you don't eat feathers either but if farming feathers caused animals to suffer then would it be ethical to have a fabulous feather headress?

Ban unethical feather farms NOW!

I'd say shearing sheep is humane. Look up "Shrek the Sheep" to see what happens when they aren't shorn.

This shouoldnt be an issue at all. They need to be sheared, it's healthy for them.

Odd, I am eating a honey and wool sandwich while wearing a pigeon feather headdress that I made myself.

There are lots of reasons that wool is inhumane. One, sheep are bred to have extra folds of skin so that they grow more wool. This sounds harmless, until flies start laying eggs in the extra folds near a sheep's tail. The eggs hatch and the maggots begin to eat the sheep's skin. This is called "flystrike."

To avoid flystrike, farmers will cut the extra folds of skin from the tail area without using anesthetic. Something about having folds of skin cut off sounds way more terrible than a haircut.

Two, the sheep's tails are cut off when they're young. Again, no painkillers are used for this process.

Three, I've never had somebody cut my hair who had 500 other people in line behind me and whose job was to get through the group of scared people as quickly as possible. Sheep end up injured in the process.

This isn't stuff that happens on isolated factory farms, folks. It's industry standard. Just because it's common practice doesn't make it okay.

Mr GarbageFairy - IZ's wife addresses these points in the video. Some questions for you:

Point One, the problem here is not necessarily the flies (which can be prevented), but rather the removal of excess skin. What are your thoughts on MGM?

Point Two, as above, what are your thoughts on MGM? And furthermore, which methods of docking, if any, do you consider to be "humane"? Which methods do you consider to be "painful" or "inhumane", and how do you know this to be the case?

Point Three, first, can you cite statistics on these hypothetical sheep injuries, and second, do you have an alternative?

The main problem here isn't even whether she's right or wrong, materially or morally. The main problem is the lack of any proposed, viable alternatives. *At worst*, points One, Two, and Three merely suggest that the problem exists on a purely case by case basis -it may or may not be a problem on any given farm - and therefore the best solution should be, not to give up entirely on wool or meat or whatever else it is you want your sheep for, but rather to buy products from "humane" farmers - much like any other breed of "fair trade" activism! These points that the two if you raise are not arguments in favour of *veganism*, let alone the extreme brand ovisophobic veganism being espoused by this dour young lady; they are merely arguments in favour of *increased consumer awareness*.

I don't even want to argue about the ethical implications of shearing sheep. The point is that veganism refers to diet, and you don't eat wool, thus it is a stupid question. If you're saying, "Is wool humane?" that's an entirely different question. I hate how "vegan" has been stretched into meaning every hippiedippy bullshit thing in the universe now, instead of just a diet style.

It still doesn't make much sense to me why this is a "vegan" issue. Assuming she has a smartphone (and obviously she has a modern computer capable of uploading video), those don't come from very humane working conditions for humans either, but you still use it even though you know it comes from slave labor. I'm sure somewhere out there there's a video of a Chinese worker slacking on the job and getting slapped around, and that's basically what this is. Maybe some of the shearers get off on cutting the sheep or throwing them onto the ground, but that just means that there are a lot of fucked up people out there.

Veganism is about much, much more than just what you eat. Vegans also don't wear leather clothing (shoes included), and avoid soaps made from animal byproducts as well. The more clueful ones also avoid manure-derived fertilizers and opt to use compost instead.

Arguing over the definition of "veganism" is as fruitless as getting a Mormon, a Catholic, and a Cathar to argue over the definition of "Christianity". Veganism means different things to different people, and there is no one "true" definition of veganism, as the very concept itself is nothing more than a cultural construct - an abstraction which exists only in the minds of it's adherents, meaning only what the individual chooses it to mean.

The most basic definition, the common denominator which I believe all vegans would accept, is the one which JBF espouses: a vegan is someone who abstains from eating any animal products. While your vision of veganism, fluffy, as well as that favored by Mrs Zest, are by no means "invalid" (and are indeed becoming quite common amongst self-described vegans today), at the same time you must remember that neither of you possess an exclusive mandate over the True and Honest cultural identity of veganism.

Fair enough.

True, a better analogy would've been something like enjoying music: a night at the symphony implies listening to string instruments with horse hair bows. As far as I know, my iPhone doesn't have any animal products so that's just a universal rights issue and not an animal one.

EvilHomer,

Point One: Yes, the problem is the removal of excess skin, which we have created by breeding sheep with these characteristics. I'm not sure what you're referring to when you mention MGM. Will you please elaborate?

