Talking cows

This is a dream I had last night, which both amused me, and made me think a bit when I was at Five Guys for lunch today:

One day, cows suddenly started talking and exhibiting human-like intelligence. I'm not sure if they were always smart and just couldn't communicate it, or something happened to suddenly grant them intelligence. (I think it was the latter, but the dream sort of glossed over this point.) But they basically just started acting like people. Only somewhat more civilized.

Obviously, this was a pretty big deal, and the whole world immediately freaked out. On TV, there was 24/7 talk of the Rapture, alien invasions, biological terrorism plots, and so on. The cows took it all in stride, though, and soon, they'd formed a cow government, which started giving interviews to the media.

As it happened, the cows were surprisingly cool about the whole business of us using them as food for hundreds of years. After all, they said, it's not like humans knew any better. But the cows said that going forward, we'd have to agree to stop killing and eating them.

And that's where the political problems began.

Obama immediately issued an executive order to temporarily stop killing cows for food, but stopped short of telling farmers that they had to let their cows go free.

PETA and vegetarians were fucking thrilled, of course, because this completely validated everything they believed, and they started arguing for cow rights. They didn't stop there, either. They demanded it be made illegal to kill any animal, because if cows could talk, it stood to reason that pigs, birds, fish, etc. could, too.

Public opinion was initially mixed. Everyone agreed that killing talking cows was more or less wrong. But at the same time, the prospect of giving up steaks and burgers was immensely unpopular.

Republicans were solidly anti-cow rights, claiming that getting rid of the beef industry would destroy the economy, and besides, the Bible said it was okay to eat animals. Democrats, not wanting to take a stand one way or the other, suggested looking for some sort of compromise, like developing a way to genetically engineer cows without brains.

Eventually, a majority of Americans decided they could live with murdering sentient cows, if it meant they wouldn't have to change their diet. Because it was an election year, Democrats weren't about to let the GOP paint them as pussies who wanted to turn every American into a vegan, so most of them joined the Republicans in coming out against cow suffrage.

The cows called us monsters and vowed violent retribution.

And right before the dream ended, Obama was pacing around the Oval Office, trying to decide what to do.

So there I was at Five Guys this afternoon, and I thought about the dream, and on what side I'd be on if cows really did start talking. And I realized--right before ordering my cheeseburger--that I'd probably come down on the side of the cow-eaters.

So I guess the lesson I took away from this is that no matter how immoral it might be, some things are just too delicious to give civil rights to.