pearl wrote:
> "Dutch" > wrote in message news:Tf2Ai.93433$rX4.6214@pd7urf2no...
>> pearl wrote:
>>> "Dutch" > wrote in message news:92Jzi.90416$rX4.55798@pd7urf2no...
>>>> pearl wrote:
>>>>> "Dutch" > wrote
>>>>>> pearl wrote:
>>>>>>> "Dutch" > wrote in message news:N60zi.81621$fJ5.41962@pd7urf1no...
>>>>>> [..]
>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> In your opinion, you claim, food choice is
>>>>>>>>>> trivial. I don't believe you, if you thought that you would not have
>>>>>>>>>> been hanging around trying to change people's food choices for the past
>>>>>>>>>> ten years. It's actually I who is proposing that food choice is a
>>>>>>>>>> trivial issue, and you who is making a political mountain out of a molehill.
>>>>>>>>> The choice is in itself trivial. The consequences ARE NOT.
>>>>>>>> Then the choice must not be trivial.
>>>>>>> It is. There are even vegan foods you wouldn't know aren't meat.
>>>>>> Creating the illusion of meat doesn't change whether the choice is
>>>>>> trivial or not.
>>>>> I think that meat's the illusion of food.
>>>> That is obviously incorrect.
>>> 'One of the most famous anatomists, Baron Cuvier, wrote:
>>> "The natural food of man, judging from his structure, appears
>>> to consist principally of the fruits, roots, and other succulent
>>> parts of vegetables. His hands afford every facility for
>>> gathering them; his short but moderately strong jaws on the
>>> other hand, and his canines being equal only in length to the
>>> other teeth, together with his tuberculated molars on the other,
>>> would scarcely permit him either to masticate herbage, or to
>>> devour flesh, were these condiments not previously prepared
>>> by cooking."
>> Baron Cuvier died 1832, reaching a little for that scientific reference
>> aren't you?
>
> Quoting an qualified, authoritative source. Show otherwise?

C'mon fer chrissake, 200 years ago. The guy probably had slaves and was
prescribed leeches for his indigestion.

>>> The poet Shelley, in his essay, "A Vindication of a Natural
>>> Diet," wrote:
>>>
>>> "Comparative anatomy teaches us that man resembles the
>>> frugivorous animals in everything, the carnivorous in nothing...
>>> It is only by softening and disguising dead flesh by culinary
>>> preparation that it is rendered susceptible of mastication or
>>> digestion, and that the sight of its bloody juices and raw
>>> horror does not excite loathing and disgust...
>>> ....'
>>> http://www.all-creatures.org/murti/tsnhod-14.html
>> Why are you looking to poets for expertise on diet?
>
> Are you now saying that you eat raw animal flesh? Let's
> see you prove in any way wrong this poet's arguments @
> http://www.animal-rights-library.com.../shelley01.htm .

Do you eat raw rice, potatoes, corn, yams, or wheat?

Nobody is obliged to disprove the musings of poets.

>
>>>>> You have already said
>>>>> you think it's trivial. So why are you now arguing that it isn't?
>>>> I'm not, I'm telling you that you can't have it both ways.
>>> I can't maintain that what's an admitted trivial choice to you,
>>> is not trivial in what it necessitates and in its consequences?
>>>
>>> Of course I can. What you're claiming doesn't make sense.
>> You need look no further than your own filters for the explanation for
>> that perception.
>
> I'd look to you for an explanation of your weird 'perception',
> but seriously, seems you fell off the edge of reason long ago.

Ask any reasonable, educated person if one can "need" something without
stipulating or at least implying what for.


>>>>>>>> I think the differences in the consequences is being overblown.
>>>>>>> Well now, we all know how much you enjoy deluding yourself.
>>>>>> Enjoy-ED, when I was vegan, now I face the uncomfortable truth about
>>>>>> food, the truths you deny.
>>>>> What you face is the uncomfortable truth that you're a proven liar.
>>>> That is an ad hominem, and very weak one at that.
>>> You put your alleged diet on the table for anecdotal purposes,
>>> so it's not ad hominem to point out that you were discovered in
>>> a despicable lie about having two children, also in this context.
>> Those references were incidental and irrelevant. What's despicable, and
>> pathetic, is your attempt to prejudice this debate by these tactics.
>
> 'Avoiding acceptance of responsibility - denial, counterattack and
> feigning victimhood

