Jones wrote:
> I'm not a vegan but I can see that your argument against them is a false one

No, you can't.


> just as well. How is your stopping rule wrt human deaths

_tu quoque_ - invalid.

What makes you believe that *all* vegans think they're not killing animals by simply
refusing to eat meat? Why use generalizations like that when it's perfectly
reasonable to assume that they do know about collateral deaths and don't use a
fallback argument when telling you that their stopping rule is the same as yours wrt
human collaterl deaths.

"Rudy Canoza" > wrote in message
...
> Elflord wrote:
>> On 2008-02-22, Rudy Canoza > wrote:
>>>>> I see it as entirely relevant, because it's yet another example
>>>>> of a "stopping rule".
>>>> It's irrelevant because it doesn't explain "vegans'" stopping rule in any way.
>>> I should have written, in any way other than a repugnant _tu quoque_ attempt at
>>> redirecting the accusation of lack of a coherent stopping rule.
>>
>> It may well be a "tu quoque".
>
> It is, and it is worthless as a defense for the (lack of) stopping rule in
> "veganism's" prescriptions.
>
>
>
>> However, it is not a counter-accusation
>
> Yes, that's precisely what it is.
>
>
>> so much as it is a refusal to acknowledge that this requirement you
>> impose of having a "coherent stopping rule" has any validity.
>
> You haven't really refuted my claim that not having a coherent stopping rule is a
> problem, a fatal one, for the "vegan's" belief in his own virtue.
>
> This can't really be separated from an awareness and analysis of the "vegans'"
> progressive falling back to weaker and weaker moral claims. The initial position
> held by all "vegans" is that they aren't causing *any* harm to animals, solely as a
> result of not consuming any animal parts. It's obvious that there's a stopping
> rule he stop at zero consumption of animal parts, and you will _ipso facto_ not
> be harming animals. Of course, we know that this stopping rule is a joke, because
> it is predicated on a logical fallacy. But it cannot be questioned that the very
> basis of "veganism" is predicated on a stopping rule.
>
> Now we move on to the weaker position, that of causing "minimal" animal harm.
> First, I have already shown that the claim is false: in order to be minimizing you
> necessarily must count, and we know that no "vegan" has done that. They're simply
> operating on an assumption that a "lifestyle" that doesn't include animal parts
> must in and of itself have a the lowest possible animal-harm toll associated with
> it. But we have shown that assumption to be false: some animal products-including
> consumption patterns can easily cause less total harm to animals than many "vegan"
> lifestyles; and not all "vegan" lifestyles cause the same amount of harm to
> animals. Merely being "vegan" does not mean one is minimizing. This is not in
> rational dispute.
>
> The only remaining position, the weakest of all, is the vile comparison with
> others, and that isn't even worth discussing.
>
> So, what moral impact does the "vegan's" complete abstention from consuming animal
> parts have? Does it get her to the point of causing zero morally impermissible
> harm to animals? No. Does it get her to the point of causing the absolute
> minimum? No. Does it get her to the point of causing the least possible subject
> to the constraint that her ease and comfort and convenience not be adversely
> affected? Certainly not, if she hasn't compared all possible "vegan" lifestyles,
> or compared "vegan" lifestyles with animal product-including ones to search for an
> alternative with a lower harm total.
>
> The point is, once moved off the absurd zero-harm initial claim, the "vegan" has
> *NO* logical basis for making any moral claim about the effect of her "veganism";
> and yet they do anyway.
>
>
>
>
>> I don't
>> explain the lack of a stopping rule because I don't acknowledge that
>> your request for one has any legitimacy.
>
> You just reject it out of hand. But you're still faced with having to find any
> moral impact to being "vegan", and we've already seen that this bogus distinction
> between direct and indirect harm can't help you, because the consumer of animal
> parts almost never inflicts any direct harm himself.

Jones wrote:
> What makes you believe that *all* vegans think they're not killing animals by simply
> refusing to eat meat?

They all say it when first asked.

On 2008-02-22, Rudy Canoza > wrote:
> Elflord wrote:
>> On 2008-02-22, Rudy Canoza > wrote:
>>>>> I see it as entirely relevant, because it's yet another example
>>>>> of a "stopping rule".
>>>> It's irrelevant because it doesn't explain "vegans'" stopping rule in
>>>> any way.
>>> I should have written, in any way other than a
>>> repugnant _tu quoque_ attempt at redirecting the
>>> accusation of lack of a coherent stopping rule.
>>
>> It may well be a "tu quoque".
>
> It is, and it is worthless as a defense for the (lack
> of) stopping rule in "veganism's" prescriptions.
>
>
>
>> However, it is not a counter-accusation
>
> Yes, that's precisely what it is.
>
>
>> so much as it is a refusal to acknowledge that this requirement you
>> impose of having a "coherent stopping rule" has any validity.
>
> You haven't really refuted my claim that not having a
> coherent stopping rule is a problem, a fatal one, for
> the "vegan's" belief in his own virtue.
>
> This can't really be separated from an awareness and
> analysis of the "vegans'" progressive falling back to
> weaker and weaker moral claims. The initial position
> held by all "vegans" is that they aren't causing *any*
> harm to animals, solely as a result of not consuming
> any animal parts.

That would not be a correct claim. It would however be
correct to claim that they are not causing *direct* harm
to animals.

As noted, causing direct harm is not morally equivalent
to being involved in collateral harm, and failure to
achieve the latter does not invalidate abstaining from the
former.

> You just reject it out of hand. But you're still faced
> with having to find any moral impact to being "vegan",
> and we've already seen that this bogus distinction
> between direct and indirect harm can't help you,
> because the consumer of animal parts almost never
> inflicts any direct harm himself.

I don't think this is a plausible argument. I'll note that our
laws make very little distinction between killing someone and
paying someone else to do it for you.

On the other hand, there are substantial distinctions when it comes to
collateral deaths. For example, a shareholder is unlikely to be charged with a
homicide because a company are implicated in negligent deaths of employees.

Cheers,
--
Elflord

What you're try to say is that there's one rule for vegans and another rule for you.
You're trying to claim that your moral culpability wrt human collateral deaths is
zero while the vegan's moral culbaility for their animal collateral deaths shows that
they are morally bankrupt. I don't buy that.

"Rudy Canoza" > wrote in message
...
> Jones wrote:
>> I'm not trying to argue that vegans can cause indirect collateral harm because
>> you cause indirect human collateral harm.
>
> Yes, that's exactly what you're doing.
>
>> I'm asking you to abide by the standard you're trying to set them and explain your
>> stopping rule.
>
> That is no defense for the ethical bankruptcy of "veganism". It doesn't do
> anything to demonstrate moral behavior.
>
>
>
>> Why do you refuse to kill humans directly while killing them indirectly through a
>> second party? The answer is simple - - - you know that there's a moral diference
>> between causing direct harm and causing indirect harm through a second party.
>
> No, there isn't. The extent of my culpability might change based on the moral
> character of the event that causes the harm, but there's no change in my moral
> status based merely on considerations of direct versus indirect involvement. This
> is reflected in the criminal law as well. The driver of the getaway car in a
> robbery in which an innocent bystander is killed can be charged in the death, even
> though he played no direct role in it. The "fence", the receiver of stolen
> property, is subject to criminal prosecution, and his claim that he didn't commit
> the actual theft is disregarded.
>
> You simply can't show that "veganism" has any meaningful moral impact.

"Rudy Canoza" > wrote in message
...
> Jones wrote:
>> What makes you believe that *all* vegans think they're not killing animals by
>> simply refusing to eat meat?
>
> They all say it when first asked.

I don't believe that. I think you're generalizing and arguing against a strawman.

Elflord wrote:
> On 2008-02-22, Rudy Canoza > wrote:
>> Elflord wrote:
>>> On 2008-02-22, Rudy Canoza > wrote:
>>>>>> I see it as entirely relevant, because it's yet another example
>>>>>> of a "stopping rule".
>>>>> It's irrelevant because it doesn't explain "vegans'" stopping rule in
>>>>> any way.
>>>> I should have written, in any way other than a
>>>> repugnant _tu quoque_ attempt at redirecting the
>>>> accusation of lack of a coherent stopping rule.
>>> It may well be a "tu quoque".
>> It is, and it is worthless as a defense for the (lack
>> of) stopping rule in "veganism's" prescriptions.
>>
>>
>>
>>> However, it is not a counter-accusation
>> Yes, that's precisely what it is.
>>
>>
>>> so much as it is a refusal to acknowledge that this requirement you
>>> impose of having a "coherent stopping rule" has any validity.
>> You haven't really refuted my claim that not having a
>> coherent stopping rule is a problem, a fatal one, for
>> the "vegan's" belief in his own virtue.
>>
>> This can't really be separated from an awareness and
>> analysis of the "vegans'" progressive falling back to
>> weaker and weaker moral claims. The initial position
>> held by all "vegans" is that they aren't causing *any*
>> harm to animals, solely as a result of not consuming
>> any animal parts.
>
> That would not be a correct claim. It would however be
> correct to claim that they are not causing *direct* harm
> to animals.

It also is a correct claim that meat eaters aren't
causing direct harm to animals.

This direct vs indirect distinction is a dead end.


>
> As noted, causing direct harm is not morally equivalent
> to being involved in collateral harm, and failure to
> achieve the latter does not invalidate abstaining from the
> former.
>
>> You just reject it out of hand. But you're still faced
>> with having to find any moral impact to being "vegan",
>> and we've already seen that this bogus distinction
>> between direct and indirect harm can't help you,
>> because the consumer of animal parts almost never
>> inflicts any direct harm himself.
>
> I don't think this is a plausible argument.

Of course it is. I don't kill any animals myself;
someone else does it, just as someone else kills the
animals chopped to bits in fields to produce foods that
"vegans" will eat.


> I'll note that our
> laws make very little distinction between killing someone and
> paying someone else to do it for you.

Exactly.


> On the other hand, there are substantial distinctions when it comes to
> collateral deaths. For example, a shareholder is unlikely to be charged with a
> homicide because a company are implicated in negligent deaths of employees.
>
> Cheers,

Jones wrote:
> What you're try to say is that there's one rule for vegans and another rule for you.

No, that's not it at all. I'm showing that there is no
valid ethical meaning to "vegans'" abstinence from
animal products, and that lack of valid ethical meaning
arises in large part because of their lack of a
stopping rule.

Jones wrote:
> "Rudy Canoza" > wrote in message
> ...
>> Jones wrote:
>>> What makes you believe that *all* vegans think they're not killing animals by
>>> simply refusing to eat meat?
>> They all say it when first asked.
>
> I don't believe that.

You're wrong.

"Rudy Canoza" > wrote in message
...
> Jones wrote:
>> I'm not a vegan but I can see that your argument against them is a false one
>
> No, you can't.
>
It was there a minute ago. Where's it gone?

>
>> just as well. How is your stopping rule wrt human deaths
>
> _tu quoque_ - invalid.

If you explain your stopping rule to me I might be able to see why the vegan's
stopping rule shows their moral bankrupcy. Why can't vegans live with their animal
collateral deaths while you live so peaceably with your human ones?

Jones wrote:
> "Rudy Canoza" > wrote in message
> ...
>> Jones wrote:
>>> I'm not a vegan but I can see that your argument against them is a false one
>> No, you can't.
>>
> It was there a minute ago.

You never saw what you claimed.


>>> just as well. How is your stopping rule wrt human deaths
>> _tu quoque_ - invalid.
>
> If you explain your stopping rule to me I might be able to see why the vegan's
> stopping rule shows their moral bankrupcy.

My stopping rule has nothing to do with theirs. The
basis for their moral claim has nothing to do with
anything I do apart from my consumption of animal parts.

On 2008-02-22, Rudy Canoza > wrote:

> It also is a correct claim that meat eaters aren't
> causing direct harm to animals.

No it isn't. Paying to kill an animal is not the same as employing
an agent whose actions cause collateral death.

As I have already pointed out, if you hire a hitman, you will be
charged with homicide, but if you buy shares in a company whose
actions result in negligent deaths of employees, you will not be.

Cheers,
--
Elflord

You cannot show that there's no ethical meaning behind the vegan's stopping rule
without explaining your own and why it's a valid one. Humans die collaterally all
around you and because you have no stopping rule that stops you from killing them
directly you have no valid reason to abstain from killing them directly.

"Rudy Canoza" > wrote in message
...
> Jones wrote:
>> What you're try to say is that there's one rule for vegans and another rule for
>> you.
>
> No, that's not it at all. I'm showing that there is no valid ethical meaning to
> "vegans'" abstinence from animal products, and that lack of valid ethical meaning
> arises in large part because of their lack of a stopping rule.

Elflord wrote:
> On 2008-02-22, Rudy Canoza > wrote:
>
>> It also is a correct claim that meat eaters aren't
>> causing direct harm to animals.
>
> No it isn't. Paying to kill an animal is not the same as employing
> an agent whose actions cause collateral death.

No, you are getting confused about
intentional/collateral vs direct/indirect.


>
> As I have already pointed out, if you hire a hitman, you will be
> charged with homicide, but if you buy shares in a company whose
> actions result in negligent deaths of employees, you will not be.

You continue to show confusion over
intentional/collateral vs direct/indirect.

Jones wrote:
> You cannot show that there's no ethical meaning behind the vegan's stopping rule
> without explaining your own

I can: It has no bearing on mine. The burden of
demonstrating valid ethical meaning lies solely with
the "vegan" who claims there is any.

"Rudy Canoza" > wrote in message
...
> Jones wrote:
>> "Rudy Canoza" > wrote in message
>> ...
>>> Jones wrote:
>>>> I'm not a vegan but I can see that your argument against them is a false one
>>> No, you can't.
>>>
>> It was there a minute ago.
>
> You never saw what you claimed.
>
>
>>>> just as well. How is your stopping rule wrt human deaths
>>> _tu quoque_ - invalid.
>>
>> If you explain your stopping rule to me I might be able to see why the vegan's
>> stopping rule shows their moral bankrupcy.
>
> My stopping rule has nothing to do with theirs.

I don't believe you. In fact if you were to explain yours I'll be able to show
precisely where it follows theirs and hypoctitical of you to reject it.

The
> basis for their moral claim has nothing to do with anything I do apart from my
> consumption of animal parts.

"Rudy Canoza" > wrote in message
...
> Jones wrote:
>> You cannot show that there's no ethical meaning behind the vegan's stopping rule
>> without explaining your own
>
> I can: It has no bearing on mine.

True. I didn't try to say it does. It has no bearing on yours but I'll show you how
similar theirs is to yours if you care to explain it. Do you criticise their stopping
rule wrt their human collateral deaths or do you just focus on their animal
collateral deaths to show their morally reprehensible posturing?


