If you want to get rid of gangs you have to get rid of the reason people join them in the first place.

we don’t have much time until we’ll be rotting in the ground, too.

Didn’t have to mention it. I just mentioned it.

How do you know that an idiot is in a thread? He or she posts this meme.

I love the last three sentences of this comment so much that I became a Mormon so I can marry them all.

Our perception of intelligence and the societal acceptance of eating certain animals varies greatly over time and geography. There were once entire societies who were perfectly okay with consuming the bodies of their human enemies. Some folks eat horse. We here in the U.S. hunted whales for food and oil in the…

My original assertion was rhetorical. You can substitute any animal for the smart or dumb ones if you like. I just wondered why their intelligence compared with our human perception of what “intelligence” is should be a factor in determining their food-worthiness. It seems arbitrary.

I do! It rhymed, too.

I’m not arguing that you’re wrong. I just want to know why.

Good for you! If that’s meant to get a rise out of me, you’ve got to do better. I work for a wildlife agency and live in South Louisiana. Lots of folks kill and eat lots of animals around me every day.

This is not meant to be incendiary - merely a follow-up to your line of reasoning. If we bred a populations of dolphins to be dumb and docile, would it be okay to eat them?

My definition of intelligence is not the point. I was commenting on whether we should take anybody’s view on “intelligence” into account when selecting food.

I apologize. I was being rhetorical. The argument can be made that we’re all pretty dumb mammals. I might just as well have said kangaroo or armadillo. The real reason for my comment was to point out that using human-like “intelligence” as a factor in deciding which animals are food is a pretty poor choice.

But should intelligence be considered when deciding which animal can be used as food?

Har har so dumb! I bet they can’t even spell the word “electric!”

By whose standards? Cows can form attachments. They avoid danger and feel pain despite being bred for domestication. That’s an intelligence.

Notice that I never advocated taking your bacon. Nor did population come into it. I just cautioned against using “intelligence” as a reason to kill (or not kill) an animal for food.

I was with you until the intelligent mammals thing. I’m a vegetarian and I try my best not to use any products that come from dead animals. That being said, the intelligence thing is a terrible argument. Cows, sheep and goats are intelligent mammals. They get no special protections. Nor do squirrels, deer, elk or…

I hate my job most days. I am not a musician or writer like I wanted to be. My kid has a roof above his head and food in the fridge. I made the right choice.