>
> The serial bully is an adult on the outside but a child on the inside;
> he or she is like a child who has never grown up. One suspects that
> the bully is emotionally retarded and has a level of emotional
> development equivalent to a five-year-old, or less. The bully wants
> to enjoy the benefits of living in the adult world, but is unable and
> unwilling to accept the responsibilities that go with enjoying the
> benefits of the adult world. In short, the bully has never learnt to
> accept responsibility for their behaviour.
>
> When called to account for the way they have chosen to behave,
> the bully instinctively exhibits this recognisable behavioural response:
>
> a) Denial: the bully denies everything. Variations include Trivialization
> ("This is so trivial it's not worth talking about...") and the Fresh Start
> tactic ("I don't know why you're so intent on dwelling on the past"
> and "Look, what's past is past, I'll overlook your behaviour and we'll
> start afresh") - this is an abdication of responsibility by the bully and
> an attempt to divert and distract attention by using false conciliation.
> Imagine if this line of defence were available to all criminals ("Look I
> know I've just murdered 12 people but that's all in the past, we can't
> change the past, let's put it behind us, concentrate on the future so
> we can all get on with our lives" - this would do wonders for prison
> overcrowding).
> ..
> b) Retaliation: the bully counterattacks. The bully quickly and
> seamlessly follows the denial with an aggressive counter-attack of
> counter-criticism or counter-allegation, often based on distortion
> or fabrication. Lying, deception, duplicity, hypocrisy and blame are
> the hallmarks of this stage. The purpose is to avoid answering the
> question and thus avoid accepting responsibility for their behaviour.
> ..
> c) Feigning victimhood: in the unlikely event of denial and
> counter-attack being insufficient, the bully feigns victimhood or
> feigns persecution by manipulating people through their emotions,
> especially guilt. This commonly takes the form of bursting into tears,
> which most people cannot handle. Variations include indulgent
> self-pity, feigning indignation, pretending to be "devastated",
> claiming they're the one being bullied or harassed, claiming to be
> "deeply offended", melodrama, martyrdom ("If it wasn't for me...")
> and a poor-me drama ("You don't know how hard it is for me ...
> blah blah blah ..." and "I'm the one who always has to...", "You
> think you're having a hard time ...", "I'm the one being bullied...").
> Other tactics include manipulating people's perceptions to portray
> themselves as the injured party and the target as the villain of the
> piece. Or presenting as a false victim.
> ..
> By using this response, the bully is able to avoid answering the
> question and thus avoid accepting responsibility for what they
> have said or done. It is a pattern of behaviour learnt by about the
> age of 3; most children learn or are taught to grow out of this,
> but some are not and by adulthood, this avoidance technique has
> been practised to perfection.
> ...'
> http://www.bullyonline.org/workbully/serial.htm#Denial


All these personal attacks and projection are self-descriptive. That is
painfully obvious. You are attempting to bully me into submission.


>>>>>>>>> If you think that food choice is a trivial matter, what the hell
>>>>>>>>> have you been doing here for the longest waste of time ever.
>>>>>>>> To inform people of the truth that food choice is trivial, to disabuse
>>>>>>>> them of the myths about it's inflated importance that people like you
>>>>>>>> promote.
>>>>>>> To try to sweep under the carpet the hideous facts and truth.
>>>>>> I don't hide from any truth, but that is exactly what you attempt to do
>>>>>> by denying the reality of collateral deaths.
>>>>> We have been asking you to support your claims for years, and at
>>>>> every stage you've failed to support them with credible evidence.
>>>>> Even in this very thread you've been asked to repeatedly, and every
>>>>> time you've tried to wriggle out of it with a half-assed 'clever' quip,
>>>>> or just snipped it, along with a great deal more you can't address.
>>>> You're engaging in blatant disinformation. Tew, T.E. and D.W. Macdonald.
>>>> 1993. The effects of harvest on arable wood mice. Biological
>>>> Conservation 65:279-283.Accurate numbers of mortality aren't available,
>>>> but Tew and Macdonald (1993) reported that wood mouse population density
>>>> in cereal fields dropped from 25/ha preharvest to less than 5/ha
>>>> postharvest. This decrease was
>>> ***attributed***
>>>
>>>> to
>>> ***migration out of the field***
>>>
>>>> and to mortality. Therefore, it may be reasonable to
>>> ***estimate***
>>>
>>>> mortality
>>>> of 10 animals/ha in conventional corn and soybean production.
>>>>
>>>> This is where you typically move the goalposts, so go ahead.
>>> There's NOTHING conclusive about deaths there whatsoever!
>>>
>>> We need to see counts of sliced, diced, shredded little bodies!
>> No body counts would satisfy you, your filters won't allow you to accept
>> anything that disrupts your illusions.
>
> You've nothing. QED!