The burden of
> demonstrating valid ethical meaning lies solely with the "vegan" who claims there
> is any.

Jones wrote:
> "Rudy Canoza" > wrote in message
> ...
>> Jones wrote:
>>> "Rudy Canoza" > wrote in message
>>> ...
>>>> Jones wrote:
>>>>> I'm not a vegan but I can see that your argument against them is a false one
>>>> No, you can't.
>>>>
>>> It was there a minute ago.
>> You never saw what you claimed.
>>
>>
>>>>> just as well. How is your stopping rule wrt human deaths
>>>> _tu quoque_ - invalid.
>>> If you explain your stopping rule to me I might be able to see why the vegan's
>>> stopping rule shows their moral bankrupcy.
>> My stopping rule has nothing to do with theirs.
>
> I don't believe you.

What an insane thing to say! How *can* their stopping
rule - the point at which they think they don't need to
do anything further to be in compliance with their
so-called moral principle - have anything to do with my
stopping rule in some completely different aspect of life?

If I said that I deliberately sought out and transacted
with companies that I know commit human rights abuses
and routinely injure and kill their employees around
the world, what possible impact can that have on where
"vegans" set their stopping rule for refraining from
harming animals? Their stopping rule *must* be
independent of mine, and mine of theirs. You can't
claim to be doing the right thing, or being "better",
by comparing your moral behavior with that of someone
else. Such a comparison is truly loathsome.

Suppose you and your equally criminal brother both
violently sodomize the six-year-old boy living next
door to you. Your brother's stopping rule is six
violent ass-**** rapes of the boy per week, while your
stopping rule says two. Are you three times as "good"
as your brother? No.

Suppose your brother increases his to 12 ass-****ings
of the poor child per week, and you "only" increase
yours to three. Are you "better" than your brother
because the ratio of your rapes to his fell, from 1:3
to 1:4? No.

If their stopping rule is incompatible with their
so-called moral principles, that has nothing to do at
all with my stopping rule for anything.

Jones wrote:
> "Rudy Canoza" > wrote in message
> ...
>> Jones wrote:
>>> You cannot show that there's no ethical meaning behind the vegan's stopping rule
>>> without explaining your own
>> I can: It has no bearing on mine.
>
> True. I didn't try to say it does.

No, your question implies that it does have bearing,
and vice-versa. But you're wrong.


>
>> The burden of
>> demonstrating valid ethical meaning lies solely with the "vegan" who claims there
>> is any.

And this they fail to do.

On 2008-02-22, Rudy Canoza > wrote:

> If I said that I deliberately sought out and transacted
> with companies that I know commit human rights abuses
> and routinely injure and kill their employees around
> the world, what possible impact can that have on where
> "vegans" set their stopping rule for refraining from
> harming animals? Their stopping rule *must* be
> independent of mine, and mine of theirs. You can't
> claim to be doing the right thing, or being "better",
> by comparing your moral behavior with that of someone
> else.

That is not the point. The point is that we allow this --
we allow people to participate in transactions with these
companies, but we do not allow them to commit murder (or
for that matter, hire hit men).

The fact that you may well deal with such companies neither
makes you a murderer, nor does it make you a hypocrite for
embracing a moral code that prohibits murder.

Likewise, it is not inconsistent for vegans to embrace a
moral code that prohibits intentionally harming animals but
does not require one to ensure that their agents are not
involved in any collateral harm.

The moral principle behind this would be that "it is wrong
to intentionally hurt another living thing".

Cheers
--
Elflord

"Rudy Canoza" > wrote in message
...
> Jones wrote:
>> "Rudy Canoza" > wrote in message
>> ...
>>> Jones wrote:
>>>> What makes you believe that *all* vegans think they're not killing animals by
>>>> simply refusing to eat meat?
>>> They all say it when first asked.
>>
>> I don't believe that.
>
> You're wrong.

You're proceding from a false premise to arrive at an intentionally wrong conclusion
about vegans. For a start it's undeniably false to claim *all* vegans think they're
not killing animals collaterally in other areas of their life while abstaining from
meat. You're generalizing and trying build your argument against them around that
generalization. What do the informed vegans say about their animal collateral deaths
and where is their refusal to stop causing them different to your refusal to stop
causing your human collateral deaths? If you were honest you would have to admit that
they're in the same situation we're in wrt human collatteral deaths. We might not be
killing them directly but we do in so many other ways indirectly. Our reason behind
our stopping point on killing people directly is because we know they have rights.
Vegans believe animals have rights and that's the reason behind their stopping point.
We all have to tolerate the human and non-human collateral deaths around us by second
or third parties to some degree.

"Rudy Canoza" > wrote in message
...
> Jones wrote:
>> "Rudy Canoza" > wrote in message
>> ...
>>> Jones wrote:
>>>> "Rudy Canoza" > wrote in message
>>>> ...
>>>>> Jones wrote:
>>>>>> I'm not a vegan but I can see that your argument against them is a false
>>>>>> one
>>>>> No, you can't.
>>>>>
>>>> It was there a minute ago.
>>> You never saw what you claimed.
>>>
>>>
>>>>>> just as well. How is your stopping rule wrt human deaths
>>>>> _tu quoque_ - invalid.
>>>> If you explain your stopping rule to me I might be able to see why the vegan's
>>>> stopping rule shows their moral bankrupcy.
>>> My stopping rule has nothing to do with theirs.
>>
>> I don't believe you.
>
> What an insane thing to say! How *can* their stopping rule - the point at which
> they think they don't need to do anything further to be in compliance with their
> so-called moral principle - have anything to do with my stopping rule in some
> completely different aspect of life?
>
Because your stopping rule and theirs is the same. You don't kill people directly
because you believe humans have rights. The vegans don't kill animals directly
because they believe animals have rights. You and the vegans tolerate the collateral
deaths that surround us in the same way too.

> If I said that I deliberately sought out and transacted with companies that I know
> commit human rights abuses and routinely injure and kill their employees around the
> world, what possible impact can that have on where "vegans" set their stopping rule
> for refraining from harming animals?

I'm not saying it does. Your impact on human rights violations has no bearing on
their refusal to kill animals directly.

Their stopping rule *must* be
> independent of mine, and mine of theirs.

It is independant of yours and yet exactly the same. They believe animals have rights
and therefore cannot kill them directly. You believe humans have rights and therefore
cannot kill them directly. You both have exactly the same stopping rule so to say
that the vegan's is absured while is not needs some further explanation.

You can't
> claim to be doing the right thing, or being "better", by comparing your moral
> behavior with that of someone else. Such a comparison is truly loathsome.

I'm not saying you can. I'm claiming no such thing and neither are the vegans. You're
building another strawman.


> Suppose you and your equally criminal brother both violently sodomize the
> six-year-old boy living next door to you. Your brother's stopping rule is six
> violent ass-**** rapes of the boy per week, while your stopping rule says two. Are
> you three times as "good" as your brother? No.
>
I wouldn't have said yes and I don't think any vegans would either.


> Suppose your brother increases his to 12 ass-****ings of the poor child per week,
> and you "only" increase yours to three. Are you "better" than your brother because
> the ratio of your rapes to his fell, from 1:3 to 1:4? No.
>
> If their stopping rule is incompatible with their so-called moral principles, that
> has nothing to do at all with my stopping rule for anything.

You haven't shown that their stopping rule is incompatible with their moral
principles, and you won't while trying to imply that it's based on your stopping rule
for something. I can show you how they're the same but I'm not trying to say they're
somehow dependant on each other.

Elflord wrote:
> On 2008-02-22, Rudy Canoza > wrote:
>
>> If I said that I deliberately sought out and transacted
>> with companies that I know commit human rights abuses
>> and routinely injure and kill their employees around
>> the world, what possible impact can that have on where
>> "vegans" set their stopping rule for refraining from
>> harming animals? Their stopping rule *must* be
>> independent of mine, and mine of theirs. You can't
>> claim to be doing the right thing, or being "better",
>> by comparing your moral behavior with that of someone
>> else.
>
> That is not the point. The point is that we allow this --
> we allow people to participate in transactions with these
> companies, but we do not allow them to commit murder (or
> for that matter, hire hit men).

No, it's precisely the point: "vegans" are saying that
they adhere to some moral principle, and I am showing
that their failure to have a coherent stopping rule for
deciding how far they need to go in refraining from
causing animal harm shows that they aren't following
any such principle at all.

>
> The fact that you may well deal with such companies neither
> makes you a murderer, nor does it make you a hypocrite for
> embracing a moral code that prohibits murder.

What I do or don't do with such companies has no
relevance for deciding if "vegans" are abiding by some
coherent moral principle. In fact, they are not.


>
> Likewise, it is not inconsistent for vegans to embrace a
> moral code that prohibits intentionally harming animals but
> does not require one to ensure that their agents are not
> involved in any collateral harm.

But that isn't what their "code" says, at least not
initially. They may try to adjust it in that direction
once their initial claim of causing zero harm is falsified.


>
> The moral principle behind this would be that "it is wrong
> to intentionally hurt another living thing".

That's a far weaker principle, and it isn't their moral
principle anyway. In fact, they don't have a moral
principle at all; they merely have a rule, a sort of
religious injunction, that they imagine to be derived
from a principle, but which it is trivially easy to
show is not.

Do "vegans" abstain from taking any prescription drugs?
All prescription drugs approved for sale in the U.S.
go through testing on animals; these tests kill animals.

How does the "vegan" rule - do not consume animal parts
- apply to scavenging meat from dead animals? What
moral principle pertaining to harm inflicted upon
animals is being followed by not eating scavenged meat?

Animals are intentionally, not merely collaterally,
killed in the course of producing foods that are
considered "vegan"; I've already given you the example
of deliberate extermination of rodents at grain storage
facilities, as well as deliberately killing other pest
animals in fields. Can "vegans" be said to be in
abidance with their so-called moral principle if they
eat such foods?

This view of the alleged moral rule informing
"veganism" is wrong. If you look closely at writings
of "vegans" who have given more thought to this, you
see that it is always a rights-based,
inconsequentialist view, not a utility-based
consequentialist view. This leads them to eschew dairy
products and honey, which can be obtained without
inflicting any utilitarian harm on animals.

Note that this discussion of deontology vs
consequentialism provides part of the answer as to why
my stopping rule with respect to industrial accidents
and other bad outcomes for humans has no bearing on
whether or not "vegans" can be said to be abiding by
their so-called moral principle. If, as you contend,
"vegans" are concerned with not harming animals, then
clearly they could reduce the harm they cause by
changing their consumption patterns. For myself, my
abstinence from products made by companies that may
engage in practices injurious to their employees'
health is based on a view of people's rights, not their
welfare. People don't have a right never to be injured
or killed; shit happens, as the saying goes, and
sometimes shit happens through no one's recklessness or
negligence. Unless we're talking about slavery, and
there's really no such thing in the developed world,
then as long as companies are held to account for
whatever safety practices are the cultural and legal
norm where they do business, and as long as there is a
system for the enforcement of safety standards and
whatever workers' rights are recognized, I am entitled
to conclude that I do enough.

Jones wrote:
> "Rudy Canoza" > wrote in message
> ...
>> Jones wrote:
>>> "Rudy Canoza" > wrote in message
>>> ...
>>>> Jones wrote:
>>>>> What makes you believe that *all* vegans think they're not killing animals by
>>>>> simply refusing to eat meat?
>>>> They all say it when first asked.
>>> I don't believe that.
>> You're wrong.
>
> You're proceding from a false premise to arrive at an intentionally wrong conclusion
> about vegans.

No, I'm not.


> For a start it's undeniably false to claim *all* vegans think they're
> not killing animals collaterally in other areas of their life while abstaining from
> meat.

That's where they all start. The only ones who move
off that claim are those who have encountered someone
like me.

Jones wrote:
> "Rudy Canoza" > wrote in message
> ...
>> Jones wrote:
>>> "Rudy Canoza" > wrote in message
>>> ...
>>>> Jones wrote:
>>>>> "Rudy Canoza" > wrote in message
>>>>> ...
>>>>>> Jones wrote:
>>>>>>> I'm not a vegan but I can see that your argument against them is a false
>>>>>>> one
>>>>>> No, you can't.
>>>>>>
>>>>> It was there a minute ago.
>>>> You never saw what you claimed.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>>> just as well. How is your stopping rule wrt human deaths
>>>>>> _tu quoque_ - invalid.
>>>>> If you explain your stopping rule to me I might be able to see why the vegan's
>>>>> stopping rule shows their moral bankrupcy.
>>>> My stopping rule has nothing to do with theirs.
>>> I don't believe you.
>> What an insane thing to say! How *can* their stopping rule - the point at which
>> they think they don't need to do anything further to be in compliance with their
>> so-called moral principle - have anything to do with my stopping rule in some
>> completely different aspect of life?
>>
> Because your stopping rule and theirs is the same.

No, it is *not*, but it wouldn't matter if it were.


>> If I said that I deliberately sought out and transacted with companies that I know
>> commit human rights abuses and routinely injure and kill their employees around the
>> world, what possible impact can that have on where "vegans" set their stopping rule
>> for refraining from harming animals?
>
> I'm not saying it does.

You just said it did! Make up your mind.


> Your impact on human rights violations has no bearing on
> their refusal to kill animals directly.

This directly/indirectly distinction is utterly bogus.
If you're the getaway driver for a robbery in which
someone is killed, you can be prosecuted for the
homicide even though you never left the car. You
didn't directly kill the victim, but it doesn't matter;
you can be convicted of the homicide.



>> Their stopping rule *must* be
>> independent of mine, and mine of theirs.
>
> It is independant of yours and yet exactly the same.

But that's *IRRELEVANT* in determining if they're
abiding by their own so-called moral principle.


>> You can't
>> claim to be doing the right thing, or being "better", by comparing your moral
>> behavior with that of someone else. Such a comparison is truly loathsome.
>
> I'm not saying you can.

Of course you are. You're saying that "vegans" are
entitled to conclude that they're behaving in accord
with their supposed moral principle, if I have the same
stopping rule (which I don't, anyway) and have
concluded that I'm abiding by mine. That's absurd.


>> Suppose you and your equally criminal brother both violently sodomize the
>> six-year-old boy living next door to you. Your brother's stopping rule is six
>> violent ass-**** rapes of the boy per week, while your stopping rule says two. Are
>> you three times as "good" as your brother? No.
>>
> I wouldn't have said yes and I don't think any vegans would either.

