Meat Licence - hypothetical

I've managed, since I moved to Edinburgh over a month ago, not to buy any meat from the local supermarket. Although not as yet strictly vegetarian (i eat what’s put in front of me when visiting my father further north), i feel this is a step in the right direction.

I think it would be a good idea to introduce to the country a licence to buy meat. Not to buy animals.. just butchered meat. I don't think this is too militant; i don't even call myself vegetarian!
The way I see it is there are so many people who eat meat but go all squeamish and disapproving when the subject of slaughter and butchery comes up. Pictures of animals dying etc. But they are happy to pick up a vacuum packed cube of processed flesh for ready consumption.

Now how to get this licence? Kill and prepare your own dinner. That’s right. You'll have to walk up to a cow, kill it, deal with guts and eyeballs etc and make your own steak. Once this has been duly witnessed you are given a 'beef' sticker on your licence.

Now vegetarians might be in uproar with this idea. But what’s the alternative? A whole nation happily chomping away on animals whilst completely removed from the reality of it? – oh, that’s happening now isn’t it?

And no… you DON’T get the licence by remote control over the internet.

 

hmmm, i've been sounding this idea off people so much lately, i've got a horrible idea you might have heard it from me before. eek, apologies if so.

 

Yeah. Desensitise people even further. Good plan.

 

really? i thought it would put the vast majority off?

 

I doubt it. Most people would do anything to avoid giving up their big macs. Before you know it, you'd have a population to whom butchery was second nature. That's kinda how we got by before supermarkets.....

 

I don't think so.
modern education and ethics are more developed when it comes to animals in Britain since before the mass meat industrial age, do you not think?
fur is not so common place. Britain is famous on the continent as a land of animal lovers (in comparison to them).
I really do think people will be put off.
There would definately be a decrease on meat purchase as a whole I'm sure.

 

Not really, no. Animals are abused far more now than they ever have been. We've just moved it behind closed doors. All that's changed are our sensibilities. No offence, but you know what goes on in factory farms, and you still eat meat, right? I'm not knocking you, just illustrating how our principles often play second fiddle to our desires.

But leather is. And fur's making a big comeback.

We're also famous for being hypocrites. You'll notice how the Brits get very angry about foreigners eating horses and dogs, but we're quite happy for our cattle to be reared for the table in despicable conditions. So long as we don't have to see it.

We'll never know for certain, but I really doubt it. Most people would quickly adapt, learn to stomach the violence, and keep stuffing flesh down their throats.

 

Or could you not say that due to modern education and ethics we are aware of more abuse?
Closed doors as in factories? - the licence would push people inside them.

sensibilities? the very ones that provide abhorence when witnessing animal slaughter first hand no?

~
Otherwise, yes, i can see your point. Desensitisation is a problem.

 

desensitisqtion is q problem... but it is qlso q problem how people qre removed from the murder they indirectly commit everytime they eqt meqt.


... it would be qn interesting experiment

love clqirexxx

 

No. Factory farming on the scale currently practised is entirely without precedent. We abuse animals far more now than we ever have at any point in history.

I agree. All I see it doing is making the violence more socially acceptable.

No. Our sensibilities only exist because we've become a stage removed from the abuse as a result of urbanisation. People abhor the violence because they're not used to witnessing it.

 

After watching Baraka im seriosuly considering going into my own form of vegatarianism. I know i will have to go into it slowly though because i have such a small palet and have experianced eating problems in the past.
However i want to get it down to me only eating meat that has been bread on family farms, no mass bread animals. Free range. I hope this is possible.

I totally think meat is natural for us to eat, we are designed for it.. however i dont think slaughter in mass numbers... killing from a distance, killing for fun or money is good.

 

fair point

right, so from this i predict an initially vast decrease in the demand for meat due to a generation not used to killing followed by a long-term risk of desensitisation and wholesale carefree attitude to butchering.

The reason i say risk is because there may be a case where that initial generation does not have the capacity to bring up the next with a killing mind.
**edit actually i think the above point may well cancel out the below one

Although there will be the few... and I suppose that would gradually increase..
Hmmm, So in the long long term, a definate desensitisation. hmph

Perhaps the meat licence could be a short sharp shock from a nanny state!

 

There! A part of the film shows the interior of a chicken battery farm. Fleassy has been moved by it.

Fleass, would you go off chicken forever if you had to kill one?

 

qt the very leqst it would let people see the choice they hqve mqde more cleqrly i guess

 

I suggest you strip naked, do away with any man-made tools, go out into a forest and see just how much meat you can catch. Then tell me it's natural.

 

No.... i would know that id done the eep myself... id have done it and i would eat it (i think :S) i would eat it with the knowlege it led its life with a beak... that it lived its life with freedom to roam.



And Dok
Our body needs the nutrients in meat. our mouths evolved with the ability to eat both meat and vegetables and i feel that like many mamals i am a meat eater... no i havnt lived my life like a lion has training myself to kill my food so it would be incredibly difficault for me to do it.. but that doesnt mean its not a natural thing for me to eat.

 

That's not vegetarianism though

 

..............i.diqgree.....

 

I think it should also be pointed out that you could argue that plants are as alive and are as significant a part of nature as animals are, so I don't see a difference in the morality of eating an animal or a plant. I don't see why there should be one.

 

consciousess....