"Rat & Swan" > wrote
> Dutch wrote:

[..]

> > If animals have the right to not be "used", then why do they not have
the
> > right to not be killed? If you say they DO have such a right, then you
have
> > instantly made human life, in fact ALL life on earth untenable.
>
> Used, killed, by moral agents,

That cannot be true, veganism focuses soley on a few specific *uses* of
animals by humans, not the myriad of ways they are killed.

> not by other animals or other
> moral patients,

Why should we so restrict the ways we feed ourselves when obviously the very
design of the ecosystem is organisms consuming other organisms?

> and not if the animal products (like a
> moulted feather or dropped antler) involve no cruelty or
> exploitation.

Red herring, nobody is talking about feathers or road kill, or guano, dung,
or mother's milk.

> >>>>>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.
>
>
> > I never denied it, I don't know how you're defining "it" nor to what
extent
> > exists in it's various forms. To be sure, unfair labour practises and
> > exploitation of children exists, that should be sufficient to establish
your
> > tu quoque position. But it doesn't work, nowhere are children
deliberately
> > and rountinely run over or chewed up with machinery and poisoned.
Nowhere
> > are they killed wherever their numbers appear to be out of balance.
>
> Because animals' rights aren't recognized, and because they are seen
> as property, as objects, as things.

Wild animals are not seen as property, they're seen as wild animals.
Domesticated animals ARE property, and they are also animals.

> There's such a cognitive disconnect here.

I'll agree with you there.

> I have said many times

You like to preface your remarks by saying that you have said things many
times before, why? It adds nothing to your comments except to make it sound
like you're a broken record.

> that CDs result from the same lack of consideration, the same
> immoral system, which allows animals to be deliberately raised
> and killed for products -- that it is a general disrespect for
> their moral status which causes both.

If cds and livestock production are so damned similiar then why are there a
million AR books and websites condemning one and zero condemning the other?

There's your cognitive disconnect.

> Antis respond by whining
> that nowhere are children treated like CDs or animals in
> culling programs. OF course they aren't: children's rights, while
> routinely ignored in some areas, are not dismissed entirely.
> They are not victims of a systematic denial of their moral status,
> as animals are. What else would you expect?

It's correct that animal rights (as you mean it) are not recognized by most
people, that's not surprising. What is significant is that they aren't
recognized by ARAs who constantly claim to be the advocates of animals. They
are NOT, they are the advocates of particular way of thinking about certain
animals. It's a narrow quasi-political dysfunctional idealism.

> > More to
> > the point, no anti here is claiming to be more in tune with human rights
> > than anyone else, as vegan/ARAs are claiming to be in tune with
so-called
> > "animal rights".
>
> ARAs ARE more in tune with animals' rights. They are the only
> people who believe animals HAVE rights.

Fine, that's my point. *I* don't claim to be more in tune with human rights
than anyone else. I don't claim to know if this or that product contains a
legacy of exploitation more than anyone else knows. ARAs *do* claim to be
more in tune with animals rights. Therefore this tu quoque about human
rights is nothing but a wet noodle. If people act in concert with the
principle of human rights by choosing products selectively or in other ways,
that is completely independent of and unrelated to whether or not they say
they believe in the rights of animals in one breath and buy products without
consideration of cds in the next. It's a red herring and a tu quoque
argument from start to finish.


> > <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?
>
> > Not at all, you're both lying.
>
> Once again, when someone says something that doesn't fit your
> prejudices, call them a liar.

It doesn't fit my impression of you AT ALL, you are ALL about appearances.
You would not risk someone seeing you eat a rib. Derek, I would believe
anything of him, I doubt if he's even a vegetarian.

> > No vegan would eat a rack of ribs.
>
> *Sigh* Because ethical vegans believe the methods of producing
> meat are immoral.

Partly, but also because vegans demonize meat-eaters and despise meat-eating
so much that it would be too much of a mental switch.

> *grinds teeth,restraining self from using
> term of personal insult.*

Your little tirades don't bother me, but as we know, they don't advance your
cause, do they ?

> Look -- I ate meat for many years,
> up to my mid-30's. I LIKE meat; I would love to be able to
> eat meat again. But I don't for ETHICAL REASONS.

I don't believe you. That's what you THINK, but if you started eating meat
again your thinking would change. Funny how the mind works. Nonetheless, I
fully support your freedom to have your personal ethics. Too bad you don't
respect me enough to allow me mine. Too bad you've given up the joys of
great food in life for a shallow ****ed up principle.

> If those
> ethical reasons were eliminated, many vegans would eat meat,
> I suspect, or at least entertain the possibility of it.

If abstaining from meat ceased to be a source of moral self-gratification
then I agree most vegans would stop being vegans. That's the hook that keeps
them in it.