"Rat & Swan" > wrote in message ...
> Dutch wrote:
[..]
> >>and this can be shown
> >>in their literature on breast feeding.
>
> >>[ From the International Vegetarian Union:
> >> Is breastfeeding vegan?
> >> Don't be silly! Of course it is.]
> >> http://www.ivu.org/faq/
>
> > Oh get stuffed with breastfeeding..
>
> Breastfeeding is a good example, because breat milk is
> unquestionably an animal product, but breastfeeding one's
> own child, or willingly breatfeeding others' children, is
> a voluntary act which involves no injustice. It is vegan
> in ethical terms, if not literally. It adheres to the
> principle on which veganism is based.
>
Which is why I strenuously oppose the claim that
veganism is merely a dietary rule, or even based on
a dietary rule. I see that an objection to the use of
animals for food, clothing and human models is an
extension to a belief system which insists they have
a right not to be used in such a way. Nothing could
be simpler, or so I thought.

> >>On another page from their site they define veganism as;
>
> >>[VEGANISM may be defined as a way of living which
> >> seeks to exclude, as far as possible and practical, all
> >> forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for
> >> food, clothing or any other purpose.
>
> Not an absolute, but a principle. It is Antis who wish to
> define it as absolute, to create a strawman they can then
> attack. Virtually anyone will fail to carry out ethical
> ideas absolutely -- we are human, not angels or gods. Even
> the church assumes we will all sin, many times, although the
> goal is to avoid sin. Antis ask vegans to be something not
> even God requires of us, and then attack us for being human.
>
To counter their nonsense on insisting we must remain
infallible lest we imperil our claim that animals deserve
rights against us, I've tried to show that though children
are used as slaves for our benefit, unwittingly buying
goods from their slavers doesn't show a contempt for
human rights, but rather the impossible position faced
by consumers duped into believing the goods they buy
are produced ethically. To escape this counter, to date,
every anti I've put this to has refused to accept the
existence of child slave labour.

> <snip>
> >>but then again, so are mine when
> >>it comes to the consumption of meat. Even though I
> >>consider myself a vegan of many years standing, if I had
> >>a friend who ran a shelter for pigs, and one of them died
> >>from a heart attack, I'd be there for that night's BBQ in
> >>a shot.
>
> I might also. I would not hesitate on ethical grounds.
>
That kind-a throws Jon's argument for the vegan's
weird search for micrograms into the dustbin, doesn't
it?

> > What's ambiguous about that? If you eat pork you aren't a vegan.
>
> You may be in ethical terms.
>
Perfect!

> <snip>
> >>I don't think it does, because killing a healthy young animal
> >>for its meat and hide will always be wrong to someone who
> >>believes an animal has a higher value while alive than dead.
>
> Agreed. Slaughtering an animal, hunting one for sport, is always
> wrong.
>
Especially when pleasure is taken from it as in "Usual
Suspect's" description of bow hunting. Anyone can
hunt with weapons. Absolutely anyone.

[..]
> >>If animal farms were run in a way that allowed complete
> >>contentment and old age for its charges, then I would be in
> >>favour of Harrison's argument, but, as things are with that
> >>dirty great abattoir standing in the middle of it all, I'm for
> >>the abolishment of all livestock farming.
>
> In the short run, I agree, although not as a final goal.
>
By partially accepting Harrison's argument, I'm sticking
my neck out as far as I can on this. If animals can be
farmed to old age in perfect bucolic settings with vetinary
care, I see no reason why we shouldn't continue to farm
and eat them. It's the abattoir and frequent abuses of their
right to freedoms that stops me agreeing with him fully.