"ant and dec" > wrote
> Martin Willett wrote:

>>>> I don't have a problem with hypocrisy, I make a rule not to eat
>>>> anything smarter than a pig,
>>>
>>>
>>> How convenient for you, and inconvenient for the pig. Why have you drawn
>>> this seemingly arbitrary line at pigs?
>
> I'd like you to answer this point.

We all draw the line somewhere. Why do you believe that it is all right to
destroy animal populations in order to grow vegetables, fruit, grain,
cotton..?

[..]

>> Death is unavoidable, humane slaughter is not the worst death a pig could
>> face, very few wild pigs die in hospices surrounded by their loving
>> families with large quantities of euphoria-inducing pain-killers.
>
> This line of thinking is very often pulled apart as being complete BS. by
> both camps. I see some have already pointed this out.

Why is it complete BS? When animals die in crop fields they are often
cruelly dismembered or else are poisoned and die slowly of internal
hemorrhaging. Why is that all right and a bolt through the brain is not?

[..]


> I think you're blurring the realms of hypothesis and reality under the
> pretense of a "joke".

I think you are blurring human rights and our relationship with the rest of
the animal kingdom under the pretense of "morality".

[..]

> You claim to observe this moral superiority, yet you can't give any
> examples? I think it's a figment of your imagination.

You are in denial. Every time a veg*n announces that they don't eat meat,
wrinkle their nose sanctimoniously at a piece of meat, agonize rudely about
some microscopic bit of animal cells in some condiment, refer to statements
like "Meat is Murder", or bring up issues like "slaughterhouses" or "factory
farming" in discussion, they are implicitly setting themselves up as moral
paragons. In fact another way vegans describe themselves is "Ethical
Vegetarians". If you are "ethical" then what am I?

[..]

> If mankind
>> was herbivorous we'd never have become intelligent and socially
>> cooperative, we'd just be living like gorillas. Like it or not meat was
>> a vital part of what has made us human. But of course a was doesn't make
>> an ought.
>
> I agree meat was an important part of out human evolution. You and I are
> fortunate to have a choice of what we eat. Perhaps more should think about
> their choices, in particular what impact those choices have, rather than
> blindly follow customs and practice.

The practise of abstaining from all animal products in food is no less
blindly following custom than any other choice. Perhaps vegetarians should
spend more time look closely at the impact of their own food choices instead
of just peering self-righteously at the choices others make.