They most certainly do! When they conclude that
they're "better" than meat eaters because they cause
fewer, but still more than zero, animal deaths, that's
exactly what they're saying.


>> Suppose your brother increases his to 12 ass-****ings of the poor child per week,
>> and you "only" increase yours to three. Are you "better" than your brother because
>> the ratio of your rapes to his fell, from 1:3 to 1:4? No.
>>
>> If their stopping rule is incompatible with their so-called moral principles, that
>> has nothing to do at all with my stopping rule for anything.
>
> You haven't shown that their stopping rule is incompatible with their moral
> principles,

Of course I have.


> and you won't while trying to imply that it's based on your stopping rule
> for something.

I'm not trying to imply that; quite the opposite. I'm
saying it has nothing to do with my stopping rule for
anything. It doesn't.

"Rudy Canoza" > wrote in message
...
> Jones wrote:
>> "Rudy Canoza" > wrote in message
>> ...
>>> Jones wrote:
>>>> "Rudy Canoza" > wrote in message
>>>> ...
>>>>> Jones wrote:
>>>>>> What makes you believe that *all* vegans think they're not killing animals by
>>>>>> simply refusing to eat meat?
>>>>> They all say it when first asked.
>>>> I don't believe that.
>>> You're wrong.
>>
>> You're proceding from a false premise to arrive at an intentionally wrong
>> conclusion about vegans.
>
> No, I'm not.
>
>
>> For a start it's undeniably false to claim *all* vegans think they're not killing
>> animals collaterally in other areas of their life while abstaining from meat.
>
> That's where they all start.

No that's undeniably false.

The only ones who move
> off that claim are those who have encountered someone like me.

What do they say regarding their stopping rule wrt direct killing after you've kindly
enlightened them about the collatteral deaths they cause? Is it something different
to what you would say after being enlightend about the human callatteral deaths you
cause? No. Both of you would say that your stoppage rule is based on the belief that
they have rights. You might not believe animals have rights but they do and that's
why they won't kill them directly or pay the butcher to do it for them.

Jones wrote:
> "Rudy Canoza" > wrote in message
> ...
>> Jones wrote:
>>> "Rudy Canoza" > wrote in message
>>> ...
>>>> Jones wrote:
>>>>> "Rudy Canoza" > wrote in message
>>>>> ...
>>>>>> Jones wrote:
>>>>>>> What makes you believe that *all* vegans think they're not killing animals by
>>>>>>> simply refusing to eat meat?
>>>>>> They all say it when first asked.
>>>>> I don't believe that.
>>>> You're wrong.
>>> You're proceding from a false premise to arrive at an intentionally wrong
>>> conclusion about vegans.
>> No, I'm not.
>>
>>
>>> For a start it's undeniably false to claim *all* vegans think they're not killing
>>> animals collaterally in other areas of their life while abstaining from meat.
>> That's where they all start.
>
> No that's undeniably false.

No, it isn't.

"The vegan lives a death free lifestyle, and your
useless efforts to queer this fact by pointing your
finger at us for the deaths caused by the farmer
isn't fooling anyone."
http://tinyurl.com/7gw1


The option of buying animal/cruelty free food is
open to very few of us at the moment, unless we live
near to one of the small number of commercial vegan
organic producers.
http://tinyurl.com/2aue69


not ashamed AT ALL of my lifestyle and very ready to
be accepting of other people's genuine attempts to
live cruelty free.
http://tinyurl.com/26rlgv


I could spend all day finding quotes from people in
Usenet, not to mention web sites that say being "vegan"
*means* living a "cruelty free" lifestyle:

"Cruelty free living"; "Online Guide To Cruelty-Free
Living"
http://www.theanimalspirit.com/vl.html

"Guide to Cruelty-Free Eating"
http://www.veganoutreach.org/starterpack/

"Meat = Animal Cruelty" [presumably,
fruits/vegetables = cruelty free]
http://l.webring.com/hub?ring=veganandvegetari

"I look at my progress as a vegan as if I am
climbing Mt. Everest. I can see my goal clearly, and
it is to live a 100% cruelty and death-free life."

http://www.veganforum.com/forums/arc...hp/t-3824.html


On and on and on. They *all* start believing that
being "vegan" equates to causing zero animal death and
cruelty.



>
>> The only ones who move
>> off that claim are those who have encountered someone like me.
>
> What do they say regarding their stopping rule wrt direct killing after you've kindly
> enlightened them about the collatteral deaths they cause?


That's when they fall back first to the false claim to
be "minimizing" the animal death they cause. When I
point out that they are not "minimizing", then then
fall further back to "doing the best I can". When I
show that they're doing no such thing, most of them
fall all the way to the bottom of the cesspool, and
claim they're doing better than I am.

"Rudy Canoza" > wrote in message
...
> Jones wrote:
>> "Rudy Canoza" > wrote in message
>> ...
>>> Jones wrote:
>>>> "Rudy Canoza" > wrote in message
>>>> ...
>>>>> Jones wrote:
>>>>>> "Rudy Canoza" > wrote in message
>>>>>> ...
>>>>>>> Jones wrote:
>>>>>>>> I'm not a vegan but I can see that your argument against them is a false
>>>>>>>> one
>>>>>>> No, you can't.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>> It was there a minute ago.
>>>>> You never saw what you claimed.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>>>> just as well. How is your stopping rule wrt human deaths
>>>>>>> _tu quoque_ - invalid.
>>>>>> If you explain your stopping rule to me I might be able to see why the vegan's
>>>>>> stopping rule shows their moral bankrupcy.
>>>>> My stopping rule has nothing to do with theirs.
>>>> I don't believe you.
>>> What an insane thing to say! How *can* their stopping rule - the point at which
>>> they think they don't need to do anything further to be in compliance with their
>>> so-called moral principle - have anything to do with my stopping rule in some
>>> completely different aspect of life?
>>>
>> Because your stopping rule and theirs is the same.
>
> No, it is *not*, but it wouldn't matter if it were.
>
Yes it is. You and the vegans have a stopping rule because you both believe they have
rights.

>
>>> If I said that I deliberately sought out and transacted with companies that I
>>> know commit human rights abuses and routinely injure and kill their employees
>>> around the world, what possible impact can that have on where "vegans" set their
>>> stopping rule for refraining from harming animals?
>>
>> I'm not saying it does.
>
> You just said it did! Make up your mind.
>
>
>> Your impact on human rights violations has no bearing on their refusal to kill
>> animals directly.
>
> This directly/indirectly distinction is utterly bogus.

But not so bogus when reminded of your human collateral damage obviously.

> If you're the getaway driver for a robbery in which someone is killed, you can be
> prosecuted for the homicide even though you never left the car. You didn't
> directly kill the victim, but it doesn't matter; you can be convicted of the
> homicide.
>
>
>
>>> Their stopping rule *must* be
>>> independent of mine, and mine of theirs.
>>
>> It is independant of yours and yet exactly the same.
>
> But that's *IRRELEVANT* in determining if they're abiding by their own so-called
> moral principle.
>
Their stopping rule is the same as yours and independant of it, and if the
collatteral deaths they tolerate implies that their belief in animal rights is mere
posturing you'll have to explain why the human collateral deaths surrounding all of
us isn't the same. You can't set one standard for yourself and another for the vegan
to beat them in an argument.

>
>>> You can't
>>> claim to be doing the right thing, or being "better", by comparing your moral
>>> behavior with that of someone else. Such a comparison is truly loathsome.
>>
>> I'm not saying you can.
>
> Of course you are.

No I'm not.


You're saying that "vegans" are
> entitled to conclude that they're behaving in accord with their supposed moral
> principle, if I have the same stopping rule (which I don't, anyway) and have
> concluded that I'm abiding by mine. That's absurd.
>
No. I've expalined that their stopping rule isn't based on any of your stopping rules
even though they're exactly the same.

>>> Suppose you and your equally criminal brother both violently sodomize the
>>> six-year-old boy living next door to you. Your brother's stopping rule is six
>>> violent ass-**** rapes of the boy per week, while your stopping rule says two.
>>> Are you three times as "good" as your brother? No.
>>>
>> I wouldn't have said yes and I don't think any vegans would either.
>
> They most certainly do! When they conclude that they're "better" than meat eaters
> because they cause fewer, but still more than zero, animal deaths, that's exactly
> what they're saying.
>
I'm beginning to see that there's quite a bit of paranoia lurking here. Do vegans
make you feel guilty about eating meat?

>
>>> Suppose your brother increases his to 12 ass-****ings of the poor child per week,
>>> and you "only" increase yours to three. Are you "better" than your brother
>>> because the ratio of your rapes to his fell, from 1:3 to 1:4? No.
>>>
>>> If their stopping rule is incompatible with their so-called moral principles,
>>> that has nothing to do at all with my stopping rule for anything.
>>
>> You haven't shown that their stopping rule is incompatible with their moral
>> principles,
>
> Of course I have.
>
No you haven't. They're just like us and have to tolerate the animal collatteral
deaths around them in the same way that we have to tolerate the human collateral
deaths that surround us. If you think about it vegans have a lot more to tolerate
than we do because they believe animals have rights as well.

>
>> and you won't while trying to imply that it's based on your stopping rule for
>> something.
>
> I'm not trying to imply that; quite the opposite. I'm saying it has nothing to do
> with my stopping rule for anything. It doesn't.

And so are they.

"Rudy Canoza" > wrote in message
...
> Jones wrote:
>> "Rudy Canoza" > wrote in message
>> ...
>>> Jones wrote:
>>>> "Rudy Canoza" > wrote in message
>>>> ...
>>>>> Jones wrote:
>>>>>> "Rudy Canoza" > wrote in message
>>>>>> ...
>>>>>>> Jones wrote:
>>>>>>>> What makes you believe that *all* vegans think they're not killing animals
>>>>>>>> by simply refusing to eat meat?
>>>>>>> They all say it when first asked.
>>>>>> I don't believe that.
>>>>> You're wrong.
>>>> You're proceding from a false premise to arrive at an intentionally wrong
>>>> conclusion about vegans.
>>> No, I'm not.
>>>
>>>
>>>> For a start it's undeniably false to claim *all* vegans think they're not
>>>> killing animals collaterally in other areas of their life while abstaining from
>>>> meat.
>>> That's where they all start.
>>
>> No that's undeniably false.
>
> No, it isn't.
>
> "The vegan lives a death free lifestyle, and your
> useless efforts to queer this fact by pointing your
> finger at us for the deaths caused by the farmer
> isn't fooling anyone."
> http://tinyurl.com/7gw1
>
>
> The option of buying animal/cruelty free food is
> open to very few of us at the moment, unless we live
> near to one of the small number of commercial vegan
> organic producers.
> http://tinyurl.com/2aue69
>
>
> not ashamed AT ALL of my lifestyle and very ready to
> be accepting of other people's genuine attempts to
> live cruelty free.
> http://tinyurl.com/26rlgv
>
>
> I could spend all day finding quotes from people in Usenet, not to mention web
> sites that say being "vegan" *means* living a "cruelty free" lifestyle:
>
> "Cruelty free living"; "Online Guide To Cruelty-Free
> Living"
> http://www.theanimalspirit.com/vl.html
>
> "Guide to Cruelty-Free Eating"
> http://www.veganoutreach.org/starterpack/
>
> "Meat = Animal Cruelty" [presumably, fruits/vegetables = cruelty free]
> http://l.webring.com/hub?ring=veganandvegetari
>
> "I look at my progress as a vegan as if I am
> climbing Mt. Everest. I can see my goal clearly, and
> it is to live a 100% cruelty and death-free life."
>
> http://www.veganforum.com/forums/arc...hp/t-3824.html
>
>
> On and on and on. They *all* start believing that being "vegan" equates to causing
> zero animal death and cruelty.
>
Those samples don't prove your point that *all* vegans start off by thinking they
kill no animals when going without meat.

>
>>
>>> The only ones who move
>>> off that claim are those who have encountered someone like me.
>>
>> What do they say regarding their stopping rule wrt direct killing after you've
>> kindly enlightened them about the collatteral deaths they cause?
>
>
> That's when they fall back first to the false claim to be "minimizing" the animal
> death they cause.

That's as maybe, but it doesn't answer my question about their explanation concerning
their stopping point. Do they explain that they feel it's wrong to kill animals
because they believe they have rights, like we do when explaining our stopping point
wrt humans? I think it's quite likely they do.


When I
> point out that they are not "minimizing",

How do you do that?

then then
> fall further back to "doing the best I can".

That's exactly what we all do --- the best we can.

When I
> show that they're doing no such thing,

How do you do that?

most of them
> fall all the way to the bottom of the cesspool, and claim they're doing better than
> I am.

More paranioa?

Jones wrote:
> "Rudy Canoza" > wrote in message
> ...
>> Jones wrote:
>>> "Rudy Canoza" > wrote in message
>>> ...
>>>> Jones wrote:
>>>>> "Rudy Canoza" > wrote in message
>>>>> ...
>>>>>> Jones wrote:
>>>>>>> "Rudy Canoza" > wrote in message
>>>>>>> ...
>>>>>>>> Jones wrote:
>>>>>>>>> I'm not a vegan but I can see that your argument against them is a false
>>>>>>>>> one
>>>>>>>> No, you can't.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> It was there a minute ago.
>>>>>> You never saw what you claimed.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> just as well. How is your stopping rule wrt human deaths
>>>>>>>> _tu quoque_ - invalid.
>>>>>>> If you explain your stopping rule to me I might be able to see why the vegan's
>>>>>>> stopping rule shows their moral bankrupcy.
>>>>>> My stopping rule has nothing to do with theirs.
>>>>> I don't believe you.
>>>> What an insane thing to say! How *can* their stopping rule - the point at which
>>>> they think they don't need to do anything further to be in compliance with their
>>>> so-called moral principle - have anything to do with my stopping rule in some
>>>> completely different aspect of life?
>>>>
>>> Because your stopping rule and theirs is the same.
>> No, it is *not*, but it wouldn't matter if it were.
>>
> Yes it is.

No, it isn't.


> You and the vegans have a stopping rule because you both believe they have
> rights.

Both you and the other mushy defender of "vegans" keep
telling me they're trying to eliminate or reduce harm,
not respect rights. Even if they are trying to respect
some fuzzy notion of animal "rights", they believe
animals have a different set of rights than the rights
I believe humans have.

The stopping rule is not the same, but it is
*irrelevant* whether it is or isn't, unless your goal
is to make a _tu quoque_ argument, which is invalid and
vile.


