While I will concede that some sources of meat come from places where the animals are treated cruelly. -No doubt about it. There's a difference between someone that likes to eat cheeseburgers and a person that beats their dog or keeps an animal in a cage that they kick out of amusement. -These bastards exist. They're almost as bad as people that abuse/bully children. I agree with scrimetime, I don't tolerate such things. But I do enjoy a nice steak. There's a big difference.
I think I know what you mean, and I'm not trying to be an asshole but, what is the difference? I know that the people beating their dogs are gaining pleasure from their pain, in a direct manner, but even indirectly, eating a steak is gaining pleasure from the cow's pain, and death.
You don't know the difference between an asshole beating a dog and a nice person eating a steak? I'm not going to spend a bunch of time on this, my guess is you are playing devils advocate here. I will say that we purchase, when possible, humanely raised meat etc. But there are opportunity costs to everything we consume. Leather belt? Timbre for your coffee table? All of it came at the expense of something...
"I'm not trying to be an asshole but, what is the difference?" Intent and execution. "eating a steak is gaining pleasure from the cow's pain, and death." And pleasure is, by no means, the only thing gained from eating a steak -- in fact, it isn't even the important thing. Whereas this can't be said for direct animal abuse, where "pleasure" is the whole point. There are a lot of differences here, now that I think about it.