Animals should be slaughtered to provide people with food.

Thanks for allowing the delay! Let's begin. I want to first make clear for the voters that my opponent has the BoP to defend current animal-slaughtering practices for the meat industry (see comments). When my opponent talks about animals killed through plant-based agriculture tools, he is NOT using this as an example of slaughtering animals for food, but trying to show that agriculture is equally bad to factory farms. I only have to attack factory farms; I don't have to say that agriculture is wrong. My opponent says that chickens do have value, because we breed and kill them, and that proves that they "count." My opponent is here talking about the body of the chicken having a price that humans gave them. What I am talking about is the value of the life of the chicken (not it's flesh) having an inherent value that humans have no right to assign an economic value to. Lives are no reducible to a cash value. My opponent's argument in fact helps prove my point: The current system is trading lives for money like slavery, as if their lives didn't "count" beyond them being a mere object. This exclusion and objectivity is the same mentality that was used the other historical examples, as I've explained. "Go for it. I've seen your other debates. I would recommend against it though, based on the fact those arguments aren't pertinent to this debate. Or even the debates they appeared in." --My opponents' remarks about my other debates are pointless, and I find them extremely rude. My opponent goes on to imply that I lied about my personal experiences, and that my debate was terrible. I do not have to waste time defending my other debate. Contention 1: My opponent dropped the arguments that humans are similar to nonhuman animals except for two arguments, which I will address. 2. Animals do belong to complex societies. Flocking birds are great examples [1], as are merecats [2]. I don't have to prove that they are as complex as humans, but only that they are complex. Elephants also have complex social functions [3]. 6. My intellect does not rival DaVinci or Tesla. Besides, you confuse intelligence (cross-species) with IQ (human). Intelligence has to do with using one's brain-like functions for their particular needs. Tesla and DaVinci make very well-adapted, intelligent humans but would have made very dumb chipmunks. Chipmunks recall hundreds of exact foraging locations across miles for multiple months after visiting them once. "Elephants exhibit mirror self-recognition, an indication of self-awareness and cognition [3]." These are only a few examples. There are many more. Realize though, that the traits we value and other species value are different. Nevertheless, we are not more or less evolved. Rather, we are quite "social Animals" in Aristotle's words, so we tend to value social behavior more than most nonhuman animals. Remember that we are animals too. Nevertheless, all of these aspects of nonhuman animals are true. My opponent dismisses all of my arguments about the suffering of nonhuman animals. My opponent says that all of my sources are bad, but only listed one example (PETA), and didn't provide counter sources. Here's another [4]. My opponent does not address any other source of mine. Here's a video that puts into graphic reality all of the arguments I made that my opponent doesn't think is worth responding to: http://www.youtube.com... Immorality: These nonhuman animals are living torturous lives simply because the dominant group has deemed them "inferior" and wanted to use them for their bodies. This is a massacre of billions every year. Believe me that I have the most profound sobriety when I say that this practice may be comfortably compared to the Holocaust. The animals are only objects to our culture, so we have allowed torture for pleasure. This is not rape, but it does bear a striking resemblance in some ways. Also, I am talking about the act of slaughtering of animals for taste pleasure, not simply eating meat. Slicing an animals throat causes animals to bleed/suffocate to death. Why my opponent thinks this is "humane" is beyond me. The chicken is in considerable pain. Even if the chicken wasn't in pain, it would still be taking the life of another innocent. This video makes clearer the connections I've pointed out between sexism, racism, and speciesism. I dare you to watch 30 minutes of it. http://www.youtube.com... Health: My opponent concedes that meat is the #1 source of food-related illnesses. Yes, food-related illnesses can be avoided by careful sanitation, but the point still remains that it is the #1 food-illness hazard. Check this out: "CDC estimates that each year roughly 1 in 6 Americans (or 48 million people) gets sick, 128,000 are hospitalized, and 