As a vegetarian and an animal rights advocate, I support the acronym PETA being officially used for "People Eating Tasty Animals." 

What I don't get about PETA is why they don't tone it down a little.  I am all for treating animals ethically, such as making sure they are used in the most humane way for scientific research or killed quickly and with as little as pain as possible for food.  I don't like that chickens are squished together to lay eggs, so I buy cage-free eggs only. 

But holy crap society would utterly fall apart if everyone suddenly stopped eating meat.  We'd have billions of animals without a place to live, and they could never survive on their own.  I know PETA doesn't give a shit about human lives or rights, but they don't seem to give too much of a shit about animal lives.  All they care about is giving animals rights, and nothing else, not even the lives of animals.  They are never about improving living conditions for animals, when that would actually be a pretty plausible thing to pursue. 

You see, PETA is all for killing dogs and cats that they won't find homes for (as in, they don't even TRY, they euthanize them before even looking) because Ingrid Newkirk apparently worked at an animal shelter and while there decided that she had to be the one to kill these animals there 'as humanely as possible'.  I think this is where she gets the idea that euthanasia is so important.  Now, don't get me wrong, sometimes it really is necessary to euthanize animals in shelters because frankly shelters can only do so much (hint:  why doesn't PETA donate to these shelters instead of protesting at them and attacking them?  they have MILLIONS if not more dollars in their budget, but instead they're offering it to cities to get them to change their names), but PETA is notorious for killing more animals than they find homes for as well as not even trying to find homes for the animals.  They have all of this money and yet they can't use any of it to rehome animals (PETA could afford to PAY people who may not normally be able to afford a pet to take in quite a few animals, but they're too busy buying red paint to throw at people wearing fur).  They give plenty of shits about cows and monkeys, but when it comes to animals that they can DIRECTLY do something about, they just kill them in the van and throw them in dumpsters.  They only care about things that they don't have to come into contact with--people usually aren't stealing cows from farms and taking them to PETA for them to be responsible for them.  PETA only deals with things beyond their control so that they can pretend like they're the freedom fighters, but they can't take responsibility when they're actually needed.

Eh. The commercial wasn't that good. It got the message across, though it crosses a decency line. Maybe at late night hours when the kids are asleep etc, this would be fine. Even still, it was like a viagra commercial, except it wasn't funny.

Though, I didn't know about the veggie bit. I thought it was fruit the made it tasty.

I mean, PETA is the biggest animal rights group in the world, they didn't get that way killing puppies, so it's pretty clear that they have made quite a positive impact.

this is terrible reasoning you are a dumb person.

also PETA pretty much funds the ALF. they are PETA's unofficial violent wing.

no dude all those assholes do is make animal rights look like a fucking joke. Thats all they are, they're nothing but a bunch of dumbasses and misguided kids that think they're doing good but all they're doing is fucking up what could have potentially been a cool organization to help animals out.

Seriously they are nothing but a bunch of idiots who have apparently never worked on a farm or taken care of their own animals. All they do is stir up shit and fuck everything up.

I wish those vet clinics were allowed to hire security forces to shoot these dumb motherfuckers on site because if they're attacking vets and fire bombing important testing facilities they deserve to get shot for being so fucking stupid.

Edit: And when I say SHOOT THEM I don't really mean kill them. I mean either blow out one of their knee caps so that limp will remind them not to be complete morons or shoot them with rubber bullets until they pass out or run away.

they have proved it, the actually proved it on the previously mentioned Bullshit! episode about it, showing PETA's money going into ALF members accounts.

I don't really have much empathy for animals and don't personally really, really care if the chicken I'm eating was raped and tortured and had his hen and chicks shot down before him and lost his home and valuables, and then the butcher burns his eye out with a cigarette and says "say uncle.... say uncle" the chicken tries but he can only say "cluck" and the butcher knows this, its part of the torture you see so he chops one wing off and says SAY UNCLE DAMMIT NOT CLUCK and the chicken just cries and then the butcher chops its head off and then wraps it up and sends it on my table.
Its just a gaddam chicken. *crunch crunch mmh cruelty it tastes so good it makes the meat taste better I can actually taste cruelty its a little lemony*

But I do think that maybe groups like PETA (or at least groups that fill in the role PETA claims to fill, which is arguable PETA does not, or does very badly) are necessary to keep the food industry in check. It is simply not very good for people in general to be desensitized to violence at such a degree theyd' zap pigs for fun to hear them squeal like the pigs they are. OF course most places arnt like this, but these things do happen, and not only within the food industry, lots of people torture little animals for fun, its even a stereotypical CRAZY GUY UPBRINGING like every other psychopath has a "he tortured little animals as a kid" part in his biography.
Its a very human thing to have empathy for things you should not have empathy for (namely your food). I think its healthy for people to be horrified at the thought that what they're chewing on was once alive and made friendly little clicky noises,  I think that makes people think and making people think is always a good thing.

