All people are divided into those who think the rights of lobsters are a nutty idea and those who don’t.
This is why I keep saying that we need to step away from the word rights because it’s become meaningless. It’s clearly not the lobsters who have rights but the people who want to lay claim to an exotic sensibility. This is the right to be a condescending git that’s codified in this new rule.
Clarissa's Blog 
If people boiled kittens alive before eating them, would you find that objectionable? It’s natural to not want animals to suffer unnecessarily.
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Yeah, I agree. One thing that separates civilized people from barbarians is concern for animals, even in their death, and even if we eat them. Like, many chinese believe that the more pain the animal goes through the tastier they are (I’ve seen too many videos of animals being cooked alive in the name of “freshness”).
Industrial slaughter is bad but you can’t tell me that stunning animals before being killed belongs to the same category as a dog being boiled alive in a pot. And while we’re at it, fuck halal and kosher slaughter too.
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In a way, what I find most interesting about this, is that somehow a faction in British politics has found the energy and the influence to make animal rights an issue in 2025. This is a time in which the energy in politics derives from populist anger, and a significant theme there is, enough of this self-destructive altruism, we need to look after our own, and not squander our energy on the sufferings of others. We need to be willing to do harsh but necessary things, and so forth. Of course, there is opposition to the populism too, but you’d think that even the opponents of populism would be busy with the struggle.
On the other hand: what I read is that this is not just “lobster rights”, this is part of a general policy of animal welfare; and kindness to some animals can certainly fit a populist agenda, if these are the animals that we live alongside and rely upon. They are part of the nation in the way that the land and the rivers and mountains and trees are also part of the nation. So I wonder if the “lobster rights” are being highlighted for political reasons, as the weakest point of a policy that also has more common-sense components.
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“Lobster rights” is clearly a strawman framing of the issue, meant to ridicule the other side. It’s just animal welfare, like you say. They haven’t banned killing lobsters, just killing them in this very specific way. There are other ways to do this. For example, the japanese method of Ikejime (mostly for fish but also seafood) where they drive a spike or a sharp knife through their nervous system that kills them instantly.
This “lobster rights” framing is boomercon bait.
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I eat meat and I’m not a hypocrite.
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Sure, but doesn’t it matter to you how the animal was killed and if it suffered or not?
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It’s disturbing to me that I don’t know if you are being sarcastic. You are being sarcastic, right?
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So you brought up a topic. Most participants were responding to you that while framing it literally as “lobster rights” is ridiculous, the issue is genarally legitimate, not under the rubric of “rights”, but under “avoiding unnecessary animal cruelty”. Your response – “I eat meat and I am not a hypocrit”. What might it mean in this context? I do get Anonymous’ position that if the same exact people care about lobsters more than about raped girls, then it is a problem. But the meaning of your response is pretty much the only thing I do not get.
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I eat animals that are killed specifically so that I can eat them. I find it very strange to fret about their emotions before they are killed so that I can eat them.
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What about the rights of white British girls not to be raped by Muslim animals on an industrial scale? Good to see British politics dominated by real issues.
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Exactly.
Plus, it’s really bizarre to fret over lobsters while supporting abortion. If you are so sensitive that the method of a lobster’s death worries you, how are you coexisting with abortion?
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If we admitted that human fetuses can feel pain (they can) and started having to care about that, it’d throw a pretty big wrench in a massive industry.
I’d happily give lobsters rights if we could stop killing babies.
-ethyl
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Clarissa
Kid, I have to apologize for my reference to “Princess Dressed” fish when you were commenting on enjoying a meal of walleye (pickerel). The term originally referred to Lake Whitefish caught in cold northern lakes in Saskatchewan, very carefully processed, and flown to large American cities for Jewish celebrations — essentially something resembling Stringer Bell’s Japanese Ikejime.
But Google/AI does not mention the term, you had no way of knowing what this ancient phart was even talking about. It is rapidly handling fish properly to receive a premium cost for a superior tasting product, and how I was trained more than half a century ago ;-D
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This is fascinating, thank you. I really didn’t know.
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So, are they going to gas them? Because I really don’t see any humane way of killing lobsters before eating them. Unless they are planning on forbidding the consumption of these crustaceans.
[Disclosure: I have never eaten lobster in my life, nor any other type of seafood.]
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