Point Two: I don't consider any method of docking to be humane. My understanding of the word "humane" is that it means "having compassion," and I see nothing compassionate about the unnecessary removal of body parts (especially without painkillers or sedatives). It's obvious that removal of body parts without anesthetic is painful. There should be no need for argument on this point.

Point Three: The RSPCA outlines the injuries sustained by sheep during shearing. http://kb.rspca.org.au/what-are-the-animal-welfare-issues-with-she aring-of-sheep_603.html

You stated, "The main problem is the lack of any proposed, viable alternatives." I'm quite certain that you're currently WEARING the alternatives. There are so many non-wool fabrics and materials in use today that avoiding wool is simply a non-issue. I don't see why she should need to point this out, because it seems so obvious.

The problem with "increased consumer awareness" is that consumers are rarely actually informed about what they're purchasing. This isn't the fault of consumers, it's the fault of producers who manipulate people with misleading advertising and labels that aren't legally regulated. When we turn the bodies and secretions of others into commodities to buy and sell, ethics inevitably fall behind profit.

What about CM Punk?

I didn't watch this but I'm taking a guess: Like "imagine a doll factory like Barbie or something that uses human hair and doesn't let the girls leave" blah blah blah. Sure, there's plenty of big manufacturers who probably have the same conditions as you'd find at a slaughterhouse like Tyson or something and probably treat their sheep like shit. But sheep need to be sheered just like humans need a haircut and every ranch I've been to is like that. Even the comparison to meat is bullshit.. if I was a happy cow on a happy farm and knew that my happiness would only last so long, well that's like me being a happy person and one day getting a bullet to the brain for no reason. I do prefer bamboo shirts to wool ones, but it's not because I'm a vegan.

Bamboo shirts exist!?

I wonder if she knows about this? Don't let the URL fool you, this is actually comedy gold. "Mary had a little lamb, but it was left to be eaten by coyotes to natural select out wuss lambs. What the fuck, lambs, why are my lambs so lame!?"

http://www.salon.com/2015/01/20/even_meat_producers_are_repuls ed_inside_the_government_facility_conducting_horrific_experiments_ on_livestock/

Yeah. Most of what I wear is from this company called Nau. If you visit their website, don't let the pricetag fool you: they have clearance sales all the time, especially now that they're going out of business. 25 bucks for a black long shirt might seem pricy, but I've been wearing it 5 days a week for 5 years and it's still in one piece, unlike a lot of my wool sweaters.

You could sterilize them and then ship them off to petting zoos. Then they'd quietly go extinct while being pawed by dirty children, just like old people. Or, the next time we get low on wolves, we could release them back into the wild to help them shore up their numbers, just like old people in Greece. We could genetically alter them to the size of small cats and replace cats altogether. In our modern age, we should think of them as programmable life-chains that, in their present configuration, have outlived their uselessness. We need a new useless application for sheep.

I suggest we cross them with jumping spiders and make a new kind of soft riding animal. The Cyriak Sheep.

Let's see... get my butt shaved every once in awhile... or have my balls chopped off, get thrown into a cuddlerape factory, and watch all my friends and relatives get manhandled by meatfisted lolis as my entire species slowly fades away into the oblivion of history.

You raise a good argument, Meme! Fuck those stupid sheep, let's go vegan and finish them off once and for all; they'll love it.

You wanted an alternative to the sheep welfare system, I offered several. It's not my fault you filibustered it against the interest of the sheep. You talk as if you are a sheep, but we all know you're not. You and me both want sheep exploited, which we can agree on, but you prefer wool and food sheep exploitation while I want pet genetic horror sheep. This ideological empasse on how to fuck sheep over may doom our culture unless we somehow convince the sheep industry to stupidly pay for both. It's really about exploiting the farmers. So, how do we get our spider sheep and eat it too?

Well, let's assume that you really do want a genetic horror sheep. Why would we need to give up meat and wool in order to acquire these other things? You ask, "how do we get our spider sheep and eat it too". The answer is obvious: you simply eat them.

Also, not to sound ungrateful, but your proposed alternative is insufficient for the premises established by IZ's ex-wife. I highly doubt that the former Mrs Zest would be amenable to spider sheep; she doesn't even approve of sheep that have a wrinkly ass! Proposing a non-vegan solution, or at least a non-ovisophobic-vegan solution, to the sheep question is fine... but it isn't really relevant to Mrs Zest or (I'd assume) Mr GarbageFairy above.

