Quote:
Originally posted by godwulf
I'm sure that I'm going to make a few enemies when I say this, but I'll do it anyway: I believe that people who derive enjoyment from killing animals are mentally ill.
(snip)
Yes, I shut my eyes and don't think about it, and maybe that makes me, on some level, a hypocrite; what I'm saying is that I think there's something wrong or 'missing' in a person if they can watch the suffering, the pain, the fear, the death itself, and think of it all as some innocent, fun sport.
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Well, the mentally ill part is true in some instances. However, it generally, when in the context of mental illness, points to a personality disorder such as sociopathy rather than organic mental illness. Murderers often have a history of torturing animals as children (part of the "homicidal triad": bedwetting, firestarting, and animal torture)...the consensus is that those who cannot bond with an animal, a creature that gives unconditional love, subsequently have extreme difficulty bonding with people at all. So it's always possible that the people you are talking about (the teenagers) could be starting down the primrose path to sociopathy, especially if they're often in trouble with the law or authority (among other symptoms, of course).
And I have to agree with you on two points: One, yes, if you saw the conditions in which the food animals had to live, and how they die, you probably wouldn't eat meat. I saw animals slaughtered 15 years ago, and I've been a vegetarian ever since, and two, I'd have to agree with the opinion that anyone who could watch a terrified animal suffer in the context of "sport" has "something missing." Usually it's the idea that animals are life forms that have a right to freedom and life independently of their use to humans.
Hey, but that's just me. I don't have a huge problem with people who go out there with a bow and arrow and shoot their food, especially if they use all of what they kill. But "sport" and "trophy" hunters disgust me.
Sidhe