>>>> If I said that I deliberately sought out and transacted with companies that I
>>>> know commit human rights abuses and routinely injure and kill their employees
>>>> around the world, what possible impact can that have on where "vegans" set their
>>>> stopping rule for refraining from harming animals?
>>> I'm not saying it does.
>> You just said it did! Make up your mind.
>>
>>
>>> Your impact on human rights violations has no bearing on their refusal to kill
>>> animals directly.
>> This directly/indirectly distinction is utterly bogus.
>
> But not so bogus when reminded of your human collateral damage obviously.

No, completely bogus. You ran your mouth a little early.


>> If you're the getaway driver for a robbery in which someone is killed, you can be
>> prosecuted for the homicide even though you never left the car. You didn't
>> directly kill the victim, but it doesn't matter; you can be convicted of the
>> homicide.

See? You didn't read this before running your mouth.
The direct/indirect distinction is bogus. It doesn't
matter if you're the hands-on killer, the trigger man
or the tractor driver, or not. What matters is if you
have some kind of voluntarily, fully aware involvement,
especially a repeated one, with a process that leads to
some harm or rights violation.


>>>> Their stopping rule *must* be
>>>> independent of mine, and mine of theirs.
>>> It is independant of yours and yet exactly the same.
>> But that's *IRRELEVANT* in determining if they're abiding by their own so-called
>> moral principle.
>>
> Their stopping rule is the same as yours

Irrelevant. We're talking about whether or not they're
abiding by their supposed moral principle. They aren't.


>>>> You can't
>>>> claim to be doing the right thing, or being "better", by comparing your moral
>>>> behavior with that of someone else. Such a comparison is truly loathsome.
>>> I'm not saying you can.
>> Of course you are.
>
> No I'm not.

Yes, you certainly are. That's why you keep trying to
make the comparison with my stopping rule regarding
human rights violations. It's a filthy attempt at a
_tu quoque_ defense for "vegans", and it won't fly.


>> You're saying that "vegans" are
>> entitled to conclude that they're behaving in accord with their supposed moral
>> principle, if I have the same stopping rule (which I don't, anyway) and have
>> concluded that I'm abiding by mine. That's absurd.
>>
> No. I've expalined that their stopping rule isn't based on any of your stopping rules
> even though they're exactly the same.

You keep saying that I'm trying to judge them by a
different rule than that which I use for myself.
You're saying that they're entitled to conclude they're
behaving morally if their stopping rule is the same as
mine and I conclude that I'm behaving morally.

You're really making a mess.


>>>> Suppose you and your equally criminal brother both violently sodomize the
>>>> six-year-old boy living next door to you. Your brother's stopping rule is six
>>>> violent ass-**** rapes of the boy per week, while your stopping rule says two.
>>>> Are you three times as "good" as your brother? No.
>>>>
>>> I wouldn't have said yes and I don't think any vegans would either.
>> They most certainly do! When they conclude that they're "better" than meat eaters
>> because they cause fewer, but still more than zero, animal deaths, that's exactly
>> what they're saying.
>>
> I'm beginning to see that there's quite a bit of paranoia lurking here.

No, you don't see any such thing.


>>>> Suppose your brother increases his to 12 ass-****ings of the poor child per week,
>>>> and you "only" increase yours to three. Are you "better" than your brother
>>>> because the ratio of your rapes to his fell, from 1:3 to 1:4? No.
>>>>
>>>> If their stopping rule is incompatible with their so-called moral principles,
>>>> that has nothing to do at all with my stopping rule for anything.
>>> You haven't shown that their stopping rule is incompatible with their moral
>>> principles,
>> Of course I have.
>>
> No you haven't.

Yes, I have. I've shown that they don't achieve
a) "death-free" living;
b) "minimization" of animal death; or
c) "doing the best they can"

merely as a result of being "vegan". So what moral
claim can they make?


>>> and you won't while trying to imply that it's based on your stopping rule for
>>> something.
>> I'm not trying to imply that; quite the opposite. I'm saying it has nothing to do
>> with my stopping rule for anything. It doesn't.
>
> And so are they.

"So are they" what?

Their stopping rule has nothing to do with any coherent
moral principle.

Jones wrote:
> "Rudy Canoza" > wrote in message
> ...
>> Jones wrote:
>>> "Rudy Canoza" > wrote in message
>>> ...
>>>> Jones wrote:
>>>>> "Rudy Canoza" > wrote in message
>>>>> ...
>>>>>> Jones wrote:
>>>>>>> "Rudy Canoza" > wrote in message
>>>>>>> ...
>>>>>>>> Jones wrote:
>>>>>>>>> What makes you believe that *all* vegans think they're not killing animals
>>>>>>>>> by simply refusing to eat meat?
>>>>>>>> They all say it when first asked.
>>>>>>> I don't believe that.
>>>>>> You're wrong.
>>>>> You're proceding from a false premise to arrive at an intentionally wrong
>>>>> conclusion about vegans.
>>>> No, I'm not.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> For a start it's undeniably false to claim *all* vegans think they're not
>>>>> killing animals collaterally in other areas of their life while abstaining from
>>>>> meat.
>>>> That's where they all start.
>>> No that's undeniably false.
>> No, it isn't.
>>
>> "The vegan lives a death free lifestyle, and your
>> useless efforts to queer this fact by pointing your
>> finger at us for the deaths caused by the farmer
>> isn't fooling anyone."
>> http://tinyurl.com/7gw1
>>
>>
>> The option of buying animal/cruelty free food is
>> open to very few of us at the moment, unless we live
>> near to one of the small number of commercial vegan
>> organic producers.
>> http://tinyurl.com/2aue69
>>
>>
>> not ashamed AT ALL of my lifestyle and very ready to
>> be accepting of other people's genuine attempts to
>> live cruelty free.
>> http://tinyurl.com/26rlgv
>>
>>
>> I could spend all day finding quotes from people in Usenet, not to mention web
>> sites that say being "vegan" *means* living a "cruelty free" lifestyle:
>>
>> "Cruelty free living"; "Online Guide To Cruelty-Free
>> Living"
>> http://www.theanimalspirit.com/vl.html
>>
>> "Guide to Cruelty-Free Eating"
>> http://www.veganoutreach.org/starterpack/
>>
>> "Meat = Animal Cruelty" [presumably, fruits/vegetables = cruelty free]
>> http://l.webring.com/hub?ring=veganandvegetari
>>
>> "I look at my progress as a vegan as if I am
>> climbing Mt. Everest. I can see my goal clearly, and
>> it is to live a 100% cruelty and death-free life."
>>
>> http://www.veganforum.com/forums/arc...hp/t-3824.html
>>
>>
>> On and on and on. They *all* start believing that being "vegan" equates to causing
>> zero animal death and cruelty.
>>
> Those samples don't prove your point that *all* vegans start off by thinking they
> kill no animals when going without meat.

All you'd have to do to disprove my claim is to find
just one "vegan" who says, upon proclaiming she's
"vegan", says she knows that it doesn't mean her
"lifestyle" doesn't cause animal death and suffering.
I'm not suggesting you have a burden of proof, but if
you could find such a person, you'd have disproved my
claim. You won't, of course. I think you *know*, in
fact, that I'm right, even if I can't possibly "prove"
I'm right by talking to every "vegan".


>>>> The only ones who move
>>>> off that claim are those who have encountered someone like me.
>>> What do they say regarding their stopping rule wrt direct killing after you've
>>> kindly enlightened them about the collatteral deaths they cause?
>>
>> That's when they fall back first to the false claim to be "minimizing" the animal
>> death they cause.
>
> That's as maybe, but it doesn't answer my question about their explanation concerning
> their stopping point. Do they explain that they feel it's wrong to kill animals
> because they believe they have rights, like we do when explaining our stopping point
> wrt humans? I think it's quite likely they do.

You really don't have any idea, do you?


>
>
>> When I
>> point out that they are not "minimizing",
>
> How do you do that?

Haven't you been reading my responses to "elflord" in
this thread?

I do it by pointing out that they haven't measured.
Claiming to be minimizing implies that you've counted,
and they haven't.

I've pointed out that it is perfectly conceivable for
some meat-including diets to have a lower animal death
toll than some, most or perhaps even all "vegan" diets.

I've pointed out that they haven't even measured the
death tolls of all possible "vegan" diets, and that if
there is some "vegan" diet that causes fewer deaths
than the "vegan" diet they're following, they're not
minimizing.

Are you really this simple?


>> then then
>> fall further back to "doing the best I can".
>
> That's exactly what we all do --- the best we can.

It's meaningless, and it's false. It's absurdly easy
to show that you could make some adjustments that would
make an improvement. These adjustments are usually
pretty small for most people.

I recycle. I recycle (and reduce and reuse) quite a
lot. Some weeks, I only haul the recycle bin out to
the street; there isn't enough trash (the stuff that
goes into the landfill) to bother with it. By
contrast, the recycle bin is almost always full. Is my
family doing the best it can? No, certainly not. I'm
pretty good about taking containers that are made of a
combination of plastic and some other non-recyclable
material, separating the plastic from the other, and
putting the plastic in the recycle bin. But sometimes
I don't, and my wife rarely does. Sometimes a bit of
plastic goes into a waste basket in the bathroom (the
in-house recyclables bag is under the kitchen sink). I
have a couple of canvas bags for going to the grocery
store, but I'm not always diligent about remembering
them, and I take the groceries out in plastic or paper
bags. So, I'm doing better than I did some years ago,
before I recycled anything, but I'm not doing the best
I can, and I could do a little better with no real
impact on my ease and convenience at all.


>> When I
>> show that they're doing no such thing,
>
> How do you do that?

See above. They could always do a little better, with
at least some of the improvement coming at little cost
to them in reduced convenience.


>> most of them
>> fall all the way to the bottom of the cesspool, and claim they're doing better than
>> I am.
>
> More paranioa?

No. That's the claim they are left with, and it's
despicable: one's virtue *never* is established by
resorting to a comparison with others.

"Rudy Canoza" > wrote in message
...
> Jones wrote:
>> "Rudy Canoza" > wrote in message
>> ...
>>> Jones wrote:
>>>> "Rudy Canoza" > wrote in message
>>>> ...
>>>>> Jones wrote:
>>>>>> "Rudy Canoza" > wrote in message
>>>>>> ...
>>>>>>> Jones wrote:
>>>>>>>> "Rudy Canoza" > wrote in message
>>>>>>>> ...
>>>>>>>>> Jones wrote:
>>>>>>>>>> I'm not a vegan but I can see that your argument against them is a
>>>>>>>>>> false one
>>>>>>>>> No, you can't.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> It was there a minute ago.
>>>>>>> You never saw what you claimed.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> just as well. How is your stopping rule wrt human deaths
>>>>>>>>> _tu quoque_ - invalid.
>>>>>>>> If you explain your stopping rule to me I might be able to see why the
>>>>>>>> vegan's stopping rule shows their moral bankrupcy.
>>>>>>> My stopping rule has nothing to do with theirs.
>>>>>> I don't believe you.
>>>>> What an insane thing to say! How *can* their stopping rule - the point at
>>>>> which they think they don't need to do anything further to be in compliance
>>>>> with their so-called moral principle - have anything to do with my stopping
>>>>> rule in some completely different aspect of life?
>>>>>
>>>> Because your stopping rule and theirs is the same.
>>> No, it is *not*, but it wouldn't matter if it were.
>>>
>> Yes it is.
>
> No, it isn't.
>
>
>> You and the vegans have a stopping rule because you both believe they have rights.
>
> Both you and the other mushy defender of "vegans" keep telling me they're trying to
> eliminate or reduce harm, not respect rights. Even if they are trying to respect
> some fuzzy notion of animal "rights", they believe animals have a different set of
> rights than the rights I believe humans have.
>
I can't really speak for them but I'm fairly sure that their belief in animal rights
is just as strong as your belief in human rights, and that's why their stopping rule
is the same as yours.

> The stopping rule is not the same, but it is *irrelevant* whether it is or isn't,
> unless your goal is to make a _tu quoque_ argument, which is invalid and vile.
>
>
>>>>> If I said that I deliberately sought out and transacted with companies that I
>>>>> know commit human rights abuses and routinely injure and kill their employees
>>>>> around the world, what possible impact can that have on where "vegans" set
>>>>> their stopping rule for refraining from harming animals?
>>>> I'm not saying it does.
>>> You just said it did! Make up your mind.
>>>
>>>
>>>> Your impact on human rights violations has no bearing on their refusal to kill
>>>> animals directly.
>>> This directly/indirectly distinction is utterly bogus.
>>
>> But not so bogus when reminded of your human collateral damage obviously.
>
> No, completely bogus. You ran your mouth a little early.
>
I take it that your belief in human rights is just reprehensible moral posturing
then. You leave me no alternative.

>
>>> If you're the getaway driver for a robbery in which someone is killed, you can
>>> be prosecuted for the homicide even though you never left the car. You didn't
>>> directly kill the victim, but it doesn't matter; you can be convicted of the
>>> homicide.
>
> See? You didn't read this before running your mouth. The direct/indirect
> distinction is bogus. It doesn't matter if you're the hands-on killer, the trigger
> man or the tractor driver, or not. What matters is if you have some kind of
> voluntarily, fully aware involvement, especially a repeated one, with a process
> that leads to some harm or rights violation.
>
If that matters to vegans why doesn't it matter to you and I? Why aren't you
attacking me for the human rights violations I cause or rebuking yourself and owning
up to the fact that your belief in human rights is morally reprehensible posturing?

>
>>>>> Their stopping rule *must* be
>>>>> independent of mine, and mine of theirs.
>>>> It is independant of yours and yet exactly the same.
>>> But that's *IRRELEVANT* in determining if they're abiding by their own so-called
>>> moral principle.
>>>
>> Their stopping rule is the same as yours
>
> Irrelevant. We're talking about whether or not they're abiding by their supposed
> moral principle. They aren't.
>
They're doing what you do by refusing to kill directly or getting others to do it for
them. They are sticking to their moral principle as tightly as we are and tolerating
the collateral deaths as best they can like we do.

>
>>>>> You can't
>>>>> claim to be doing the right thing, or being "better", by comparing your moral
>>>>> behavior with that of someone else. Such a comparison is truly loathsome.
>>>> I'm not saying you can.
>>> Of course you are.
>>
>> No I'm not.
>
> Yes, you certainly are. That's why you keep trying to make the comparison with my
> stopping rule regarding human rights violations. It's a filthy attempt at a _tu
> quoque_ defense for "vegans", and it won't fly.
>
>
>>> You're saying that "vegans" are
>>> entitled to conclude that they're behaving in accord with their supposed moral
>>> principle, if I have the same stopping rule (which I don't, anyway) and have
>>> concluded that I'm abiding by mine. That's absurd.
>>>
>> No. I've expalined that their stopping rule isn't based on any of your stopping
>> rules even though they're exactly the same.
>
> You keep saying that I'm trying to judge them by a different rule than that which I
> use for myself. You're saying that they're entitled to conclude they're behaving
> morally if their stopping rule is the same as mine and I conclude that I'm behaving
> morally.
>
No I'm telling you that their stopping point is the same yours and independant of it,
and that if you reject theirs while holding yours you'll be setting a higher standard
for them than you set for yourself.

