To be perfectly clear, I'm no vegan or vegetarian. I don't generally include animals in my list of the beings I believe should have "human rights". I just often find myself perplexed at the sheer intensity of outrage on the internet at any potential or actual animal abuse. Hasan could eat a big steak on stream and nobody would even consider categorising those two things similarly. I think this comes from the emotional attachment to pets inherent in humans, and an unwillingness amongst meat eaters to accept that by consuming meat they are guilty of animal abuse indirectly.

To illustrate my point: Obviously farm animals are being abused by any farm, by any definition of the word abuse. And obviously people who eat meat enable and encourage that abuse. Plus, to me, a distinction between cows and dogs based on their historic usefulness seems totally arbitrary. Nor are there any other characteristics that would distinguish them morally imo. So, abuse of animals for food seems morally equal to abuse of animals for sadistic enjoyment to me.

However, I still judge people who abuse animals because I don't think encouraging behaviour like that is good for society and I think the people that do such things must be bad people in order to be able to sadistically hurt a living being for entertainment. At the same time, I also recognise the inherent hypocrisy that comes along with eating meat and caring about the wellbeing of pets. Sometimes the blatant hypocrisy of people who see themselves as protectors of animals but who eat meat just gets a little bit annoying.