Kurt Zouma caught abusing a cat

[RandoEFC+]

If calling Zouma a cunt for booting his cat across the kitchen while his mates film it and laugh, whilst still being a meat-eater myself, makes me a hypocrite, then sign me up. Fucking hell lads, read the room.

By the way, if you want to open a separate thread on immoral farming practices then be my guest, you'll get no argument from me. The reason that doesn't cause as much outrage is because a) people aren't as aware of it and b) normal people can't relate to it the same as they can to viral videos of rich bastards abusing what they would deem to be defenceless and beloved pets.

By equating these two things, you're arguing with human nature itself. We are still ultimately irrational beings. If you want to go around telling people they can't condemn animal abuse unless you're a vegan, you won't end up in a country full of vegans, you'll end up in a country that no longer condemns animal abuse. Obviously, this isn't the actual choice in front of us, I'm just highlighting the madness of this false equivalence. The real choice is "do you want to be able to call out animal cruelty without overhauling your lifestyle to become a vegan, even if it means you get called a hypocrite on the internet by people who think they're making a good point?" And my answer is, I'd like to carry on calling animal abuse bad and be called a hypocrite, please.

And as a disclaimer, I'm not arguing with the point about how we treat the animals that are killed for food, because a lot of that is cruel as well. It just doesn't have anything to do with abusing domesticated pets.

[JoshBRFC+]

2 hours ago, Happy Blue said:

i like to abuse pussy 

 

 

 

Why would anyone purposely harm something you buy as a pet. So bizarre.

[Tar-Mairon]

"An isolated incident".

His brother gets out his phone to film it. Clear pre-meditation.

There is NO excuse to abuse a pet but whatever allegedly pissed Zouma off has happened before and he's had a chance to calm down. He shows no sign of anger in the video, just amusement.

Nobody in the video is shocked, there is laughter and not a single element of "woah" or surprise.

He instructs and does this in front of what I presume are his children - setting his children an "example" that you can abuse animals.

Yeah, right. Isolated incident.

 

[MUFC]

What if this was an everyday non-famous person, would they get arrested?

[JoshBRFC+]

23 minutes ago, MUFC said:

What if this was an everyday non-famous person, would they get arrested?

Think that's quite obvious - If it was uploaded and millions saw it then I'd imagine there would be repercussions.

[6666]

Seeing the videos, I wouldn't say they're actually that violent. His actions don't look great and it's weird seeing someone have fun intimidating a cat for fun but I think people wanting him sacked or in prison are overreacting. Maybe it's cause I thought the outrage would've meant it kicked his cat with a lot of force but it's not a criminal situation for me but people are getting arrested for tweets so maybe in a world that exists it makes sense.

[LFCMike]

Sacked or prison won't happen and would maybe be a bit far but he absolutely should be banned from owning pets if that's how he's treating them.

[Rick]

36 minutes ago, 6666 said:

Seeing the videos, I wouldn't say they're actually that violent. His actions don't look great and it's weird seeing someone have fun intimidating a cat for fun but I think people wanting him sacked or in prison are overreacting. Maybe it's cause I thought the outrage would've meant it kicked his cat with a lot of force but it's not a criminal situation for me but people are getting arrested for tweets so maybe in a world that exists it makes sense.

Not that violent? What are you on? He drop kicks a small cat with lots of force and then he smacks it in the head sending it flying. 

[Cicero]

8 hours ago, Spike said:

Everything has rights to life and the suffering it entails. 

Animals are no different than humans, some suffer in pens forced to work, live, and die like slaves. Others are abused directly by those meant to protect and love. Being upset that their is direct abuse doesn’t mean indifference or preference to large scale institutionalised abuse, and no one in this thread has said otherwise. @Devil-Dick Willie and @Dr. Gonzo never stated anything contrary to that, and I find this whole outburst bizarre and aimed at someone else entirely. 

