Sorry, deceptive title perhaps, re-read it with a lens thick with irony maybe.
Lot of it cannot be explained & when it is...it possesses huge gaps.
Up front, if you're an omnivore, carnivore, vegetarian or vegan no one cares. Some of you thought that anyway & some of you would be very annoyed were that true but why would you care that no one else does? Must be very close to your heart, must be an ideology you possess & live and it might even border on being the basis of a cult.
Sorry again, but for most rational, reasonable people its straight forward, eat whatever you want, its up to you. Its your choice & your responsibility. If you smoke 2 packs of cigarettes & your nutrition only comes from neat vodka & rich chocolate, unless you are forced to live live that, no one cares. Ask people what they think & some might say you're a bloody idiot or more softly its very unwise & will longer term reduce your quality of life, reduce your length of life or create health issues...but you know what, it's your choice. If you know the risks & you still don't care, thats on you. It may well be better on your friends & family if you got you act together & abandoned a spiralling descent but you hopefully you have enough solid data, facts, reasoned argument to make a wise decision. If you choose the less wise path, that's on you & all the best.
With Live Export there are those who...
1) Hate The Trade Because They Believe It To Be Cruel
2) Hate The Trade Because They Believe Eating Meat Is Wrong
Good luck spotting the difference because one can be reasoned with (in most cases) and the other is coming directly from a strict philosophical/ideological premise which can often be seen to be a cult dogma.
Lets seperate them going with the 1) group first.
Many of those who believe the trade to be cruel overlook several points. They're not researching the state of the trade at all. Often the picutures & footage shown are dated & outdated. Some even were taken before ESCAS was running. If that forms part of your belief, you're wrong & very much in the wrong.
That footage that is current like the unacceptable treatment of a middle eastern leakage trade uncovered "in a covert sting" by an Animals Australia activist miss several points. Its unacceptable but it happens & yes we must do what we can to rain that in. BANNING THE TRADE is the absolute worst option for those wanting red meat at an affordable price AND those genuinely wanting good AW outcomes.
For starters that leakage is too large but no effort was taken to show how big or large it was. My assumption is that it is not the majority of the sheep delivered, its an outlier. THAT its an outlier MUST be determined & taken into account. The people form group 2) who can often include ideological driven people will oppose that flat out.
Outliers are unacceptable, all must be banned.
With that approach I'm contemplating their actions on banning all pet ownership in WA. (See article **1** linked below)
Albany is a relatively small seaside city in Southern WA. According to the RSPCA Report into the number of reports, prosecutions & convictions of animal cruelty, it rates fouth worst in regional WA. Their data is based on pets & companion animals. Farm Livestock is not included as the RSPCA spokesperson has said on radio that reports with farm animals come under seperate reporting under the WA Ag Dept.
There were 6444 reports of cruelty across WA with 146 in Albany.
That's an area of 4312 square kilometres & has a population of 36,000 people. Now that number reflects what is reported & perhaps there are unreported acts of cruelty but we should assume that number of 146 probably wouldn't increase all that much...hopefully.
We don't know many pets there are in Albany but if there's 1.5 per household that's around 22,000 pets. And yes that might include birds in a cage of fish in a fish tank its just a ball park. (**2**)
At that rate those creatures would be safer, that is have standard or above standard AW conditions were they on a Live Export Ship. If Live Export of Sheep is to be banned, so to must pet ownership. One comment I got was 146 out of potentially 22,000 is quite low. Straight away the point being made is, its an outlier, its not enough to ban Pet Ownership. Perhaps there is a level that is so high that all pets should be banned but no one knows what that is but with Live Export there is no level for activists, if its just one unfortunate sick, dying or dead animal...the trade must stop.
The illogical nature of that hypocrisy is pretty breath taking & highlights those of an ideology driven passion. Cruelty in WA is an outlier at 6444 reports & not enough to ban pet ownership & yet the comparatively small leakage in Live Export will always be too high & even at zero it must be banned.
So whenever we're taking with people who want to ban Live Export they need to be very honest & explain if they're from group 1) or from group 2).
Enter the problem when some of group 2) are hiding in amongst group 1)
The Ideology driven opponents have used (very recent twitter exchange) words like violence, murder, reprehensible & wrong.
Things went like this, it was explained that eating meat was not violence or murder. Those are clearly defined within the Criminal Code. There is no reasoned sense in using "violence" or "murder" in relation to animals destined to become food. You may hate the idea intensely (and thats fine) but you cannot with any intellectual integrity use those words in relation to animal derived food. I note the word slavery & rape also gets used as well referring to Artificial Insemination & Dairy Cows.
