Posted by Camille Dumont on May 26, 2005, at 8:26:18
In reply to Re: Internet Hunting ... I just have to jump in, posted by so on May 26, 2005, at 1:42:24
If one cannot state what one feels about certain things, then what good is a board. Is a discussion not the exchange of views, opinions, arguments?
To me there is a difference between stating an opinion and attacking someone because they have a different opinion than you. For example :
"I find it discriminatory that gay people can't marry". To me thats an opinion.
"If gay people are allowed to marry, doesn't that open the door to polygamous marriages?" To me thats challenging an opinion.
"You're againsts gay marriage, OMG! you are so stupid / evil / etc." To me that is an attack."
From what I understand we are free to post our opinions and to challenge that of others here but not allowed to attack others because of their opinion.
When I write "you" its just a way of writing ... I did not write "so" because I was directing my post to the reader, not you in particular.
When I say "think of what you would want" ... I'm not saying that I hold the truth or that my opinion is somehow superior.
What I am saying is "here, this is MY opinion on that given subject ... this is the reasoning that goes on in MY head which leads me to MY opinion" ... nothing more. The reader remains free to find it relevant, irrelevant or downright stupid.
> > I posted my opinion but you control your reaction to it.
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> I read the plain language of your post. I am a reasonably experienced and articulate reader. Beyond responding to what was written, I have had no "reaction".
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> > Hello? Where in my post did I make assuptions on your dealing with your pets.
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> > > > "Think of what ***you*** would want, then ***have the decency*** of giving that same humane end to those creatures that you kill."
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> Can you understand how a person would read that to mean if they do not euthenize their pet in some manner in which they would want to die, they are lacking in decency? If it doesn't mean that, can you explain why are you equating that with having decency?
>
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My view of what is decent is just that ... MY view, the view of Camille Dumont. Nothing more nothing less. The reader remains free to subscribe to my view or not.
> > Again, slaughterhouse practices and the meat industry in general do not employ methods that I find good or commendable.
>
> Hmmm. I don't understand that am allowed to say here what I find good or commendable for other people to do.
>I don't follow all your posts on here, perhaps you've had weird or contradictory reactions from the administration. But really I don't see how stating an opinion on an industry is against the rules.
Had I stated something like : the meat industry is evil therefore if you work in the meat industry you are evil / bad / whatever. This I could see how it could be interpreted as an attack ... and could, to employ the words of Dr. Bob here, "make people feel demeaned".
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> > Her death was made a spectacle of ... which I found very sad.
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> I don't understand that I am allowed to say who might make a spectacle of anything. A news produceer might feel it their duty to provide the public information about controversial issues, and families might feel it their obligation to teneciously represent thier perception of a family members interests in court and in public venues.
>A news producer may feel whatever he or she likes ... that does not mean that I cannot feel saddened by what was done and shown. Again, I'm not saying that the news people are bad people, I'm saying that the situation, the way in which she died, to me, was a sad spectacle.
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> > Over the centuries we have manage to come up with very sick and twisted ways to destroy each other.
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> hmmm. I don't understand that I am allowed to say what is sick and twisted for other people to do. My lack of understanding of my permission to say such things is informed by the thread below this, where were asked not to call people monterous for recruiting suicide bombers.
>
I have not read that thread on suicide bombers. Maybe the whole issue was handled in a peculiar matter.Again, maybe its an issue distinction between stating an opinion and attacking someone who has a different opinion. It might also have to do with the level of language ... or perhaps more appropriately the strength of words employed and to which degree the comments were directed at someone in particular.
> >
> > ... for a great majority of pet owners, they take their pets to be pts at the vet so that it can die quickly and without suffering yet those same people are ready to run after a wild animal and wound it and potentially make it suffer for quite a long period.
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> I have not seen evidence that the great majority of pet owners in the united states or anywhere else A. take their pets to the vet to die or B. also run after animals wounded during a hunt.
>Maybe because I live in Canada. The vast majority of people here do not own guns (laws on ownership and I think even supply are stricter) and chemicals which might be used for home euthanasia are available only through a vet.
Perhaps this is biased by my own pet-ownership experience. Perhaps things are different for people who, for example live on farms or have access to firearms or care for a large number of animals.
But through the years, all the dogs and cats we've owned, when they became too ill to be treated or their quality of live was too imparied without the chance of improvement, they were taken to the vey where we stayed with them while they were given an overdose of a sedative agent and they died without pain.
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> > How messed up is that?
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> I do not understand that I am allowed to say here how messed up I think other people's choices might be.
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Again, this is My opinion. I find that it is messed up that sometime a person is allowed to suffer more than a pet is allowed to suffer.This is based on my experience, my life, what I have seen, the relatives I've had to watch in agony, begging to be allowed to die and even tied up to their beds so they wouldn't rip the tubes that were in them.
I find IT, the situation, the occurence of such suffering messed up. I am in no way saying that people who do not thing the same waht that I do are messed up themselves.
I don't claim to hold the truth, to be morally superior to others in any way ... what I do have and express are personnal opinions. To me, different opinions even contradictory ones can coexist. I would rather that there be people who think the opposite of me, if only to challenge how I think and make me consider my position. It is in the exchange of different views that, to me, critical thinking emerges and flourishes.
A world in which nobody expressed any dissent or where everybody thought the same would be a bit bland no?
poster:Camille Dumont
thread:498173
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/poli/20050509/msgs/503107.html