"Leslie" > wrote
> Found scrawled in the outhouse on 22 Jun 2005 03:03:01 -0700, "Rupert"
> > wrote:
>
> <snip>
>>
>>> Vegetarian diets are quite good, and efficient, where vegans
>>> go awry is falling for all the feelgood quasi-political nonsense.
>>
>>What nonsense? Some vegans claim that following a vegan diet is the
>>best way to minimize one's contribution to animal suffering. I don't
>>see that you've offered me any reason to think otherwise.
>
> I believe Dutch and Rick have tried to tell you. It is logically and
> numerically
> impossible to claim that animal suffering can be minimized by going vegan.
> Let me offer a
> reasonable example:
>
> In the production of crops, even on a smaller scale than the corporate
> farms, you have
> destruction of animals beginning with the preparation of the ground for
> planting
> (discing). Every field must be worked and, other than a small vegetable
> garden in your
> backyard, it is impractical in time and manpower, to hand-work a 70 acre
> field for
> planting preparation. Ergo, machinery. Go to your nearest John Deere
> dealership and take a
> look at the size of a tractor needed for a 70 acre crop. *Just* the
> tractor; we'll get to
> the other implements later.
>
> After you have run the tractor and disc through your 70 acres the first
> time, you must do
> it a second time for 70 acres of never-tilled earth. While at the Deere
> dealership, move
> on to the implements and take a look at a 15 foot disc. They are equipped
> with big steel
> blades that bite at least 6 to 8 inches into the soil. Between the tractor
> and the disc
> you have, effectively, a giant tenderizer (tractor weight and wheels) that
> slices and
> dices after squashing.
>
> Keep in mind that there is no guarantee that the voles, mice, bunnies,
> prairie dogs,
> ground squirrels, fox, badger, and other denning/underground dwelling
> creatures have been
> actually killed by your first pass. No, you might have a couple of hundred
> assorted
> creatures mortally wounded but not *yet* dead. Yes, they will die, of
> shock.
>
> Now that your 70 acres has been plowed you must prepare the ground for
> your crop. Let's do
> soy beans because they usually show up in a vegan diet. While you are
> buying your seeds,
> you also buy your chemical herbicide and fertilizer. If you don't have an
> applicators
> license, because this stuff *is* lethal, you hire it done by the local
> co-op.
>
> First, they come out to your field with the anhydrous ammonia. That is
> your fertilizer.
> Ever smell it? It will stop your heart and suffocate you if you don't use
> a breathing
> apparatus. Now think about it being applied right on top of or into the
> animal dens
> themselves. Very nasty way to die, assuming you had survivors of discing.
> Lungs, eyes, and
> skin burning, fighting for air and unable to get any that isn't filled
> with the
> anhydrous...
>
> Okay. Now you must get ready for the seed you bought. That means going
> into the 70 acres
> for a third time with a harrow bed, to pulverize the disced up dirt clods
> into finer,
> tillable ground for planting. The co-op then goes in after harrowing with
> the herbicide
> application. It has a skull and crossbones on the label for a good reason.
> The applicator,
> if he has followed the manufacturers statistical data sheet (MSDS), will
> be in a "moon
> suit". He's covered head to toe, goggled, and wearing a gas mask or other
> device to
> breath. You use a chemical herbicide because it would take you a month to
> go in and pull
> weeds by hand, and you have to get your crop in, or go broke.
>
> You are ready to plant now. For a *fifth* time a tractor and implement
> have gone into the
> 70 acres, this time with that seed you bought and a 12 row planter. Look
> at the implement
> again. Here, this will help:
>
> http://www.deere.com/en_US/deerecom/usa_canada.html
> (click on agriculture)
>
> WOW. You just noticed at the Deere site that soy beans are waaaay up, so
> you really have
> to get going. Of course, being sort of conscientious, you have bought the
> most minimally
> inoculated but disease resistant seed possible. Yep, your seed has all its
> shots, which is
> why you don't want to handle it much without gloves. It will also kill any
> animal that
> eats it and quite a few bugs, too. "Virgin" soy seed doesn't exist
> anymore. It's all been
> manipulated.
>
> You plant, it grows. The crop is looking good. Oh NO! Those pesky bugs!
> So, it's down to
> the co-op for a pesticide to kill the bugs that have been identified by
> your local USDA
> extension office. They tell you what chemical to use. They spray it on
> and, voila! No more
> bugs...no more birds, no more mice, no more bunnies. They are either
> killed slowly by the
> poison or, if not dead, then sterilized.
>
> That's okay. Your crop is looking damned good! The market price is high
> and you might make
> some money on soybeans. Oh, crap! Weeds!! Not many but enough to be
> irritating. Well, you
> don't have a cultivator so you hire Mexican labor to go in and "walk" the
> beans. Three
> bucks an hour and all the pot they can haul away (ditch weed grows wild
> and resists
> everything). Now your 70 looks pristine, from above.
>
> Harvest time!!! You drag out the combine (see Deere implements again) and
> tractor and go
> to work. It grabs the bean plant, yanks it out, separates the beans from
> the foliage, puts
> the beans in the grain tank, grinds up the rest of the plant and shoots it
> out the back.
> The names of the parts of a combine are pretty self-explanatory: threshing
> rotor, cleaning
> fan, chaffer, sieve, etc. End of any animal who might have made an above
> ground nest for
> themselves.
>
> But you've got your $7.00 a bushel beans out for all the vegans who "don't
> want to kill
> animals for food". At that price, who is going to care if a few thousand
> birds, squirrels,
> mice, or moles (and their babies) got squished, sliced, diced, ground,
> tumbled, terrified
> by the rumble and noise, badly injured, and left to die?
>
> Now do you see why the vegan claim of less- or cruelty free is an empty
> one? If the vegans
> place a value on a single life of a single creature, then using soy in
> whatever form
> renders that value meaningless.
>
> Moreover, this kind of wholesale destruction for crop production is far
> more "inhumane"
> than the factory farming of a large hog operation. The hogs aren't sliced
> and diced,
> squished, starved, out of water, or evicted from their "nests". A HUMAN is
> there every
> single day to feed them, water them, call the vet, clean up after them,
> and even talk to
> them. Their slaughter, when it's time, is quick. Their meat is nutritious.
> Every part is
> used. Not like the waste left behind the combine, made of chemicalized
> soy.
>
> Does this answer your argument?

Very Strong work Leslie. Now multiply that X9 for me, my farm is 640 acres.