Discussion and Debate Community Thread

[Morifea]

That’s insane, I’m glad it’s banned in the UK. Along with Ireland Norway and Switzerland.

Sometimes one has to be glad for such simple and logical things... Another failure the CSU is to hold responsible for in Germany.

[Genghis Skahn]

This seems to have little to do with animal welfare. It's quite possibly simply a message that Jews are incompatible, unwanted and generally foreign to Belgium.

Yeah ok, whatever you say pal.

[sumskilz]

Yeah ok, whatever you say pal.

Is it empirically?

Seems not to have been studied much, but what Gigantus posted last time this came up certainly calls it into question. It may in fact be the opposite (shechita and halal are essentially the same):

I can't get hold of the February 1978 issue of 'Deutsche Tierärztliche Wochenschrift' were the study by Dr Schulze and others is published but it was summed up like this (marking by myself):

The scientific setup
A team at the university of Hanover in Germany [Tierärztliche Hochschule Hannover - Gig] examined the claims through the use of EEG and ECG records during slaughter. Several electrodes were surgically implanted at various points of the skull of all the animals used in the experiment and they were then allowed to recover for several weeks. Some of the animals were subsequently slaughtered the halal way by making a swift, deep incision with a sharp knife on the neck, cutting the jugular veins and carotid arteries of both sides together with the trachea and esophagus but leaving the spinal cord intact. The remainder were stunned before slaughter using a captive bolt pistol method as is customary in Western slaughterhouses. The EEG and ECG recordings allowed to monitor the condition of the brain and heart throughout.

The 'Halal' method
With the halal method of slaughter, there was no change in the EEG graph for the first three seconds after the incision was made, indicating that the animal did not feel any pain from the cut itself. This is not surprising. Often, if we cut ourselves with a sharp implement, we do not notice until some time later. The following three seconds were characterised by a condition of deep sleep-like unconsciousness brought about by the draining of large quantities of blood from the body. Thereafter the EEG recorded a zero reading, indicating no pain at all, yet at that time the heart was still beating and the body convulsing vigorously as a reflex reaction of the spinal cord. It is this phase which is most unpleasant to onlookers who are falsely convinced that the animal suffers whilst its brain does actually no longer record any sensual messages.

The 'Western' method
Using the Western method, the animals were apparently unconscious after stunning, and this method of dispatch would appear to be much more peaceful for the onlooker. However, the EEG readings indicated severe pain immediately after stunning. Whereas in the first example, the animal ceases to feel pain due to the brain starvation of blood and oxygen – a brain death, to put it in laymen terms – the second example first causes a stoppage of the heart whilst the animal still feels pain. However, there are no unsightly convulsions, which not only means that there is more blood retention in the meat, but also that this method lends itself much more conveniently to the efficiency demands of modern mass slaughter procedures (it is easier to dispatch an animal on the conveyor belt, if it does not move).

Naturally Belgium would also ban hunting for the sake of consistently, but it seems they have not.

I actually think that for most advocates the issue is about animal welfare, although a bit hypocritical on multiple levels, but Dr. Legend's point wasn't just something pulled out of thin air:

On April 21, 1933, Nazi Germany enacted a law that had the effect of outlawing kosher slaughter in the country. The law did not actually mention Jews or shechita (kosher slaughter); instead, it prohibited the killing of animals for food if they hadn’t first been stunned or anesthetized. Because kosher slaughter requires that the animal be conscious at the time it is killed, it no longer conformed to the law.

While there is ample evidence that the law was indeed directed at Jews, and while it was only one of countless measures that were intended to make life in Germany untenable for them, it is also true that Nazi Germany had something of an obsession with animal welfare, with the strictest and most far-reaching animal-protection regulations in Europe. It is also true that some of the Nazi Party’s most pathological leaders – including Adolf Hitler himself – were either vegetarians or passionate animal lovers.

In his capacity as prime minister of Prussia, Hermann Goering, instituted laws that prohibited or severely limited hunting, forbade the shoeing of horses, and banned the boiling of live lobsters and crabs. Animals could not be used in films, and, most significantly, vivisection was disallowed. Written into the comprehensive animal-welfare law passed in November 1933 was a clause stating that animals were to be protected “for their own sakes,” rather than for the benefit of humans. In that spirit, animal vivisection was also banned in scientific research.