That's right I think animal rights movements are good for humans! I don't give a feck about animals! KILL ALL ANIMEL

why shouldn't people have empathy for animals?

I'm saying they should, its a human thing, but they also shouldn't because it doesn't make sense to have empathy for something you are eating with a side of gravy. Its a sort of ambiguous relation that probably/maybe only humans have towards their food, and it is maybe the presence of something like this that makes the difference between a potential psycho killer and a normal everyday guy. In other words its not a feeling that really makes sense, but taking it away is probably unhealthy.

I'm saying they should, its a human thing, but they also shouldn't because it doesn't make sense to have empathy for something you are eating with a side of gravy. Its a sort of ambiguous relation that probably/maybe only humans have towards their food, and it is maybe the presence of something like this that makes the difference between a potential psycho killer and a normal everyday guy. In other words its not a feeling that really makes sense, but taking it away is probably unhealthy.

I don't really have much empathy for animals and don't personally really, really care if the chicken I'm eating was raped and tortured and had his hen and chicks shot down before him and lost his home and valuables, and then the butcher burns his eye out with a cigarette and says "say uncle.... say uncle" the chicken tries but he can only say "cluck" and the butcher knows this, its part of the torture you see so he chops one wing off and says SAY UNCLE DAMMIT NOT CLUCK and the chicken just cries and then the butcher chops its head off and then wraps it up and sends it on my table.
Its just a gaddam chicken. *crunch crunch mmh cruelty it tastes so good it makes the meat taste better I can actually taste cruelty its a little lemony*

Regardless of what you believe, animals do express emotions.  You can tell when they are in pain, upset, angry, and so on.  For some reason a very large portion of the human race seems to think animals do not think or have feelings.  No, the animals haven't told us that they do, but it's reasonable to assume that they do.  There hasn't been any real evidence that they don't.  The reason humans should have empathy toward animals is that they are living, breathing creatures that evolved from the same stuff we did. 

Without animals, the human race would not survive.  We've needed them for food, clothing, tools, experiments, and all kinds of other things so that we can live happy, healthy lives.  This fact alone means they deserve respect.  This is the reason I believe in humane treatment of animals.  There is no reason someone should be cruel to a monkey that is about to be used for experimentation, and anyone who does should be punished for it.  The same goes for anyone who harms an animal just for the sake of harming them. 

It's not an ambiguous relationship when you eat a chicken that you took care of yourself, and possibly loved.  The animal had a chance to live a decent, comfortable life before it died.  I might be wrong about this, but I think animals that have been raised to be healthy typically taste better than animals that don't. 

Really I dunno what the deal is, trying to prove a charitable organization is corrupt.

The deal is that they aren't charitable, the deal is that they're getting millions of money from their members to KILL PUPPIES AND LIE.  Also, as other people already said, it's been proven before that PETA is tied to the ALF.  They've been caught giving money to them before, including paying for the defense of Rod Coronado, an arsonist who blew up a research lab (destroying THIRTY-TWO years worth of research).  It sounds like you just don't know enough about PETA, because otherwise you wouldn't know why trying to defend them is completely stupid and useless.

Velfarre do you have any links or sources where I can read about those van killings??

It was in the news for quite a while when it happened, but this has been something like four years ago so I'm having a hard time finding an article that's not been deleted.  This is the one that I've found that's still around, it talks about how the PETA representatives told this vet that they shouldn't have any problem finding home for these kittens she was trusting to them, only to find out they euthanized them and several other animals in a nearby dumpster.

Like it or not peta has done a lot of good things

You still haven't said what PETA has ever done that is good.  All PETA does is spend tons of money making advertisements, throwing paint on people, killing animals, funding terrorists and targeting children with more advertising.  They don't DO anything else, they just sit around on their asses doing the opposite of what they're promoting and setting legitimate organizations back.  It's the difference between helping your local church with a food drive or giving money to scientology, one is helpful and the other is only something people who are suckered into it do.

