> Such an argument, which I now call "Objecting to the 1001st Death," relies
> ENTIRELY on moral relativism. It avoids personal culpability for one's
> actions and ultimately becomes a diversion from the issue vegans and ARAs
> raise about animal cruelty.

I'm not sure who wrote this nonsense, I have already pointed out the
fallacies.

1) if numerous farmers are engaged in the systematic killing of animals in
veggie fields (or elsewhere), whether their food is eaten by vegans or not,
then this simply supports the need for farmers to go vegan and stop such
practices

2) veganism isn't a numbers game, it is about making choices that seek to
reduce _animal exploitation_, and vegans acknowledge that collateral deaths
are a part of all human activities, we simply seek to avoid such where it is
_practical and possible_ - it is both practical and possible NOT to eat
meat, or reduce meat intake, however humans have to eat plant foods to be
healthy, and furthermore, increasing meat consumption further precipitates
an environmental catastrophy

3) pasture ranging cattle do not tiptoe through the meadows, they trample
other creatures and ingest them by the thousand in every mouth of grass,
they compete with other herbivores and produce clouds of methane, and 90% of
the plant energy they ingest doesn't go to the table

4) vegans advocate veganic agriculture, free of any pesticides and dangerous
machinery - a veganic food supply would cause minimal collateral death, and
is free of animal exploitation - the same cannot be said for meat

5) all of the above points are factual, whereas there is no factual basis
for the claim that eating beef lowers total numbers of animal deaths

6) "moral relativism" is a nonsense concept - I would rather live with
people who want less suffering and explotation, even if that only amounted
to 1 death less, that 1 life is all that animal has, and even if no animals
were saved, it would still be a worthy ambition

If enough people were vegans, then that would in turn create sufficient
market to produce veganic food. All arguments that point to there being
avoidable animal suffering and exploitation _strengthen the vegan argument_.
They do not weaken it, as suggested by this thread and others similar.

John