In a radio address in August 1933, Goering announced that it was due to the influence of “foreign conceptions of justice” and the fact that until not long before, “the exercise of justice was in the hands of people alien to the nation [that] until now, the animal was considered a dead thing under the law.”

There is some discussion about how consistently these laws were enforced, but in principle at least, someone found to have abused an animal could be sent for punishment to a concentration camp.

It is from Joseph Goebbels, who wrote it in his diary, that we have the information that Hitler was a vegetarian. He also said that Hitler was planning, after German victory in the war, to ban animal slaughterhouses altogether.

This Day in Jewish History 1933: Nazi Germany Outlaws Kosher Slaughter

An interesting historical note, if nothing else.

[Aexodus]

I don’t know what Gig is referring to, but on the RSPCA website they say that stunning reduces pain, and religious slaughter causes more pain.

They also say a large amount of Islamic Halal is in fact stunned anyway.

https://www.rspca.org.uk/adviceandwe...ghter/factfile
https://www.rspca.org.uk/adviceandwe...giousslaughter

What is religious slaughter?

In the UK, Jewish and Muslim communities are exempt from legal requirements to stun animals before slaughter. All Shechita (Jewish) and some Halal (Muslim) slaughter involves cutting the animal’s throat without stunning the animal first (pre-stunning).

The Food Standards Agency (FSA) Animal Welfare Update report, which was published in September 2017, revealed that 84 percent of animals slaughtered by the Halal method were stunned before slaughter.

Key welfare issues of slaughter without pre-stunning

The Farm Animal Welfare Council (now Committee) (FAWC) report on the ‘Welfare of Farmed Animals at Slaughter or Killing’ June 2003 concluded:

• The level of restraint of conscious animals required for slaughter without pre-stunning was far greater than for conventional slaughter.
• A large cut made across the neck of a conscious animal would “result in very significant pain and distress” before the animal loses consciousness (around 5 to 7 seconds for sheep, 22 to 40 seconds for adult cattle).
• “Slaughter without pre-stunning is unacceptable and that the Government should repeal the current exemption”.

They also say they are pushing for laws to ensure kosher and halal are clearly labelled, which isnt the case currently in Holland for one, as well as other countries where it’s labelled as regular produce. Personally I don’t fancy Kosher.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-14779271

The Federation of Veterinarians of Europe took the position in 2002 that "the practice of slaughtering animals without prior stunning is unacceptable under any circumstances", and the issue has gradually become more central for animal welfare campaigners, and for politicians.

In the Netherlands and elsewhere, most of the remains of an animal slaughtered by the Jewish method (shechita) end up on supermarket shelves as regular meat products, because parts of the carcass are forbidden to Jews under their dietary laws.

https://www.newscientist.com/article...ous-slaughter/

Brain signals have shown that calves do appear to feel pain when slaughtered according to Jewish and Muslim religious law, strengthening the case for adapting the practices to make them more humane.

“I think our work is the best evidence yet that it’s painful,” says Craig Johnson, who led the study at Massey University in Palmerston North, New Zealand.

Johnson summarised his results last week in London when receiving an award from the UK Humane Slaughter Association. His team also showed that if the animal is concussed through stunning, signals corresponding to pain disappear.

Norway has lifted the exemptions on religious slaughter, and Muslims and Jews seem to be fine https://www.newscientist.com/article...er-in-the-eye/

Naturally Belgium would also ban hunting for the sake of consistently, but it seems they have not.

@sumskillz the reason banning hunting is unnecessary is because we simply don’t have the same duty of care in my opinion towards wild animals compared to domesticated ones.

Also, sheep tend to stay alive for 5-7 seconds in halal, and cattle for 22-40 seconds. If it’s a less skilled person this can even be up to 90 seconds. This renders Gig’s point 100% moot.

[sumskilz]

I don’t know what Gig is referring to, but on the RSPCA website they say that stunning reduces pain, and religious slaughter causes more pain.

If the methodology of the study Gigantus referenced is solid, they're talking out their asses. Requiring less restraint doesn't necessarily equal less pain. That's the assumption the study was meant to test.

The other study referenced is better. Here's a direct link. Their EEG data suggests the animals feel pain during a ritual slaughter in the 10 to 30 seconds before they lose consciousness. Now for comparison, this study looks at bolt stunning, which according to its EEG data doesn't reduce the animals perception of pain in the least bit.

