"Digger" > wrote in message
...
> On Wed, 13 Oct 2004 11:22:55 -0400, "C. James Strutz"
> wrote:
> >"Digger" > wrote in message
news
> >
> >> If the vegan society want to pretend that human milk is
> >> a valid source of nourishment for vegans to consume,
> >> then they have no rational basis for excluding the milk
> >> sourced from other animals.
> >
> >No. Veganism is a lifestyle that avoids the exploitation of
animals.
> >The case in which human mothers breastfeed their children is not
> >exploitation.
>
> Relieving a cow of her milk is not inherently cruel or
> exploitative,

You must not know much about the process of producing milk. Before you
reply, do us all and yourself a favor and research milk production and
dairy farming. Look into artificial insemination, grain-feeding and
antibiotics, living conditions, what they do with new born calves, and
what they do to dairy cows who stop producing. Then check your
dictionary for "cruel" and "exploit" and think about how they might
apply to dairy farming and milk production. You will see that it is
anything but "relief" for cows.

> so if your only objection to it as a valid
> vegan food source is on the basis that it is, you must
> then allow vegans to use diary products sourced from
> animals which can be shown not to have been cruelly
> treated or exploited.

You're concluding from flawed logic.

> >The case in which human mothers feed their children
> >dairy milk is exploitation.
>
> If exploitation is the sole reason for defining a food as
> non-vegan, then what argument have you against those
> who declare milk sourced from unexploited animals as
> vegan fare?

And just how do you get milk from a cow without exploiting her?

> Also, it is on record that women can receive
> £2.30 for each pint they express.

It's exploitation.

> What if some third-
> World country were to take advantage of that market
> and hold women in milk parlours to extract their milk
> for a small wage; would that be vegan fare?

No.

> As you can see, exploitation is not the sole issue that
> qualifies or disqualifies a food as vegan fare. Eggs,
> for example, can be found on the ground, yet they
> still don't qualify as a vegan foodstuff either, so your
> basis for qualifying vegan foods on exploitation has
> no grounds.

Eggs are a form of life whether you find them on the ground or take
them from a production farm. It's exploitation.

> >You can't just blanket define anyone who
> >comsumes milk as non-vegan without considering the exploitation
> >issues.
>
> Then you cannot exclude any diary product from the
> list of vegan foods so long as it was produced without
> cruelty and in a non-exploitative way.

I ask again, how do you get milk from a cow without exploiting her?
While I'm at it, I'll ask you what you think the difference is between
making love and prostition. I wonder if you can draw any
similarities...

> >Agree with it or not, there's your rational basis.
>
> And it fails.

Only if you conclude from faulty information and logic.