Butchers' logic

re: "Organ-less kitty 'needs necropsy now'" (BP, October 24)

Dear editor,

If true, the alleged killing by torture of the kitten warrants all the disgusted outrage it has occasioned. But honestly, is it any worse than the treatment meted out on a daily basis to the factory farmed pigs and chickens that chicken and pork consumers pay others to inflict on those animals for no better reason than to feed a lust for tasty animal flesh? In 2018, we do not need to eat meat, certainly not in the vast quantities that, contrary to medical advice, we tend to shovel into ourselves.

Whilst understandable, it is irrational moral hypocrisy to get in a tizzy over one person brutally killing a kitten for money whist happily paying others very well to inflict similar suffering unto death on far more animals on a daily basis. And whilst I'm not a vegetarian, those who advocate vegetarianism on the grounds that eating meat causes needless, and therefore unjustifiable, suffering do make a point that we meat eaters need to address. Even more challenging to reflect on is what justifies treating other animals that can suffer differently to how we treat humans when it comes to killing them. It is telling that, when philosopher Peter Singer followed through the logic here, the response from those incensed at the implications of how speciesism, which proffers only the lame excuse that "we're human and they're not", not only fails to justify the mass daily slaughter of non-human animals, but that the only sound answers to it require that both abortion on request and euthanasia under some circumstances be accepted, he received death threats!

Sound, rational thinking, as Socrates discovered in democratic Athens in 399 BC, can be a deadly business. The recent murder of Jamal Khashoggi by Saudi state operatives for engaging in rational discussion illustrates the same point, as do the shameful episodes of Thailand's October 1973, 1976 and Black May killings by state officials. These modern events reflect the same feudal mindset against the good morals of critical inquiry that continue to underlie the imprisonment or self-exile of patriots for such "crimes" as engaging in critical discussion or merely liking on Facebook an article from a respected media source whose accuracy has never been rebutted, and the even more brutal media and online censorship that some nations engage in to enforce ignorance of national issues, history and figures. Contrary to the propaganda of despots, contrary even to much traditional majority consensus, respect for critical reasoning goes hand in hand with other good morals.

 Felix Qui

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The above letter to the editor is the text as submitted by Felix Qui to the Bangkok Post.

The text as edited was published in PostBag on October 25, 2018, under the title "Butchers' logic" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/1564142/pilots-in-a-pickle