Your rotten explanation for your appalling
inconsistency stinks.

Killing animals for meat, and thoughtlessly killing
them collaterally in the course of vegetable
production, *both* reflect a failure or refusal to
recognize what you claim is their intrinsic worth.
Your adoption of a strictly vegetarian diet does
nothing to change the societal view of animals; it is a
symbolic gesture *only*, and is plainly seen as such.
Likewise, working assiduously to ensure that you
consumed only CD-free vegetables *also* would be *only*
a symbolic gesture, and would correctly be seen as
such. Why do you engage in one purely symbolic,
utterly ineffectual gesture, but not the other?

Your answer to date is unacceptable. I asked earlier
what distinguishes the two gestures:

Refraining from eating meat, and refraining from eating
CD-causing vegetables, BOTH are purely symbolic
gestures. What distinguishes them?

You answered:

What distinguishes them is that buying meat and other
animal products supports a system which represents
a view
of animals which is philosophically opposed to AR: that
animals are property, that they have a moral
standing which
allows us to use them in unjust ways, raise and
delibrately kill
them without consideration of their intrinsic worth.


That answer is wrong, because collateral deaths in
vegetable production *also* occur due to societal
failure to give "consideration of their intrinsic
worth." In fact, you have ADMITTED as much, in your
sleazy rationalization for why you refuse to make the
more difficult and costly symbolic gesture, preferring
instead to continue to cause CDs:

I am convinced that veganism is a more ethical
position, since it rejects such animal deaths in
principle, and if the vegan position is accepted,
collateral deaths will decrease as a result of the
awareness
of farmers. But CDs will be invisible to society as
a whole until a moral stance against the intentional
deaths of animals in production of food and other
products is seen as unacceptable. Then society can
and will advance to the consideration of
unintentional deaths as well.


So, your claim about what the distinction is is FALSE.
What IS the distinction, then?

The distinction is: cost and ease. Being "vegan" is
cheap and easy, relative to refraining from eating
CD-causing vegetables. BOTH are merely symbolic, but
one is much more costly than the other.

Your engagement in one symbolic gesture, but not the
other, clearly is NOT based on any legitimate
principle, because the principle - recognition of the
intrinsic moral worth of animals - should dictate BOTH.

Thus, we see that you are a thorough-going liar, three
times:

1. why you're "vegan": it is not based on principle
2. why you don't abstain from CD-causing produce: it
*is* based on cost and convenience, and on making
your adherence to principle contingent on others'
acceptance of your views
3. what you have said about your dirty rationalization
of #2

You LIED when you claimed you didn't base your refusal
to abstain from CD-causing produce on others' views and
behavior. It is *exactly* what you do:

> You claim that your inaction - your continued
> participation in the collateral slaughter of
> animals you don't eat - continues only because the
> slaughter of animals that are eaten continues.

I have never claimed any such thing.

You are a liar. You do it above:

...if the vegan position is accepted, collateral
deaths will decrease as a result of the awareness
of farmers.

YOU could stop participating in CDs today, but you
won't, because others won't. You are waiting for CDs
to go away by virtue of *others'* changes in attitudes
and behavior.

Calling you a liar is not a "personal attack". You
throw that out there as if it invalidates the analysis
of the appalling inconsistency in your behavior, but
you are wrong. The analysis of your shoddy moral pose
is correct. Your lying doesn't begin until you react
to the correct analysis, and the labeling of you as a
liar follows that. You ARE a liar, Karen.

"Bill" > wrote in message news
> Your rotten explanation for your appalling
> inconsistency stinks.
>
> Killing animals for meat, and thoughtlessly killing
> them collaterally in the course of vegetable
> production, *both* reflect a failure or refusal to
> recognize what you claim is their intrinsic worth.

No. It only proves that the farmer ignores the
inherent rights of his victims.

Derek wrote:

> "Bill" > wrote in message news >
>>Your rotten explanation for your appalling
>>inconsistency stinks.
>>
>>Killing animals for meat, and thoughtlessly killing
>>them collaterally in the course of vegetable
>>production, *both* reflect a failure or refusal to
>>recognize what you claim is their intrinsic worth.
>
>
> No. It only proves that the farmer ignores the
> inherent rights of his victims.

False. It proves that "veganism" is not based on any
moral principle.

Derek wrote:

> "Bill" > wrote in message news >
>>Your rotten explanation for your appalling
>>inconsistency stinks.
>>
>>Killing animals for meat, and thoughtlessly killing
>>them collaterally in the course of vegetable
>>production, *both* reflect a failure or refusal to
>>recognize what you claim is their intrinsic worth.
>
>
> No. It only proves that the farmer ignores the
> inherent rights of his victims.

He ignores them because you keep paying him to ignore them.

