Dave Smith wrote:

<snip>

> It is fascinating that something like honey can not be vegan because
it involves
> the exploitation of an animal that has a natural tendency to live
wherever there
> is a queen and spends its entire live flying back and forth to gather
pollen
> without any training at all. Yet Vegans generally espouse the virtues
of organic
> farming. That means that they use shit for fertilizer. Most of that
shit comes
> from cows and other animals on farms that are raising them for meat,
or milk.

Honey by definition is vegan because it is derived directly from
animals. But many vegans (or people who claim to be vegans, if you get
off on identifying hypocrisy in all forms) don't consider it a major
transgression to eat honey and do so. Many vegans, believe it or not,
are fairly reasonable people and realize that it is impossible to exist
on Earth without doing some damage to the environment and killing some
lifeforms. They still prefer to minimize the damage. Why does it have
to be all or nothing?--commit suicide or eat meat everyday?

> I wonder how they would ever have survived in the 19th century,
before the days
> of mechanized tractors. Farmers generally used horses or oxen to work
their
> fields. They used them to pull plows, the haul wagons, to operate
various types
> of farm equipment. The entire agricultural system replied almost
entirely on the
> exploitation of animals.

Only a dumbass vegan would say that veganism is a way of eating that
should be adopted all over the world, and should have been practiced by
everyone in the past. It's only viable in a society with the means such
that people can survive without eating animal products. That wasn't
always possible. it's still not possible, or at least not healthy, for
people who don't have the time and money to consider how they're
getting their B12, etc. It's a luxury, in a sense. The reasoning for
many is that if we *can* do it, we should; not that it should be done
in all cases no matter what the cost.

There a lot of proselytizing vegetarians and vegans whose behavior is
hypocritical, but I think it's unfair to denounce all of them. (I, by
the way, am neither vegan nor vegetarian. But I don't resent those who
are. I don't understand why so many people seem to take it as a
personal affront.)