House bans eating of cats, dogs

[alp227]

Source: CBS News

The government shuts down at the end of the month, and Democrats and Republicans seem unable to make a deal to keep it open. They are, however, united in trying to stop people from eating pets.

The House passed a bill Wednesday by voice vote banning the slaughter, transportation, sale and possession of dogs and cats for consumption. The "Dog and Cat Meat Trade Prohibition Act of 2018" was sponsored by Republican Rep. Vern Buchanan and Democratic Rep. Alcee Hastings, both of Florida.

Buchanan wrote in his statement about the bill that 44 states do not have laws banning consumption of cats and dogs, adding that this practice "should be outlawed completely given how beloved these animals are for most Americans." California, Georgia, Hawaii, Michigan, New York and Virginia are the six states that explicitly ban cat and dog consumption.

Read more: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/house-bans-eating-of-cats-dogs/

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This wasn't already a federal law?

[Bernardo de La Paz]

1. Trump wants a government shutdown at the end of September. In the middle of the election. . . nt

[Rhiannon12866]

2. Wouldn't this already be covered under animal anti cruelty laws?

[Girard442]

26. The law would need to draw a distinction between cats, dogs, cows, and pigs.

[Rhiannon12866]

38. I know that we have pretty tough animal protection laws here in New York,

But that's not necessarily true all over.

[AllaN01Bear]

3. good on them

well , here we go again with the government shutdown thingh. finger pointing follows.

[RockRaven]

4. That's good... but I gotta ask... you can ban eating cats and dogs, but won't ban eating the poor?

Really? That's the line you draw?

[justgamma]

5. Has this been a big problem? n/t

[Canoe52]

6. Darn, I was just about to open my new restaurant, "The Krispy Kat All You Can Eat Buffet"

[dchill]

10. I imagine a lot of restaurants will have to close now.

[COLGATE4]

24. At least, most of the Chinese restaurants

[alp227]

25. what are you implying here?

"Chinese" restaurants?

This sounds like something a Freeper would post.

[Marcuse]

29. Cultural Background

[link:http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-02-17/chinese-dog-meat-eating-linked-to-history-of-famine/9454394

I remember sitting there staring at its reddish bacon-coloured surface, and when sampling a piece, remembering it tasted just like beef, but a little … different.

"What is this?" I asked. "This is dog meat," my mother said.

Now, I had my own pet Pekingese dog at the time named Duo Duo, who I loved, so you can imagine the shock and outrage that shot through my body at that thought.

I remember thinking as a dog owner, "I simply cannot accept this in any way". However my parents felt differently and just did not understand.

[msongs]

7. shutdown - dems do not need to "make a deal" as repubs need NO dems votes nt

[ProudLib72]

8. Try explaining that to the hordes of politically illiterate morans who constitute his base

That's what pisses me off the most. They hang on his every word, believing his idiotic tweets about Dems being responsible for everything bad that happens. The MSM plays along.

[JohnnyRingo]

9. Crap

Does Paul Ryan know how much we seniors pay for health care these days? Ran the neighborhood out of squirrels months ago.

[briv1016]

11. What about other "pet" animals?

Birds, Rabbits, Hamsters, Turtles etc.

[MLAA]

12. I don't see the difference

I don’t see a difference between cats and dogs and cows, pigs, chickens. I didn’t always notice this ...for many years I ate and enjoyed a variety of animals. About 8 years ago I was forced to open my eyes. Now I can’t discern a difference.

[jcgoldie]

19. As a person who owns many cows, dairy goats, and chickens...

... and I have also raised pigs in the past and have pet dogs and cats and 4 working livestock dogs... I can say that IMHO there is a rather substantial difference between companion animals like dogs and cats and herd animals or especially birds. I love and respect all of my animals but comparing the brains and behavior of a dog with that of a chicken or cow seems to me to fail to grasp the depth of intelligence and personality of a dog. All are domesticated obviously, but livestock have been bred for 1000s of years for meat purposes not to be the companions of human beings. (And I am telling you my wife would attest I REALLY love my dairy goats who I have hours of contact with each day on the milk stand milking by hand.) But as sweet as they can be and also show intelligence in a lot of ways, they are not like a dog. I don't relish killing any animal, but if you provide it with a humane good life and kill it in a humane fashion to feed people, then there is nothing ethically wrong with that just in my opinion.

I wanted to edit to add that I do also realize that the vast majority of the beef chicken and pork that we consume is not raised under the humane conditions we maintain on our small farm. Feedlots and caged chicken factories are neither humane nor healthy as a rule.

[handmade34]

31. hmmm...

over the years I have raised, taken care of most all kinds of domestic animals... I don't eat meat (although I realize others do, so I raise healthy animals for others)… If people are going to eat meat, I see no reason not to eat any and all, including dogs and cats (as well as insects)

our obsession with domestic dogs and cats has created a nightmare for others with the number of wild dogs and feral cats in the U.S. and world.

