I wouldn't call them sadists. Sadism implies that they are aware of any particular torturing/pain the source animal goes through, and specifically enjoy knowing something endured a painful death so they could have the fur. I don't attributed the average waste of oxygen as being aware of that, so assuming they enjoyed the infliction of pain is irrelevant, and therefore the sadism label is not logically valid.
Man has been killing animals for their furs for thousands of years. Even the american indian, who was likely a far better steward of the land as whole than the rest of us have been since, did exactly that - killed animals for their fur and hides so they themselves could keep warm.
I'm not particularly inclined to delve into opinions on fashion at the moment, so I won't.
And for the record, I've no objection to eating meat, or wearing fear or leather-based apparel.
Consider for a moment, the alternatives. Yes there are synthetic materials that look and feel similar to leather and fur, and have similar if not better insulatory qualities. Have you considered what it took to make that synthetic material? I doubt the process is as friendly to the environment as raising an animal for its fur. Synthetics are extremely nasty to produce: the computer you're using for example, required the use/pollution of a few hundred gallons of water (or liters if you prefer) to manufacture. The computer can add numbers a hell of a lot faster than an abacus, but that comes at a cost. Likewise, the other synthetic materials that you'd wear in place of leather and fur I would bet are just as nasty to make.
One might also argue that bikers have a justifiable need for leather: when a biker takes a spill (and it's a when, not an if), they are simply safer. If they are not wearing leather, they will end up losing a great deal of skin and flesh simply from sliding across the road surface, which acts as sandpaper on this scale. If they are wearing leather, the leather will take the damage, leaving the biker's body quite a bit more intact.
Certainly there's a bit of fashion in biker's leather, but it is also a safety issue.
On the flip side, it seems to me that most women cannot cope with temperatures under 72 degrees or so (22 I think for you celsius-speakers) so maybe their fur coats have a related although hidden justification.
Sjo, I see that problem here in Texas, can't really speak for anyplace else. The general climate here is hot, damn hot, or hot and humid. I was at a comedy show over the weekend, and the women who were in the group I was with were doing the whole hand-rubbing thing and wrapping up tighter to keep warm. I was totally comfortable in there, it was about 70.
Well, I'm against killing an animal *only* for its fur. But if the animal would be killed anyway--say, a cow for beef--why not use all of it?
And I believe it's natural for humans to eat meat. Our ancestors in the jungles did it, and we certainly have the teeth for it. Nobody calls it cruel when a dog eats meat, right? It's only natural.
And for the record, I do have a fur sweater. It's angora--gotten while the animal is alive and well.
I used to have a chinchilla myself and the thought about how many of them it would take to produce a fur coat disgusted me, I can't even stand the thought of wearing fur period. I live not too far from where there are mink farms and I wish they'd disappear but as long as fur is popular especially mink it'll continue.
I used to have a chinchilla myself and the thought about how many of them it would take to produce a fur coat disgusted me, I can't even stand the thought of wearing fur period. I live not too far from where there are mink farms and I wish they'd disappear but as long as fur is popular especially mink it'll continue.
I've got two chins myself. They are such lovely little furballs, I can't imagine why anyone would want to wear them :cry:
try living outdoors in a bender in february. i sleep on sheepskins, but i know they were killed humanely, as i got them from a bloke i know well. i do have a bit of a thing about furs and skins - it's my tactile capricorn nature, i expect. and sitting/lying on them does help my back, and keeps me warm. i once found a roadkill badger and skinned and cured it myself. poor thing - at least i've shown it some respect - we honoured its spirit. it had been shot before it was run over.
The title of this thread refers to "things" in the plural. Is fur the only thing you're against?
I think battery hen farms are cruel.
On the matter of being against something... I find myself getting all indignant at the way the media refer to the Indian Ocean tsunami. Some sources have called it a "tidal wave" - totally, utterly wrong! A tsunami is caused by seismic activity under the sea, whereas tides are caused by the moon's gravitational pull. Many people (including, regrettably, Oxfam) are referring to it as the "Asian" tsunami. This is inaccurate because (a) four African countries were affected (Kenya, the Seychelles, Somalia and Tanzania) and (b) not all the countries of the Asian continent were affected.
(See
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/4126019.stm )
It's all too similar to the way the media reports a famine in Sudan as an "African tragedy" - treating the continent as one huge disaster zone and not bothering with the names of individual countries. In other words, it's racist. How would we have liked it if the global media had referred to the conflict in former Yugoslavia as the "European war"?
I'm with you all the way about the tsunami. In Sweden they keep calling it "flood wave" and I usually raise my voice and holler every time they say it. It was a sea wave; a seismic sea wave.
People that try to stop me from making money
hate them all =p
My guess is that if you try to educate some lady in a fur coat about all the pain and suffering that went into that coat, she'd probably cover her ears and scream "NOOO! STOP IT! I DON'T WANT TO HEAR IT!" Not necesarily because she's sadistic, but more like she wants to live in select bits of reality and shield herself from others.
I'm having trouble putting the exact concept to words, so let me use a comparison... I was once in the car with some people and one of them started whining about the roadside memorials that marked the sites of fatal car accidents. Everybody knows car accidents kill, but this lady didn't want it pointed out to her every few miles that "somebody once died right here", despite the effectiveness of roadside memorials in preventing more car accidents. So, do we pull up all the memorials and have more traffic deaths so this one lady can live in a fantasy world in which nobody dies on the highway?
It's a similar situation with fur coats. When some spoiled lady is wearing a fur coat, all she probably wants to think about is "soft, fuzzy, warm", and god forbid you remind her of "leghold trap, stomp, cage, anal electrocution", lest she go ballistic.
Don't ever vandalize some rich person's fur coat. She'll just buy another one.
I am so tired of people who keep calling me on my cell-phone at night with hidden ID and make breath-sounds or dont answer.Its scary!!