> You're really making a mess.
>
>
>>>>> Suppose you and your equally criminal brother both violently sodomize the
>>>>> six-year-old boy living next door to you. Your brother's stopping rule is six
>>>>> violent ass-**** rapes of the boy per week, while your stopping rule says two.
>>>>> Are you three times as "good" as your brother? No.
>>>>>
>>>> I wouldn't have said yes and I don't think any vegans would either.
>>> They most certainly do! When they conclude that they're "better" than meat
>>> eaters because they cause fewer, but still more than zero, animal deaths, that's
>>> exactly what they're saying.
>>>
>> I'm beginning to see that there's quite a bit of paranoia lurking here.
>
> No, you don't see any such thing.
>
You think they're looking down on you because you eat meat.

>
>>>>> Suppose your brother increases his to 12 ass-****ings of the poor child per
>>>>> week, and you "only" increase yours to three. Are you "better" than your
>>>>> brother because the ratio of your rapes to his fell, from 1:3 to 1:4? No.
>>>>>
>>>>> If their stopping rule is incompatible with their so-called moral principles,
>>>>> that has nothing to do at all with my stopping rule for anything.
>>>> You haven't shown that their stopping rule is incompatible with their moral
>>>> principles,
>>> Of course I have.
>>>
>> No you haven't.
>
> Yes, I have. I've shown that they don't achieve
> a) "death-free" living;
> b) "minimization" of animal death; or
> c) "doing the best they can"
>
> merely as a result of being "vegan". So what moral claim can they make?
>
That it is wrong to kill animals directly or have someone else do it for them. They
might not be living death free and I'm sure that many of them realise that, but to
claim they aren't doing the best they can while you fail to do the best you can isn't
going to win any arguments on animal rights.

>>>> and you won't while trying to imply that it's based on your stopping rule for
>>>> something.
>>> I'm not trying to imply that; quite the opposite. I'm saying it has nothing to do
>>> with my stopping rule for anything. It doesn't.
>>
>> And so are they.
>
> "So are they" what?
>
> Their stopping rule has nothing to do with any coherent moral principle.

Jones wrote:
> "Rudy Canoza" > wrote in message
> ...
>> Jones wrote:
>>> "Rudy Canoza" > wrote in message
>>> ...
>>>> Jones wrote:
>>>>> "Rudy Canoza" > wrote in message
>>>>> ...
>>>>>> Jones wrote:
>>>>>>> "Rudy Canoza" > wrote in message
>>>>>>> ...
>>>>>>>> Jones wrote:
>>>>>>>>> "Rudy Canoza" > wrote in message
>>>>>>>>> ...
>>>>>>>>>> Jones wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>> I'm not a vegan but I can see that your argument against them is a
>>>>>>>>>>> false one
>>>>>>>>>> No, you can't.
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> It was there a minute ago.
>>>>>>>> You never saw what you claimed.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>> just as well. How is your stopping rule wrt human deaths
>>>>>>>>>> _tu quoque_ - invalid.
>>>>>>>>> If you explain your stopping rule to me I might be able to see why the
>>>>>>>>> vegan's stopping rule shows their moral bankrupcy.
>>>>>>>> My stopping rule has nothing to do with theirs.
>>>>>>> I don't believe you.
>>>>>> What an insane thing to say! How *can* their stopping rule - the point at
>>>>>> which they think they don't need to do anything further to be in compliance
>>>>>> with their so-called moral principle - have anything to do with my stopping
>>>>>> rule in some completely different aspect of life?
>>>>>>
>>>>> Because your stopping rule and theirs is the same.
>>>> No, it is *not*, but it wouldn't matter if it were.
>>>>
>>> Yes it is.
>> No, it isn't.
>>
>>
>>> You and the vegans have a stopping rule because you both believe they have rights.
>> Both you and the other mushy defender of "vegans" keep telling me they're trying to
>> eliminate or reduce harm, not respect rights. Even if they are trying to respect
>> some fuzzy notion of animal "rights", they believe animals have a different set of
>> rights than the rights I believe humans have.
>>
> I can't really speak for them but I'm fairly sure that their belief in animal rights
> is just as strong as your belief in human rights, and that's why their stopping rule
> is the same as yours.

There stopping rule is *not* the same as mine. I don't
knowingly, voluntarily and repeatedly participate in
any process that *routinely* involves the death of
humans as "vegans" similarly participate in processes
that involve the death of animals.


>> The stopping rule is not the same, but it is *irrelevant* whether it is or isn't,
>> unless your goal is to make a _tu quoque_ argument, which is invalid and vile.
>>
>>
>>>>>> If I said that I deliberately sought out and transacted with companies that I
>>>>>> know commit human rights abuses and routinely injure and kill their employees
>>>>>> around the world, what possible impact can that have on where "vegans" set
>>>>>> their stopping rule for refraining from harming animals?
>>>>> I'm not saying it does.
>>>> You just said it did! Make up your mind.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> Your impact on human rights violations has no bearing on their refusal to kill
>>>>> animals directly.
>>>> This directly/indirectly distinction is utterly bogus.
>>> But not so bogus when reminded of your human collateral damage obviously.
>> No, completely bogus. You ran your mouth a little early.
>>
> I take it that your belief in human rights is just reprehensible moral posturing
> then.

You take it wrong. I don't participate in anything
that routinely violates human rights in the way
"vegans" participate in processes that violates the
rights they claim are or ought to be held by animals.


>>>> If you're the getaway driver for a robbery in which someone is killed, you can
>>>> be prosecuted for the homicide even though you never left the car. You didn't
>>>> directly kill the victim, but it doesn't matter; you can be convicted of the
>>>> homicide.
>> See? You didn't read this before running your mouth. The direct/indirect
>> distinction is bogus. It doesn't matter if you're the hands-on killer, the trigger
>> man or the tractor driver, or not. What matters is if you have some kind of
>> voluntarily, fully aware involvement, especially a repeated one, with a process
>> that leads to some harm or rights violation.
>>
> If that matters to vegans why doesn't it matter to you and I?

It does matter. It's what explains why my stopping
rule is not with respect to human rights violations is
not at all the same as "vegans'" stopping rule wrt
animal "rights" violations.


> [snip vile _tu quoque_ ]
>
>>>>>> Their stopping rule *must* be
>>>>>> independent of mine, and mine of theirs.
>>>>> It is independant of yours and yet exactly the same.
>>>> But that's *IRRELEVANT* in determining if they're abiding by their own so-called
>>>> moral principle.
>>>>
>>> Their stopping rule is the same as yours
>> Irrelevant. We're talking about whether or not they're abiding by their supposed
>> moral principle. They aren't.
>>
> They're doing what you do

They're not, and you're still trying to make a _tu
quoque_ argument, which is vile and invalid; not a
defense of their failure to abide by their alleged
moral principle.


>>>>>> You can't
>>>>>> claim to be doing the right thing, or being "better", by comparing your moral
>>>>>> behavior with that of someone else. Such a comparison is truly loathsome.
>>>>> I'm not saying you can.
>>>> Of course you are.
>>> No I'm not.
>> Yes, you certainly are. That's why you keep trying to make the comparison with my
>> stopping rule regarding human rights violations. It's a filthy attempt at a _tu
>> quoque_ defense for "vegans", and it won't fly.
>>
>>
>>>> You're saying that "vegans" are
>>>> entitled to conclude that they're behaving in accord with their supposed moral
>>>> principle, if I have the same stopping rule (which I don't, anyway) and have
>>>> concluded that I'm abiding by mine. That's absurd.
>>>>
>>> No. I've expalined that their stopping rule isn't based on any of your stopping
>>> rules even though they're exactly the same.
>> You keep saying that I'm trying to judge them by a different rule than that which I
>> use for myself. You're saying that they're entitled to conclude they're behaving
>> morally if their stopping rule is the same as mine and I conclude that I'm behaving
>> morally.
>>
> No I'm telling you that their stopping point is the same yours

And you're wrong, and anyway your telling me that is a
_tu quoque_, which is disgusting and an invalid defense
of their failure to abide by their supposed moral
principle.


>>
>>
>>>>>> Suppose you and your equally criminal brother both violently sodomize the
>>>>>> six-year-old boy living next door to you. Your brother's stopping rule is six
>>>>>> violent ass-**** rapes of the boy per week, while your stopping rule says two.
>>>>>> Are you three times as "good" as your brother? No.
>>>>>>
>>>>> I wouldn't have said yes and I don't think any vegans would either.
>>>> They most certainly do! When they conclude that they're "better" than meat
>>>> eaters because they cause fewer, but still more than zero, animal deaths, that's
>>>> exactly what they're saying.
>>>>
>>> I'm beginning to see that there's quite a bit of paranoia lurking here.
>> No, you don't see any such thing.
>>
> You think they're looking down on you because you eat meat.

No, they're arrogantly exalting themselves, and
presuming they have some special moral status that
entitles them to look down on others, because of their
abstinence from meat. Whether they actually look down
on others is irrelevant to me; it is their false and
unwarranted self-congratulation that is the issue. I'm
showing they have no grounds for such self-exaltation.


>>>>>> Suppose your brother increases his to 12 ass-****ings of the poor child per
>>>>>> week, and you "only" increase yours to three. Are you "better" than your
>>>>>> brother because the ratio of your rapes to his fell, from 1:3 to 1:4? No.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> If their stopping rule is incompatible with their so-called moral principles,
>>>>>> that has nothing to do at all with my stopping rule for anything.
>>>>> You haven't shown that their stopping rule is incompatible with their moral
>>>>> principles,
>>>> Of course I have.
>>>>
>>> No you haven't.
>> Yes, I have. I've shown that they don't achieve
>> a) "death-free" living;
>> b) "minimization" of animal death; or
>> c) "doing the best they can"
>>
>> merely as a result of being "vegan". So what moral claim can they make?
>>
> That it is wrong to kill animals directly or have someone else do it for them.

But they *do* have animals killed on their behalf.
They do it when they knowingly buy foods whose
production killed animals, and when they take
prescription drugs that were tested on animals pursuant
to regulatory approval (*all* drugs are tested on
animals in the course of obtaining regulatory approval.)


> They might not be living death free and I'm sure that many of them realise that,

Most do not realize it.


> but to
> claim they aren't doing the best they can while you fail to do the best you can

No, you keep trying to make this a comparison, and
that's invalid. It has nothing to do with whether or
not I'm doing the best I can at anything; it has only
to do with whether or not they're telling the truth
when they say they're doing the best they can. NONE of
them are doing the best they can.


>>>>> and you won't while trying to imply that it's based on your stopping rule for
>>>>> something.
>>>> I'm not trying to imply that; quite the opposite. I'm saying it has nothing to do
>>>> with my stopping rule for anything. It doesn't.
>>> And so are they.
>> "So are they" what?
>>
>> Their stopping rule has nothing to do with any coherent moral principle.
>
>

"Rudy Canoza" > wrote in message
...
> Jones wrote:
>> "Rudy Canoza" > wrote in message
>> ...
>>> Jones wrote:
>>>> "Rudy Canoza" > wrote in message
>>>> ...
>>>>> Jones wrote:
>>>>>> "Rudy Canoza" > wrote in message
>>>>>> ...
>>>>>>> Jones wrote:
>>>>>>>> "Rudy Canoza" > wrote in message
>>>>>>>> ...
>>>>>>>>> Jones wrote:
>>>>>>>>>> What makes you believe that *all* vegans think they're not killing animals
>>>>>>>>>> by simply refusing to eat meat?
>>>>>>>>> They all say it when first asked.
>>>>>>>> I don't believe that.
>>>>>>> You're wrong.
>>>>>> You're proceding from a false premise to arrive at an intentionally wrong
>>>>>> conclusion about vegans.
>>>>> No, I'm not.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>> For a start it's undeniably false to claim *all* vegans think they're not
>>>>>> killing animals collaterally in other areas of their life while abstaining
>>>>>> from meat.
>>>>> That's where they all start.
>>>> No that's undeniably false.
>>> No, it isn't.
>>>
>>> "The vegan lives a death free lifestyle, and your
>>> useless efforts to queer this fact by pointing your
>>> finger at us for the deaths caused by the farmer
>>> isn't fooling anyone."
>>> http://tinyurl.com/7gw1
>>>
>>>
>>> The option of buying animal/cruelty free food is
>>> open to very few of us at the moment, unless we live
>>> near to one of the small number of commercial vegan
>>> organic producers.
>>> http://tinyurl.com/2aue69
>>>
>>>
>>> not ashamed AT ALL of my lifestyle and very ready to
>>> be accepting of other people's genuine attempts to
>>> live cruelty free.
>>> http://tinyurl.com/26rlgv
>>>
>>>
>>> I could spend all day finding quotes from people in Usenet, not to mention web
>>> sites that say being "vegan" *means* living a "cruelty free" lifestyle:
>>>
>>> "Cruelty free living"; "Online Guide To Cruelty-Free
>>> Living"
>>> http://www.theanimalspirit.com/vl.html
>>>
>>> "Guide to Cruelty-Free Eating"
>>> http://www.veganoutreach.org/starterpack/
>>>
>>> "Meat = Animal Cruelty" [presumably, fruits/vegetables = cruelty free]
>>> http://l.webring.com/hub?ring=veganandvegetari
>>>
>>> "I look at my progress as a vegan as if I am
>>> climbing Mt. Everest. I can see my goal clearly, and
>>> it is to live a 100% cruelty and death-free life."
>>>
>>> http://www.veganforum.com/forums/arc...hp/t-3824.html
>>>
>>>
>>> On and on and on. They *all* start believing that being "vegan" equates to
>>> causing zero animal death and cruelty.
>>>
>> Those samples don't prove your point that *all* vegans start off by thinking they
>> kill no animals when going without meat.
>
> All you'd have to do to disprove my claim is to find just one "vegan" who says,
> upon proclaiming she's "vegan", says she knows that it doesn't mean her "lifestyle"
> doesn't cause animal death and suffering. I'm not suggesting you have a burden of
> proof,

You're right. The burden of proof is yours and those few samples aren't enough.

but if
> you could find such a person, you'd have disproved my claim. You won't, of course.
> I think you *know*, in fact, that I'm right, even if I can't possibly "prove" I'm
> right by talking to every "vegan".
>
No I don't think you're right. You overreached with your *all* claim. You have no way
of defending it.

