you know what I hate about the discourse around animals? People get so caught up on whether or not doing something hurts an animal. (this came up from me looking up de-horning baby goats)
You get people who (rightfully) point out that doing a thing to an animal hurts them but say it as if that means that doing the thing is therefor wrong. And then people who (rightfully) support doing the thing but defend it by insisting that whatever it is doesn't hurt the animal -- even if they have to go so far as to claim animals can't feel pain at all ever And it's like -- no. It is good to sometimes do things to animals even though it might hurt them.
I hate the circle of nonsense that people get caught up in bc ppl accept that something hurting = abuse = bad = never do it no matter what and don't question the base assumption there.
Like yeah, de-horning a goat hurts them. So what? Giving a person a spinal tap or rabies treatment hurts too but nobody argues hospitals should stop doing them. They're medical treatments that are done bc the suffering the treatment causes is worth the long-term benefits -- and so is goat de-horning since it makes it harder for the goats to get themselves snagged on shit & hurting themselves in the process, not to mention the safety benefit to those around them.
Sometimes taking care of things requires hurting them. It's just a fact of life. There's no point denying that & it bothers me that radically mis-applied harm reduction theory has distorted the discourse so much.
& since we're here, trans rights are human rights, veganism is a lib psyop & circumcision is not a big deal.
my grandma has had barn cats her whole life, so this is a solved mystery for me; they prefer living in the house if given the option. Every barn cats want in the house, and every house cat wants out to the barn, every barn cat that becomes a house cat does not want to be put back in the barn and every house cat that becomes a barn cat wants back in. House cats only want out bc the grass is always greener but when given a choice between a life of comfort with the ability to play-hunt at will (depending on the availability of things to play with/owners with the energy to) or a life of hunting where comfort has to be carved out, they'd choose the former. PS, house cats aren't capable of surviving in the wild, they are domesticated. Cats individually can survive outdoors, and when supplied with food & shelter by humans a colony can live outdoors, but if humans vanished cat colonies would die off too. So there is no such thing as letting cats "live free", there's just a choice of letting cats live with you or letting them live in your back yard. There is no ethical solution to cats that doesn't involve human contact & support -- we are a part of them in the same way that our kidney is a part of us.