If that's how you feel then why the defensive mechanism in your reply? "I need to kill a cat because I drink milk"

This along with @Devil-Dick Willie's completely uneducated post are shining examples of speciesism and instead of acknowledging your own hypocrisies you try to make each situation indifferent.  There's virtually nothing wrong in saying I prefer one animal over another. My issue are those that judge others without realising their own self conscious behavior. 

7 hours ago, Devil-Dick Willie said:

We're omnivorous. You sound like some idiot who watched game changers twice and believed the bullshit. 

 

Omnivores are Carnivores have the natural ability to process cholesterol.  The human body has scientifically shown it lacks the capacity to regulate these saturated fats because it does not have the hormone the thyroid secretes which prevents the cholesterol from clogging their arteries. It's virtually no surprise that vegans have drastic lower rates in cardiovascular disease. 

So yet again, humans are anatomically Herbivores. You choose to be an Omnivore. 

7 hours ago, Spike said:

Veganism is a first world privilege. People will the say ‘VeGanisM was Invented in India’ but they cook everything in fucking ghee, including Jains. There has never been a vegan culture.

Then people don’t even consider the wider implications of what they do, pat themselves on the back for replacing dairy with almond, but in the USA for instance almonds are environmentally disastrous, grown in California and they are a huge strain on water consumption and land, it is the equivalent of dickheads growing cotton in the middle of NSW while draining the Murray Darling.. Yeah, it is nice to be able to not eat meat and animal products, I have consciously lowered animal product intake but not everyone can do that, and if they can they most are unaware of the other problems that agriculture causes, specifically the crops needed to convert 5billion people’s dietary needs to plant diets . Humans are the disease.

I don’t like killing things, nor do I like how things die so others must live, but that is unalienable fact, regardless of humans.

Humans are naturally herbivores. It's the consumption of meat in most of the world that has turned into a commodity and a privilege, because the human body does not need meat. 

Are you genuinely implying that the distribution of dairy and almond milk are somehow equivalent? Both have their impacts sure, except the latter has a far less impact on green house gas emissions and there aren't any cows being raped and kept in horrible conditions. 

3 hours ago, Dr. Gonzo said:

You refuse to take the argument that pet owners should be responsible and know something about the pet as something serious?

As far as I know, no other animal on the planet has tried to wipe out a group of their same species other than humans.

So if morality is your concern, caring about pet abuse and disliking pet owners for abusing their pets would seem to go hand in hand?

Because otherwise what you’re conveying is that you don’t give a shit about animal abuse just because a lot of people eat meat. Which tbh is an insane statement.

This is a cat it can’t really properly defend itself from a footballer kicking it like it’s a football. Whether or not it’s ethical people eat meat doesn’t really seem to have anything to do with whether or not it’s alright for rich cunts to beat their pets for acting the way they naturally do

The point I made were for those to acknowledge their own ignorance & hypocrisy. Judging Zouma without realising your own contributions in the torture of animals creates an equivalency without the middle man. 

2 hours ago, RondónEFC said:

If calling Zouma a cunt for booting his cat across the kitchen while his mates film it and laugh, whilst still being a meat-eater myself, makes me a hypocrite, then sign me up. Fucking hell lads, read the room.

Finally the response I was looking for. 

[6666]

18 minutes ago, Rick said:

Not that violent? What are you on? He drop kicks a small cat with lots of force and then he smacks it in the head sending it flying. 

That first part didn't happen. There definitely wasn't that much force behind it and it definitely wasn't a "drop kick". I thought the slap looked a lot worse than the kick to be honest and that's the one I'd be more critical of.

Not saying there was nothing wrong with both but people really shouldn't be over exaggerating what happened simply because it's trending on social media.

[Rick]

22 minutes ago, 6666 said:

That first part didn't happen. There definitely wasn't that much force behind it and it definitely wasn't a "drop kick". I thought the slap looked a lot worse than the kick to be honest and that's the one I'd be more critical of.

