The personification of animals in America is very rampant. I'm not saying it's wrong or bad, but it does cause some conflicts. It's their culture. Wonder how they sleep at night? Easy, it's a days work to them. Back in 2006 when there was a rabies outbreak, dogs were being taken from their owners on the street and being beat to death right there in front of them.
Okay story time. Back when I was a kid, I loved cats (despite being allergic to them). One time on vacation with my parents, we were staying in a hotel. I got to stay up late with my parents (Yay!) and we were watching a documentary on China. In it, they showed some of the food practices, one of which was taking cats and dipping them in boiling water while still alive so the fur comes off easier during slaughtering. I was horrified, but didn't really say anything about it. It took me years and years to understand that it's a culture thing. Just like I don't bat an eyelash when I bite into a hamburger, knowing that cow probably had it's skull punctured, they don't flinch with things like that.
True to the behavior of socialization, things like this can cause us to behave very hypocritically, if we aren't careful. Our success and freedoms (a strong function of resources per capita) have allowed this. We can pamper our pets and treat them in ways animals have never been treated before. Pet beds, pet hospitals, pet hotels, pet spas, pet health insurance. Ask a person in rural china, who makes dirt compared to most of us, if they are going to pay $1200 for an operation on a dog.
Anyway, I don't denounce treating pets well or anything of that nature, but we tend to forget cultures, societies, and resources can cause disparities in behavior like this.
My $0.02
I get your point, but the cultural disparity argument isn't really a catchall.
Every single person currently incarcerated in the United States is there because of laws against things that either were at one time, or currently are culturally acceptable somewhere. Almost every war the US has ever fought was presumably to stop other cultures from doing things they find acceptable.
It's just not very sound, because it's human nature to interject our own personal moral code into the affairs of others, cultural disparities or not.
