All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.

I was a vegetarian by accident, having been born into those circumstances.  Over the years, I have largely stayed off animal proteins because I am increasingly uncomfortable with killing animals for food, though I fall off the proverbial wagon once in a while.

If we humans were truly beastly, apes that we once were, then like other animals, we too would be engaged in a predator-prey existence.  Eat or be eaten, as a high school classmate once phrased it.

But, apes we are not.  Unlike other animals--and tRump--that rely on their instincts and reflexes, we humans use reason. We think through, and plan ahead and behave in ways that animals do not.  In such a non-beast existence, when we have laid down laws against killing humans, how is it ok for us to kill animals?

How can we justify this "false contrast between the values of human and animal lives"?

It is a tough question.  I have also come to believe that this is a moral issue, and I lack the capacity to explain to others why I prefer one set of morals over another.  A set of morals in which I see no way in which I can justify killing an animal for food, which is also why I get uncomfortable chewing on animal protein, which I do once in a while.

"So the lives of humans and of other animals are very different. But does that mean that human lives are more important or more valuable than the lives of animals?"

Of course, this is a non-issue to tRump and his toadies, to whom the lives of some humans--if they are melanin-deficient Christians--are more important than the lives of humans from "shitholes."  But, to the rest of us, with empathy and feelings, it is not easy to declare that human lives are more important.  Why else would, for instance, tree-hugging liberals fight on behalf of spotted owls that most Americans have never seen ever!

And in case you think that we humans are better than animals because we can fly to the moon or create music, well, consider the fact that not all of us do those things.  Just because one human merely punches in and out of a low-level office job, while a cancer researcher is on a mission to find the holy grail of a cure, "most of us do not think that one individual is valuable simply because more good things happen in his or her life."

There are wusses like who merely talk, and then there are others who practice without bothering to talk about it.  Like these wonderful people who "offer water, love and comfort" to truckloads of pigs that are on their way to being slaughtered.  (Watch the video at that link.)  "As people at the vigils give the condemned pigs water, the connection they feel with the animals, often instantaneous, is understandable."

Around 7:30 p.m., the lead organizer for the night gets on a microphone and goes over the few rules: Obey all commands. No flash photography, because that’ll startle the pigs. Look both ways before crossing the street.
“Come up nicely, calmly,” said Benperlas during a recent action. “The pigs feel your energy, so be kind and show love. Try not to be too sad in front of them.”
The trucks’ routes are familiar: They always head east on Vernon Avenue after making a left from Soto Street, about a football field away from the plant’s gates. Their diesel engines, wide turns, and tall, distinctive trailers announce their arrival.
Someone yells, “Truck!” and attendees quickly prep. Bottles are distributed; jugs are filled. The leader that night stands in the middle of Vernon Avenue; the officer on patrol directs bewildered drivers around the stopped rig.
Everyone else tends to the pigs.

Perhaps only technology can deliver us from this moral dilemma:

Moral disagreement is a constant feature of the human condition, as we struggle to find the right way to live. Whether we should kill animals for food is one of the deepest disagreements of our time; but we should not be surprised if the issue is rendered moot within the next few decades, when cultured meat (also called clean meat, synthetic meat, or in vitro meat) becomes less expensive to produce than meat from slaughtered animals, and equally palatable. When that happens, I suspect that our present practices, being no longer gastronomically necessary, will suddenly become morally unimaginable.