Pesco-vegan wrote:
> Rudy Canoza wrote:
>
> > Pesco-vegan wrote:
> >
> > > usual suspect wrote:
> > >
> > >
> > >>Pesco-vegan wrote:
> > >>
> > >>First of all, there is no such thing as a pesco-vegan. You may be
> > >>pesco-vegetarian, but not -vegan.
> > >
> > >
> > > Pesco-vegan is a term I coined to describe my unusual dietary choice.
> > > Do you have a problem with it?
> >
> > It's bullshit. "vegan" means consumes NO
> > animal-derived products at all, and not just limited to
> > food, either: no leather, no wool, no lanolin in hand
> > lotion, no products that were tested on animals, no
> > standard refined sugar.
> >
> > If you eat fish, you are not "vegan": PERIOD.
>
> If you eat fish, you are not "vegetarian": PERIOD.
> Yet the term "Pesco-vegetarian" is in common usage.

I wouldn't call it "common" at all. As far as its use by
pseudo-vegetarians who eat some fish, they're simply trying to wrap
themselves in what they see as the glorious mantle of vegetarianism
while cheating. Fish is not even in the *spirit* of any kind of
vegetarianism, let alone actually being vegetarian. Fish are animals.
If you consume *any* animal-based product, you aren't vegetarian.


>
> > But more to the point, if you eat fish, you are
> > engaging in some kind of stupid *rationalization* and
> > sophistry in how you justify the deviation from "veganism".
>
> Unlike birds and mammals, fish lack the brain structures
> that are associated with the processing of emotions in
> humans.

Fish are animals, no matter how you want to rationalize it away. They
attempt to escape if you try to catch them. They have an experiential
welfare.

> If I am to be honest I don't believe that fish
> are really devoid of emotions

They are all BUT devoid of emotions; but that isn't the point.

> but there is certainly more
> room for debate and the level of consciousness is likely
> to be lower for fish than for birds and mammmals.

You are not competent to get into a discussion of animal
mental/emotional ability, and you know it. Fish are sentient animals.
Your attempt to rationalize eating them, while trying to wrap yourself
in glory as some kind of not-quite "vegan", is reprehensible.


> Other considerations: Consumption of fish is recommended by
> nutrition experts who don't have a vegetarian agenda.

So is the consumption of limited amounts of lean meat, and dairy
products. But they aren't vegetarian, and sure as hell aren't "vegan".


> In general it takes more land and more energy to grow meat
> than it does to grow vegetables.

That's an utterly irrelevant point.


> This argument is widely
> used to justify vegetarian diets but doesn't apply to fish.

Of course it applies to fish, you dummy. Most fish are "farm raised".
There is environmental damage (perhaps worth the result; it depends)
from any kind of farming. Those fish that aren't farm raised are being
*seriously* depleted through overfishing.

Goddamn, you are wriggling around like crazy trying to justify your
consumption of sentient animals, aren't you?


> The male calves born as a direct result of the dairy
> industry are either raised for meat or killed shortly
> after birth. If you drink milk, you are therefore
> necessarily responsible for the slaughter of cattle,
> regardless of whether or not you eat the meat. The same
> argument also applies to chickens. It is my contention
> that ethical justifications for ovo-lacto-vegetarian diets
> require far more sophistry than do pesco-vegan diets.

You're up to your earlobes in sophistry trying to justify your fish
eating.