Comments On: Great—Now Everybody Is Mad at Me by Dan Savage

Re: Great—Now Everybody Is Mad at Me

ED — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 22:51:02 -0800

@24
Human rights are not based entirely upon the concept of natural rights. Many incredibly influential philosophers have rejected the notion of natural rights (Hume, Bentham).
And I would say that humans can be seen as pawns of other humans, but that doesn't mean that it is right to treat them as such. Other animals also deserve better.
Posted by ED

Re: Great—Now Everybody Is Mad at Me

alion — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 21:56:40 -0800

He's not saying people shouldn't have voted for prop 2. Only that it's ironic that people's sense of fair play can only go so far. I'm thrilled prop 2 passed. I think people were shamed in knowing that they denied the animals they eat a chance to even have a life in which they can stetch their wings and turn around.

And I think they should, and will start feeling the great shame of denying social equality to many neighbors, friends and co-workers.

Two fundy people I know cconfessed to me that they are feeling deep shame now for voting for 8. They thought all along it would be defeated, so didn't really give it appropriate consideration--and when it won an unexpected weight of guilt hit them and they each started to examine themselves and why they did it. Both tell me they wish they could take it back, and feel they did something very wrong...

I wonder if it their was a revote tomorrow we'd have the same results. I thank the noisy and the unhappy...it has made some people very uncomfortable, but it has also made some of them re-examine. Too late for now, I know

But next time...

Thanks Dan for making a fuss. Even though it became uncomfortable here in slog--I think in the end it will have been productive
Posted by alion

Re: Great—Now Everybody Is Mad at Me

Ayden/VA — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 18:36:41 -0800

We all just want to be mad with somebody right now.

And you're convenient, Dan.

I've been buying eggs from 'cage-free' hens for a while. They're only double in price ;-))
Posted by Ayden/VA

Re: Great—Now Everybody Is Mad at Me

EmmiG — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 17:49:05 -0800

Um, I am sorry but the only way your argument works is if chickens were given marriage rights...they were only given the right to move a little more, something which gay people have had forever. I am sure voters would do the same if it was gay people in those tiny cages, so you can't say they like chickens more than gays.
Posted by EmmiG

Re: Great—Now Everybody Is Mad at Me

Chris — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 15:46:43 -0800

@26, it means you're a chicken-hawk.
Posted by Chris

Re: Great—Now Everybody Is Mad at Me

subwlf — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 14:46:42 -0800

I voted for gay marriage and i voted against chicken rights. I wonder what that says about me...
Posted by subwlf

Re: Great—Now Everybody Is Mad at Me

keshmeshi — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 14:41:52 -0800

@19,

No, they're just slaughtered no matter what they do.

There are certainly countries that treat gay people like animals, but, in that case, they share equal "rights" with chickens.

Anyway, the sentiment @5 was simply ridiculous. Allowing an animal that will eventually be slaughtered a little room to stretch its legs isn't giving it equal, or superior, rights to human beings.
Posted by keshmeshi

Re: Great—Now Everybody Is Mad at Me

Bellevue Ave — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 14:06:29 -0800

@16, the difference is, new rights, special rights for chickens is accurate, creating a system where two humans have different rights based on skin color and repealing that isn't creating or giving new rights to someone (except in a semantic argument for new rights). Chickens and animals don't have natural rights. They are pawns of man and simply abide by whatever treatment man gives them. Human rights are based entirely on the concept of natural rights.
Posted by Bellevue Ave

Re: Great—Now Everybody Is Mad at Me

Gay FC — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 14:03:43 -0800

I cannot wait to serve cage-free chicken at my gay wedding! A boy can dream, right?
Posted by Gay FC

Re: Great—Now Everybody Is Mad at Me

Nat — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 14:03:32 -0800

@16 -- prop 2 may have been hard-fought, but all it'll mean is that instead of having too-small cages in California, chickens will have too-small cages outside of California, and Californian eggs will carry a higher carbon footprint.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-…

"Egg prices probably will not increase for Californians, according to a study by the UC Davis Agricultural Issues Center. That's because out-of-state farmers, who already supply Californians a third of their eggs -- and could provide more -- are not affected by the new law, so they won't have to change their housing.

"California farmers' obligation to retrofit could increase their production costs by an estimated 20%, according to the study.

"'The most likely outcome, therefore, is the elimination of almost all of the California egg industry over a few years,' says the report, whose main author is Daniel Sumner, a professor of agricultural economics and director of the university's agricultural issues center."
Posted by Nat

Re: Great—Now Everybody Is Mad at Me

onion — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 14:02:30 -0800

Ok this is it - I'm all against Prop 8 but -

You can't even put Prop 2 and 8 in the same category. Or the same sentence. Or expect people to approach them the same way. That's what the mistake is. You've jumped a whole order of magnitude up the scale of suffering. Prop 2 is out there to correct HUGE physical and mental suffering, pain and anguish. Prop 8 imposes suffering, but not on the crippling scale that confining an animal to an immobile life does. Gays can still stand up and turn around, even with Prop 8.

