Sorry Aaron Sorkin: Sarah Palin is Right About Animal Products
(Editor's Note: We spotted this piece and realized it hadn't been published yet. No time like the present, right? In this open letter written Dec.9, 2010, Opposing Views expert and Rutgers Professor Gary Francione tells Aaron Sorkin that he's dead wrong about using animal products -- and Sarah Palin is 100% correct.)
Aaron Sorkin
The Huffington Post
Dear Mr. Sorkin:
In a recent blog on The Huffington Post, you criticize Sarah Palin, whom you quote as stating, in response to criticisms of her hunting and killing a caribou on her reality TV show:
“Unless you’ve never worn leather shoes, sat upon a leather chair or eaten meat, save your condemnation.”
You acknowledge that you eat animal products and have shoes and furniture made of leather but you claim to be able to distinguish yourself from Ms. Palin. You state to her:
You weren’t killing that animal for food or shelter or even fashion, you were killing it for fun. You enjoy killing animals. I can make the distinction between the two of us but I’ve tried and tried and for the life of me, I can’t make a distinction between what you get paid to do and what Michael Vick went to prison for doing. I’m able to make the distinction with no pangs of hypocrisy even though I get happy every time one of you faux-macho shitheads accidentally shoots another one of you in the face.
Sorry, Mr. Sorkin. I cannot think of a single thing that Sarah Palin has ever said with which I agree. Ever. Really. Ever. But on this, she’s dead right and you’re dead wrong.
You object to her killing the caribou because it was unnecessary; she did it because she enjoyed it.
And why do you eat meat and animal products?
That’s a rhetorical question. There’s only one answer: Because you enjoy it.
There is no necessity involved. You do not need to eat animal products to live an optimally healthy life. In fact, mainstream health care people are telling us every day that animal products are detrimental to our health in one way or the other. But you do not even have to agree with them to agree with the plain and indisputable fact that we do not need to eat animal products to live a healthy life. It’s a matter of palate preference and nothing more.
And animal agriculture is an environmental disaster.
The best–indeed, the only–justification we have for inflicting suffering and death on 56 billion animals annually (not counting fish) is that they taste good. And it does not matter whether you eat conventional animal products or the “happy” meat and animal products promoted by various animal welfare groups and advocates in their attempt to make the public feel better about consuming animals: all of the animals we use for food, including the most “humanely” raised and killed, are treated and slaughtered in ways that, were humans involved, would, without doubt, be characterized as constituting torture.
The fact that you pay someone else to do the dirty work is morally irrelevant. If you pay someone to kill another human, try telling the judge that the actually killer enjoyed the act of killing but that you just paid for it. The judge will tell you that you’re both guilty of murder. You’re both equally culpable.
I won’t bother to comment on the shoes and furniture. Again, those choices reflect nothing more morally weighty than your aesthetic taste and that has no moral weight at all.
As for Michael Vick, as I have argued, Vick apparently liked sitting around a pit watching dogs fight; the rest of us like sitting around the barbecue pit roasting the flesh of animals who, under the best of circumstances, have had a worse life and death than Vick’s dogs. To criticize Vick for his morally unjustifiable acts while we engage in conduct that is morally no different is nothing more than hypocrisy.
Sorry, Mr. Sorkin, as someone who embraces progressive politics and who finds Sarah Palin objectionable on so many levels that it is difficult to count, she’s right on this. You have no moral standing to criticize what she did.
I would ask that you consider going vegan. It’s easy; it’s better for your health and for the planet. But, most important, it’s the morally right thing to do.
Sincerely,
Gary L. Francione
Professor, Rutgers University School of Law–Newark
© 2010 Gary L. Francione
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There is quite a difference in eating meat products and taking joy in the killing of animals. One example is the bull fight. Most people do not enjoy the torture and eventual slaughter of a Bull. They don't go to the grocery salivating over the thought of a cow dying for that hamburger. In fact, they are protected from that thought in modern society. I cannot say killing an animal for consumption is a good thing, but there is a huge difference between enjoying a burger because your culture has trained you to enjoy burgers, , and enjoying the kill of the animal providing the burger.. PETA may have it right. Animal slaughter for human consumption may be immoral, but let's not equate meat consumption with the thrill of slaughter that is labeled sport. I would guess there would be a huge decrease in meat consumption if people had to do the killing.