Denial. You embrace the musings of nineteenth century poets as revealed
truth and reject out of hand the findings of modern scientists.

>>>>>> [..]
>>>>>>>>> The fact remains that we *need* food to live (for whatever reason).
>>>>>>>> SO what?
>>>>>>> The assertion that we do not need food to live is nonsense. duh.
>>>>>> That assertion was never made by me.
>>>>> By your "superior bully". You said it made sense, etc.
>>>>>
>>>>>> It's YOU who has been abusing and
>>>>>> misusing the word "unecessary", and you undoubtedly will continue to do so.
>>>>> Liar.
>>>>>>>>>>>> *I* have determined that I "need" meat in order to maintain the level
>>>>>>>>>>>> of health and quality of life that I desire. I do so sustainably to the
>>>>>>>>>>>> best of my abilities by purchasing products, including plant foods, that
>>>>>>>>>>>> have the smallest possible impact and by consuming as near as possible
>>>>>>>>>>>> to the minimum I require to survive. Those are my choices, nobody else's.
>>>>>>>>>>> But those choices affect others.
>>>>>>>>>> There's nothing wrong with those choices.
>>>>>>>>> Wrong. There's EVERYTHING wrong with those choices.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> YOU WOULDN'T WANT IT TO HAPPEN TO ~YOU~!
>>>>>>>> You're demonstrating profound moral confusion.
>>>>>>> Not I.
>>>>>> Yes you, you and the rest of the 1% of the population who have duped
>>>>>> yourselves into this vegan philosophy, who believe that "a rat is a dog
>>>>>> is a pig is a boy" and who use terms like "speciesism" are demonstrating
>>>>>> profound moral confusion.
>>>> [..]
>>>>>>>> Everything I consume has
>>>>>>>> consequences to animals that I would not want to happen to me,
>>>>>>> So how can you inflict that upon others? How can you support it?
>>>>>> You said it yourself. I need food to survive.
>>>>> But you don't need meat to survive. You said it yourself.
>>>> I don't need bread to survive either, or bananas. But both are beneficial.
>>> You can't survive without plant foods. Period.
>> That's debatable, but so what?
>
> Show us a single nutritionist who disagrees.

I said so what? Nobody has suggested that you try to survive without
plant foods.


>>>>>>>> not only the free range chicken,
>>>>>>> ... if available. Maybe.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> but also the cotton socks, coffee and imported bananas.
>>>>>>> Details, credible evidence, required.
>>>>>> You mean denial, head-in-sand, hands-on-ears, nyah nyah, I can't hear you.
>>>>> Yes, well, that's as expected, the usual non-response from you.
>>>> See above.
>>> Yes, I've seen it many times before. It's useless. That it?
>> No, what is required is an effort by you to go past your tendency
>> towards absolute certainty. "The tendency to want to prove we ARE RIGHT
>> outweighs the far better strategy of trying to refute our own dearly
>> held beliefs."
>
> blah blah blah. You're just a joke, ditch.

Are you absolutely certain about that too? Maybe I should demand a peer
reviewed study.


>>>>>>>> You irrationally distinguish products which have animal bits in
>>>>>>>> the end product. The disposition of the corpse is not morally relevant.
>>>>>>> People are killed in traffic accidents. Does that make murder ok?
>>>>>> This is the crux of your confusion. Killing of humans and killing of
>>>>>> animals is not and can never be comparable.
>>>>> Why not?
>>>> Because "animals" (non-human) refers to a wide spectrum of organisms,
>>>> from plenaria to great apes. The vast majority are killed without our
>>>> knowledge. No rational moral scheme can refer to simply "animals" and be
>>>> taken seriously.
>>> What's "plenaria"?
>> paramecium
>>
>>> Animals killed with our knowledge, are who are being referred to.
>> We have the ability to have knowledge of all the animals killed as a
>> result of our activities, in fact if we are having this discussion we
>> have the obligation.
>
> But your 'solution' is to say that as deaths happen anyway we need
> not trouble our pretty little heads with avoidable, deliberate killing.
>
> Innit?