"Derek" > wrote in message
...
>
> "Bill" > wrote in message
news
> > Your rotten explanation for your appalling
> > inconsistency stinks.
> >
> > Killing animals for meat, and thoughtlessly killing
> > them collaterally in the course of vegetable
> > production, *both* reflect a failure or refusal to
> > recognize what you claim is their intrinsic worth.
>
> No. It only proves that the farmer ignores the
> inherent rights of his victims.
=================
Hey, what a coincidence, so do you, killer!

"Bill" > wrote in message link.net...
> Derek wrote:
> > "Bill" > wrote in message news > >
> >>Your rotten explanation for your appalling
> >>inconsistency stinks.
> >>
> >>Killing animals for meat, and thoughtlessly killing
> >>them collaterally in the course of vegetable
> >>production, *both* reflect a failure or refusal to
> >>recognize what you claim is their intrinsic worth.
> >
> > No. It only proves that the farmer ignores the
> > inherent rights of his victims.
>
> False. It proves that "veganism" is not based on any
> moral principle.
>
Then using children for slave labour and benefiting
from it as you most assuredly do must also reflect a
failure to recognize a claim that child slaves have
intrinsic worth, according to your argument here.

Derek wrote:

> "Bill" > wrote in message link.net...
>
>>Derek wrote:
>>
>>>"Bill" > wrote in message news >>>
>>>
>>>>Your rotten explanation for your appalling
>>>>inconsistency stinks.
>>>>
>>>>Killing animals for meat, and thoughtlessly killing
>>>>them collaterally in the course of vegetable
>>>>production, *both* reflect a failure or refusal to
>>>>recognize what you claim is their intrinsic worth.
>>>
>>>No. It only proves that the farmer ignores the
>>>inherent rights of his victims.
>>
>>False. It proves that "veganism" is not based on any
>>moral principle.
>>
>
> Then using children for slave labour and benefiting
> from it as you most assuredly do must also reflect a
> failure to recognize a claim that child slaves have
> intrinsic worth, according to your argument here.

Non sequitur. False, too.

"Jonathan Ball" > wrote in message link.net...
> Derek wrote:
> > "Bill" > wrote in message news > >
> >>Your rotten explanation for your appalling
> >>inconsistency stinks.
> >>
> >>Killing animals for meat, and thoughtlessly killing
> >>them collaterally in the course of vegetable
> >>production, *both* reflect a failure or refusal to
> >>recognize what you claim is their intrinsic worth.
> >
> > No. It only proves that the farmer ignores the
> > inherent rights of his victims.
>
> He ignores them because you keep paying him to ignore them.
>
If that is his reason for ignoring the rights of his victims,
then he is even more unethical than I first thought.

[According to Aristotle, a voluntary action or trait has two
distinctive features. First, there is a control condition: the
action or trait must have its origin in the agent. That is, it
must be up to the agent whether to perform that action
or possess the trait -- it cannot be compelled externally]

Bill wrote:
> Your rotten explanation for your appalling inconsistency stinks.

Only because you have no understanding that it is not only my
individual action which concerns me. I see more than you do;
I am concerned for social change, not personal attack.


> Killing animals for meat, and thoughtlessly killing them collaterally in
> the course of vegetable production, *both* reflect a failure or refusal
> to recognize what you claim is their intrinsic worth.

True, as far as it goes. But one results from the other (which is
far older) and is difficult to continue without the other. Your
own personal attack with the feeble stick of CDs is a confirmation
of my own view: that if meat production cannot be justified, then
thoughtless killing of animals is other areas cannot be justified.
But if raising and killing animals for meat and other products is
perfectly O.K., why should use of lethal methods against "pests" be
seen as wrong?

> Your adoption of a
> strictly vegetarian diet does nothing to change the societal view of
> animals; it is a symbolic gesture *only*, and is plainly seen as such.

Again, true as far as it goes.


> Likewise, working assiduously to ensure that you consumed only CD-free
> vegetables *also* would be *only* a symbolic gesture, and would
> correctly be seen as such.

True, as far as it goes.


> Why do you engage in one purely symbolic,
> utterly ineffectual gesture, but not the other?

Because, as I said, the entire system of meat and animal-derived
commercial product production is founded in an immoral concept
of animals as things, as property. The system, like slavery, is
immoral _per se_. Vegetable production is not immoral _per se_.
All that is required is that methods of vegetable production
be changed, and that we search among existing vegetables for
ones produced with less harm. It is the difference between
buying a shirt made in a sweatshop, and buying a slave. Neither
is perfect, but sweatshops can be upgraded, and slavery must be
abolished.


> Your answer to date is unacceptable. I asked earlier what distinguishes
> the two gestures:

> Refraining from eating meat, and refraining from eating
> CD-causing vegetables, BOTH are purely symbolic
> gestures. What distinguishes them?

> You answered:

> What distinguishes them is that buying meat and other
> animal products supports a system which represents a view
> of animals which is philosophically opposed to AR: that
> animals are property, that they have a moral standing which
> allows us to use them in unjust ways, raise and delibrately kill
> them without consideration of their intrinsic worth.