Not saying there was nothing wrong with both but people really shouldn't be over exaggerating what happened simply because it's trending on social media.

Yes it was a drop kick, he dropped it and kicked it. Drop kick. The man is about 6’3” and this cat weighs less than a stone. His kick sent it scuttling across the floor, so there was enough force in it. 
 

Your second paragraph is just fucking stupid. You definitely smack your pets from the dismissive way your talking about it. 

[RandoEFC+]

Do the specifics of what he actually did to the cats really matter that much? The actions that have been caught on camera show that he thinks it's acceptable to treat an animal that he's brought into his home as a pet as if it's an object or even a toy. It always feels pre-meditated to me when you see this sort of thing. How can you know that somebody who thinks doing this to domestic animals is alright, and goes out to bring those animals into their home, didn't see "playing" with animals in this way as a part of the appeal when they made that decision? I just think anyone who treats animals in this way are a bit sick in the head. That's before you consider the fact that he let someone film it and put it on social media and didn't see anything wrong with any of that before the backlash.

It's not in the same bracket as meat eating for me. Like I've said, I'll let you have some of the cruel farming practice stuff. But at a basic level, humans killing animals for food, as horrible as that sounds, is necessary for food. 86% of people eat meat to some extent. The cost of treating animal farming in the same way as we treat animal abuse - zero tolerance - is that you're asking the vast majority of human beings to change their diet. Yeah, in theory, that is only an inconvenience to us, and shouldn't be unpalatable, but in reality, it's a huge shift in the way we live our lives. Imagine having to teach 86% of people to live off a plant-based diet. Imagine the shifts in industry, trade, etc.

Now back to animal abuse. Taking a zero tolerance approach to animal abuse and behaviour like we've seen from Kurt Zouma in this video doesn't require 86% of the world to have to change their behaviour. It's probably more like 0.86% of the world that thinks this is okay. They also don't do it to feed themselves, they do it for their own amusement. It's a lot easier to find alternative methods of amusing yourself than it is to change the core of your diet.

Now, a brief moment to reflect on just how bonkers it is I've had to spell this out, and onto a conclusion.

I was brought up in a house with both cats and dogs. I'm sorry, but this isn't something for me that lends itself to some pseudo-intellectual debate about how if you're actually very clever, you can see that a privileged Western multi-millionaire using a defenceless animal as a football is actually basically the same as a pig-farmer slaughtering his stock because millions of people across the world pay people like him to do that so they can feed their kids.

Of course, if you want to strip away all of our life experiences, cultural norms, habits and human emotions regarding the two different situations, then you do have a point that we distinguish between what's alright and what's not alright when it comes to animals in a pretty arbitrary manner. But you only reach that conclusion if you twist and turn reality into something that doesn't exist. In the UK, we're brought up with the belief that cats and dogs are pets, and pigs and cows are food. This is something instilled into the vast majority of households across most of Western society from a very young age. Many homes, including mine, use dogs and cats as pets and companions to teach young children the value of caring for others. Seeing footage like this is a fundamentally emotive issue for most people. If you start calling people hypocrites for a reaction that comes from such deep-set parts of their world view, I don't really know what you expect as a response.

It's also totally irrelevant at the end of the day. I don't really understand why anyone has come into this thread trying to play around with false equivalences or playing down how bad the footage is. Veganism and stuff has nothing to do with this. It's just a millionaire footballer being a dickhead and I know it seems like it's not allowed for us all to agree on something, but surely we can agree on that without having to try and show how unemotional and clever we are by turning it into a philosophical debate like this.

[Waylander]

As long as he apologises and with sincerity I think that should be enough. Expect the club to leave him out of the team for a couple of matches.

However there will always be some that will hate him for ever. 

Hope this media reaction towards common decency also makes him consider his parenting too.

[6666]

39 minutes ago, Rick said:

Yes it was a drop kick, he dropped it and kicked it. Drop kick. The man is about 6’3” and this cat weighs less than a stone. His kick sent it scuttling across the floor, so there was enough force in it. 
 

