[clue-talk] Vmware ESX / VI, WTF?

[David L. Willson]

> > The one example that you answered, that I care enough about to speak further on, is the
> > "Chipotle or KFC, free-range or factory" issue:
> > 
> > I'm truly sorry that you feel that treating food-slave animals humanely is worthless.  I
> > understand your perspective, I completely disagree with it, and I hope that further
> > consideration will cause you to change your opinion.
> 
> I probably won't -- I worked on a pig farm for a couple of summers in 
> high school, and most of the family were farmers in my grandfather's 
> generation.  Food is food, not a pet.

I've slaughtered chickens with both cruel and kind people.  I've worked with cruel and
kind farmers.  Their cruelty and/or kindness was their own trait, independent of the
role of the animal they were interacting with at the time.

Cruelty to anything, even an animal grown for meat or supported for it's eggs or milk,
is still cruelty.  Cruelty reflects appropriately on the sadist, the callous
contributor, and the stander by.  It's not about the animal's role, it's about our
quality as their gods.  I don't argue that the animals we eat are under our absolute
rule.  I say it matters how we treat them, because we decide how to treat them.  I'm not
anthropomorphizing when I say that it does matter how an animal "feels" while it feels,
both to our consciences, and to our bodies.  We can choose the cheap and easy path,
drugging them into a semblance of health, while we torture them.  We can choose also, to
take more time, effort, and expense, to treat them well during their time of service and
sacrifice.

Today, I'm not a farmer, and I'm not a software producer.  I am a consumer in those
areas, but I take very seriously the things I say with my words and with my dollars.