Foreskin, I lost you as a newborn.
Alas, I never knew ye.

ekoorbr, I agree with you and I'm not attacking what you said, I'm just continuing the train of thought here.

While there are a lot of commonalities that cuts across most cultures, it is difficult to find one that is universal. We might say rape and slavery should be universal but rape and slavery is condoned in the old testimate (I'm not using a religious argument but rather using it here as a historical document of what was accepted). My point is that societies evolve, what was once accepted might not be accepted at a later date.

The crux of the problem with morality is that different societies evolve at different pace and direction. We, as humanity, hasn't evolved to a point where we are one whole society rather than being multiple races breaking up into different societies. Who can represent humanity? The Americans, Europeans, Asians, Africans, or the UN?

At this point in our development as the human race, it is nearly impossible if not outright impossible to get everyone to sign off on a set of values in which we believe. And here lies the problem with the American narrative and its imagine around the world especially in the Middle-East, Africa, and here in China.

We are brought up to believe we are the good guys and that everyone wants to emulate us. We are the hero cowboy that rides into town to save the town folks from the bad guys, we can do no wrong.

The problem is that not everyone sees it that way. We are the 500 pound gorilla sitting in the living room that no one wants to upset. They don't want the gorilla in the house but there it is nonetheless.

We need to remember the fact that if we want to incorporate and encourage other societies to join the global stage, we need to stop acting like we are the masters and instead, act like a voting member of this global society with no special privileges. Why should others respect our beliefs when we don't respect theirs. We forbid others from pursuing nuclear weapons while at the same time we jealously guard our stockpile and use it to loom over the heads of people we don't like.

This has gotten a bit too heavy for this forum, but just giving my two cents.

Yeah, but the dogs they eat are those ugly little yellow dogs normally. It isn't like they are eating the cute dogs like Huskies, Collies, or so on. And there are a lot of freakin' ugly dogs around this town. The small ones with the faces that look like someone hit with a sledgehammer and the overbite.

Meat is meat. You can't complain about eating dogs if you are eating chicken, beef, mutton, or whatever! I try anything: rabbit, snake, pigeon, goose, dog, cat, duck's blood, chicken's blood, brains, and I've even eaten testicles before. I would like to try to eat panda, but I don't think they would let me. I did have whale and dolphin before too.

And, well, aren't vegetables and fruits life too? Or more like the sexual reproduction methods or products of plants? I was vegetarian for two years. The longest I made it without eating meat. And what I learned from it, after awhile, everything made me disgusted. I could eat vegetables, beans, potatoes, pasta, and everything made me sick. That's why I gave up. That, and I like sea food.

Just remember that some French and japanese eat horses, koreans eat dogs, some Thai eat insects and not all chinese eat dogs or cats. Even bull balls ( mountain oysters) are eaten in some US states. How do you think farmers in US, NZ, european or Australian farms slaughter lambs, pigs, chicken etc for home consumption? Would they be that much more civilised or humanely killed than those killed for food in asian or african farms??

Food is food and the food chain is a reality everyone should be able to deal with. Dogs are below us in the food chain just like pigs and cows and, well, pandas I guess...

But what I think is more important about peoples reactions to a dog slaughterhouse is it highlights the fact that we no longer earn what we eat. This means we're disconnected and often totally irrational about the whole meat eating process. Most of us probably couldn't catch, kill and skin a rabbit on their own which would barely cover the amount of meat we eat in a few days if not less. That means not only that we can't stomach the idea of the killing process or we make judgments across cultures and we differentiate according to our own upbringing between killing different animals for food. It also means we eat WAY more meat than we need or deserve in our diets. Overconsumption of meat is a driving force for environmental degradation and global warming. Check out www.globalissues.org/article/240/beef
Anyways my only other thing is that can we please stop comparing eating dogs to genital mutilation? Genital mutilation is caught up in issues of religion, patriarchal society and its treatment of women, issues of race under colonialism/imperialism... I just think its way more complicated and controversial than how icky we think eating dogs may be.

Shucks - - next y'all are gonna be against killing people and cannibalism.

Cheers

LuJingLin, I don't think genital mutilation was ever compared to eating dogs. Both were merely cited as examples of which one set of practice we accept (eating cows and male circumcision) and one which we condemn (eating dogs and female circumcision), where as an object observer might see them both as being the same (eating dogs and cows, and male and female circumcision).

Besides, the circumcision example was dropped from the discussion some time ago until you brought it back into play. **wink wink**

JJ, is that a hint of sarcasm I detect? ;)

Violence is a natural part of human nature or the world. Just because people might frown upon killing or cannibalism, it still happens. We have war, murderers, disease, motor accidents, and killing happens all the time. Trying to be idealistic isn't going to change it.

The point is not that dog slaughter is "icky." The point is weather and in what cirmstances it and the slaughter of other animals is morally justified. Does a person's taste for dog meat or pork justify the torture and death of the dog or pig?

Even assuming that humans need meat to survive and be healthy (which is debatable as the vegetarian and vegan lifestyles suggest), it's morally abominable to put animals through the suffering inherent in factory farms or in this local dog-slaughter operation. At the very least we should advocate the humane treatment of animals prior to their painless death for our consumption.

Yes, violence and wars happen. They always will happen, probably. But humanity's history does evince some (unsteady) moral progress. "An eye for an eye" was a moral breakthrough in ancient Babylon. Today it is seen by many as barbaric. In the nineteenth century the world's most advanced societies, driven largely by economics, began to condemn slavery on moral grounds.

Human morality develops as societies achieve greater standards of living. It is our nature, I think, to become more humane as our more basic needs are satisfied. The question is whether our needs here and now justify the suffering of animals for their meat. For most of us, I think the answer is no.