeed amongst animals in general?

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