Your second paragraph is just fucking stupid. You definitely smack your pets from the dismissive way your talking about it. 

I don't think you know what a dropkick is... and I don't have pets. And if you read anything I said properly, you'd notice I said it was wrong. But I'm not gonna go to the extreme of it being one of the worst things to ever happen simply because the story is trending which is what you're doing. You also decided to go to the extreme of suggesting I do the same as Zouma in the video simply because I'm not over exaggerating like you. I get you're in an emotional state but try to make your point without being a plank.

[RandoEFC+]

If he means dropkick as in a rugby dropkick rather than a wrestling move dropkick then he is correct, just for the record.

[6666]

5 minutes ago, RondónEFC said:

If he means dropkick as in a rugby dropkick rather than a wrestling move dropkick then he is correct, just for the record.

I guess that's where the mix up is. Either way, people are framing the kick as a lot more violent than it actually is.

To repeat, yes it's wrong and he shouldn't be doing it. That doesn't mean people should take the situation and run with it as far as they can which is where my criticism naturally is when it comes to public outrage.

[Cicero]

12 minutes ago, RondónEFC said:

Do the specifics of what he actually did to the cats really matter that much? The actions that have been caught on camera show that he thinks it's acceptable to treat an animal that he's brought into his home as a pet as if it's an object or even a toy. It always feels pre-meditated to me when you see this sort of thing. How can you know that somebody who thinks doing this to domestic animals is alright, and goes out to bring those animals into their home, didn't see "playing" with animals in this way as a part of the appeal when they made that decision? I just think anyone who treats animals in this way are a bit sick in the head. That's before you consider the fact that he let someone film it and put it on social media and didn't see anything wrong with any of that before the backlash.

It's not in the same bracket as meat eating for me. Like I've said, I'll let you have some of the cruel farming practice stuff. But at a basic level, humans killing animals for food, as horrible as that sounds, is necessary for food. 86% of people eat meat to some extent. The cost of treating animal farming in the same way as we treat animal abuse - zero tolerance - is that you're asking the vast majority of human beings to change their diet. Yeah, in theory, that is only an inconvenience to us, and shouldn't be unpalatable, but in reality, it's a huge shift in the way we live our lives. Imagine having to teach 86% of people to live off a plant-based diet. Imagine the shifts in industry, trade, etc.

Now back to animal abuse. Taking a zero tolerance approach to animal abuse and behaviour like we've seen from Kurt Zouma in this video doesn't require 86% of the world to have to change their behaviour. It's probably more like 0.86% of the world that thinks this is okay. They also don't do it to feed themselves, they do it for their own amusement. It's a lot easier to find alternative methods of amusing yourself than it is to change the core of your diet.

Now, a brief moment to reflect on just how bonkers it is I've had to spell this out, and onto a conclusion.

I was brought up in a house with both cats and dogs. I'm sorry, but this isn't something for me that lends itself to some pseudo-intellectual debate about how if you're actually very clever, you can see that a privileged Western multi-millionaire using a defenceless animal as a football is actually basically the same as a pig-farmer slaughtering his stock because millions of people across the world pay people like him to do that so they can feed their kids.

Of course, if you want to strip away all of our life experiences, cultural norms, habits and human emotions regarding the two different situations, then you do have a point that we distinguish between what's alright and what's not alright when it comes to animals in a pretty arbitrary manner. But you only reach that conclusion if you twist and turn reality into something that doesn't exist. In the UK, we're brought up with the belief that cats and dogs are pets, and pigs and cows are food. This is something instilled into the vast majority of households across most of Western society from a very young age. Many homes, including mine, use dogs and cats as pets and companions to teach young children the value of caring for others. Seeing footage like this is a fundamentally emotive issue for most people. If you start calling people hypocrites for a reaction that comes from such deep-set parts of their world view, I don't really know what you expect as a response.

