Rat & Swan wrote:

>
>
> Bill wrote:
>
>> You unethically, as always, ran away from the tough issues.
>
>
> I've discussed the issues, and continue to do so.

You snipped the tough issues, unethically, as you
always do. You do not discuss issues. You flatter
yourself.

>
>>> <snip>
>
>
>>>>> But I believe that their deaths are a result of and part of the same
>>>>> mindset which is legitimized by the raising of livestock for food
>>>>> and other products.
>
>
>>>> You are colossally wrong. They are the result of your truck with
>>>> animal-killing farmers.
>
>
>>> So after I die, there will be no more CDs, I assume....
>
>
>> No, stupid bitch.
>
>
> So then, CDs in general are NOT the result of my personal actions.

They are.

> As I said: they are a result of social attitudes of many people,
> and cannot be ended by one person's action.

Raising meat animals and killing them also is not being
ended by your merely symbolic refusal to eat meat.

You have no rational explanation for why you don't eat
meat.

>
>> After you die, you won't cause any
>> more CDs. "vegans" who are living after you're dead
>> will.
>
>
> Vegans, including myself, don't cause CDs.

"vegans", including you, do cause CDs.

> I've been more than
> fair, and bent over backward to be honest

That's a sick joke. Fundamentally, you are a liar.
Your character IS the issue: the character of moral
nags is always at issue.

> and accept the
> limited degree of responsibility I do bear,

You do not. You are as big a shirker as Dreck Nash.

> to disprove your
> personal attack on my supposed "hypocricy"

I attack hypocrites. If you're one, and you are, I
expect you would take it personally.

> by agreeing I help
> to provide a motive for farmers to cause CDs.

The same motive meat eaters provide to farmers and
slaughterhouses.

You cannot explain why you withdraw your incentive in
one area and not in another. *I* can explain it: you
are an ease-and-pleasure seeking self-flatterer.

> But the customer
> does not cause the producer to use any particular methods;

IRRELEVENT, bitch. He uses methods of which you claim
to disapprove, and you KNOW it.

> he only
> provides a motive for the producer to provide a product.

You needn't buy ANY product produced by methods you
don't like.

>
>> Also after you die, these newsgroups will have
>> substantially less self serving bullshit in them.
>
>
>>> CDs are all _personally_ my fault, have no basis in social
>>> norms at all. My goodness, I had no idea I had such power....
>>> <sarcasm>
>
>
>>> Doesn't this contradict your claim my personal actions are merely
>>> an ineffectual gesture?
>
>
>> No, and you knew it and knew why, too.
>
>
> So -- if my actions have no effect, how can they be a cause of
> anything?

Why do you refrain from eating meat? You answer your
own insincere, sophist's question, bitch.

> You contradict yourself.

No, I don't. YOU contradict your alleged belief in
principle.

....
> This is logically impossible.

You find all logic impossible.

>
>> You aren't even close to funny.
>
>
> Actually, I thought that remark was hilarious....

As in most else, you are wrong. It was leaden.

>
>>>>> I believe the system has to be attacked at
>>>>> its source -- the philosophical view of the nature of animals'
>>>>> rights.
>
>
>>>> And your abstinence from meat does this...exactly how?
>
>
>>> It has no effect on the philosophical attitudes of society
>>> in and of itself -- except for my influence on a few
>>> specific individuals I know personally. It has had some
>>> limited effect there, as in my changing the policies of
>>> one parish toward veal.
>
>
>> So there's no ethics-based reason for it,
>
>
> I didn't say that.

*I* did.

>
>> and no concrete result.
>
>
> I didn't say that either.

*I* did. I'm right.

> It has had limited concrete results,

NONE. It merely makes you feel good about yourself.
You've done far too much of that in your self-absorbed
life. That's why your son was taken from you.

> it just hasn't changed society-wide practices.
>
>> It is purely symbolic,
>
>
> Not purely.

Entirely. I should have said that to start; there's
nothing pure about anything you do.

>
>> intended to
>> make you feel good.
>
>
> Certainly.

