Let's discuss fur

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When living in the far north fur coats, trousers and boots are the only thing to keep you really warm. Sealskin is really well suited for coats and boots (and they taste really good as well). Polar Bear is used for trousers and boots (primarily by the hunters). Raindeer is sometimes used but the skin will loose a lot of hairs, I think it was used more in the old days. Dog- and foxskin is nice and warm and used for trimmings.

So, you are fur it?

Dare I go FURther?

Hunting cats should be illegal, and the penalty for it should nice n harsh to scare the hell out of anyone who tries it or thinks of trying it. It is NOT necessary for our survival.

I eat kittens for breakfast, how dare you attempt to destroy my way of life you pansy liberal

And that's fair enough.

But don't discount the possibility that your affection for capital punishment (and organ harvesting) in these cases is rooted in your very own sentimentality. The notion of ultimate punishment is a romantic one.

Your country dedicates vast resources towards maintaining a system of capital punishment, when its abolition would save you money, render the criminal justice system quicker (and retaining the ability to correct error), and be just as effective at deterring crime and preventing future crime. But you perservere in an expensive, time wasting, ineffective system because your body politic has a romantic notion about capital punishment.

None of which, of course, touches on the issue at hand--fur--in which we appear to be in agreement.

It's not just for the romantic notion of the ultimate punishment, it's also for the purpose of harvesting their organs and tissues and using them to save the lives of innocent people. What it boils down to is an ability to choose not to have any empathy for these killers and to see them as objects.

AspieRogue, a whole lot of people in prison end up with Hep C fairly quickly, and a lot of killers have done time before, so even when they are convicted they may already be Hep pos. Their organs aren't going to be any good to anybody.

My own ex husband is gonna get the needle in Mississippi when his appeals are up, if he lives that long, but even right now his organs wouldn't do anybody any good. He's had bypass surgery a couple of times, his kidneys barely function, his liver is shot. He's really not the healthiest guy around, and no telling what he might have already.

I know a lot of guys in prison and most aren't there for killing somebody and most of them do have Hep. Organ donation really won't work unless it's to somebody who has Hep and I'm not even sure they do that.

Prisons really need to be far more proactive about containing the spread of diseases like Hepatitis and especially AIDS. That doesn't change the fact that there ARE killers out there who are much younger and healthier than your ex-hubby who have useful organs and tissues. One person doesn't prove your case. Also, in many states, condemned killers are kept in solitary confinement where they aren't readily exposed to infected inmates. I say prisoners should be immediately tested for HIV, HPV, and Hepatitis and those who test positive should be kept in a separate are of the prison where they are isolated from other inmates. I also think that ALL jails and prisons should force inmates to clean the entire inside of the prison spic and span on no less than a weekly basis using disinfectants.

Wow! Actually, there is no real or virtual place on earth where this highly emotional topic can be discussed with reason. Even for Aspies it is impossible to stay mattter-of-fact, objective and factual. I found a few to-the-point postings from both fronts, but most of this thread consists of weird rants.

Even if a tiger was about to maul you?

I eat meat and wear leather, so I don't mind fur in colder climates. It's the only thing that keeps you warm in the polar region. Where I live, wool will do (though I can only wear fine wool because of sensory issues). Leather is used on shoes and belts because it can stand more wear and tear, is waterproof and doesn't make you sweat like synthetics do. Shoes that aren't leather don't last and in the end are more wasteful than taking off a cow hide when you kill it for meat; if you keep buying shoes made out of plastic, that's a lot of petrochemicals you're getting through. So I believe wearing animal hides and furs is okay when there isn't anything of comparable quality for doing the same job. I don't think fur for fashion is okay because you can get synthetics that look the same, just like leather purely for fashion doesn't appeal to me. Fur for warmth and leather for durability is fine, though.

In the animal kingdom it is eat or be eaten!! ! I dont think killing animals is always wrong as long as nothing is wasted or out of self defense.Fur is fine in my book as long as it is not from an animal that is endangered of becoming extinct.

If you accept the premise that its okay to eat meat ( as I and most americans do) then there is a huge difference between fur and leather.

This is because leather is a byproduct of the meat industry, and fur is not.

We already kill cows and pigs for food- so why waste their skins?
We might as well make their hides into belts and footballs- it would be wasteful not to.

Cows, pigs, chickens, tuna fish, crabs,- none of these creatures produces luxurient fur.

We have to get fur from animals we dont eat.

With one major exception- we have to kill the animals to get the fur (the one major except being sheep- which we also eat- but they are already domestic animals).

So to get fur you either have to raid nature by trapping wild animals, or you have to create an industry of raising domesticated wild animals (like minks) that we dont eat just to get thier fur.

So its not the same thing.

A leather belt is by product of our need for beef.

Fur requires either killing a wild animal, or raising an animal just for its fur.

Also minks and foxes are themselves predators- they are higher on the food chain than are cows, chickens, and even sheep (which are all herbivors). So it taxes the environment more to make a pound of minkflesh than a pound of cowflesh. And atleast we eat the cowflesh as well using its hide for leather.

Not that im a anti-fur fanatic. But I see why there is a difference in attitude toward fur and to leather.

I'm mostly indifferent on the subject of wearing fur. About the extent of my interest in the topic is that I'd desire certainty that the product was:

1. Created as humanely as possible, with little (or preferably no) pain to the animal(s) in question.

2. Created in a sustainable fashion, and not from species that are endangered or otherwise at risk.

3. Created and sold legally.

If all three of those things are in place, let the fur fly, so to speak.

I am very Anti fur as I feel its barbaric to skin animals alive for something that isn't even needed anyway.
A lot of animals have become extinct over the years because of so called "hunters" who are no better the poachers who kill rhinos for their horns.

The Fur trade is a barbaric and cruel trade and I feel anyone who wears it is ignorant of the suffering those minks and other animals go through so they can drape themselves in corpses.

China are the worst with skinning cats and dogs alive.

I don't know how to put links on but there's a good song from the international anti fur coalition called skinned alive.

So what's wrong with making affirmative choices about fur? Don't buy Chinese fur products. Make demands of retailers to demonstrate that their fur is sourced from sustainable, humane practices.

If you're going to throw the baby out with the bathwater because the Chinese don't live up to our standards, then you might start with their labour practices and all of the manufactured goods that Walmart imports. So long as we are going to give China a free pass, we should hardly be surprised when Chinese industry takes advantage of it.