People can change. Robert Byrd entered politics as a Ku Klux Klan organizer and someone who had butchered hogs. He died at 92 on June 28, 2010, a promoter of kindness and fairness to all creatures, people and animals. Among his remarks posted on the website of The Humane Society of the United States are these:
About the extreme confinement of animals on factory farms:
Our inhumane treatment of livestock is becoming widespread and more and more barbaric. Six-hundred-pound hogs—they were pigs at one time—raised in 2-foot-wide metal cages called gestation crates, in which the poor beasts are unable to turn around or lie down in natural positions, and this way they live for months at a time.
On profit-driven factory farms, veal calves are confined to dark wooden crates so small that they are prevented from lying down or scratching themselves. These creatures feel; they know pain. They suffer pain just as we humans suffer pain. Egg-laying hens are confined to battery cages. Unable to spread their wings, they are reduced to nothing more than an egg-laying machine.
About the inhumane treatment of farm animals:
It is one thing to determine as a culture that it is acceptable to raise and rear and then eat animals. It is another thing to cause them to lead a miserable life of torment, and then to slaughter them in a crude and callous manner. As a civilized society, we owe it to animals to treat them with compassion and humaneness. Animals suffer and they feel. Because we are moral agents, and compassionate people, we must do better.
About cruelty to animals:
Animal cruelty abounds. It is sickening. It is infuriating. Barbaric treatment of helpless, defenseless creatures must not be tolerated even if these animals are being raised for food. . . . Such insensitivity is insidious and can spread and is dangerous. Life must be respected and dealt with humanely in a civilized society.
Let us strive to be good stewards and not defile God's creatures or ourselves by tolerating unnecessary, abhorrent, and repulsive cruelty.
About animal fighting:
Pitting animals against one another and causing them to fight just so that we can witness the bloodletting presents a clear moral choice for us. There can be no confusion on this issue. As decent people, we must act to stop it.
From a speech in 2007 where Senator Byrd condemned dogfighting:
The immortal Dante tells us that Divine Justice reserves special places in hell for certain categories of sinners. I am confident that the hottest places in hell are reserved for the souls of sick and brutal people who hold God's creatures in such brutal and cruel contempt.
For a brief biography of Robert C. Byrd, click here. For images of or relating to Robert Byrd, click here. For information on The Humane Society of the United States, click here.
About the extreme confinement of animals on factory farms:
Our inhumane treatment of livestock is becoming widespread and more and more barbaric. Six-hundred-pound hogs—they were pigs at one time—raised in 2-foot-wide metal cages called gestation crates, in which the poor beasts are unable to turn around or lie down in natural positions, and this way they live for months at a time.
On profit-driven factory farms, veal calves are confined to dark wooden crates so small that they are prevented from lying down or scratching themselves. These creatures feel; they know pain. They suffer pain just as we humans suffer pain. Egg-laying hens are confined to battery cages. Unable to spread their wings, they are reduced to nothing more than an egg-laying machine.
About the inhumane treatment of farm animals:
It is one thing to determine as a culture that it is acceptable to raise and rear and then eat animals. It is another thing to cause them to lead a miserable life of torment, and then to slaughter them in a crude and callous manner. As a civilized society, we owe it to animals to treat them with compassion and humaneness. Animals suffer and they feel. Because we are moral agents, and compassionate people, we must do better.
About cruelty to animals:
Animal cruelty abounds. It is sickening. It is infuriating. Barbaric treatment of helpless, defenseless creatures must not be tolerated even if these animals are being raised for food. . . . Such insensitivity is insidious and can spread and is dangerous. Life must be respected and dealt with humanely in a civilized society.
Let us strive to be good stewards and not defile God's creatures or ourselves by tolerating unnecessary, abhorrent, and repulsive cruelty.
About animal fighting:
Pitting animals against one another and causing them to fight just so that we can witness the bloodletting presents a clear moral choice for us. There can be no confusion on this issue. As decent people, we must act to stop it.
From a speech in 2007 where Senator Byrd condemned dogfighting:
The immortal Dante tells us that Divine Justice reserves special places in hell for certain categories of sinners. I am confident that the hottest places in hell are reserved for the souls of sick and brutal people who hold God's creatures in such brutal and cruel contempt.
For a brief biography of Robert C. Byrd, click here. For images of or relating to Robert Byrd, click here. For information on The Humane Society of the United States, click here.
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