> That answer is wrong, because collateral deaths in vegetable production
> *also* occur due to societal failure to give "consideration of their
> intrinsic worth."

Yes, as far as it goes, but, as I said, the system of vegetable
production is not immoral per se, and the lack of consideration
of CDs is based in the same philosophical blindness that allows
meat production to exist. One failure of methods is rooted in
the other basic immorality as a system.

> In fact, you have ADMITTED as much, in your sleazy
> rationalization for why you refuse to make the more difficult and costly
> symbolic gesture, preferring instead to continue to cause CDs:

I would say that I don't cause CDs. My purchase of vegetables
provides a motive for farmers to cause CDs, but it is not my
fault that farmers use unethical methods. They choose to do so.

> I am convinced that veganism is a more ethical
> position, since it rejects such animal deaths in
> principle, and if the vegan position is accepted,
> collateral deaths will decrease as a result of the awareness
> of farmers. But CDs will be invisible to society as
> a whole until a moral stance against the intentional
> deaths of animals in production of food and other
> products is seen as obligatory. Then society can
> and will advance to the consideration of
> unintentional deaths as well.

> So, your claim about what the distinction is is FALSE. What IS the
> distinction, then?

> The distinction is: cost and ease. Being "vegan" is cheap and easy,
> relative to refraining from eating CD-causing vegetables. BOTH are
> merely symbolic, but one is much more costly than the other.

> Your engagement in one symbolic gesture, but not the other, clearly is
> NOT based on any legitimate principle, because the principle -
> recognition of the intrinsic moral worth of animals - should dictate BOTH.

> Thus, we see that you are a thorough-going liar, three times:

> 1. why you're "vegan": it is not based on principle

Yes, it is.

> 2. why you don't abstain from CD-causing produce: it
> *is* based on cost and convenience,

To a degree. I live in a real world, not in a fantasy. I
wish it were possible for me to be more sure about the
sources of my own food. But my personal actions are not
the issue, except to tunnel-vision Antis whose only
argument is personal attack. I'm talking about systems
and general social change -- I don't attack you personally.
Why do you never see beyond the end of your nose?

> and on making
> your adherence to principle contingent on others'
> acceptance of your views

I do not.

> 3. what you have said about your dirty rationalization
> of #2

???

> You LIED when you claimed you didn't base your refusal to abstain from
> CD-causing produce on others' views and behavior. It is *exactly* what
> you do:

> > You claim that your inaction - your continued
> > participation in the collateral slaughter of
> > animals you don't eat - continues only because the
> > slaughter of animals that are eaten continues.

I don't claim any such thing. I do claim that unintentional
CD deaths will not be seen as a major issue by society in
general until intentional slavery and slaughter of animals
for food and other products is seen as immoral by society in
general. I think that is both true and obvious.

> I have never claimed any such thing.

> You are a liar. You do it above:

> ...if the vegan position is accepted, collateral
> deaths will decrease as a result of the awareness
> of farmers.

Which is true. They will.

> YOU could stop participating in CDs today, but you won't,

If, as you say, my individual action is a useless,
ineffectual, symbolic gesture, how would my individual
action change general social forces that create both
meat production and CDs? That is my goal.

> because others
> won't. You are waiting for CDs to go away by virtue of *others'*
> changes in attitudes and behavior.

> Calling you a liar is not a "personal attack".

What else could it be?

> You throw that out there
> as if it invalidates the analysis of the appalling inconsistency in your
> behavior, but you are wrong. The analysis of your shoddy moral pose is
> correct. Your lying doesn't begin until you react to the correct
> analysis, and the labeling of you as a liar follows that. You ARE a
> liar, Karen.

Why only address personal attacks? Why don't you ever discuss
ideas?

Rat

"Bill" > wrote in message link.net...
> Derek wrote:
> > "Bill" > wrote in message link.net...
> >>Derek wrote:
> >>>"Bill" > wrote in message news > >>>
> >>>>Your rotten explanation for your appalling
> >>>>inconsistency stinks.
> >>>>
> >>>>Killing animals for meat, and thoughtlessly killing
> >>>>them collaterally in the course of vegetable
> >>>>production, *both* reflect a failure or refusal to
> >>>>recognize what you claim is their intrinsic worth.
> >>>
> >>>No. It only proves that the farmer ignores the
> >>>inherent rights of his victims.
> >>
> >>False. It proves that "veganism" is not based on any
> >>moral principle.
> >
> > Then using children for slave labour and benefiting
> > from it as you most assuredly do must also reflect a
> > failure to recognize a claim that child slaves have
> > intrinsic worth, according to your argument here.
>
> Non sequitur.

It follows that if vegans are showing a contempt for the
rights of animals when buying from farmers who cause
their collateral deaths during crop production, consumers
of products from child slave labour must also be showing
a contempt for the rights of children held in slavery.