I quote:

Although the penetrating captive bolt stunning leads to loss of mobility, our findings do not show evidence of absence of pain.

So it seems in the more conventional method, the animals get to feel the full pain of the slaughter, plus they get to feel a bolt fired into their head first. Is their a big push to ban bolt stunning? If so, I haven't heard of it.

@sumskillz the reason banning hunting is unnecessary is because we simply don’t have the same duty of care in my opinion towards wild animals compared to domesticated ones.

You may feel that way, but in the reality of factory farming, whether a bolt to the head or a knife to the throat, death is mostly an end to the animal's long term suffering. The animal welfare angle seems to be full of inconsistencies.

[Prodromos]

Smoky Mountain English(25)
One such region that is notable for the many archaic features in its pronunciation, vocabulary, and grammar is the Smoky Mountains, a small, thirty by sixty mile area located on the border between North Carolina and Tennessee (the size is exaggerated on the maps). However, while it has preserved a great many elements that once were - but no longer are - used in Britain, it has also developed a large number of unique features of its own. "They" is used in the place of "there"; subject-verb agreement can differ; and plural nouns may not end with an "s" ("They's ten mile from here to the school"). An "-est" can be placed at the end of a word instead of "most" at the beginning (workingest, completest). Irregular verbs may be treated as regular verbs and vice versa, or they may be treated as irregular in a different way from more general dialects (arrove, blowed, costed). Like many of the other dialects discussed on this page, the decrease in isolation caused by the increases in mobility and literacy has caused Smoky Mountain to be much less spoken today than it was at the beginning of the twentieth century. Some local words are withouten (unless) and whenevern (as soon as).

Pennsylvania German-English (12)
This was strongly influenced by Pennsylvania Dutch, a dialect of German spoken by people in this area (in this context, "Dutch" is actually a mispronunciation of the German word, "Deutsch," which means "German"). Its grammar allows sentences like "Smear your sister with jam on a slice of bread" and "Throw your father out the window his hat." They call doughnuts fasnacht, and they also invented dunking - from the German "dunken" (to dip).

[Aexodus]

Tulsi Gabbard and Richard Ojeda are two Democrat candidates I will be watching with interest the next two years. Tulsi Gabbard didn’t atrend the Woman’s March (good) and is disliked by many progressives.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...x-for-the-left
https://www.salon.com/2019/01/12/sal...t-of-the-gate/

[Vanoi]

Tulsi Gabbard. If it wasn't for her positions on Syria and foreign policy in general I think she'd be a decent candidate.

[Aexodus]

Is anti-illegal-wars an unpopular position? She’s an Iraq war vet btw

[Vanoi]

Nothing illegal about Syria and I said her foreign policy in general. Not simply which wars she supports.

[Aexodus]

I was referring to her ‘positions on syria’

[Vanoi]

I was referring to her ‘positions on syria’

You said illegal wars so I thought you meant more than Syria. I don't oppose her simply over her opposition to intervention there.

[Pinarius]

At least Japan is now recognizing, that they need foreign workers because of overaged society. So they are making a law for more foreign workers and better treatment of them.

But how many of them will be allowed to settle down permanently in Japan? It's also obvious that foreigners migrating to Japan would be usually not belonging to the same ethnic groups as those that came to countries like France, Belgium, Germany (that means people from MENA-regions).

[Love Mountain]

A so it is about race for some of us.

[Aexodus]

A so it is about race for some of us.

It is for the Japanese.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_to_Japan

The concept of minzoku (民族, "ethnic group")as represented in Japanese makes no distinction between racial, ethnic, and nationalidentities. Where the census of the United Kingdom, for example, separates ethnic or racial background from nationality,^[31] the Japanese Census and Statistics Bureau do not distinguish between the two.

The definition of ethnic and racial boundaries alongside national ones leads many people to represent Japan as tan’itsu minzoku kokka (単一民族国家, "an ethnically homogeneous nation"), with an explicit purity of blood and culture.^[33] In 2005 Former Japanese Prime Minister Tarō Asōdescribed Japan as being a nation of "one race, one civilization, one language and one culture"^[34] and in 2012, this claim was repeated by former Governor of TokyoShintaro Ishihara.

The concept of a unified minzoku retains a legal authority. A 1984 amendment to the Japanese Nationality Act made citizenship jus sanguinis, tied to blood rather than place of birth.^{[citation needed]}Japanese citizenship is exclusive: those who naturalize must renounce their first nationality, and those who are born Japanese but with a second citizenship must choose between them by the time they are 20 years old.