>
>>>>> The only ones who move
>>>>> off that claim are those who have encountered someone like me.
>>>> What do they say regarding their stopping rule wrt direct killing after you've
>>>> kindly enlightened them about the collatteral deaths they cause?
>>>
>>> That's when they fall back first to the false claim to be "minimizing" the animal
>>> death they cause.
>>
>> That's as maybe, but it doesn't answer my question about their explanation
>> concerning their stopping point. Do they explain that they feel it's wrong to kill
>> animals because they believe they have rights, like we do when explaining our
>> stopping point wrt humans? I think it's quite likely they do.
>
> You really don't have any idea, do you?
>
I think it's quite likely that they believe in animal rights and I think their belief
is as close behind their stopping rule as yours is.

>
>>
>>
>>> When I
>>> point out that they are not "minimizing",
>>
>> How do you do that?
>
> Haven't you been reading my responses to "elflord" in this thread?
>
> I do it by pointing out that they haven't measured. Claiming to be minimizing
> implies that you've counted, and they haven't.
>
Have you done all the counting and shown that they aren't minimizing?

> I've pointed out that it is perfectly conceivable for some meat-including diets to
> have a lower animal death toll than some, most or perhaps even all "vegan" diets.
>
It's also perfectly conceivable to believe they are minimizing animal deaths while no
counts have been made.

> I've pointed out that they haven't even measured the death tolls of all possible
> "vegan" diets, and that if there is some "vegan" diet that causes fewer deaths than
> the "vegan" diet they're following, they're not minimizing.
>
>
> Are you really this simple?
>
>
>>> then then
>>> fall further back to "doing the best I can".
>>
>> That's exactly what we all do --- the best we can.
>
> It's meaningless, and it's false. It's absurdly easy to show that you could make
> some adjustments that would make an improvement. These adjustments are usually
> pretty small for most people.
>
> I recycle. I recycle (and reduce and reuse) quite a lot. Some weeks, I only haul
> the recycle bin out to the street; there isn't enough trash (the stuff that goes
> into the landfill) to bother with it. By contrast, the recycle bin is almost
> always full. Is my family doing the best it can? No, certainly not.

It's fair to say then that because your family isn't doing the best it can their
stopping rule is morally reprehensible posing.

I'm
> pretty good about taking containers that are made of a combination of plastic and
> some other non-recyclable material, separating the plastic from the other, and
> putting the plastic in the recycle bin. But sometimes I don't, and my wife rarely
> does. Sometimes a bit of plastic goes into a waste basket in the bathroom (the
> in-house recyclables bag is under the kitchen sink). I have a couple of canvas
> bags for going to the grocery store, but I'm not always diligent about remembering
> them, and I take the groceries out in plastic or paper bags. So, I'm doing better
> than I did some years ago, before I recycled anything, but I'm not doing the best I
> can, and I could do a little better with no real impact on my ease and convenience
> at all.
>
>>> When I
>>> show that they're doing no such thing,
>>
>> How do you do that?
>
> See above. They could always do a little better, with at least some of the
> improvement coming at little cost to them in reduced convenience.
>
>
>>> most of them
>>> fall all the way to the bottom of the cesspool, and claim they're doing better
>>> than I am.
>>
>> More paranioa?
>
> No. That's the claim they are left with, and it's despicable: one's virtue
> *never* is established by resorting to a comparison with others.

On Feb 17, 10:01*am, Rudy Canoza > wrote:
> Elflord wrote:
> > On 2008-02-16, Rudy Canoza > wrote:
> >> Elflord wrote:
>
> >>> On 2008-02-16, Rudy Canoza > wrote:
>
> >>>> "veganism" is inherently evangelistic. *They owe an
> >>>> explanation.
> >>> It isn't, they don't,
> >> It is, and they do. *
>
> > No, I provided an explanation
>
> You didn't.
>
> >> You're full of shit.
>
> > I'll note that
>
> We note that you're full of shit.


Who's "we"? You got a tapeworm Goob?

On Feb 18, 9:51*am, Rudy Canoza > wrote:
> lesley, the whore of Cork, lied:
>
>
>
>
>
> > > wrote in . cmu.edu...
> >> "hypothesis that it is eating fruits and perhaps blossoms, that has, if
> >> anything, contributed the most in allowing humans to develop
> >> relatively larger brains than other species. The ability of humans to
> >> develop normal brains with a dietary absence of animal products is
> >> also noted."
>
> >> Not so say those whose study such things, switch to including meat led
> >> to larger brain:
>
> >> * *Meat-eating was essential for human evolution, says UC Berkeley
> >> * *anthropologist specializing in diet
>
> >> * * * * * * * * * * By Patricia McBroom, Public Affairs
>
> >> * *BERKELEY-- Human ancestors who roamed the dry and open savannas of
> >> * *Africa about 2 million years ago routinely began to include meat in
> >> * *their diets to compensate for a serious decline in the quality of
> >> * *plant foods, according to a physical anthropologist at the University
> >> * *of California, Berkeley.
>
> > 'Male strategies and Plio-Pleistocene archaeology
>
> [snip BULLSHIT that lesley has not and *cannot* read]
>
> Humans evolved as meat eaters - full stop.-


There is NO proof of that.

"Rudy Canoza" > wrote in message
...
> Jones wrote:
>> "Rudy Canoza" > wrote in message
>> ...
>>> Jones wrote:
>>>> "Rudy Canoza" > wrote in message
>>>> ...
>>>>> Jones wrote:
>>>>>> "Rudy Canoza" > wrote in message
>>>>>> ...
>>>>>>> Jones wrote:
>>>>>>>> "Rudy Canoza" > wrote in message
>>>>>>>> ...
>>>>>>>>> Jones wrote:
>>>>>>>>>> "Rudy Canoza" > wrote in message
>>>>>>>>>> ...
>>>>>>>>>>> Jones wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>>> I'm not a vegan but I can see that your argument against them is a
>>>>>>>>>>>> false one
>>>>>>>>>>> No, you can't.
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> It was there a minute ago.
>>>>>>>>> You never saw what you claimed.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>> just as well. How is your stopping rule wrt human deaths
>>>>>>>>>>> _tu quoque_ - invalid.
>>>>>>>>>> If you explain your stopping rule to me I might be able to see why the
>>>>>>>>>> vegan's stopping rule shows their moral bankrupcy.
>>>>>>>>> My stopping rule has nothing to do with theirs.
>>>>>>>> I don't believe you.
>>>>>>> What an insane thing to say! How *can* their stopping rule - the point at
>>>>>>> which they think they don't need to do anything further to be in compliance
>>>>>>> with their so-called moral principle - have anything to do with my stopping
>>>>>>> rule in some completely different aspect of life?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>> Because your stopping rule and theirs is the same.
>>>>> No, it is *not*, but it wouldn't matter if it were.
>>>>>
>>>> Yes it is.
>>> No, it isn't.
>>>
>>>
>>>> You and the vegans have a stopping rule because you both believe they have
>>>> rights.
>>> Both you and the other mushy defender of "vegans" keep telling me they're trying
>>> to eliminate or reduce harm, not respect rights. Even if they are trying to
>>> respect some fuzzy notion of animal "rights", they believe animals have a
>>> different set of rights than the rights I believe humans have.
>>>
>> I can't really speak for them but I'm fairly sure that their belief in animal
>> rights is just as strong as your belief in human rights, and that's why their
>> stopping rule is the same as yours.
>
> There stopping rule is *not* the same as mine.

It's exactly the same.

I don't
> knowingly, voluntarily and repeatedly participate in any process that *routinely*
> involves the death of humans

Yes you do. We all do. You can't say that just because you eat no humans or spend
Saturday nights doing drive-by shooting you aren't causing human deaths somewhere
else.

as "vegans" similarly participate in processes
> that involve the death of animals.
>
>
>>> The stopping rule is not the same, but it is *irrelevant* whether it is or isn't,
>>> unless your goal is to make a _tu quoque_ argument, which is invalid and vile.
>>>
>>>
>>>>>>> If I said that I deliberately sought out and transacted with companies that I
>>>>>>> know commit human rights abuses and routinely injure and kill their employees
>>>>>>> around the world, what possible impact can that have on where "vegans" set
>>>>>>> their stopping rule for refraining from harming animals?
>>>>>> I'm not saying it does.
>>>>> You just said it did! Make up your mind.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>> Your impact on human rights violations has no bearing on their refusal to kill
>>>>>> animals directly.
>>>>> This directly/indirectly distinction is utterly bogus.
>>>> But not so bogus when reminded of your human collateral damage obviously.
>>> No, completely bogus. You ran your mouth a little early.
>>>
>> I take it that your belief in human rights is just reprehensible moral posturing
>> then.
>
> You take it wrong. I don't participate in anything that routinely violates human
> rights

Yes you do. You're no different from anyone else. You indirectly kill humans and do
nothing to minimize them.


in the way
> "vegans" participate in processes that violates the rights they claim are or ought
> to be held by animals.
>
>
>>>>> If you're the getaway driver for a robbery in which someone is killed, you can
>>>>> be prosecuted for the homicide even though you never left the car. You didn't
>>>>> directly kill the victim, but it doesn't matter; you can be convicted of the
>>>>> homicide.
>>> See? You didn't read this before running your mouth. The direct/indirect
>>> distinction is bogus. It doesn't matter if you're the hands-on killer, the
>>> trigger man or the tractor driver, or not. What matters is if you have some kind
>>> of voluntarily, fully aware involvement, especially a repeated one, with a
>>> process that leads to some harm or rights violation.
>>>
>> If that matters to vegans why doesn't it matter to you and I?
>
> It does matter. It's what explains why my stopping rule is not with respect to
> human rights violations is not at all the same as "vegans'" stopping rule wrt
> animal "rights" violations.
>
If your stopping rule has nothing to with human rights violations, what is it based
on?

>
>> [snip vile _tu quoque_ ]
>>
>>>>>>> Their stopping rule *must* be
>>>>>>> independent of mine, and mine of theirs.
>>>>>> It is independant of yours and yet exactly the same.
>>>>> But that's *IRRELEVANT* in determining if they're abiding by their own
>>>>> so-called moral principle.
>>>>>
>>>> Their stopping rule is the same as yours
>>> Irrelevant. We're talking about whether or not they're abiding by their supposed
>>> moral principle. They aren't.
>>>
>> They're doing what you do
>
> They're not,

I believe they are and you've not shown they aren't. Having to tolerate indirect
collatteral deaths doesn't prove that a stopping rule to direct killing is morally
reprehensible posturing. If theirs is then so is yours and mine.

and you're still trying to make a _tu
> quoque_ argument, which is vile and invalid; not a defense of their failure to
> abide by their alleged moral principle.
>
>
>>>>>>> You can't
>>>>>>> claim to be doing the right thing, or being "better", by comparing your moral
>>>>>>> behavior with that of someone else. Such a comparison is truly loathsome.
>>>>>> I'm not saying you can.
>>>>> Of course you are.
>>>> No I'm not.
>>> Yes, you certainly are. That's why you keep trying to make the comparison with
>>> my stopping rule regarding human rights violations. It's a filthy attempt at a
>>> _tu quoque_ defense for "vegans", and it won't fly.
>>>
>>>
>>>>> You're saying that "vegans" are
>>>>> entitled to conclude that they're behaving in accord with their supposed moral
>>>>> principle, if I have the same stopping rule (which I don't, anyway) and have
>>>>> concluded that I'm abiding by mine. That's absurd.
>>>>>
>>>> No. I've expalined that their stopping rule isn't based on any of your stopping
>>>> rules even though they're exactly the same.
>>> You keep saying that I'm trying to judge them by a different rule than that which
>>> I use for myself. You're saying that they're entitled to conclude they're
>>> behaving morally if their stopping rule is the same as mine and I conclude that
>>> I'm behaving morally.
>>>
>> No I'm telling you that their stopping point is the same yours
>
> And you're wrong, and anyway your telling me that is a _tu quoque_, which is
> disgusting and an invalid defense of their failure to abide by their supposed moral
> principle.
>
>
>>>
>>>
>>>>>>> Suppose you and your equally criminal brother both violently sodomize the
>>>>>>> six-year-old boy living next door to you. Your brother's stopping rule is
>>>>>>> six violent ass-**** rapes of the boy per week, while your stopping rule says
>>>>>>> two. Are you three times as "good" as your brother? No.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>> I wouldn't have said yes and I don't think any vegans would either.
>>>>> They most certainly do! When they conclude that they're "better" than meat
>>>>> eaters because they cause fewer, but still more than zero, animal deaths,
>>>>> that's exactly what they're saying.
>>>>>
>>>> I'm beginning to see that there's quite a bit of paranoia lurking here.
>>> No, you don't see any such thing.
>>>
>> You think they're looking down on you because you eat meat.
>
> No, they're arrogantly exalting themselves, and presuming they have some special
> moral status that entitles them to look down on others, because of their abstinence
> from meat.

You're paranoid. You think they're looking down on you.

Whether they actually look down
> on others is irrelevant to me; it is their false and unwarranted
> self-congratulation that is the issue. I'm showing they have no grounds for such
> self-exaltation.
>
I believe they're perfectly entitled to pat themselves on the back for what they do.
They've identified something they find morally wrong and avoid being part of it.

>
>>>>>>> Suppose your brother increases his to 12 ass-****ings of the poor child per
>>>>>>> week, and you "only" increase yours to three. Are you "better" than your
>>>>>>> brother because the ratio of your rapes to his fell, from 1:3 to 1:4? No.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> If their stopping rule is incompatible with their so-called moral principles,
>>>>>>> that has nothing to do at all with my stopping rule for anything.
>>>>>> You haven't shown that their stopping rule is incompatible with their moral
>>>>>> principles,
>>>>> Of course I have.
>>>>>
>>>> No you haven't.
>>> Yes, I have. I've shown that they don't achieve
>>> a) "death-free" living;
>>> b) "minimization" of animal death; or
>>> c) "doing the best they can"
>>>
>>> merely as a result of being "vegan". So what moral claim can they make?
>>>
>> That it is wrong to kill animals directly or have someone else do it for them.
>
> But they *do* have animals killed on their behalf.

No I don't think they do. We do.

> They do it when they knowingly buy foods whose production killed animals, and when
> they take prescription drugs that were tested on animals pursuant to regulatory
> approval (*all* drugs are tested on animals in the course of obtaining regulatory
> approval.)
>
We knowingly participate in lots of areas that result in the collatteral deaths of
humans. Why aren't you blaming them and us and yourself for those as well?

