I guess the point here, is don't delude yourself about what you are - none of us are nice. We all do things that are horrible. Raising animals to slaughter them for food, is horrible. But there can be greater and lesser amounts of horror.
I am being called out as an idiot for thinking that an animal kept like this before being slaughtered:
http://www.teara.govt.nz/files/p20080nsil.jpg
is better off than an animal kept like this, before being slaughtered:
http://www.lennial.com/wp-content/up...oie-gras-1.jpg
Yeah, maybe not, in some abstract, "I-grew-up-in-the-suburbs-and-have-never-hunted-or-gathered-my-own-meal-my food-decisions-are-things-like-do-I-buy-the-organic-lentils-or-the-ones-in-the-glass-jar-to-avoid-the-BPA" way, there is no difference.
But to me there is. I'm pretty sure...to the animals...there is a difference for them. We could stop slaughtering them altogether and survive - but we're not going to do that. I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to kid myself that I am capable of that, any more than a rat is, or a lion is, or a shark is. You guise all seem to have this very inflated idea about what humanity is whereby we are able to live independently of the evolutionary history that precedes our lives today.