In regards reprehensible & wrong, well not applied by them to companion animals and to say something is so very wrong you have to cite the rule source you're using to make the claim.
Here's where it unravels for the activist. They know it very well & they will try to deflect, attack another unrelated point or point to savagery, uncaring, cruel etc to avoid being honest & citing their moral code.
A recent reply to what is this moral code, who wrote this moral code, how does it have binding authority upon all others was met with the reply "Everyone who opposes violence"
Of course I oppose violence, but sometimes it is necessary, hence we have armed police & defence forces but I don't oppose eating meat because its not illegal, immoral and isn't violence.
Following reply was "I wasn't talking about eating meat" and yet they were.
Oddly we were then told that in a survival situation yes, you can eat meat from an animal but otherwise, unlike other animals we've evolved to know we have a choice & therefore we should not judge the lion eating the zebra and we should eat plant based food. We have this gift of choice.
Doesn't seem like a choice when we're being told not to eat meat because its evil. Seems like ugly coercion.
Who says we have this gift of choice, who specifically?
Who says is it therefore wrong to continue to eat meat?
Who is this person or moral code & who is it that has the authority to impose it on others who don't believe it?
This gift of choice, does it have a giver of the gift or is it evolved?
If its evolution, which evolutionary expert is it who can prove its existence because if we're just a blob of cells & chemicals living random life, where did the moral code evolve from & where can it be demonstrated.
I'd have to say this most recent experience did not involve the phrases about eating meat would give me cancer nor as has happened before a "lonely, slow and painful death" wasn't wished upon me. But one chap kept going with go to Job Seeker & keeping digging your own hole.
We never got any closer to finding out how or why eating meat is immoral but its morally ok in a survival situation. We never got close to that Moral Code that makes that Moral Judgement.
It bleed off into its not the eating of meat thats immoral, its the killing of the animal.
Now at this point the temptation was to say "Do you prefer we eat them alive?" but it would only enrage them. It does show them though "Bob kills the animal & I eat it. Bob is immoral & wrong, I'm no problem at all"
Odd paradox there & again there's no moral code cited as the source for that rule.
In reality the bottom line is, if there's a moral judgement you must cite the moral code or its just a personal opinion that has no binding authority over anyone. Even if a moral code were involved and was cited they face their next dilemma...why is it binding upon all others?
Where does it get its authority to impose its decrees upon others who do not agree?
Its at this point the activist is (hopefully) begining to recognise they're championing a premise that is logically flawed & can't be rationally defended. It should be regarded as being intellectually corrupt/bankrupt. By all means hate the eating of meat and animal slaughter but you can't force others to follow your worldview. Forcing people to do that might be described as thought violence or more accurately Cultural Marxism.
The eating of meat is either ok or it isn't. It's either moral or immoral but really for most of us it is not a moral issue at all, its is neither moral nor immoral. The Moral Code I use does not see it as a moral issue. Its here were the activist will want to know what moral code I'm using, but I'm not advocating for change. The Change Advocate must prove their point, not disprove another to make theirs magically valid.
It seems they will argue til the cows come home, some will get abusive others stay in the ring & do whatever they can to not reveal the Moral Code behind them. Probably because there isn't one beyond Vegan Ideology. You can live by that if you want to, be my guest but there is no reasoned argument why it must be imposed upon all others.
Why do I use the word cult?
Some have the cult traits. They are right, they can't explain logically why. They have the superior knowledge & moral high ground but won't talk about the moral code they're using. They use emotive language, label evil upon others & won't give up & they won't touch any leads towards revealing their moral code, its higher authority or why its binding upon all others.
Meanwhile Pet Ownership Cruelty is higher than Australian Live Export. Livex has outliers but a system to try & stop them and once Australian Live Export stops, all compliance & efforts to improve the trade, keep standards ARE gone. Sheep from Brazil will spend an extra 4-5 weeks at sea, no curfew months if they don't want to. No reporting, no audits, no training, no need to spend money on AW improvements. One ship recently left Sudan for a nearby Middle East port. Around 15,500 sheep on board. Nearly all died.
Not one peep from Activists because if they did "thats a ship without ESCAS, thats what can happen"
When Australian Live Export stops, AW standards no longer exist & the problems not only ballon out of control, they're exported to foreign countries where no standards will ever be introduced.
**1** https://www.albanyadvertiser.com.au/news/albany-advertiser/albany-ranks-fourth-worst-regional-local-government-for-animal-cruelty-in-new-rspca-wa-data-c-7663638
**2** https://abs.gov.au/census/find-census-data/quickstats/2021/LGA50080