3,000 die of foodborne diseases." [5] Now for my opponent's arguments: Contention 1: "unsustainable?" My opponent says that because life-long vegetarians are in the minority that it is "impossible to sustain" such a diet. This only shows that not eating meat is counter-cultural, not "impossible." We are a culture that glorifies meat. When was the last time you saw a broccoli commercial aired on the Superbowl? Vegetarianism is inconvenient, because so much meat is consumed in America. That's far from impossible. Many Hindus do not eat meat for their entire lives for religious reasons. These human weapons who stretch their body to unbelievable limits do not eat meat their entire lives: http://www.youtube.com... There is a biological drive for things high in calaries and fat, like ice cream. This does not make it impossible to resist, and does not make it good for you. It is hardly futile, and even if one makes a mistake and returns to vegetarianism, that is still better than not at all and saves nonhuman (and human) lives. Contention 2: Bad for the environment My opponent does not contend that factory farms are not bad for the environment but only that agriculture is also bad for it. I am willing to concede that it is bad too. However, most of my opponent's arguments are about bad farming practices and not about the vegetarian diet itself. We certainly need to increase regulations to make more environmentally-friendly practices. Seven percent decrease in greenhouse is huge! It may not be enough alone to stop factory farms, but it certainly is a huge disadvantage for my opponent's case considering that all transportation is responsible for twenty-seven percent! [6] "Contention 3- My comfort is more important then any animals. Animals taste good." My opponent's entire contention 3 is proof for my case. THIS is what I mean by "not counting." My opponent saw my arguments about the torture of animals and dropped them, saying that they were probably "exaggerated." Note that my opponent offered not one scrap of evidence of what happens inside factory farms. Now, my opponent says that this torture doesn't matter because it gives my opponent "comfort." This is awful. My opponent refuses to acknowledge that others matter beside himself; even though he is now informed of the torture and injustice. Also, I think my opponent is forgetting that humans are animals, which makes his wording (perhaps appropriately) shocking and bewildering. Contention 4: I have demonstrated that vegetarian diets reduce the amount of fat intake and heart problems. Heart disease is the leading cause of death in the United States, killing 597,689 Americans each year. Vitamin B deficit doesn't even compare. If we are going to be concerned with human lives, we must fight heart disease, which vegetarianism has been shown to do. Besides that, my opponent does not come up with a single nutrient that can't be found outside of meat diets. In addition, my opponent failed to demonstrate that these lack of nutrients is unique in vegetarian Americans. Many Americans are already deprived of appropriate nutrients. Additionally, your analysis on veggieburgers vs regular burgers is incorrect. Either the lean beef your talking about is not the correct proportion in normal burgers, or the regular burgers aren't lean beef [10]. Red beef also could cause cancer and death [11 As a fun example, see not only the Shaolin Monks but this bodybuilder who set two world records and holds the title of "strongest man in Germany" [8]. Contention 5: Killing animals is like killing plants?!? Well, I've got to give my opponent kudos for creativity. But no. Responding to adverse stimuli can hardly be considered "fear," and breaks Morgan's Cannon of good behavioral analysis [9]. Nonhuman animals DEFINITELY feel pain, definitely have social interactions, definitely have nervous system, definitely suffer, definitely avoid death, definitely communicate, hear, smell, taste, and are sentient. Comparing them to plants is not a good argument. Contention 6: A good argument that again shows that we must seek to change farming practices to make them safer for nonhuman animals. However, agriculture kills far, far, far fewer nonhuman animals than factory farms. Again voters, please realize that the subject of the debate is whether animals should be slaughtered for their meat, not out of happenstance (see comments). Slaughterhouses kill more: See this link [9] Sources: [1] http://en.wikipedia.org...(behavior) [2]http://meerkats.wikia.com... [3]http://en.wikipedia.org... [4]http://advocacy.britannica.com... [5] http://www.cdc.gov... [6] http://www.epa.gov... [7] http://www.cdc.gov... [8] http://en.wikipedia.org... [9]http://www.animalvisuals.org... [10] http://www.nbcnews.com... [11] http://www.bbc.co.uk...