"experts now estimate 70 million feral cats live in the United States"

"There are more than 200 million stray dogs worldwide... and millions in the U.S."

http://www.onegreenplanet.org/animalsandnature/farm-animals-that-are-probably-smarter-than-your-dog/

Thinking that farm animals are in some way different than our cats and dogs is a cultural construction that allows us to rationalize mass-producing and slaughtering these animals for food.

If you knew that farm animals were as intelligent as your children or pets, would you stop eating meat? If you answered “yes,” then it might be time to do so.
From pigs to cows, sheep to chickens, farm animals are all much smarter than we’ve ever given them credit for. Pigs learn their names and can do tricks like a dog. Cows, goats, and chickens all have incredibly complex social constructs, and they have best friends just like we do.

People love their dogs and cats, most want to treat their pets with the kindness and respect the truly deserve. Farm animals, unfortunately, rarely get treated in this manner. Though they have proven to be just as smart, adorable and loving as their dog and cat counterparts, they are still categorized as a “commodity.” The more we learn about these farm animals and how similar they are to the animals we bring into our homes, the more we want to change the situation we place them in.
Once we acknowledge the how amazing these animals truly are, it becomes harder to justify they ways we abuse them. While it might be uncomfortable to challenge the idea that farm animals are food, when we know what we do about their intelligence and abilities, don’t we owe it them to share the truth?

Here's the dirt on pigs: They are perhaps the smartest, cleanest domestic animals known - more so than cats and dogs, according to some experts. But pigs don't have sweat glands, so they roll around in the mud to stay cool. A sign of their cleverness came from experiments in the 1990s. Pigs were trained to move a cursor on a video screen with their snouts and used the cursor to distinguish between scribbles they knew and those they were seeing for the first time. They learned the task as quickly as chimpanzees.

http://www.nbcnews.com/id/24628983/ns/technology_and_science-science/t/smartest-animals/#.W5p4qfZFw7Y

https://www.npr.org/2017/12/29/574598877/no-easy-answer-to-growing-number-of-stray-dogs-in-the-u-s-advocate-says

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/2004/09/feral-cat-problem/

[braddy]

13. Good for them.

|

[bucolic_frolic]

14. Historically

many farm families in coldest climes brought livestock into the back of the house in winter. It's common for people to raise chickens or pigs, and then slaughter them for food. It's an ethical dilemma. Perhaps it turns on the idea - does the animal have consciousness that it's life will end soon for food? Is it aware. I doubt it will ever be resolved. But animals are unhappy in cages. Just like humans, or babies, ya know, Trump?

This legislation seems like electioneering at the last minute to do something popular. Does it include roadkill? Because when very poor people are without food they will do what they have to do. Such as collecting roadkill, eating cat or dog food, and if you believe this legislation, pets.

In a natural state, we are part of the food chain. We've just been on a 5 thousand year winning streak.

[7962]

15. I doubt anyone in the US is at the point where they're forced to eat pets!

Thats what goes on in North Korea. Rats too.

[safeinOhio]

16. Think about how a Hindu person feels

about us eating cows. Cultural norms vary.

[7962]

37. Thats true, but the same could go for US visitors to other countries.

Horse meat, dog meat, etc are eaten in other parts of the world & if we go there, we have to just accept it.

[dembotoz]

17. Well there goes the trump towers taco salad

[BeyondGeography]

18. Ya gotta start somewhere

[turbinetree]

20. They can pass this POS legislation, and then they cut SNAP.......................

[NeoGreen]

21. Well good thing they didn't ban eating...

...possum', there might have been real impacts on rural protein consumption.

[Hotler]

22. If those fuckers can pass something like this....

with a voice vote they can pass a bill limiting the volume levels of TV commercials to 50% lower than the program level. A bill like this will benefit everybody.

[Nitram]

23. The only thing rebumblicans in the House could agree on passing before they lose their seats.

[Thomas Hurt]

27. Another Republican solution in search of a problem...

[Renew Deal]

28. Congress finally found something it can agree on

[Bayard]

30. Hell, tRump is trying to lift the horse meat ban!

I hate this man to the core.

Eating cats and dogs is a cultural thing. When I lived in Calif., there was a real surge of pets disappearing up in the mountains where I lived. There was one guy in particular, that was driving around in a van and snatching dogs right out of peoples' yards--sometimes with the kids right there. He was taking them down to Fresno to sell for meat. I had a friend who lost two dogs. I figured it was good that I had Sighthounds at the time--no meat on their bones.

[meow2u3]

32. You mean to tell me there's no Federal law against eating cats and dogs?

That's news to me. I thought the cat/dog meat trade was already illegal.

[Cold War Spook]

33. No, I would not eat my pets,

but then I wouldn't eat my grandson.

[tclambert]

34. Pretty sure Republicans are okay with eating poor people, though.

"The poor are meat for the rich to eat."

[aikoaiko]

35. Good old fashion racism.

U-S-A U-S-A

[Codeine]

36. Animals are animals.

It’s eiher perfectly acceptable to eat all animals or it’s wrong to eat all animals; drawing arbitrary boundaries between species is morally bankrupt.