> False, too.

Not at all. Remember this?

Jonathan Ball's desperate attempts to deny child slave
labour exists are showing him to be the most evil liar
on Usenet. While living very comfortably in his luxurious
house in California, he denies their very existence, or at
least he claims to in my discussions with him on the issue.
He has, in the past admitted the existence of them, as this
statement below shows;

"An individual's not buying **chocolate from countries
where slave labor is employed in its production**
doesn't stop the use of slave labor." ** my emphasis**
Jonathan Ball Date: 2003-04-03

Nevertheless, to avoid any responsibility for his continued
support of this trade, and any criticism from others that
he is benefiting from child slave labour, he simply denies
it exists these days. I have shown him plenty of evidence
to prove that it does, not least from The UK's parliamentary
publications office, UNICEF and Anti-slavery International,
but he still won't admit that it exists, lately. In further support
of my claim I have brought something from Anti-slavery
International which no doubt he will ignore again, but read
it anyway, just to see for yourselves that child slavery does
exist, and that it is a World-over known problem.

[4 May 2001
Brian Wilson, UK Foreign and Commonwealth Minister
of State, on 4 May met representatives of the Côte d'Ivoire
and Ghana governments as well as from the cocoa and
chocolate industry on the issue of slave labour in the cocoa
industry.

The meeting has resulted in agreement to establish a task
force comprising government, industry and trade, and
non-governmental organisations to address the issue of
forced labour in West African cocoa production.

"It is clear that forced labour is used in some sectors of
the cocoa industry, though there is no evidence it is
widespread. It is not a problem unique to West Africa, or
to the cocoa industry. But it must be combated wherever
it is found," the UK Government said.

Anti-Slavery International welcomes the Government's call
for forced labour to be combated where ever it is found and
recognition that it is used in some sectors of the cocoa industry.
http://www.antislavery.org/homepage/...ocoa040501.htm

[Millions of others work under horrific circumstances.
They may be trafficked (1.2 million), forced into debt
bondage or other forms of slavery (5.7 million), into
prostitution and pornography (1.8 million), into
participating in armed conflict (0.3 million) or other illicit
activities (0.6 million). However, the vast majority of
child labourers - 70 per cent or more - work in agriculture.]
Updated 04 August 2003
http://www.unicef.org/protection/index_childlabour.html

They have acknowledged it, and admitted
responsibility for it too.
[On Oct. 1, the U.S. Chocolate Manufacturers
Association, the World Cocoa Foundation, and
Hershey, M&M Mars, Nestle and World's Finest
Chocolate signed an agreement acknowledging
and taking responsibility for reports of child slavery
and exploitation on cocoa farms in Ivory Coast,
West Africa. That area provides 40 percent of the
cocoa used by U.S. companies, and in 2000 the
State Department reported that 15,000 child slaves
work there on cocoa, coffee and cotton farms.]
http://www.thelutheran.org/0112/page10d.html

There is no doubt that it exists, and that he is lying.
He continues to buy from these sources even though
he knows human rights are violated in the process, and
he once wrote;
"According to my logic, if you knowingly continue
to buy chocolate - we know YOU do, you fat
lard-ass - then YOU do not respect the rights of
the children. It doesn't prove they don't have any;
it proves YOU don't believe they do."
Jonathan Ball Date: 2003-07-29

Apart from being another concession to child slave
labour, that statement insists that anyone buying choc
is showing a contempt for the human rights of those
slaves. When forced to look at the implications of
what he wrote, he then whined, "I don't buy chocolate,
and when I did, I wasn't supporting slavery."
Derek 2003-08-06

Derek wrote:

> "Jonathan Ball" > wrote in message link.net...
>
>>Derek wrote:
>>
>>>"Bill" > wrote in message news >>>
>>>
>>>>Your rotten explanation for your appalling
>>>>inconsistency stinks.
>>>>
>>>>Killing animals for meat, and thoughtlessly killing
>>>>them collaterally in the course of vegetable
>>>>production, *both* reflect a failure or refusal to
>>>>recognize what you claim is their intrinsic worth.
>>>
>>>No. It only proves that the farmer ignores the
>>>inherent rights of his victims.
>>
>>He ignores them because you keep paying him to ignore them.
>>
>
> If that is his reason for ignoring the rights of his victims,
> then he is even more unethical than I first thought.

He isn't ignoring any rights of victims.

He behaves as he does because you keep giving him money.

