Derek wrote:

"Jonathan Ball" wrote in message link.net...

Derek wrote:

"Jonathan Ball" wrote in message link.net...

Derek wrote:

"Jonathan Ball" wrote in message link.net...

Derek wrote:

"Bill" wrote in message news

Your rotten explanation for your appalling
inconsistency stinks.

Killing animals for meat, and thoughtlessly killing
them collaterally in the course of vegetable
production, *both* reflect a failure or refusal to
recognize what you claim is their intrinsic worth.

No. It only proves that the farmer ignores the
inherent rights of his victims.

He ignores them because you keep paying him to ignore them.

If that is his reason for ignoring the rights of his victims,
then he is even more unethical than I first thought.

He isn't ignoring any rights of victims.

But you just wrote that he does; "He ignores them because
you keep paying him to ignore them." Make up your mind.

He ignores what you disingenuously claim, for
unprincipled reasons, to be animals' "rights".


And now you're back to saying he ignores them again.

Nope.

"Bill" wrote in message
news
Your rotten explanation for your appalling
inconsistency stinks.

Killing animals for meat, and thoughtlessly killing
them collaterally in the course of vegetable
production, *both* reflect a failure or refusal to
recognize what you claim is their intrinsic worth.
Your adoption of a strictly vegetarian diet does
nothing to change the societal view of animals; it is a
symbolic gesture *only*, and is plainly seen as such.
Likewise, working assiduously to ensure that you
consumed only CD-free vegetables *also* would be *only*
a symbolic gesture, and would correctly be seen as
such. Why do you engage in one purely symbolic,
utterly ineffectual gesture, but not the other?

Your answer to date is unacceptable. I asked earlier
what distinguishes the two gestures:

Refraining from eating meat, and refraining from eating
CD-causing vegetables, BOTH are purely symbolic
gestures. What distinguishes them?

You answered:

What distinguishes them is that buying meat and other
animal products supports a system which represents
a view
of animals which is philosophically opposed to AR: that
animals are property, that they have a moral
standing which
allows us to use them in unjust ways, raise and
delibrately kill
them without consideration of their intrinsic worth.


That answer is wrong, because collateral deaths in
vegetable production *also* occur due to societal
failure to give "consideration of their intrinsic
worth." In fact, you have ADMITTED as much, in your
sleazy rationalization for why you refuse to make the
more difficult and costly symbolic gesture, preferring
instead to continue to cause CDs:

I am convinced that veganism is a more ethical
position, since it rejects such animal deaths in
principle, and if the vegan position is accepted,
collateral deaths will decrease as a result of the
awareness
of farmers. But CDs will be invisible to society as
a whole until a moral stance against the intentional
deaths of animals in production of food and other
products is seen as unacceptable. Then society can
and will advance to the consideration of
unintentional deaths as well.


So, your claim about what the distinction is is FALSE.
What IS the distinction, then?

The distinction is: cost and ease. Being "vegan" is
cheap and easy, relative to refraining from eating
CD-causing vegetables. BOTH are merely symbolic, but
one is much more costly than the other.

Your engagement in one symbolic gesture, but not the
other, clearly is NOT based on any legitimate
principle, because the principle - recognition of the
intrinsic moral worth of animals - should dictate BOTH.

Thus, we see that you are a thorough-going liar, three
times:

1. why you're "vegan": it is not based on principle
2. why you don't abstain from CD-causing produce: it
*is* based on cost and convenience, and on making
your adherence to principle contingent on others'
acceptance of your views
3. what you have said about your dirty rationalization
of #2

You LIED when you claimed you didn't base your refusal
to abstain from CD-causing produce on others' views and
behavior. It is *exactly* what you do:

You claim that your inaction - your continued
participation in the collateral slaughter of
animals you don't eat - continues only because the
slaughter of animals that are eaten continues.

I have never claimed any such thing.

You are a liar. You do it above:

...if the vegan position is accepted, collateral
deaths will decrease as a result of the awareness
of farmers.

YOU could stop participating in CDs today, but you
won't, because others won't. You are waiting for CDs
to go away by virtue of *others'* changes in attitudes
and behavior.

Calling you a liar is not a "personal attack". You
throw that out there as if it invalidates the analysis
of the appalling inconsistency in your behavior, but
you are wrong. The analysis of your shoddy moral pose
is correct. Your lying doesn't begin until you react
to the correct analysis, and the labeling of you as a
liar follows that. You ARE a liar, Karen.

Get a life you sad dwarf.