It's also totally irrelevant at the end of the day. I don't really understand why anyone has come into this thread trying to play around with false equivalences or playing down how bad the footage is. Veganism and stuff has nothing to do with this. It's just a millionaire footballer being a dickhead and I know it seems like it's not allowed for us all to agree on something, but surely we can agree on that without having to try and show how unemotional and clever we are by turning it into a philosophical debate like this.

Really wish you'd just reply to me instead of your subtle implications. 

Also, it isn't completely irrelevant. When ever there is a situation where we as humans favor certain sentient animals over others, the discussions of moral principles, and inevitably veganism, will always have a place. (Apologies for taking Moral Reasoning and Vegan Anthropology in my undergrad as I didn't think this would have a lasting affect on me.) 

I for one think its pretty simple to acknowledge meat eating is a necessary hypocrisy. Why many find it so difficult to accept that or try to defend their actions as if it isn't, is just strange to me. You can't condemn someone without accepting your own. I also don't agree with your assertion it is difficult for those to 'change their lifestyles' by cutting meat & dairy out of their diets entirely. It's actually relatively simple, you just choose not to because you've excused it as a necessary commodity. Your need to consume meat and dairy outweighs your emotional and moral empathy to these animals. This is completely normal as your brought up considering the way our lives have shaped. By that logic you should be completely fine with those in the far east eating cats and dogs as a mean of consumption.  

Also, its a forum. Philosophical debates are bound to happen when one as controversial as this arises.  

 

[6666]

3 minutes ago, Cicero said:

Really wish you'd just reply to me instead of your subtle implications. 

Also, it isn't completely irrelevant. When ever there is a situation where we as humans favor certain sentient animals over others, the discussions of moral principles, and inevitably veganism, will always have a place. (Apologies for taking Moral Reasoning and Vegan Anthropology in my undergrad as I didn't think this would have a lasting affect on me.) 

I for one think its pretty simple to acknowledge meat eating is a necessary hypocrisy. Why many find it so difficult to accept that or try to defend their actions as if it isn't, is just strange to me. You can't condemn someone without accepting your own. I also don't agree with your assertion it is difficult for those to 'change their lifestyles' by cutting meat & dairy out of their diets entirely. It's actually relatively simple, you just choose not to because you've excused it as a necessary commodity. Your need to consume meat and dairy outweighs your emotional and moral empathy to these animals. This is completely normal as your brought up considering the way our lives have shaped. By that logic you should be completely fine with those in the far east eating cats and dogs as a mean of consumption.  

Also, its a forum. Philosophical debates are bound to happen when one as controversial as this arises.

Killing for food is separate to unnecessary abuse in most people's minds.

The hypocrisy is more in being okay with killing an animal for food but not when it's for fur as the animal is dead either way. And also the whole being okay with one type of animal being eaten but not another. Those are the two obvious ones.

As for if it's necessary for people to eat meat, the answer is obviously no. Most of it is just down to people not being bothered to change their habit. So I agree with all of that but I do think even if you are a meat eater, you can view animal abuse or animal torture as wrong as it's something separate in my opinion.

[Cicero]

3 minutes ago, 6666 said:

Killing for food is separate to unnecessary abuse in most people's minds.

The hypocrisy is more in being okay with killing an animal for food but not when it's for fur as the animal is dead either way. And also the whole being okay with one type of animal being eaten but not another. Those are the two obvious ones.

As for if it's necessary for people to eat meat, the answer is obviously no. Most of it is just down to people not being bothered to change their habit. So I agree with all of that but I do think even if you are a meat eater, you can view animal abuse or animal torture as wrong as it's something separate in my opinion.

It's a moral dilemma really. 

[Dr. Gonzo]

30 minutes ago, Cicero said:

It's a moral dilemma really. 

A lot of things human beings do are moral dilemmas because humans are fucking scum.

[RandoEFC+]

9 minutes ago, Cicero said:

Really wish you'd just reply to me instead of your subtle implications. 