"Jonathan Ball" > wrote in message link.net...
> Derek wrote:
> > "Jonathan Ball" > wrote in message link.net...
> >>Derek wrote:
> >>>"Bill" > wrote in message news > >>>
> >>>>Your rotten explanation for your appalling
> >>>>inconsistency stinks.
> >>>>
> >>>>Killing animals for meat, and thoughtlessly killing
> >>>>them collaterally in the course of vegetable
> >>>>production, *both* reflect a failure or refusal to
> >>>>recognize what you claim is their intrinsic worth.
> >>>
> >>>No. It only proves that the farmer ignores the
> >>>inherent rights of his victims.
> >>
> >>He ignores them because you keep paying him to ignore them.
> >
> > If that is his reason for ignoring the rights of his victims,
> > then he is even more unethical than I first thought.
>
> He isn't ignoring any rights of victims.
>
But you just wrote that he does; "He ignores them because
you keep paying him to ignore them." Make up your mind.

> He behaves as he does because you keep giving him money.
>
He behaves the way he does according to his own principles,
not mine, so he alone is responsible for his autonomous actions
rather than me.

Rat & Swan wrote:

>
>
> Bill wrote:
>
>> Your rotten explanation for your appalling inconsistency stinks.
>
>
> Only because you have no understanding that it is not only my
> individual action which concerns me.

Your abstinence from meat concerns only you, and your
self image.

> I see more than you do;

No. You fabricate more than I do. I don't fabricate
at all.

> I am concerned for social change, not personal attack.

This isn't about personal attack on my end, but it is
on yours.

>
>
>> Killing animals for meat, and thoughtlessly killing them collaterally
>> in the course of vegetable production, *both* reflect a failure or
>> refusal to recognize what you claim is their intrinsic worth.
>
>
> True, as far as it goes.

True, period.

> But one results from the other (which is
> far older) and is difficult to continue without the other.

Utterly false.

....

>
>> Your adoption of a strictly vegetarian diet does nothing to change the
>> societal view of animals; it is a symbolic gesture *only*, and is
>> plainly seen as such.
>
>
> Again, true as far as it goes.

It goes all the way to the heart of your hypocritical
self flattery.

>
>
>> Likewise, working assiduously to ensure that you consumed only CD-free
>> vegetables *also* would be *only* a symbolic gesture, and would
>> correctly be seen as such.
>
>
> True, as far as it goes.

It goes all the way to the heart of your hypocritical
self flattery.

>
>
>> Why do you engage in one purely symbolic, utterly ineffectual
>> gesture, but not the other?
>
>
> Because, as I said,

That's AT LEAST the 8th time you've said "as I said" in
the last couple of days. Repetition does not turn your
lying into truth.

> the entire system of meat and animal-derived
> commercial product production is founded in an immoral concept
> of animals as things, as property.

Irrelevant, and not your objection. We've been through
that.

Your answer is a non sequitur. It does not address
your different behavior in the face of two identical,
ON PRINICIPLE, instances of a view of animals as
lacking intrinsic moral worth. Killing them to eat
them, and killing them casually and incidentally in the
course of growing vegetables, BOTH reflect a lack of
consideration of their supposed intrinsic moral worth.
But you make a symbolic gesture to protest one, while
not making the analogous symbolic gesture - in fact,
while doing nothing at all - to protest the other.

Your "because" is crap. It does not explain the
difference.

> The system, like slavery, is
> immoral _per se_.

No more so than the casual and incidental slaughter of
animals in the course of producing vegetables. This
latter is like the indirect annihilation of Native
Americans. Not the direct killing of them; the
indirect killing of them by destroying their way of
life and forcing them off their land.

It is EXACTLY like it.

> Vegetable production is not immoral _per se_.

1. Killing the animals collaterally IS immoral per se,
in your
faulty world view.

2. Eating the meat IS NOT immoral per se.

3. The methods of producing the vegetables YOU eat ALL
are based on an implicit assumption that it is
acceptable
to kill animals collaterally and even deliberately.

You have not established a morally meaningful
difference. All you have done is try to rationalize
your willful refusal to abide by principle. As before,
you fail. You are seen, FOLLOWING a correct analysis
of your behavior, to be a liar, a hypocrite, and
fundamentally immoral. There is no personal attack.
There is a moral conclusion, fully justified by the
evidence.

> All that is required is that methods of vegetable production
> be changed,

It won't happen, as long as vegetable farmers are
rewarded for farming in ways that kill animals.

> and that we search among existing vegetables for
> ones produced with less harm.

You DO NOT do that.

....

>
>> Your answer to date is unacceptable. I asked earlier what
>> distinguishes the two gestures:
>
>
>> Refraining from eating meat, and refraining from eating
>> CD-causing vegetables, BOTH are purely symbolic
>> gestures. What distinguishes them?
>
>
>> You answered:
>
>
>> What distinguishes them is that buying meat and other
>> animal products supports a system which represents a view
>> of animals which is philosophically opposed to AR: that
>> animals are property, that they have a moral standing which
>> allows us to use them in unjust ways, raise and delibrately kill
>> them without consideration of their intrinsic worth.
>
>
>> That answer is wrong, because collateral deaths in vegetable
>> production *also* occur due to societal failure to give "consideration
>> of their intrinsic worth."
>
>
> Yes, as far as it goes,

Stop being evasive; "Yes", full stop. It goes to the
very end. You gave that answer to try to illustrate
some difference, and it DOES NOT illustrate a
difference, it illustrates morally identical cases.