Yeah, I don't get why people seem to think "Well it's PETA, and they're a big organization, so they usually do the right thing." 

That is such a shitty argument.  That's like saying the American government is really powerful, so it must be good!  Hey, the Nazis were powerful too!  How benevolent! 

PETA has almost completely ruined the image vegans and vegetarians have.  The entire concept of animal rights has become a joke because of PETA.  When you have an organization that is so extremist and annoying as PETA, you get a major backlash and people want to support causes like animal rights even less. 

And the worst part is that a lot of vegetarians and vegans will blindly support PETA.  They don't look into them at all, and donate to them and wear their merchandise everywhere, looking like total fucking morons along the way.  Animal rights groups on college campuses (at least mine) are more than happy to slap PETA stickers everywhere, and there's no chance for an actually good animal rights group to form.  I've wanted to take part in protecting animal rights, but because of fucking PETA, it's pretty hard to find a legitimate organization in my area.

I don't believe in feeling gratitude towards "nature". Animals aren't as far as we know some group of beings that collectively agreed to help us humans grow as a species. Dogs didn't all meet one day and decide HEY LETS HELP BLIND PEOPLE. Animals feed us and work for us because we make them do it. We use animals the same way we use wind and fire. I understand we should be glad animals are there, but they do not form some sort of collective we should feel gratitude to.

For the feelings part, yeah of course animals have "feelings". A dog that is left alone will start crying, and be visibly glad when their masters come back. Fishes that are well fed and have a clean place to live will swim around quick, and hungry fish in murky water will be almost motionless and look almost depressed. Animals very sensitive, and express their states of mind in their own way. People who claim otherwise are usually just trying to provide a convenient answer to the nagging question of "why is it okay to slaughter cattle by millions", and are ashamed to rely on meaningless cop-out answers like "WE HAVE SOULS AND THEY DON'T".

However, I don't think attributing animals "feelings" and using that as a reason to treat them equally(or whatever) makes any more sense: feelings in their POETIC sense are pretty much a human-created concept, and we project these concepts on animals when trying to understand how they feel.
For instance,  looking in a dog's eyes: As you stare at the dog, you try to imagine that it is also staring back at you, and try to imagine what he is thinking, doing that from your own understanding of life and through this falsely attributing the dog human traits. Its empathy, its how we deal with other humans, its what gives you a natural inhibition from hurting another human being. Looking at them and understanding they are staring right back at you, like a mutual understanding of each others' sentience. For animals, the effect of empathy still remains, but the more different the animal is to you the weaker is its effect: you have a harder time making that connection.

Attributing them romantic and vague concepts of feelings we humans made up makes no sense however. Animals are sad, or happy, or angry. They are territorial, protective. They are hungry, thirsty, they are in heat, they are passive, they are active, they are agressive, they feel safe or threatened. It is the same for us, except that because of our intelligence and natural need of beautifying things and classifying things and placing greater meaning in things that are mostly meaningless in our search for existential answers and shit, we made up a whole panoply of different tones and contexts and combination's and half-tones and tangents to these basic emotions and then attribute them to everything around us. Dolphins laugh, birds are happy, bears are grumpy, dogs are faithful, mice are curious, hyenas are cruel, lions are proud. Ants weren't so lucky though, they're just "hard workers". Heh, suckers, must be because of the wiggly legs and beady eyes and antennas.

So basically, yeah, animals do feel things like we do, but its not all that special and is sort of an arbitrary reason to use in deciding what we should consider to have rights to be "ethically treated". As I said before, I do think torturing animals and killing or raping them is never a good thing, but it is not the animal victims I worry about, but rather the damage that such behavior could represent on mankind. As for the question of, what SHOULD we use to decide what deserves rights for ethical treatment and where to draw the line however, I have no idea. My first guess would be intelligence, creativity or capacity to communicate, but we barely know how these things even work.

I was talking to my dad about this, and apparently I was almost a vegan without knowing it. How does that happen. Fuck you peta.

What kind of argument are you trying to make with the first one?

It looks to me like they're trying to shut the brain off as fast as possible by running the electrocution through their heads. It doesn't look like they're in too much pain and are out almost instantaneously.

I'm not saying there aren't more humane ways of doing it but that doesn't seem evil or anything like that to me.

Now the second on is disgusting and I didn't think a pig could fly off the ground like that.