Overview of standpoints on animal rights and factory farming

Our opinions in the form of one liners

Basic assumptions for animal rights

• The basis of morality and our justice system is freedom and equality.
• A violation of freedom (of all living creatures) infringes their rights.
• When ethics are not rooted in compassion, fair treatment cannot be daily practice.
• No animal should be forced to display unnatural behavior or be stopped from displaying its own natural behavior for economic gain.
• It's more important to be concerned with the quality of life for animals before they die than with the question whether it's alright to kill animals in the first place.
• Rights must be controllable and non-disputable, that's why welfare is no basis for animal rights.
• Everything that promotes welfare is of course good.
• Political policies should be based on standards and aimed to protect the weak, and should only be secondary to the protection of interests.
• Overproduction of animal products cannot be accompanied by environmental pollution and violation of animal welfare.
• Limiting export is an adequate means to prevent such problems.
• It's ridiculous to drag meat to one country and then import the same type of meat from that same country.
• Some selfish pleasare honorable and good for people and animals.
• An animal-friendly cattle farm benefits when it is economically independent and doesn't receive support from the government.
• Using violence in actions for animal rights gains publicity, but the question remains whether this kind of publicity incites people to bear their own responsibility towards animal rights.

Problems with factory farming

1. One of the most important objections against factory farming is of an ethical nature.
2. Even when all environmental issues are solved, and even if the cattle farmer's energy and minerals registration is in order, the way factory farms violate respect for animals is unacceptable.
3. Man's arrogance leads to a hush-up of animal interests.
4. By leaving the welfare of animals to the effects of "self-regulating" in trade and industry, the agrarian community or hunters' associations, the government is letting animals down.
5. Animals in factory farming don't have a good image.
6. It's no use trying to enforce animal rights legally, if these rights are not embedded in the law.
7. "Would-be" modern man who is unaware of his own non-freedom and that of animals, is addicted to meat as a luxury, has no time for alternatives, wants easy, cheap and fast food and is taking serious health risks.
8. "Your own kind comes first" is the deepest-rooted moral awareness in animals and people.
9. Nobody is waiting to hear that every pig has its own unique personality.

Information on cattle farming

• The animal fodder industry benefits from a high turnover of animal products, and bears virtually no responsibility for its harmful consequences.
• The function of the calf is to stimulate the milk production of its mother.
• The group of people who oppose factory farming for environmental reasons, only partly overlaps the group of people who support animal rights.
• Even when all farmers switch to ecological management, there are too many people in Holland that keep animals for economical reasons.
• Export of meat increases the consumption of irresponsibly produced meat.
• Export of animal products from ecological farms is contrary to the basic principles of ecological management.
• Import restrictions on meat from outside the EU will keep meat prices inside the EU higher and keep our factory farms afloat.
• International transports of living animals take days and the animals suffer many cruelties.

Various opinions Animal Freedom

• Hunting animals for pleasure is immoral.
• The Islamic feast of the sacrifice leads to more animal suffering than necessary.
• Every motive to promote animal welfare is a good one.
• Only a limited portion of these motives has to do with animal rights.
• The fact that biological farm-management is more taxing on the environment is no reason for maintaining factory farming.
• It's an plea for a far-reaching decrease of livestock.
• There's no cure for indifference and no argument can get a grip on it.
• Pitying factory farmers is just as unnecessary as pitying a factory owner who has to close down because his products are no longer in demand.
• Factory farming and exploitation of Third World countries are a modern way of slavery.
• The parallel between imported exotic pets and top-class sport is that everyone is focused on the winner, and nobody is interested in the enormous numbers of losses and losers.
• Fur-coated animals are being discriminated against.
• Factory farming is a form of pointless violence.
• Eating meat from factory farming is immoral. Intensive cattle farming is killing the image of farmers.
• Small instances of animal abuse on millions of animals accumulate into an injustice of gigantic proportions.
• Fast-food-chains are responsible for animal suffering.
• The intensive cattle farmer is most to blame.
• Campaigning for animal rights based on their intrinsic value delays the structural improvement of animal welfare.
• Keeping pets because it's supposed to be good for children's development is nonsense.
• Every reason not to keep pets is a good one.
• Anglers are selfish.
• The possibility to exportanimal products stimulates factory farming.
• Maintaining the export position of a country's animal products is a senseless objective.
• A lower position with a product that is answered for is to be prefered.
• Cattle farmers should opt for quality instead of quantity.
• Holland is too small for responsible bulk production.
• Animal testing is a matter of laziness, money saving and arrogance.
• Only when animal testing is outlawed, will people start looking for creative alternatives.
• A cut up bureaucracy provides a fragmented policy.
• One hand is imposing import restrictions for pork to protect the country's own factory farms, while the other hand is dishing out subsidies to biological agriculture.
• Some arguments by politicians are hypocritical and show their mainly economical interests.
• While a man who is put on trial can appeal to his right to secrecy, pigs and chicken have to meet the impossible requirement that they have to prove that they have feelings, before people are inclined to consider their interests.
• Fur-farms are the most reprehensible form of factory farming.
• Political parties that support this industry are at the same time in defiance with their own principles (liberal, Christian, reasonable or social).
• Loving animals while keeping them from showing their natural behavior is conflicting.

Means to an end

1. Violation of freedom must be limited, but the right to freedom may not be violated. That's immoral.
2. No (export) subsidies and a smaller market will have to scare off factory farmers.
3. The image of farmers and the food industry would improve enormously if they would distance themselves from criminal elements.
4. Politicians must take their moral responsibilities seriously.
5. People would have to take a close look at their attachment to animals and let it go.
6. If you want to convince others to stop eating meat from factory farming, you have to know where the other stands in his decision-making process.
7. Real freedom, love and equality are characterized by their being given unconditionally, to man and animal.
8. It's a sign of mental growth and inner liberation to try to prevent animal dependency.
9. Make a better world, start in your own country.
10. It is fun and economical to do something for animals yourself.
11. Putting a stop to export of dairy and meat takes away the foundations of factory farming.
12. Biological cattle farming should take the lead: vaccinating instead of exporting.
13. A durable society can be reached by an economic system that compensates over-consumption and promotes under-consumption.