Dog meat, anyone?

On Dec. 2, the IDS published an article about how a student group called “Dollars for Delilah’s” was raising money to help Delilah’s Pet Shop after it burnt down in November.

What followed was 108 angry comments on idsnews.com by animal rights activists who thought the charity was promoting puppy mills by supporting Delilah’s.

I don’t think an article titled “Students eat lunch at Burger King” would have prompted the same response.

Which is funny, really, because in one instance, you have students supporting the sale of animals as pets. On the other, you have students supporting the killing of animals.

However, the act that draws outrage is the act that keeps animals alive and interacting with humans. Activists are more concerned about dogs being mass-bred at puppy mills than they are about cows being slaughtered for food.

I bet if I reversed the animals and dogs had been eaten, they’d go crazy.

How exactly is it that people can elevate different animals to different levels of value? How can someone eat a cow then explode with anger when they even think about someone eating dog meat?

I mean, after all, cows are sacred and harming them is a serious crime.

At least that’s what Hindus would have us believe. In fact, it is illegal to kill cows in most of India due to the Hindu majority there. Cows roam free and it is considered good luck to give them a snack.

I, on the other hand, consider it good to eat them as a snack.
I’m simply pointing out the difference between cultures. We arbitrarily create standards of decency, and other cultures have different standards. Are we so arrogant as to say that we have the right to impose our culture on others?

In California, there is actually a law against the sale of dog meat. Most other states did not feel the need to explicitly outlaw it because, who eats dog meat in the United States?

That’s what most of the Western World thinks. The Chinese government told restaurants to take dog meat off of the menus at the Olympics so as not to offend any of our delicate sensibilities.

In 2002, the World Cup was co-hosted by Japan and South Korea. Dog meat happens to be a delicacy in South Korea. The FIFA decided to pursue a campaign against South Korea when FIFA President Sepp Blatter said, “I accept that many people eat beef, but a cultured country does not allow its people to eat dogs.”

The Anti-Dog Meat Headquarters conducted a protest in South Korea over the summer, when they claimed consumption of dog meat was at its  highest. It issued a statement preceding the 2002 protest that stated, “To relieve ‘summer heat’, or any other bogus myth they invent, (this is) barbarism!”

I would venture a guess that not every member of the ADMH is a vegetarian, so my question to them is, what kind of “myth” do they subscribe to when they indulge in the “barbarism” of eating dead animals? Surely the myth that humans die without food isn’t true.

Animal rights activists? No, you’re cultural elitists.