Mercy for Animals has posted a disturbing video of animal abuse at a dairy farm. In the video, workers beat and stab cows for no reason and then laugh about it. Not surprisingly, Mercy for Animals sees this as an argument for veganism:

The deplorable conditions uncovered at Conklin Dairy Farms highlight the reality that animal agriculture is incapable of self-regulation and that meaningful federal and state laws must be implemented and strengthened to prevent egregious cruelty to farmed animals.

Although many of the abuses documented at Conklin Dairy Farms are sadistic in nature, numerous MFA undercover investigations at dairy farms, pig farms, egg farms, hatcheries and slaughterhouses have revealed that violence and abuse to farmed animals – whether malicious or institutionalized – runs rampant nationwide.

Compassionate consumers can end their direct financial support of farmed animal abuse by rejecting dairy, and other animal products, and adopting a vegan diet.

Conklin Dairy Farms is clearly awful, but that doesn’t mean no one should ever eat cheese again. If anything, this video shows the ludicrousness of vegan arguments that equate all animal use with sadistic torture. This video contains actual sadism — it is the gratuitous violence and not the mere fact of animal use that is upsetting here.

If the abuse documented in this video is an argument against dairy, it’s also just as compelling an argument against humans and animals ever interacting. These workers tortured cows for fun, not to get milk out of them, which is possible any time a cruel human and a relatively defenseless animal are in a room together. If this video means we should stop eating dairy, it also means no one should own pets, since dogs and cats might be tortured too (and pet owners are even less regulated than dairy farmers).

Erik Marcus at Vegan.com predicted jail time for the workers at Conklin, and said, “[P]lease do whatever you can to share this video with others—the animals tortured in this video need us to make sure their agonies are not ignored.”

The Conklin employees in this video probably should go to jail, but not because the cows need justice. They are dangerous people.