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usual suspect
 
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wrote:
> The main point of veganism is to boycott factory-farming,


No, it is not.


The word vegan (pronounced vee-gun, sometimes mispronounced
vay-gun) was originally derived from vegetarian in 1944 when
Elsie Shrigley and Donald Watson, frustrated that the term
"vegetarianism" had come to include the eating of dairy
products, founded the UK Vegan Society. The word starts and ends
with the first three and last two letters of vegetarian,
representing that veganism begins with vegetarianism and then
takes it to its logical conclusion. Therefore the term vegan was
originally coined to differentiate those vegetarians who
(primarily for ethical or environmental reasons) sought to
eliminate all animal products in all areas of their lives from
those who simply avoided eating meat. A few vegans see use of
the word as a noun as offensive, and prefer to be referred to
using the adjectival form; they think that "he is a vegan" is
wrong, but "he or she is a vegan person" is correct.

Those who are vegans for ethical reasons today generally oppose
the violence and cruelty they see as involved in the (non-vegan)
food, clothing and other industries. By extension, cruelty and
exploitation are ideally avoided in all human activities and
relationships between humans as well as with non-human animals.
Though vegans are often accused of placing more importance on
non-human animals than on their fellow humans, most vegans are
aware of human rights issues and seek to avoid companies and
organizations that exploit others and to be "ethical consumers";
many find themselves becoming increasingly active in the fight
for human rights as a direct result of embracing veganism.
Animal products such as leather, silk or wool are avoided. Soap
must be made of vegetable oil instead of animal. Toothpaste and
hair products, etc., must not be tested by animal experiments
such as the Draize or the LD50 tests.

The group argued that the elimination of exploitation of
any kind was necessary in order to bring about a more
reasonable and humane society. From its inception,
veganism was defined as a "philosophy" and "way of
living." It was never intended to be merely a diet and,
still today, describes a lifestyle and belief system
that revolves around a reverence for life. - Joanne
Stepaniak (author of The Vegan Sourcebook).

http://www.answers.com/topic/vegan

> which causes
> animals to lead miserable lives.


So do combines, tractors, plows, and other implements of death, I mean
agriculture, but you continue to eat foods which cause deaths in such
horrendous fashion.

> The animals who live on factory farms have to be fed with plant
> products, the production of which will cause the death of wildlife.
> Animal products are an inefficient use of land,


Can you eat and digest grass?

> so their production
> will cause more death of wildlife than the production of plant products
> to be fed directly to human beings.


Try eating hay lately, numbnuts?

> As for the argument that ruminant-pasture food production causes fewer
> deaths than some forms of plant food production, the following article
> is worth a look:


No, it isn't. The author doesn't address the substance of Davis' thesis,
but only moves goalposts (e.g., changing the subject from animal deaths
to conditions in which animals are raised) and interjects a completely
irrelevant issue (i.e., animals "prevented from existing") while ceding
via his argument that animal deaths should be reported per capita rather
than aggregately that he and his fellow vegans DO kill animals. Davis'
thesis remains intact.