They also don’t accept many refugees, instead doing what I advocate and sending money abroad to sponsor refugees elsewhere. They are the 2nd highest donors to UNHCR humanitarian programs.

Whereas in Germany and Canada around 40% of asylum applications are approved, in Japan the number averages 0.2 per cent.^[22] On occasion, where Japan has stopped short of granting official refugee status, a limited number of applicants have been granted permission to stay on humanitarian grounds.^[23]In 2016, 97 refugee applicants were granted permission to stay on this basis. Decisions on refugee status in Japan are often slow, and confirmation of deportation orders are not widely published. Resubmission of asylum claims by previously unsuccessful applicants often occurs.^[24]

[Papay]

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...-a8727126.html

The mayor of Gdansk in Poland has died in hospital after he was was stabbed on stage during a public fundraising event.Pawel Adamowicz underwent five hours of surgery for wounds to his heart and internal organs after being attacked on Sunday evening.
The 53-year-old was allegedly attacked by an ex-convict who shouted that it was revenge against the politician’s previous political party.

Adamowicz — who has been the city’s mayor for more than 20 years — clutched his stomach and collapsed in front of the audience at the highly popular annual fundraiser organised by the Great Orchestra of Christmas Charity.
The assailant shouted from the stage to say he had been wrongly imprisoned under a previous government led by Civic Platform, a party which the mayor formerly belonged. He said his name was Stefan and said: “I was jailed but innocent ... Civic Platform tortured me. That’s why Adamowicz just died.”

“We couldn’t win,” said Poland’s health minister Lukasz Szumowski, according to private broadcaster TVN.
The Gdansk city flag has been lowered to half-staff at the news of the death.
The attack triggered an outpouring of solidarity, with many people donating blood in Gdansk on Monday. Some said they were given time off work to help save Adamowicz.
Police said the suspect, a 27-year-old Gdansk resident who was recently released from prison where he had served a term for bank robberies, has been detained and is awaiting questioning by prosecutors.
He previously facing charges of attempted murder, but if convicted of murder he could face up to life in prison.
A police spokesman, Mariusz Ciarka, said the attacker appeared to have mental problems and gained access to the area with a media badge. Police were checking if it was authentic and how he got hold of it.
Politicians across the political spectrum in Poland condemned the stabbing, including members of the ruling nationalist Law and Justice Party (PiS), such as prime minister Mateusz Morawiecki and interior minister Joachim Brudzinski.
“I’m expressing great pain for the tragic death due to the criminal attack on mayor Pawel Adamowicz. We express solidarity with his family,” Jaroslaw Kaczynski, PiS’s party leader was quoted as saying in a tweet from the party spokeswoman.


Adamowicz was part of the democratic opposition formed in Gdansk under the leadership of Lech Walesa during the 1980s.
After leaving Civic Platform, he was re-elected to a sixth term as an independent candidate last autumn.
As mayor, he has been a progressive voice, supporting LGBT+ rights and tolerance for minorities. He showed solidarity with the Jewish community when a Gdansk synagogue had its windows broken last year, strongly denouncing the vandalism.

I am guessing someone didnt liked his opinions regarding LGBT people and minorities. But..but i was told that Poland is a bastion of safety and that these things dont happen there...

Merged with the Discussion and Debate thread pending improvement of the opening post. ~Abdülmecid I

[Love Mountain]

It is for the Japanese.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_to_Japan

Which detracts away from the elephant in the room, which is extreme xenophobia and racism in Japan.

They also don’t accept many refugees, instead doing what I advocate and sending money abroad to sponsor refugees elsewhere. They are the 2nd highest donors to UNHCR humanitarian programs.

They've also been hounded by the UN for their blatant racism and refusal to take refugees. No doubt that the donation are most likely one of the methods Japan uses to detract critics, in exactly the manner you are doing right now. Not to mention that Japan is historically a supporter of the UN mission overall, as the UN promotes Japanese interests of maintaining neutrality and security in the Pacific.

[Mithradates]

Aha, so you believe that someone hired this guy to assassinate Adamowicz?

[Love Mountain]

This probably has more to do with his mental issues and criminal background than anything else.

[Mithradates]

I dont think that the Japanese see this as a problem.