>
>> They might not be living death free and I'm sure that many of them realise that,
>
> Most do not realize it.
>
>
>> but to claim they aren't doing the best they can while you fail to do the best you
>> can
>
> No, you keep trying to make this a comparison, and that's invalid. It has nothing
> to do with whether or not I'm doing the best I can at anything; it has only to do
> with whether or not they're telling the truth when they say they're doing the best
> they can. NONE of them are doing the best they can.
>
None of us are. We could all do more.

>
>>>>>> and you won't while trying to imply that it's based on your stopping rule for
>>>>>> something.
>>>>> I'm not trying to imply that; quite the opposite. I'm saying it has nothing to
>>>>> do with my stopping rule for anything. It doesn't.
>>>> And so are they.
>>> "So are they" what?
>>>
>>> Their stopping rule has nothing to do with any coherent moral principle.
>>

Jones wrote:
> "Rudy Canoza" > wrote in message
> ...
>> Jones wrote:
>>> "Rudy Canoza" > wrote in message
>>> ...
>>>> Jones wrote:
>>>>> "Rudy Canoza" > wrote in message
>>>>> ...
>>>>>> Jones wrote:
>>>>>>> "Rudy Canoza" > wrote in message
>>>>>>> ...
>>>>>>>> Jones wrote:
>>>>>>>>> "Rudy Canoza" > wrote in message
>>>>>>>>> ...
>>>>>>>>>> Jones wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>> "Rudy Canoza" > wrote in message
>>>>>>>>>>> ...
>>>>>>>>>>>> Jones wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>>>> I'm not a vegan but I can see that your argument against them is a
>>>>>>>>>>>>> false one
>>>>>>>>>>>> No, you can't.
>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>> It was there a minute ago.
>>>>>>>>>> You never saw what you claimed.
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>> just as well. How is your stopping rule wrt human deaths
>>>>>>>>>>>> _tu quoque_ - invalid.
>>>>>>>>>>> If you explain your stopping rule to me I might be able to see why the
>>>>>>>>>>> vegan's stopping rule shows their moral bankrupcy.
>>>>>>>>>> My stopping rule has nothing to do with theirs.
>>>>>>>>> I don't believe you.
>>>>>>>> What an insane thing to say! How *can* their stopping rule - the point at
>>>>>>>> which they think they don't need to do anything further to be in compliance
>>>>>>>> with their so-called moral principle - have anything to do with my stopping
>>>>>>>> rule in some completely different aspect of life?
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Because your stopping rule and theirs is the same.
>>>>>> No, it is *not*, but it wouldn't matter if it were.
>>>>>>
>>>>> Yes it is.
>>>> No, it isn't.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> You and the vegans have a stopping rule because you both believe they have
>>>>> rights.
>>>> Both you and the other mushy defender of "vegans" keep telling me they're trying
>>>> to eliminate or reduce harm, not respect rights. Even if they are trying to
>>>> respect some fuzzy notion of animal "rights", they believe animals have a
>>>> different set of rights than the rights I believe humans have.
>>>>
>>> I can't really speak for them but I'm fairly sure that their belief in animal
>>> rights is just as strong as your belief in human rights, and that's why their
>>> stopping rule is the same as yours.
>> There stopping rule is *not* the same as mine.
>
> It's exactly the same.

It's not the same at all.


>> I don't
>> knowingly, voluntarily and repeatedly participate in any process that *routinely*
>> involves the death of humans
>
> Yes you do.

No, I don't - they don't occur.


>> as "vegans" similarly participate in processes
>> that involve the death of animals.
>>
>>
>>>> The stopping rule is not the same, but it is *irrelevant* whether it is or isn't,
>>>> unless your goal is to make a _tu quoque_ argument, which is invalid and vile.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>>>> If I said that I deliberately sought out and transacted with companies that I
>>>>>>>> know commit human rights abuses and routinely injure and kill their employees
>>>>>>>> around the world, what possible impact can that have on where "vegans" set
>>>>>>>> their stopping rule for refraining from harming animals?
>>>>>>> I'm not saying it does.
>>>>>> You just said it did! Make up your mind.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Your impact on human rights violations has no bearing on their refusal to kill
>>>>>>> animals directly.
>>>>>> This directly/indirectly distinction is utterly bogus.
>>>>> But not so bogus when reminded of your human collateral damage obviously.
>>>> No, completely bogus. You ran your mouth a little early.
>>>>
>>> I take it that your belief in human rights is just reprehensible moral posturing
>>> then.
>> You take it wrong. I don't participate in anything that routinely violates human
>> rights
>
> Yes you do.

No, I don't - there aren't any such activities that
violate human rights in the routine way commercial
agriculture violates the supposed "rights" of animals.

You're far to quick to run your mouth. You need to
read the whole thing before bulldozing your way into
the middle of a sentence.



>> in the way
>> "vegans" participate in processes that violates the rights they claim are or ought
>> to be held by animals.
>>
>>
>>>>>> If you're the getaway driver for a robbery in which someone is killed, you can
>>>>>> be prosecuted for the homicide even though you never left the car. You didn't
>>>>>> directly kill the victim, but it doesn't matter; you can be convicted of the
>>>>>> homicide.
>>>> See? You didn't read this before running your mouth. The direct/indirect
>>>> distinction is bogus. It doesn't matter if you're the hands-on killer, the
>>>> trigger man or the tractor driver, or not. What matters is if you have some kind
>>>> of voluntarily, fully aware involvement, especially a repeated one, with a
>>>> process that leads to some harm or rights violation.
>>>>
>>> If that matters to vegans why doesn't it matter to you and I?
>> It does matter. It's what explains why my stopping rule with respect to
>> human rights violations is not at all the same as "vegans'" stopping rule wrt
>> animal "rights" violations.
>>
> If your stopping rule has nothing to with human rights violations, what is it based
> on?

Can you read? You seem to have a lot of difficulty
with it. I didn't say my stopping rule has nothing to
do with human rights violations, you knucklehead. I
said my stopping rule WITH respect to human rights
violations has nothing to do with "vegans'" stopping
rule wrt to so-called animal "rights". My stopping
rule isn't the same as theirs, because the subjects are
different. In addition, there is no routine violation
of human rights in the same way, and in the same scope
and scale, as there are violations of supposed animal
"rights".


>>> [snip vile _tu quoque_ ]
>>>
>>>>>>>> Their stopping rule *must* be
>>>>>>>> independent of mine, and mine of theirs.
>>>>>>> It is independant of yours and yet exactly the same.
>>>>>> But that's *IRRELEVANT* in determining if they're abiding by their own
>>>>>> so-called moral principle.
>>>>>>
>>>>> Their stopping rule is the same as yours
>>>> Irrelevant. We're talking about whether or not they're abiding by their supposed
>>>> moral principle. They aren't.
>>>>
>>> They're doing what you do
>> They're not,
>
> I believe they are

They're not.


>> and you're still trying to make a _tu
>> quoque_ argument, which is vile and invalid; not a defense of their failure to
>> abide by their alleged moral principle.
>>
>>
>>>>>>>> You can't
>>>>>>>> claim to be doing the right thing, or being "better", by comparing your moral
>>>>>>>> behavior with that of someone else. Such a comparison is truly loathsome.
>>>>>>> I'm not saying you can.
>>>>>> Of course you are.
>>>>> No I'm not.
>>>> Yes, you certainly are. That's why you keep trying to make the comparison with
>>>> my stopping rule regarding human rights violations. It's a filthy attempt at a
>>>> _tu quoque_ defense for "vegans", and it won't fly.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>> You're saying that "vegans" are
>>>>>> entitled to conclude that they're behaving in accord with their supposed moral
>>>>>> principle, if I have the same stopping rule (which I don't, anyway) and have
>>>>>> concluded that I'm abiding by mine. That's absurd.
>>>>>>
>>>>> No. I've expalined that their stopping rule isn't based on any of your stopping
>>>>> rules even though they're exactly the same.
>>>> You keep saying that I'm trying to judge them by a different rule than that which
>>>> I use for myself. You're saying that they're entitled to conclude they're
>>>> behaving morally if their stopping rule is the same as mine and I conclude that
>>>> I'm behaving morally.
>>>>
>>> No I'm telling you that their stopping point is the same yours
>> And you're wrong, and anyway your telling me that is a _tu quoque_, which is
>> disgusting and an invalid defense of their failure to abide by their supposed moral
>> principle.
>>
>>
>>>>
>>>>>>>> Suppose you and your equally criminal brother both violently sodomize the
>>>>>>>> six-year-old boy living next door to you. Your brother's stopping rule is
>>>>>>>> six violent ass-**** rapes of the boy per week, while your stopping rule says
>>>>>>>> two. Are you three times as "good" as your brother? No.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I wouldn't have said yes and I don't think any vegans would either.
>>>>>> They most certainly do! When they conclude that they're "better" than meat
>>>>>> eaters because they cause fewer, but still more than zero, animal deaths,
>>>>>> that's exactly what they're saying.
>>>>>>
>>>>> I'm beginning to see that there's quite a bit of paranoia lurking here.
>>>> No, you don't see any such thing.
>>>>
>>> You think they're looking down on you because you eat meat.
>> No, they're arrogantly exalting themselves, and presuming they have some special
>> moral status that entitles them to look down on others, because of their abstinence
>> from meat.
>
> You're paranoid.

No.


>> Whether they actually look down
>> on others is irrelevant to me; it is their false and unwarranted
>> self-congratulation that is the issue. I'm showing they have no grounds for such
>> self-exaltation.
>>
> I believe they're perfectly entitled to pat themselves on the back for what they do.

They're not. They're hypocrites. They're worse than
people who don't make any moral pronouncements at all.

> They've identified something they find morally wrong and avoid being part of it.

They're not doing anything morally commendable at all.
They're not even abiding by their own supposed moral
principle, and then they exalt themselves anyway.

You're easily fooled by empty symbolic gestures.


>>>>>>>> Suppose your brother increases his to 12 ass-****ings of the poor child per
>>>>>>>> week, and you "only" increase yours to three. Are you "better" than your
>>>>>>>> brother because the ratio of your rapes to his fell, from 1:3 to 1:4? No.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> If their stopping rule is incompatible with their so-called moral principles,
>>>>>>>> that has nothing to do at all with my stopping rule for anything.
>>>>>>> You haven't shown that their stopping rule is incompatible with their moral
>>>>>>> principles,
>>>>>> Of course I have.
>>>>>>
>>>>> No you haven't.
>>>> Yes, I have. I've shown that they don't achieve
>>>> a) "death-free" living;
>>>> b) "minimization" of animal death; or
>>>> c) "doing the best they can"
>>>>
>>>> merely as a result of being "vegan". So what moral claim can they make?
>>>>
>>> That it is wrong to kill animals directly or have someone else do it for them.
>> But they *do* have animals killed on their behalf.
>
> No I don't think they do.

Yes, they certainly do: the animals killed and left to
rot in fields, and the animals killed and thrown into
trash bins around food storage facilities. And don't
forget the animals killed in the course of testing
prescription drugs that "vegans" take right along with
everyone else.


>> They do it when they knowingly buy foods whose production killed animals, and when
>> they take prescription drugs that were tested on animals pursuant to regulatory
>> approval (*all* drugs are tested on animals in the course of obtaining regulatory
>> approval.)
>>
> We knowingly participate in lots of areas that result in the collatteral deaths of
> humans.

We don't. You're imagining things.

What collateral human deaths that do occur have
consequences, and they occur on a minute fraction of
the scale that at which animal collateral deaths occur.
They cannot be compared.


>>> They might not be living death free and I'm sure that many of them realise that,
>> Most do not realize it.
>>
>>
>>> but to claim they aren't doing the best they can while you fail to do the best you
>>> can
>> No, you keep trying to make this a comparison, and that's invalid. It has nothing
>> to do with whether or not I'm doing the best I can at anything; it has only to do
>> with whether or not they're telling the truth when they say they're doing the best
>> they can. NONE of them are doing the best they can.
>>
> None of us are.

I sure wish you'd make up your tiny little mind.
Earlier, when I criticized them for their false
fall-back claim of "doing the best I can", you wrote,
"That's exactly what we all do --- the best we can."
Now you're saying none of us is. You're really badly
confused - nearly incoherent.

None of *them* are, but they say they are. They're lying.


>>>>>>> and you won't while trying to imply that it's based on your stopping rule for
>>>>>>> something.
>>>>>> I'm not trying to imply that; quite the opposite. I'm saying it has nothing to
>>>>>> do with my stopping rule for anything. It doesn't.
>>>>> And so are they.
>>>> "So are they" what?
>>>>
>>>> Their stopping rule has nothing to do with any coherent moral principle.
>

Jones wrote:
> "Rudy Canoza" > wrote in message
> ...
>> Jones wrote:
>>> "Rudy Canoza" > wrote in message
>>> ...
>>>> Jones wrote:
>>>>> "Rudy Canoza" > wrote in message
>>>>> ...
>>>>>> Jones wrote:
>>>>>>> "Rudy Canoza" > wrote in message
>>>>>>> ...
>>>>>>>> Jones wrote:
>>>>>>>>> "Rudy Canoza" > wrote in message
>>>>>>>>> ...
>>>>>>>>>> Jones wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>> What makes you believe that *all* vegans think they're not killing animals
>>>>>>>>>>> by simply refusing to eat meat?
>>>>>>>>>> They all say it when first asked.
>>>>>>>>> I don't believe that.
>>>>>>>> You're wrong.
>>>>>>> You're proceding from a false premise to arrive at an intentionally wrong
>>>>>>> conclusion about vegans.
>>>>>> No, I'm not.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> For a start it's undeniably false to claim *all* vegans think they're not
>>>>>>> killing animals collaterally in other areas of their life while abstaining
>>>>>>> from meat.
>>>>>> That's where they all start.
>>>>> No that's undeniably false.
>>>> No, it isn't.
>>>>
>>>> "The vegan lives a death free lifestyle, and your
>>>> useless efforts to queer this fact by pointing your
>>>> finger at us for the deaths caused by the farmer
>>>> isn't fooling anyone."
>>>> http://tinyurl.com/7gw1
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> The option of buying animal/cruelty free food is
>>>> open to very few of us at the moment, unless we live
>>>> near to one of the small number of commercial vegan
>>>> organic producers.
>>>> http://tinyurl.com/2aue69
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> not ashamed AT ALL of my lifestyle and very ready to
>>>> be accepting of other people's genuine attempts to
>>>> live cruelty free.
>>>> http://tinyurl.com/26rlgv
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> I could spend all day finding quotes from people in Usenet, not to mention web
>>>> sites that say being "vegan" *means* living a "cruelty free" lifestyle:
>>>>
>>>> "Cruelty free living"; "Online Guide To Cruelty-Free
>>>> Living"
>>>> http://www.theanimalspirit.com/vl.html
>>>>
>>>> "Guide to Cruelty-Free Eating"
>>>> http://www.veganoutreach.org/starterpack/
>>>>
>>>> "Meat = Animal Cruelty" [presumably, fruits/vegetables = cruelty free]
>>>> http://l.webring.com/hub?ring=veganandvegetari
>>>>
>>>> "I look at my progress as a vegan as if I am
>>>> climbing Mt. Everest. I can see my goal clearly, and
>>>> it is to live a 100% cruelty and death-free life."
>>>>
>>>> http://www.veganforum.com/forums/arc...hp/t-3824.html
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On and on and on. They *all* start believing that being "vegan" equates to
>>>> causing zero animal death and cruelty.
>>>>
>>> Those samples don't prove your point that *all* vegans start off by thinking they
>>> kill no animals when going without meat.
>> All you'd have to do to disprove my claim is to find just one "vegan" who says,
>> upon proclaiming she's "vegan", says she knows that it doesn't mean her "lifestyle"
>> doesn't cause animal death and suffering. I'm not suggesting you have a burden of
>> proof,
>
> You're right. The burden of proof is yours and those few samples aren't enough.

