EDITOR'S NOTE: No animals were harmed in the writing of this blog.
Friday 15 November 2013
Royal talks horse-sense.
Some people say that the Royal Family are a total waste of space and a waste of good oxygen. This viewpoint is certainly appealing but sometimes I wonder if it might not be a bit overstated and that the Saxe-Coburgs do have occasional uses. Take for example Princess Anne's recent intervention in horse welfare. HRH reckons that horse owners would look after their pets better if they knew that the animals were worth a few bob as horseburgers when they got bored with them. Fair point and one that could perhaps be extended to dog owners as well. Now I don't mind holding my hand up as a dog lover but we do have far too many unwanted dogs in this country. Dogs that kill children, maim posties and produce a vast mountain of dog shit that has to be disposed of somehow. Owners might take more responsibility for their dogs if they knew that the hound could one day be turned into valuable entrocote chien. Princess Anne may have stumbled across a way of killing two birds with one stone so to speak by making a stand for animal welfare and revealing a new and innovative form of disaster relief at the same time. How? Well, dog is a prized delicacy in The Philippines - you work it out.
EDITOR'S NOTE: No animals were harmed in the writing of this blog.
EDITOR'S NOTE: No animals were harmed in the writing of this blog.
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3 comments:
I am very disappointed with this suggestion. First, the ideology of welfarism is accepted without question. Standards of welfare - as outlined by FAWC (and for Companion animals as in the Animal Welfare Act 2006) are highly questionable.HRH has accepted welfarism without question. Now welfarists oppose dog/horse eating only if it involves cruel treatment, as in Korea and China, where local opposition to the business is suppressed brutally. However, there is nothing in the welfarist position to oppose canine/horse/cat consumption as long as it meets welfarist conditions, as indicated by FAWC's five freedoms. This leaves the protesters in China/Korea on a limb. Not helped by Guardian lefty reporters who use culturally relativist arguments to reject my objections as a racist appeal to cultural supremacy.But my opposition is not based on the cost benefit considerations of welfarism - which puts MacDonalds as a top class supplier of animal products with positive welfare. And remember, welfare is measured by absence of suffering, which means that early slaughter/surgical intervention to neutralise pain in confined spaces and increased productivity are signs of good welfare.HRH knows the welfare standpoint as an agri-business women. Against this I have drawn attention to the moral bonds with companion animals, which are essential to the human condition (human flourishing) rather than the souless mechanistic standpoint advocated by the veterinary profession and HRH. Sure, dogs, like children, can be a bloody nuisance, but those problems are not resolved by putting, say Richard Branston et al, in charge of a canine food industry. Your reaction to HRH's narrow ideological point, with due respect, is the closest to a Daily Mail letter than I have seen in any leftish/anarchist blog. Will no one challenge welfarism? Or do you think serious discussion can be replaced by silly stunts about a Cambridge swan?
This link is to the standard welfarist criticism of the dog meat industry in China. For over ten years I ran seminars for activists from Korea, China, the Phillipines who are working against the prevailing customs in their own countries. I taught them at Cambridge, where the Class War bunch believe that all students are Brideshead toffs. Wrong. But I have pushed the arguments further and considered how capitalism might recuperate and benefit from a canine meat industry that met welfare standards, and I have invited the Asian opponents to take up this challenge.
http://www.squidoo.com/dogsinchina
I can't imagine an old working horse will produce tender cuts. Economy mince but that's all.
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