> but, as I said,

That's about 10 now...

> the system of vegetable production is not immoral per se,

The killing of animals collaterally by the methods used
to grow the vegetables YOU consume on a daily basis IS
immoral per se, according to you. DAILY, you
participate in an activity that DOES kill animals.
Whether it NEEDS to do so is irrelevant. It does. You
are morally complicit in the killing of animals, and
you do nothing.

....

>
>> In fact, you have ADMITTED as much, in your sleazy rationalization
>> for why you refuse to make the more difficult and costly symbolic
>> gesture, preferring instead to continue to cause CDs:
>
>
> I would say that I don't cause CDs.

You are wrong. Your participation in the market as it
exists is integral. You can't pull a Derek and say
you're only paying for the end result, not the methods
used.

> My purchase of vegetables
> provides a motive for farmers to cause CDs,

That's all we need to know. It is perfectly analogous,
morally, to a buyer of stolen property. Buying stolen
property is a crime precisely because it provides
incentive to others to commit crime. If killing the
animals collaterally is wrong, you are guilty of a
moral crime, because you are incentivizing the farmer
to keep killing.

> but it is not my
> fault that farmers use unethical methods.

It is your fault that you continue to trade with them,
knowing how they farm. You cannot escape the stain.

> They choose to do so.

Because they have no reason to stop.

Meat producers ALSO don't stop producing meat,
subsequent to your symbolic, self aggrandizing refusal
to eat meat.

You are stuck, Karen.

>
>> I am convinced that veganism is a more ethical
>> position, since it rejects such animal deaths in
>> principle, and if the vegan position is accepted,
>> collateral deaths will decrease as a result of the awareness
>> of farmers. But CDs will be invisible to society as
>> a whole until a moral stance against the intentional
>> deaths of animals in production of food and other
>> products is seen as obligatory. Then society can
>> and will advance to the consideration of
>> unintentional deaths as well.
>
>
>> So, your claim about what the distinction is is FALSE. What IS the
>> distinction, then?
>>
>> The distinction is: cost and ease. Being "vegan" is cheap and easy,
>> relative to refraining from eating CD-causing vegetables. BOTH are
>> merely symbolic, but one is much more costly than the other.
>>
>> Your engagement in one symbolic gesture, but not the other, clearly is
>> NOT based on any legitimate principle, because the principle -
>> recognition of the intrinsic moral worth of animals - should dictate
>> BOTH.
>
>
>> Thus, we see that you are a thorough-going liar, three times:
>
>
>> 1. why you're "vegan": it is not based on principle
>
>
> Yes, it is.

No, it is not, at least not the principle you allege.
There is no way to continue to claim that it is.

>
>> 2. why you don't abstain from CD-causing produce: it
>> *is* based on cost and convenience,
>
>
> To a degree.

Solely.

> I live in a real world, not in a fantasy.

That doesn't stop you from indulging in the fantasy
that your abstinence from meat is meaningful.

> I wish it were possible for me to be more sure about the
> sources of my own food.

Easily said. For all practical purposes, you don't
care about the CDs attached to the sources of your
food. All you care about is cost and ease.

> But my personal actions are not the issue,

Yes, they certainly are. They illustrate that your
abstinence from meat is not based on principle.

> except to tunnel-vision Antis whose only
> argument is personal attack.

There is no personal attack, and you know it. This
makes a fourth lie.

> I'm talking about systems
> and general social change

Neither of which your utterly symbolic abstinence from
meat brings about. You aren't interested in effecting
any such change; you're interested in making a self
aggrandizing claim about it.

> -- I don't attack you personally.

Yes, you most certainly do. Not as savagely and
unethically as you attacked John Mercer, though.

> Why do you never see beyond the end of your nose?

I see far beyond it, much to your consternation.

>
>> and on making
>> your adherence to principle contingent on others'
>> acceptance of your views
>
>
> I do not.

Yes, you do. I have shown that you do. Then you lie
about it.

>
>> 3. what you have said about your dirty rationalization
>> of #2
>
>
> ???

Right below, dummy.

>
>> You LIED when you claimed you didn't base your refusal to abstain from
>> CD-causing produce on others' views and behavior. It is *exactly*
>> what you do:
>
>
>> > You claim that your inaction - your continued
>> > participation in the collateral slaughter of
>> > animals you don't eat - continues only because the
>> > slaughter of animals that are eaten continues.
>
>
> I don't claim any such thing. I do claim that unintentional
> CD deaths will not be seen as a major issue by society in
> general until intentional slavery and slaughter of animals
> for food and other products is seen as immoral by society in
> general. I think that is both true and obvious.
>
>> I have never claimed any such thing.
>
>
>> You are a liar. You do it above:
>
>
>> ...if the vegan position is accepted, collateral
>> deaths will decrease as a result of the awareness
>> of farmers.
>
>
> Which is true. They will.

