Reader D.H. e-mails a comment on the latest from Our Enfeebled Elites: Slate’s Will Saletan’s pitch for taxpayer funding of test-tube-grown meat–all so he won’t have to feel bad about killing animals when he tucks into a hunk of beef (see “Smells Like Feesh,” May 31). Will’s logic: rats have dreams, just like humans, so it’s immoral to call the exterminator.
Writes D.H.:
“Our media betters have been telling us for years of the horrifying possiblities of vitamin-enriched ‘Franken-rice.’ Let the masses die of malnutrition because genetic engineering of rice is a mutant evil, but give me guilt-free steak? This guy must have missed a memo.”
Yes, I love the way Saletan manages to carve out an exception for his own pet “vice.” And I hate to say this, Will, but domestic animals exist for only one reason. Otherwise, there wouldn’t be any.