The Spanish Government announced that it will investigate the "vejaciones y torturas" (indignities and tortures) caused to hogs.
"...investigará la denuncia pública de la organización Igualdad Animal, que asegura que los cerdos de las más de 99.500 granjas españolas sufren "de forma generalizada" trato vejatorio, hacinamiento, torturas, estrés, problemas psicológicos, castraciones, enfermedades tumorales e infecciosas."I think that "problemas psicologicos" needs no translation.
Something has happened to the Spanish people. These are not the Spaniards I knew. Then I remembered that great Spanish Emperor, Caligula, who was a true believer in Animal Equality, to the point of granting citizenship to his horse Incitatus. The horse legally married his mare called Penelope, and was even elected to the Senate. He was an early visionary of AA, marriage for everybody, and total equality.
10 comments:
Caligula was born at what is now Anzio (south of Rome) and was a member of the Julio-Claudian dynasty. The Hispania-born emperors were Trajan and Hadrian.
Oh !
Humanely treating animals isn't the same thing as marrying horses. There's no reason why simple, inexpensive changes that would make the process more humane can't be implemented.
Dave,
The name may give you a hint at the organizations goals, which I think go beyond mere humane treatment for animals. In the past there were "Humane Societies" that had the goals you speak of and with which many people agree. But the name of this group is "Animal Equality". In other words, pigs are people too, so J's reference to Caligula's horse the Senator is not far fetched. If pigs are equal to humans, then why can't they be elected to office?
K
The Romans were not ready for Caligula's visionary genius. 2000 years had to pass to people to start understanding that domestic animals are people too and have rights. For example, in this country we have "free eggs" which were produced by hens walking freely in a field, enjoying romantic relationships with cocks. Normally, a hen never meets a male in her life. In this country, a hundred percent of milk cows are artificially fertilized. Dont they have the right to live naturally? I have met idealistic youngsters who think that we are extremely cruel in denying sex to our animals.
Dear K
Where have you been living?
Pigs have been routinely elected to office for decades.
Anon.
That's because large numbers of pigs have been allowed to vote for decades.
Some people are pigs but no pigs are people - this is the fallacy.
However, having a pet dog made me realize that animals do have a certain level of consciousness. They may not be as smart as people and lack the ability to speak (but not the ability to understand a fair amount of language) but there's no question in my mind that they are often aware of what is going on. However, humans are adapted to a omnivorous diet and we often do not hesitate to kill (and in some cultures even eat) our fellow humans so the fact that animals are our fellow sentient beings has (in most cultures) not stopped us from killing and eating them too. Maybe in the future culture will evolve to a level where this is considered as barbaric as cannibalism (and if it does it will be thru the efforts of "wild eyed" activists such as Animal Equality, but for now it's OK to consider such people to be nuts.
Are you aware of the English movement against animal nudity? Nuttiness is deeply embedded in the human soul.
I agree that mishegos is part of the human condition, but why is the mishegos of certain peoples directed toward putting sweaters on dogs and that of other peoples directed at putting bombs in public places? How can we turn the Arabs into harmless eccentrics who spend their time bird watching and collecting stamps?
K
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