First: you DID blame your refusal to abide by your
supposed principle contingent on other people changing
their thinking and behavior first. I just showed it,
and you didn't dispute it.

Second, it is irrelevant if it will or will not happen.
We're talking about your behaving according to moral
principle TODAY. You could do it today; you CHOOSE not
do to so.

>
>> YOU could stop participating in CDs today, but you won't,
>
>
> If, as you say, my individual action is a useless,
> ineffectual, symbolic gesture, how would my individual
> action change general social forces that create both
> meat production and CDs? That is my goal.

Why do you abstain from meat? That is every bit as
useless, ineffectual and symbolic. This is the whole
point: one useless, ineffectual and symbolic gesture
is cheap, easy and provides you with an unwarranted
sense of being virtuous, of making a difference. It is
no different in effect from the other, but it is cheap
and easy.

The one emptily symbolic thing you do does not do a
thing to advance your supposed goal. Thus, you are not
doing it based on any principle, except the principle
of moral self aggrandizement.

>
>> because others won't. You are waiting for CDs to go away by virtue of
>> *others'* changes in attitudes and behavior.
>>
>> Calling you a liar is not a "personal attack".
>
>
> What else could it be?

An objective analysis of your very public behavior and
statements.

>
>> You throw that out there
>> as if it invalidates the analysis of the appalling inconsistency in
>> your behavior, but you are wrong. The analysis of your shoddy moral
>> pose is correct. Your lying doesn't begin until you react to the
>> correct analysis, and the labeling of you as a liar follows that. You
>> ARE a liar, Karen.
>
>
> Why only address personal attacks?

I don't.

> Why don't you ever discuss ideas?

I do. I have shown that your idea that you are
behaving according to principle is false. Following
that, I have shown that you are a liar, and people
wishing to be morally good do not take moral
instruction from demonstrated liars.

Derek wrote:

> "Jonathan Ball" > wrote in message link.net...
>
>>Derek wrote:
>>
>>>"Jonathan Ball" > wrote in message link.net...
>>>
>>>>Derek wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>"Bill" > wrote in message news >>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>>Your rotten explanation for your appalling
>>>>>>inconsistency stinks.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>Killing animals for meat, and thoughtlessly killing
>>>>>>them collaterally in the course of vegetable
>>>>>>production, *both* reflect a failure or refusal to
>>>>>>recognize what you claim is their intrinsic worth.
>>>>>
>>>>>No. It only proves that the farmer ignores the
>>>>>inherent rights of his victims.
>>>>
>>>>He ignores them because you keep paying him to ignore them.
>>>
>>>If that is his reason for ignoring the rights of his victims,
>>>then he is even more unethical than I first thought.
>>
>>He isn't ignoring any rights of victims.
>>
>
> But you just wrote that he does; "He ignores them because
> you keep paying him to ignore them." Make up your mind.

He ignores what you disingenuously claim, for
unprincipled reasons, to be animals' "rights". He does
so because you keep ignoring the consequences you claim
not to like. Your claims are seen as empty at best,
but actually hypocritical.

>
>
>>He behaves as he does because you keep giving him money.
>>
>
> He behaves the way he does according to his own principles,

The principle of self interest. You keep rewarding him.

"Jonathan Ball" > wrote in message link.net...
> Derek wrote:
> > "Jonathan Ball" > wrote in message link.net...
> >>Derek wrote:
> >>>"Jonathan Ball" > wrote in message link.net...
> >>>>Derek wrote:
> >>>>>"Bill" > wrote in message news > >>>>>
> >>>>>>Your rotten explanation for your appalling
> >>>>>>inconsistency stinks.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>Killing animals for meat, and thoughtlessly killing
> >>>>>>them collaterally in the course of vegetable
> >>>>>>production, *both* reflect a failure or refusal to
> >>>>>>recognize what you claim is their intrinsic worth.
> >>>>>
> >>>>>No. It only proves that the farmer ignores the
> >>>>>inherent rights of his victims.
> >>>>
> >>>>He ignores them because you keep paying him to ignore them.
> >>>
> >>>If that is his reason for ignoring the rights of his victims,
> >>>then he is even more unethical than I first thought.
> >>
> >>He isn't ignoring any rights of victims.
> >
> > But you just wrote that he does; "He ignores them because
> > you keep paying him to ignore them." Make up your mind.
>
> He ignores what you disingenuously claim, for
> unprincipled reasons, to be animals' "rights".

And now you're back to saying he ignores them again.
Make up your mind.