Also, it isn't completely irrelevant. When ever there is a situation where we as humans favor certain sentient animals over others, the discussions of moral principles, and inevitably veganism, will always have a place. (Apologies for taking Moral Reasoning and Vegan Anthropology in my undergrad as I didn't think this would have a lasting affect on me.) 

I for one think its pretty simple to acknowledge meat eating is a necessary hypocrisy. Why many find it so difficult to accept that or try to defend their actions as if it isn't, is just strange to me. You can't condemn someone without accepting your own. I also don't agree with your assertion it is difficult for those to 'change their lifestyles' by cutting meat & dairy out of their diets entirely. It's actually relatively simple, you just choose not to because you've excused it as a necessary commodity. Your need to consume meat and dairy outweighs your emotional and moral empathy to these animals. This is completely normal as your brought up considering the way our lives have shaped. By that logic you should be completely fine with those in the far east eating cats and dogs as a mean of consumption.  

Also, its a forum. Philosophical debates are bound to happen when one as controversial as this arises.  

 

I'm not just replying to you though, I don't like quoting people directly so much these days because it then comes across as a one to one argument whereas I see it as putting my thoughts across to everyone. I also have to say I'm addressing some of the stuff 6666 has said in his posts, but I'm also adding to points others have made. Also, my posts get long enough when I get going anyway without adding big quotes to them too. 

I'm not disagreeing with any of what you've written in this post at least. I almost mentioned the eating of dogs in Korea as an example of how these things stem from our inherent cultural norms, which are different in the Western world to other places. While we're in that ball park though, I find it a bit gross that they do that, because I've been brought up loving dogs and cats as companions. Obviously they look in the other direction and think that we're a bit mad for being so precious about it when there are other animals we happily slaughter and eat when there are alternatives. For what it's worth though, I would never put people who eat dogs out in the East because it's a part of their diet in the same category as people who beat and abuse dogs and cats for fun.

What I don't get though is where you think this conversation ends up. You come into a thread on an emotive topic full of people who are going to be upset with what they've seen in the video, start calling people hypocrites for reacting in a way that you've admitted you understand is a result of what's "normal" in our society. If you want to have a rational (and valid) debate about animal rights and the vegan lifestyle, you've chosen a less than ideal context to try to instigate that discussion here, in my opinion.

I find it difficult to put blame at the door of the individual in this case. We're the products of a hypocritical society thats relationship with animals has evolved over thousands of years, but it's normal to us. You've studied this at length for three years so you obviously have a valuable contribution to make to the discussion, I think you're overestimating the ability of the average person, who's wound up by the story, to treat this as rational discourse.

Forgive me as I'm sure this isn't your point, but it is genuinely how it's come across to an extent when you use the word hypocrite, that you're somehow criticising people for being against animal cruelty if they're not willing to be full-on vegans. If people aren't willing to go the whole hog for animal rights, but are willing to go up to a certain point, then the latter should still be encouraged.

[Dr. Gonzo]

6 hours ago, Stan said:

Not being investigated by the police apparently. 

The Met exists only to not investigate blatant crimes apparently…

[Azeem]

No dilemma. Lion King solved it long ago, we eat them, we become grass and they eat us, simple. But can't say that about torture, so wrong 

[Cicero]

4 minutes ago, Dr. Gonzo said:

The Met exists only to not investigate blatant crimes apparently…

The issue with animal cruelty/abuse is that prosecution is only ever considered as the very last option. They probably ordered Zouma to undergo certain educational programs to take corrective action. 

[Stan]

13 minutes ago, Dr. Gonzo said:

The Met exists only to not investigate blatant crimes apparently…

Or if it was in the past  

4 minutes ago, Cicero said:

The issue with animal cruelty/abuse is that prosecution is only ever considered as the very last option. They probably ordered Zouma to undergo certain educational programs to take corrective action. 

What is this based on?