View Single Post
  #69 (permalink)   Report Post  
usual suspect
 
Posts: n/a
Default

Rupert wrote:
>>>>>The main point of veganism is to boycott factory-farming, which causes
>>>>>animals to lead miserable lives.
>>>>
>>>>That's a lie, vegans boycott ALL forms of animal products,
>>>>not only "factory farmed" meat.
>>>>
>>>
>>>It's not a lie.

>>
>>Yes, it is.

>
> No, it's not.


Yes, it is.

> I didn't say vegans only boycott factory farm produce. I
> said the main point of veganism was to boycott factory farm produce.


That is NOT the main point of veganism.

>>therefore "factory farming" is not the issue, it's a red herring.

>
> Intensive rearing of animals *is* (the main part of) the issue.


No, it is not. Vegans object to the consumption of ANY animal product.
They don't care than animals are wantonly killed (see PeTA's recent
controversy over their own paid staff animal abusers), they only care
that they're eaten.

>>Vegans don't boycott factory farming, they boycott meat and other "animal
>>products".

>
> In particular, they boycott products from intensively reared animals.


No, they abstain from ALL animal products.

> My claim was that this is the main motivation for their diet and that
> there is a strong moral case for it.


There is NO moral case for any of veganism's claims, particularly the
kind of BS propaganda you've been fed about animal production. Activists
take exceptions and portray them as the rule. Accordingly, their
literature is filled with photos of horrid abuse (many of the pics,
though, have been used in their literature for 20+ years) and emotive
accounts. In many of the cases of extreme abuse, the livestock operators
were convicted of cruelty charges. That doesn't mean ALL operators are
guilty of those offenses -- the overwhelming majority of them are very
conscientious and want healthy animals because they're more profitable.

>>So factory farming, intensive monoculture farming is damaging to the
>>envirnoment and responsible for a lot of animal death and suffering.

>
> Yes, but animal food production for the most part entails more
> environmental damage and more animal suffering.


Ipse dixit and tu quoque.

> I am being perfectly rational and open-minded.


No, you aren't. You opened a can of worms by using an emotive pejorative
about certain ag practices.

> The only reason you have
> that impression is because of your prejudice against vegans.


And you don't have your own set of prejudices based on your impressions
from reading activist literature? Have you tried to investigate whether
their claims were true or not before buying into their propaganda?

> Anyway,
> when you've defended your criticism of the article with argument I'll
> take it seriously, but not before, obviously.


Aren't you holding him to a different standard than you hold AR
propagandists like DaGrazia?

>>>>Vegetarian diets are quite good, and efficient, where vegans
>>>>go awry is falling for all the feelgood quasi-political nonsense.
>>>
>>>What nonsense?

>>
>>The nonsense that veganism elevates the adherent to a higher moral plane.

>
> Why is it nonsense to suppose that it is ethically better to reduce
> your contribution to animal suffering?


You've not demonstrated that you've reduced anything. Do you have any
objective standard by which you can make such claims, or do you only
have the subjective standard of saying, "I don't eat meat, therefore no
animal died for my meal"? No? I didn't think so.