QED

> Acting on ethical principle usually makes one feel good.

It's not supposed to be the motive for doing it. You
aren't acting on moral principle, anyway.

>
>> It is not based on any principle
>> except hedonism, and clearly not on any ethical principle.
>
>
> You are wrong about that.

I am right about that.

>
>> Why didn't you admit this years ago?
>
>
>>> I do believe we are making some progress -- limited and glacial,
>>> but some progress.
>
>
>>
>> This belief is empirically wrong. The percentage of
>> vegetarians, let alone "vegans", is steady. The notion
>> that animals are not ours to use is not gaining ground.
>
>
> I see the evidence differently.

You don't see evidence, period. You are making up your
own pseudo-reality, one that is harshly contradicted by
reality.

>
>>> Things change slowly, but they do change.
>
>
>>> I can't figure out why my being vegan annoys you so much.
>
>
>> The "veganism" per se doesn't annoy me. I don't care
>> at all what you do and don't consume, and you already
>> knew that.

Silence is deafening, again.

>
>
>> It's the rest of the politics, a politics I know in
>> detail merely from your pompous announcement that
>> you're "vegan", that annoys me. You get everything
>> wrong. As a democratic, rights-respecting libertarian,
>> I don't believe in doing anything to restrict you in
>> your self indulgent belief in wrong values. What I do
>> is to get in your face and show you to be self absorbed
>> and hypocritical liar. Neither one of us has any way
>> of knowing this, of course, but I'll bet I've had far
>> more influence on others in revealing the dishonesty of
>> your position than you have had in converting other
>> self-marginalized, self-alienated, mentally ill people
>> like you to "veganism".
>
>
> Believe what you like, Jonnie.

I believe the truth, particularly the empirically
revealed truth of your lockstep, doctrinaire leftist
statism.

>
>>> Would
>>> you stop attacking me personally if I began eating meat again?
>
>
>> I don't attack you personally, except to the extent
>> that your identity is irrationally tied up in advancing
>> pernicious doctrines that you have no intention of
>> following yourself. It's amazing you can't see that
>> your character is a fundamental part of the debate,
>> given the topic.
>
>
> When you can't argue the facts, Jonnie, attack your
> opponents' character.

Your character is the topic.

> A classic dodge for a poster
> with no substantial argument.

Does not apply.


>> I don't care what you do and don't eat, and you've
>> always known that.
>
>
>>> Wouldn't that make me even more of a hypocrite, given my
>>> views (from your point of view)?
>
>
>> Slightly. There are two huge dopes here, "Zakhar" (not
>> his real name) and C. James Strutz (*ought* not be his
>> real name, but unfortunately is), who are largely
>> vegetarian for (the usual mushy) "ethical" reasons, but
>> who are not "vegans". They are bigger hypocrites than
>> "vegans", but not as if it matters.
>
>
> So, as I noted, it IS more consistent,

Marginally. It is you ****ing AND spitting into the
Grand Canyon, while those two are only ****ing.

> more in accord with
> my ethical views, to be vegan -- you admit it.

Your "ethical views" are irrelevent. Ethically
consistent behavior is relevent, and you are not doing it.

> The alternative would be less consistent -- you admit it.

No, I do not, because I don't care about consistency
with your deeply inconsistent moral views, and you know
it. Why did you lie? We know why: because you are a
thoroughly dishonest sophist, who only cares about
winning rhetorical points, preferably on the cheap.

> So there is an ethical reason for me to be vegan -- you
> admit it.

No, I don't. You've lied again.

> You cannot escape

I was never in a situation from which I needed to escape.

You are behaving unethically, across the board. You
are unethical in your behavior towards animals. Ethics
is binary: you either abide by a principle, or you
don't, and you don't, because there is no principle
there to begin with. You are unethical in your
behavior here, because you construct elaborate lies
about your opponents' positions. I did not "admit" to
any of the points you dishonestly and shoddily put
together.

You are proving your bad character with every post.
You should stop it, now.