Terry Hirneisen
.... is that enjoying the taste of a steak is something that 99 % of the US population do.
Other than that, it is in no way different to what Sarah Palin is doing. Do I think that makes Sarah Palin's killing an animal right? Of course not. I only see the hypocrisy in condemning her and grabbing for a burger ...
Best regards,
Andy
The thing that so many people find appalling about Palin is her apparent glee in doing something personally that so many people defer to anonymous individuals who provide meat to market. Most people think meat comes in plastic wrap with no thought to the process behind that meat. Most people do not kill the animals they eat. Palin has no such reservations. Her critics' hypocrisy is one of omission and not direct action. They are ignoring that their leather shoes and hamburgers come from slaughterhouses that are no kinder than someone dropping an elk with a gun. In fact, many slaughterhouses are probably even crueler than a hunter's rifle.
Biologically, we are omnivores. We have canines and flat molars. We have a medium length intestinal track, meaning we can subsist on either meat or vegetables, but we do best on a mix. It takes work to be healthy vegan, and a diet of pure meat will shorten your life even faster. Anyone who claims it is natural or better to fall into either extreme is denying our own biology.
So... where does that leave us ethically? Most people agree that we should not cause animals unnecessary pain, so we have animal cruelty laws, which are most regularly enforced on companion animal violators like Michael Vick. Most farm animals cannot be arbitrarily abused either. However, we regularly put animals to sleep or send farmed animals to slaughter with the full blessing of the law and society. Obviously, animals do not and should not have the rights of people.
Animals do have thoughts, feelings, memories, and most higher animals experience pain and fear as acutely as humans. However, most animals are either property and managed resources. Do we have any obligations whatsoever beyond eliminating unnecessary cruelty?
Animal pain is a sticky question and groups like PETA are asserting a new morality that has no basis other than extending the acknowledgment that animals experience pain to a logical extreme. This is a stretch for almost everyone. People do not naturally extend the love they have for their pets to a chicken or a beef cow.
We need balance. I don't think we should hurt animals more than we must, but we shouldn't anthropomorphise them either. We have responsibilities to animals, but they do not have rights. We don't eat or pragmatically kill things with rights equivalent to people
PETA is a extremist organization. For many people, Palin is also an extremist. I disagree with this woman on many levels, but when it comes to animals I think most people when forced to honestly assess what animals are to us would be closer to her viewpoint than they would think.
Only the elimination of all conservative Christians will allow all Americans to be free and the world to no longer have to live in fear of the U.S.A.'s imperialist, terrorist holy war. The conservative ideology has never helped mankind in any way, it has not only never helped mankind in anyway, it has oppressed, murdered, raped and killed all those in it's way to gain power. History shows us this. Fact shows us this. James Madison, the "Father of the U.S. Constitution", along with many founders of this country, regardless of their religious or non-religious affiliations, knew keeping politics and religion separate not only preserves each, but helps them flourish: "The number, the industry, and the morality of the Priesthood and the devotion of the people have been manifestly increased by the total separation of the Church and the State."
Animals are either wild, or the property of their owners, to be disposed of in any manner that they see fit. Animals are not humans or citizens, and should not be gifted with qualities they do not possess.
Vick had the right to destroy his own property, so long as he didn't defraud another human in the process.
Palin has a right to kill and consume any wild animal she pleases, so long as reasonable restrictions are complied with regarding low population species.
In the case of over-populated species, it's beneficial to everyone when they are thinned out.
was unnecessary. He was more vicious in that attack than any pit bull probably ever was in a fight.
I don't even see how he could be so ignorant on this matter. He's the worst kind thinker. Excusing his evil and condemning someone else's.
As for eating animals, I don't think it's unhealthy. It's a matter of frequency. Just like Vegan lifestyle isn't necessarily healthy. The extremes of either are terrible and flat out stupid. "They" can't decide what is healthy and what is not. "They" switch it so much I no longer trust "they" any more.
People demand freedom of speech to make up for the freedom of thought which they avoid. - Soren Aabye Kierkegaard (1813-1855)