I reject her major premise in favor of our own, and she can only ever vote for either of us once. We don't have to actually solve her problem, we just have to make it look like we did utilizing other people who also think we solved their problems, which we wont, because, like you said, why do that when we can go around it.

1.) We set up the sheep petting zoo, but no one pets sheep (in America) so it's really just rebranded farmer subsidized sheep welfare, which is unpopular. The farmer can keep our sheep in the name of the petting zoo for the people, and when it doesn't work, the farmer may have to cull a few to offset the cost. This is squarely the fault of those who don't pet sheep, not the farmer's and certainly not ours, so they can either pet the sheep (at an inflated cost now since we can't cull them) or shut up about it. They will shut up about it, it's human nature. Therefore, farmers keep sheep and we once again eat them, all in the name of ceasing to eat sheep in favor of petting zoos which don't exist or operate because the people wouldn't do their fucking part, the goddamned sheep killing hippies.

2.) Sheep cannot survive in the wild, as the government has hilariously demonstrated in a Loony Toons fashion. If the ex Mrs. Zest wants them to be free, we'll have to alter them back to a more natural state. This will require genetic engineering unless SHE has an alternative to it, because, man, I tell you, her (and it was her's) petting zoo idea is failing hard and we need to pay for these sheep or set them free. At this point, she herself is keeping slave sheep that should be free, and is morally bankrupt. Why wont she let us help these sheep now after we have all come so far? Why has she betrayed the sheep? We cannot let these sheep die in vain by this woman's evil, they WILL be free! FREEDOM is our value, not sheep slavery, Mizz IZ!

3.) If this all blows up in our faces, we were just following Harry Reid's plan.

You realize that the wild species that turned into our modern farmed sheep still exist, right? It's not like them being domesticated and selectively bred made the originals cease to be.

Also, apparently some breeds of domestic sheep have gone feral and survived long enough to have sufficient offspring to become a self-sustaining population back in nature.

Fluffy - wild sheep are not domesticated sheep. Yes, some non-domesticated species exist, of course we realize this; we are not veans, and thus, not idiots. But these *wild* sheep are completely irrelevant, as irrelevant to the discussion about their distant cousins, the domestic sheep, as, say, wolves would be to a discussion about puggles.

You claim that soome breeds of domestic sheep have successfully gone feral, the operant word here being "some". Even assuming for the sake of argument that you are correct, what about the rest of the sheep, the lions' share of sheep who are NOT successful in transitioning from a domesticated life to a feral one? You could easily make a similar claim about any domesticated species - housecat, chicken, cow. I daresay that if every cow were to be turned loose into the wild, at least "some" populations would survive, even if it were only through sheer ecological luck and the vast numbers of them already in the planet. But how many will *die*? How many will fail to become bovine John Galts in the wake of their newfound freedom? Half? Three-quarters? 98%? Remember, the central problem here is _harm_, not extinction; even if the domestic sheep weren't completely written out of the history books, an ecological holocaust that claims the lives of millions and millions of them is hardly an acceptable alternative.

^ "vegans", not "veans". Sorry, vegan moment there.

As for Memedumpster, regardless of what you think of his radical transovinist agenda, at least Memedumpster is thinking things through! If your primary concern is not for the welfare of sheep, but rather for the freedom of sheep (or, put a different way, if you define a sheep's welfare as being, not a function of comfort or safety, but as a function of freedom, self-determination, and the ability to both enjoy the fruits of one's labour and push to the boundaries one's own potential), then you've got to be prepared to accept some hard truths. You can't just sit there and moralize and pretend like the lives of sheep will get *easier* without the yoke of imperialist oppression dangling about their necks. Sheep are fat and decadent, and if they want to stop being exploited, if they wish to lift their muzzles to the heavens and breathe the sweet air of freedom for the first time in their miserable servile lives, then they will have to pay for the privilege, in tears and blood.

I, personally, would never approach a wild sheep spliced with jumping spider DNA with the intent of riding or eating it. I doubt farmers would be keen on raising them either.

It would make people not want to visit the petting zoos, however, so perhaps fluffy's wild sheep idea has merit to sheep salvation.

Which of these feral sheep would you say would be most capable of driving away humans when spliced with spiders?

You wouldn't ride a jumping spider sheep?! Eating it, OK, maybe I can understand your squeamishness, but DUDE, the fucking thing could scale the side of buildings and jump like thirty feet in the air. It'd be AWESOME.

Also, if you're not planning on eating the spider sheep, then don't ask how you can have it and eat it too.