Both are about suffering yes. But next time you stand up, or turn around, OR GO TO THE GYM, think of the chicken you just ate.

k that said, Prop 8 sucks and the people who voted for it can suck it.
Posted by onion

Re: Great—Now Everybody Is Mad at Me

Your Name Here — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 14:00:54 -0800

as a gay vegan, im on team dan on this one. i wish they both would have passed, but it is truly bizarre that the voters in CA gave chickens rights while stripping homos of rights. it doesn't mean that chickens don't have shitty lives, it just shows how fucked up these props were. i made sure everyone i knew in CA voted yes on 2 and no on 8. but what i do wonder is that when counties like LA stopped giving marriage licenses immediately they claimed it was because the law went into affect immediately. so have they been fining all of these chicken/veal cagers starting 11/5?
Posted by Your Name Here

Re: Great—Now Everybody Is Mad at Me

Jigae — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 13:51:45 -0800

@18: Nowhere on Earth can chickens be stoned to death just for having sex. Just saying.
Posted by Jigae

Re: Great—Now Everybody Is Mad at Me

keshmeshi — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 13:49:04 -0800

@5,

In no country anywhere on this planet do chickens have more rights than gays.
Posted by keshmeshi

Re: Great—Now Everybody Is Mad at Me

flamingbanjo — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 13:27:15 -0800

Clearly the idea that somewhere a caged chicken is standing up and turning around in its cage didn't send a chill of fear up as many spines as the idea that somewhere a gay couple was picking out china patterns.

Seriously, though, this reminds me of the "They can put a man on the moon but they can't make a decent 25 cent cigar!" cliché. What does one have to do with the other?
Posted by flamingbanjo

Re: Great—Now Everybody Is Mad at Me

Rachel — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 13:26:26 -0800

Sorry, but as disgusted, angered, and saddened as I was (and am) at the passage of Prop 8, I'm with E.B. on this one. Prop 2 was a hard-fought victory that's been long in the coming. And calling what the voters did creating "new rights--special rights!" for chickens is akin to saying Abraham Lincoln gave African Americans new rights--special rights!--by signing the Emancipation Proclamation.

Every creature on Earth, from the beakless chickens and the funky-beaked Pacific Northwest hawks to the pissed-off homos and the homophobic assholes, is in this together. We are not all "equal," but one of these days we'll need to realize that we can all get what we need without having to shit all over each other. And that's what the proponents of Prop 2 and the opponents of Prop 8 are both fighting for.
Posted by Rachel

Re: Great—Now Everybody Is Mad at Me

candice. — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 13:18:51 -0800

@8: The polygamists in Texas are FLDS, fundamenalists! If you would bother to learn anything about the religion before talking shit about it then you'd know that the FLDS members have NOTHING to do with the Mormons you despise. They were excommunicated a century ago.
Posted by candice.

Re: Great—Now Everybody Is Mad at Me

elenchos — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 13:15:12 -0800

You're so stuck in the culture wars, Mr. Savage. It's like you long for it to be 1994 again and you can square off against Newt Gingrich and Rush Limbaugh. Always us against them. For you if the glass isn't all the way full it might as well be empty.

What good do you think you're doing?
Posted by elenchos

Re: Great—Now Everybody Is Mad at Me

Dawgson — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 13:11:55 -0800

Lesbians, Chicken, Terror. Somehow this all made me think of Poultrygeist:
http://www.poultrygeistmovie.com/video/t…
Posted by Dawgson

Re: Great—Now Everybody Is Mad at Me

STJA — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 13:09:30 -0800

She's such a chicken-pooper.
Posted by STJA

Re: Great—Now Everybody Is Mad at Me

rococo — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 13:05:32 -0800

@9 yes, but it's way more fun to be cruel to other people.
Posted by rococo

Re: Great—Now Everybody Is Mad at Me

jrrrl — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 13:03:43 -0800

If it makes you feel better, I hear there's a proposition in the works to put gay chickens in internment camps.
Posted by jrrrl

Re: Great—Now Everybody Is Mad at Me

Jigae — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 12:58:51 -0800

If we accept the Proposition 8 passed for religious reasons, shouldn't Prop. 2 have failed for the same reason?

Didn't G-d give man "dominion over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, and all the living things that move on the earth."?
Posted by Jigae

Re: Great—Now Everybody Is Mad at Me

kinaidos — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 12:53:38 -0800

I'm surprised the Mormons didn't fight prop 2. It's slippery slope. Now were saying you can't cage your veal up in tiny little pens. Next we'll be telling them they can't have sex with their 13 year old daughters in Texas.
Posted by kinaidos

Re: Great—Now Everybody Is Mad at Me

Julie in Chicago — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 12:51:07 -0800

I don't think pro-Prop 2 / anti-Prop 8 people are supposed to be worse than people who voted for neither. They are just more inexplicable. Though Hanna @5 gives a pretty good explanation of their mindset, I think.

For the record, Jon Stewart also made the connection between Prop 2 and Prop 8.
Posted by Julie in Chicago