What I am saying is that avoiding *consuming animal products*, the vegan
"solution", is falsely presented as a moral imperative based on the
fallacious notion that non-animal products don't cause animal deaths. To
find a "solution" one must clearly define a problem to be solved. If the
problem is the killing of animals, it is not solved by veganism. I
submit that is not a problem that commands our attention anyway. A more
pressing problem in agriculture is the overuse of chemicals which is
robbing the soil of it's natural properties and degrading the quality of
our food.


>>>>>> The world could not function that way.
>>>>> Why not?
>>>> Because the very ecosystem of earth is based on death of the old and
>>>> regeneration of new organisms. A whale consumes hundreds of thousands of
>>>> living organisms every day.
>>> But we're talking about humans.
>> We're part of the same ecosystem as other animals. What you advocate
>> goes far beyond *compassion*, it is an attempt to separate man from his
>> very roots in the ecosystem. It can never work.
>
> Wrong, wrong, wrong. If you are appealing to nature, humans
> are not a naturally carnivorous species. Humans are frugivores.
> What I advocate: compassion, respect for Nature, healthy diet..
> reconnects man to his very roots in the ecosystem. It works.

I'm not appealing to nature, I am looking at it. Man's roots as far back
as the evolution of the species include the use of animals as food.

>
>>>>>> There could easily be a million animals in a single field.
>>>>> Give us some proper evidence to work with.
>>>> See above. You need to start dealing with reality, not your idealized
>>>> version of it.
>>> It says above that there were 25 wood mice per hectare preharvest..
>> Right, wood mice, 25 of one mammal species in one hectare.
>
> Name some other species would you expect to find.

Voles, moles, toads, frogs, lizards, birds, spiders, grasshoppers, etc etc.

>> And that
>> study referred to a field of grass which would not have been subject to
>> nearly the same degree of interference as a grain or vegetable crop,
>> such as plowing, planting or spraying.
>
> Fields of grass are sprayed with herbicides and fertilized,

No they aren't.

> in addition to being cut right down to the bare ground..

Wrong.

> Millions of hectares of grass and grains unecessarilly.
> And you've been shown how horticulture can be done.

You're misusing the term necessary again.


>>>> [..]
>>>>>>>> Your lifestyle inflicts brutality, fear, pain and death on others. All
>>>>>>>> our lifestyles do. The only difference is that I accept it, while you
>>>>>>>> live in denial.
>>>>>>> One difference is that I can back up everything I say with credible
>>>>>>> evidence, whilst all you ever have are shabby unsupported claims.
>>>>>> No evidence is required to know that food production causes animal
>>>>>> death. No honest observer denies it.
>>>>> .... for example. No objective observer buys it, ditch. Evidence!
>>>> Objective observers accept it, as Rupert did, as Farrell did, and many
>>>> other AR advocates with far more credibility than you demonstrate.
>>> You have no credibility. Your 'evidence' is a bucket with holes.
>> Your "evidence" is a list of quotes by poets, authors, and 250 year old
>> anatomists.
>
> My evidence for killing for/by the meat industry? No.

You embrace the ideas of poets and authors from the middle ages while
rejecting the ideas of scientists.

> FARM Update 2006-09
> The total number of land-based animals killed for food
> in the U.S. this year is projected to reach 10.45 billion,
> according to extrapolation of data ...
> farmusa.org/Updates/2006-09.htm
>
> That's the starting point. In the US alone. 10,450,000,000.

So what? That's to feed 100's of million of people.

> Add your collateral deaths harvesting millions of hectares
> of feedgrain and forage. And your killing of competitors.

We kill competitors to produce fruit and vegetables.


>>>> in denial.
>>> Because of one inconclusive 'study' from 1993, that someone
>>> else had to dredge up for you? I don't think so, ditch, really.
>> You don't think objectively, PERIOD. Your quotes from nineteenth century
>> poets carry more weight with you than the opinions of reputable
>> scientists. You are and will remain, hopeless.
>
> Find a reputable scientist who challenges what those people wrote.

I just did. Your rebuttal was comprised of "someone else dredged it up"
and they failed to speak with absolute certainty like the sources you
prefer to quote. In fact Davis et all speak like real scientists,
presenting data for consideration, not jumping to conclusions like
Campbell does with his so-called "China Study" data.