[VoodooJuJu]

>Why would torturing and killing animals NOT be permitted today?

Because many people today would prefer that animals NOT be tortured and killed. Good people don't torture animals at all in general, and when we do kill them, it's for a definite end like food or to end suffering, and they are killed in such a way that they do not feel pain.

Increasingly, people don't want to see animals tortured and killed for some unknown or arbitrary end, like "let's just see what happens when we drown this rat dude, for science! lol".

[MrMcCall]

You are bang on correct and complete.

But it's an absolutely sadass commentary on the commentariat here that you have been downvoted. I feel for dang and his cohort, but there are a great deal of trollholes on this internet. (Yeah, I just made up that word.)