"usual suspect" > wrote in message
...
> C. James Strutz wrote:
>> "rick" > wrote in message
>> k.net...
>>
>>>"Leif Erikson" > wrote in message
egroups.com...
>>>rick wrote:
>>>
>>>>"RobDar" > wrote in message
...
>>>>
>>>>>a very interesting stance...I cannot say that I am well enough
>>>>>educated on the topic to comment intelligently...but believe me,
>>>>>I am going to look into this!
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>Here's a few sites to start your research..
>>>
>>>That's a pretty impressive list! How did you come up with all of them?
>>>==============================
>>>Just from my various research on the subject. I did just go through the
>>>list to verify links and found several links no longer work, so I will
>>>have to rebuild it.
>>>
>>>The numbers are amazing given the fact that nobody is really researching
>>>the total problem. many of these are just results of specific
>>>occurances, and no industry-wide research seems to be done. But then,
>>>there really has been no cry for that research. The farmers have no
>>>incentive to do it, the petro-chemical industry has no incentive to do
>>>it, and the Gob has no real incentive to do it. The only that should
>>>care, vegan/AR loons, and demand these studies are strangly quite on the
>>>issue. Of course, it would blow their house of cards down and destroy
>>>their simple rule for their simple minds.
>>
>>
>> Your simple mind has forgotten that the problem is not one restricted to
>> veg*ns.
>
> Since people who eat meat fully accept the fact animals die, the "problem"
> exists only for vegans who claim
> 1. "no animals die" in the course of producing their food;

Agreed...

> 2. "animals don't have to die" in food production; or

This is practically unrealistic. Animals DO die in the course of food
production and for other aspects of our existence. The only way to be
responsible for ZERO animal deaths as a result of our existence would be to
end our existence, and some animal deaths would probably result from even
that!

> 3. "fewer animals die" -- as though ethics is a counting game.

Sorry, but I agree with the "counting game" argument. America dropped atomic
bombs on Japan at the end of WWII because many more soldiers would have died
had we not. We killed people to prevent, in all probability, many times more
deaths. How about the death penalty? Or what about euthanasia? Or stem cell
research? Or abortion? Moral ethics aren't absolute.

> The onus isn't on those who eat meat to reduce animal suffering or death.
> It's on those who oppose people consuming meat and who make categorical
> statements of their own moral superiority. When faced with the facts, they
> ultimately make the same argument you did and claim a virtue relative to
> the actions of others. They're not more ethical because others are
> ethically "worse" than they are (at least according to their capricious
> standard); they fail their own ethics test when they measure themselves by
> their own standard.

Is it ethical to wash one's hands of responsibility for the deaths of living
things just because one doesn't claim moral superiority? The onus to
minimize the suffering or death of any living thing should be on all of us
regardless of what claims we do or don't make. The disagreement that you and
others have with vegans is the attitude of morel superiority of SOME of them
and not their wish to minimize animal deaths. AFter all, what's wrong with
trying to minimize animal deaths? It's fair to accuse a vegan of ignorance
but it's an entirely different matter to accuse them of being unethical.