They are enough. You know I'm right.


>
>> but if
>> you could find such a person, you'd have disproved my claim. You won't, of course.
>> I think you *know*, in fact, that I'm right, even if I can't possibly "prove" I'm
>> right by talking to every "vegan".
>>
> No I don't think you're right.

You know I'm right.


>>>>>> The only ones who move
>>>>>> off that claim are those who have encountered someone like me.
>>>>> What do they say regarding their stopping rule wrt direct killing after you've
>>>>> kindly enlightened them about the collatteral deaths they cause?
>>>> That's when they fall back first to the false claim to be "minimizing" the animal
>>>> death they cause.
>>> That's as maybe, but it doesn't answer my question about their explanation
>>> concerning their stopping point. Do they explain that they feel it's wrong to kill
>>> animals because they believe they have rights, like we do when explaining our
>>> stopping point wrt humans? I think it's quite likely they do.
>> You really don't have any idea, do you?
>>
> I think it's quite likely that they believe in animal rights and I think their belief
> is as close behind their stopping rule as yours is.

You *really* don't have any idea.


>>>> When I
>>>> point out that they are not "minimizing",
>>> How do you do that?
>> Haven't you been reading my responses to "elflord" in this thread?
>>
>> I do it by pointing out that they haven't measured. Claiming to be minimizing
>> implies that you've counted, and they haven't.
>>
> Have you done all the counting and shown that they aren't minimizing?

I know they're not minimizing because they haven't counted.


>> I've pointed out that it is perfectly conceivable for some meat-including diets to
>> have a lower animal death toll than some, most or perhaps even all "vegan" diets.
>>
> It's also perfectly conceivable to believe they are minimizing animal deaths while no
> counts have been made.

No. They haven't counted, and there is many more than
one actual "vegan" diet, only one of which can be the
minimum.


>
>> I've pointed out that they haven't even measured the death tolls of all possible
>> "vegan" diets, and that if there is some "vegan" diet that causes fewer deaths than
>> the "vegan" diet they're following, they're not minimizing.
>>
>>
>> Are you really this simple?

You are. You really are simple, and it appears you're
trying to be. You keep running your mouth in the
middle of things, before going on to read the thing
I've already written that makes the thing you
subsequently write a really stupid thing to write.

Did you read what I wrote above? They haven't even
compared all conceivable "vegan" diets to see which
"vegan" diet yields the minimum number of animal deaths
on average. If they're not following the least-harm
"vegan" diet from among all possible "vegan" diets,
they're not minimizing.

What the hell is wrong with you?


>>>> then then
>>>> fall further back to "doing the best I can".
>>> That's exactly what we all do --- the best we can.
>> It's meaningless, and it's false. It's absurdly easy to show that you could make
>> some adjustments that would make an improvement. These adjustments are usually
>> pretty small for most people.
>>
>> I recycle. I recycle (and reduce and reuse) quite a lot. Some weeks, I only haul
>> the recycle bin out to the street; there isn't enough trash (the stuff that goes
>> into the landfill) to bother with it. By contrast, the recycle bin is almost
>> always full. Is my family doing the best it can? No, certainly not.
>
> It's fair to say then

No. You're not really a serious participant here, are
you? You're just a jerk looking to argue, and you're
really doing a crappy job of it.



>> I'm pretty good about taking containers that are made of a combination of plastic
>> and some other non-recyclable material, separating the plastic from the other, and
>> putting the plastic in the recycle bin. But sometimes I don't, and my wife rarely
>> does. Sometimes a bit of plastic goes into a waste basket in the bathroom (the
>> in-house recyclables bag is under the kitchen sink). I have a couple of canvas
>> bags for going to the grocery store, but I'm not always diligent about remembering
>> them, and I take the groceries out in plastic or paper bags. So, I'm doing better
>> than I did some years ago, before I recycled anything, but I'm not doing the best I
>> can, and I could do a little better with no real impact on my ease and convenience
>> at all.
>>
>>>> When I
>>>> show that they're doing no such thing,
>>> How do you do that?
>> See above. They could always do a little better, with at least some of the
>> improvement coming at little cost to them in reduced convenience.
>>
>>
>>>> most of them
>>>> fall all the way to the bottom of the cesspool, and claim they're doing better
>>>> than I am.
>>> More paranioa?
>> No. That's the claim they are left with, and it's despicable: one's virtue
>> *never* is established by resorting to a comparison with others.
>
>

"Rudy Canoza" > wrote in message
...
> Jones wrote:
>> "Rudy Canoza" > wrote in message
>> ...
>>> Jones wrote:
>>>> "Rudy Canoza" > wrote in message
>>>> ...
>>>>> Jones wrote:
>>>>>> "Rudy Canoza" > wrote in message
>>>>>> ...
>>>>>>> Jones wrote:
>>>>>>>> "Rudy Canoza" > wrote in message
>>>>>>>> ...
>>>>>>>>> Jones wrote:
>>>>>>>>>> "Rudy Canoza" > wrote in message
>>>>>>>>>> ...
>>>>>>>>>>> Jones wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>>> What makes you believe that *all* vegans think they're not killing
>>>>>>>>>>>> animals by simply refusing to eat meat?
>>>>>>>>>>> They all say it when first asked.
>>>>>>>>>> I don't believe that.
>>>>>>>>> You're wrong.
>>>>>>>> You're proceding from a false premise to arrive at an intentionally wrong
>>>>>>>> conclusion about vegans.
>>>>>>> No, I'm not.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> For a start it's undeniably false to claim *all* vegans think they're not
>>>>>>>> killing animals collaterally in other areas of their life while abstaining
>>>>>>>> from meat.
>>>>>>> That's where they all start.
>>>>>> No that's undeniably false.
>>>>> No, it isn't.
>>>>>
>>>>> "The vegan lives a death free lifestyle, and your
>>>>> useless efforts to queer this fact by pointing your
>>>>> finger at us for the deaths caused by the farmer
>>>>> isn't fooling anyone."
>>>>> http://tinyurl.com/7gw1
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> The option of buying animal/cruelty free food is
>>>>> open to very few of us at the moment, unless we live
>>>>> near to one of the small number of commercial vegan
>>>>> organic producers.
>>>>> http://tinyurl.com/2aue69
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> not ashamed AT ALL of my lifestyle and very ready to
>>>>> be accepting of other people's genuine attempts to
>>>>> live cruelty free.
>>>>> http://tinyurl.com/26rlgv
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> I could spend all day finding quotes from people in Usenet, not to mention web
>>>>> sites that say being "vegan" *means* living a "cruelty free" lifestyle:
>>>>>
>>>>> "Cruelty free living"; "Online Guide To Cruelty-Free
>>>>> Living"
>>>>> http://www.theanimalspirit.com/vl.html
>>>>>
>>>>> "Guide to Cruelty-Free Eating"
>>>>> http://www.veganoutreach.org/starterpack/
>>>>>
>>>>> "Meat = Animal Cruelty" [presumably, fruits/vegetables = cruelty free]
>>>>> http://l.webring.com/hub?ring=veganandvegetari
>>>>>
>>>>> "I look at my progress as a vegan as if I am
>>>>> climbing Mt. Everest. I can see my goal clearly, and
>>>>> it is to live a 100% cruelty and death-free life."
>>>>>
>>>>> http://www.veganforum.com/forums/arc...hp/t-3824.html
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> On and on and on. They *all* start believing that being "vegan" equates to
>>>>> causing zero animal death and cruelty.
>>>>>
>>>> Those samples don't prove your point that *all* vegans start off by thinking
>>>> they kill no animals when going without meat.
>>> All you'd have to do to disprove my claim is to find just one "vegan" who says,
>>> upon proclaiming she's "vegan", says she knows that it doesn't mean her
>>> "lifestyle" doesn't cause animal death and suffering. I'm not suggesting you have
>>> a burden of proof,
>>
>> You're right. The burden of proof is yours and those few samples aren't enough.
>
> They are enough. You know I'm right.
>
They aren't nearly enough to support your *all* claim. You know I'm right. You know
you're generalizing.

>
>>
>>> but if
>>> you could find such a person, you'd have disproved my claim. You won't, of
>>> course. I think you *know*, in fact, that I'm right, even if I can't possibly
>>> "prove" I'm right by talking to every "vegan".
>>>
>> No I don't think you're right.
>
> You know I'm right.
>
No I don't. I know you're wrong. You're generalizing with your *all* claim.

>
>>>>>>> The only ones who move
>>>>>>> off that claim are those who have encountered someone like me.
>>>>>> What do they say regarding their stopping rule wrt direct killing after you've
>>>>>> kindly enlightened them about the collatteral deaths they cause?
>>>>> That's when they fall back first to the false claim to be "minimizing" the
>>>>> animal death they cause.
>>>> That's as maybe, but it doesn't answer my question about their explanation
>>>> concerning their stopping point. Do they explain that they feel it's wrong to
>>>> kill animals because they believe they have rights, like we do when explaining
>>>> our stopping point wrt humans? I think it's quite likely they do.
>>> You really don't have any idea, do you?
>>>
>> I think it's quite likely that they believe in animal rights and I think their
>> belief is as close behind their stopping rule as yours is.
>
> You *really* don't have any idea.
>
I think it's reasonable to assume it. They believe animals have rights, and that's
why they refuse to kill them directly. You believe humans have rights, and that's why
you refuse to kill them directly. Their stopping rule is exactly the same as yours.
If their's is morally reprehensible posturing then so must yours be unless you're
setting a different standard for yourself.

>
>>>>> When I
>>>>> point out that they are not "minimizing",
>>>> How do you do that?
>>> Haven't you been reading my responses to "elflord" in this thread?
>>>
>>> I do it by pointing out that they haven't measured. Claiming to be minimizing
>>> implies that you've counted, and they haven't.
>>>
>> Have you done all the counting and shown that they aren't minimizing?
>
> I know they're not minimizing because they haven't counted.
>
You can't say they are or they aren't unltil you've counted.

>
>>> I've pointed out that it is perfectly conceivable for some meat-including diets
>>> to have a lower animal death toll than some, most or perhaps even all "vegan"
>>> diets.
>>>
>> It's also perfectly conceivable to believe they are minimizing animal deaths while
>> no counts have been made.
>
> No. They haven't counted, and there is many more than one actual "vegan" diet,
> only one of which can be the minimum.
>
>
>>
>>> I've pointed out that they haven't even measured the death tolls of all possible
>>> "vegan" diets, and that if there is some "vegan" diet that causes fewer deaths
>>> than the "vegan" diet they're following, they're not minimizing.
>>>
>>>
>>> Are you really this simple?
>
> You are. You really are simple, and it appears you're trying to be. You keep
> running your mouth in the middle of things, before going on to read the thing I've
> already written that makes the thing you subsequently write a really stupid thing
> to write.
>
> Did you read what I wrote above? They haven't even compared all conceivable
> "vegan" diets to see which "vegan" diet yields the minimum number of animal deaths
> on average. If they're not following the least-harm "vegan" diet from among all
> possible "vegan" diets, they're not minimizing.
>
> What the hell is wrong with you?
>
>
>>>>> then then
>>>>> fall further back to "doing the best I can".
>>>> That's exactly what we all do --- the best we can.
>>> It's meaningless, and it's false. It's absurdly easy to show that you could make
>>> some adjustments that would make an improvement. These adjustments are usually
>>> pretty small for most people.
>>>
>>> I recycle. I recycle (and reduce and reuse) quite a lot. Some weeks, I only
>>> haul the recycle bin out to the street; there isn't enough trash (the stuff that
>>> goes into the landfill) to bother with it. By contrast, the recycle bin is
>>> almost always full. Is my family doing the best it can? No, certainly not.
>>
>> It's fair to say then
>
> No.

You didn't let me finish. Your family isn't doing the best it can which must mean
that their stopping rule is morally reprehensible posing. But no you've set yourself
and your family a different standard to the one you've given to vegans.

You're not really a serious participant here, are
> you? You're just a jerk looking to argue, and you're really doing a crappy job of
> it.
>
>
>
>>> I'm pretty good about taking containers that are made of a combination of plastic
>>> and some other non-recyclable material, separating the plastic from the other,
>>> and putting the plastic in the recycle bin. But sometimes I don't, and my wife
>>> rarely does. Sometimes a bit of plastic goes into a waste basket in the bathroom
>>> (the in-house recyclables bag is under the kitchen sink). I have a couple of
>>> canvas bags for going to the grocery store, but I'm not always diligent about
>>> remembering them, and I take the groceries out in plastic or paper bags. So, I'm
>>> doing better than I did some years ago, before I recycled anything, but I'm not
>>> doing the best I can, and I could do a little better with no real impact on my
>>> ease and convenience at all.
>>>
>>>>> When I
>>>>> show that they're doing no such thing,
>>>> How do you do that?
>>> See above. They could always do a little better, with at least some of the
>>> improvement coming at little cost to them in reduced convenience.
>>>
>>>
>>>>> most of them
>>>>> fall all the way to the bottom of the cesspool, and claim they're doing better
>>>>> than I am.
>>>> More paranioa?
>>> No. That's the claim they are left with, and it's despicable: one's virtue
>>> *never* is established by resorting to a comparison with others.
>>