Derek wrote:

> "Jonathan Ball" > wrote in message link.net...
>
>>Derek wrote:
>>
>>>"Jonathan Ball" > wrote in message link.net...
>>>
>>>>Derek wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>"Jonathan Ball" > wrote in message link.net...
>>>>>
>>>>>>Derek wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>>"Bill" > wrote in message news >>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>Your rotten explanation for your appalling
>>>>>>>>inconsistency stinks.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>Killing animals for meat, and thoughtlessly killing
>>>>>>>>them collaterally in the course of vegetable
>>>>>>>>production, *both* reflect a failure or refusal to
>>>>>>>>recognize what you claim is their intrinsic worth.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>No. It only proves that the farmer ignores the
>>>>>>>inherent rights of his victims.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>He ignores them because you keep paying him to ignore them.
>>>>>
>>>>>If that is his reason for ignoring the rights of his victims,
>>>>>then he is even more unethical than I first thought.
>>>>
>>>>He isn't ignoring any rights of victims.
>>>
>>>But you just wrote that he does; "He ignores them because
>>>you keep paying him to ignore them." Make up your mind.
>>
>>He ignores what you disingenuously claim, for
>>unprincipled reasons, to be animals' "rights".
>
>
> And now you're back to saying he ignores them again.

Nope.

"Bill" > wrote in message
news
> Your rotten explanation for your appalling
> inconsistency stinks.
>
> Killing animals for meat, and thoughtlessly killing
> them collaterally in the course of vegetable
> production, *both* reflect a failure or refusal to
> recognize what you claim is their intrinsic worth.
> Your adoption of a strictly vegetarian diet does
> nothing to change the societal view of animals; it is a
> symbolic gesture *only*, and is plainly seen as such.
> Likewise, working assiduously to ensure that you
> consumed only CD-free vegetables *also* would be *only*
> a symbolic gesture, and would correctly be seen as
> such. Why do you engage in one purely symbolic,
> utterly ineffectual gesture, but not the other?
>
> Your answer to date is unacceptable. I asked earlier
> what distinguishes the two gestures:
>
> Refraining from eating meat, and refraining from eating
> CD-causing vegetables, BOTH are purely symbolic
> gestures. What distinguishes them?
>
> You answered:
>
> What distinguishes them is that buying meat and other
> animal products supports a system which represents
> a view
> of animals which is philosophically opposed to AR: that
> animals are property, that they have a moral
> standing which
> allows us to use them in unjust ways, raise and
> delibrately kill
> them without consideration of their intrinsic worth.
>
>
> That answer is wrong, because collateral deaths in
> vegetable production *also* occur due to societal
> failure to give "consideration of their intrinsic
> worth." In fact, you have ADMITTED as much, in your
> sleazy rationalization for why you refuse to make the
> more difficult and costly symbolic gesture, preferring
> instead to continue to cause CDs:
>
> I am convinced that veganism is a more ethical
> position, since it rejects such animal deaths in
> principle, and if the vegan position is accepted,
> collateral deaths will decrease as a result of the
> awareness
> of farmers. But CDs will be invisible to society as
> a whole until a moral stance against the intentional
> deaths of animals in production of food and other
> products is seen as unacceptable. Then society can
> and will advance to the consideration of
> unintentional deaths as well.
>
>
> So, your claim about what the distinction is is FALSE.
> What IS the distinction, then?
>
> The distinction is: cost and ease. Being "vegan" is
> cheap and easy, relative to refraining from eating
> CD-causing vegetables. BOTH are merely symbolic, but
> one is much more costly than the other.
>
> Your engagement in one symbolic gesture, but not the
> other, clearly is NOT based on any legitimate
> principle, because the principle - recognition of the
> intrinsic moral worth of animals - should dictate BOTH.
>
> Thus, we see that you are a thorough-going liar, three
> times:
>
> 1. why you're "vegan": it is not based on principle
> 2. why you don't abstain from CD-causing produce: it
> *is* based on cost and convenience, and on making
> your adherence to principle contingent on others'
> acceptance of your views
> 3. what you have said about your dirty rationalization
> of #2
>
> You LIED when you claimed you didn't base your refusal
> to abstain from CD-causing produce on others' views and
> behavior. It is *exactly* what you do:
>
> > You claim that your inaction - your continued
> > participation in the collateral slaughter of
> > animals you don't eat - continues only because the
> > slaughter of animals that are eaten continues.
>
> I have never claimed any such thing.
>
> You are a liar. You do it above:
>
> ...if the vegan position is accepted, collateral
> deaths will decrease as a result of the awareness
> of farmers.
>
> YOU could stop participating in CDs today, but you
> won't, because others won't. You are waiting for CDs
> to go away by virtue of *others'* changes in attitudes
> and behavior.
>
> Calling you a liar is not a "personal attack". You
> throw that out there as if it invalidates the analysis
> of the appalling inconsistency in your behavior, but
> you are wrong. The analysis of your shoddy moral pose
> is correct. Your lying doesn't begin until you react
> to the correct analysis, and the labeling of you as a
> liar follows that. You ARE a liar, Karen.

Get a life you sad dwarf.
>