Childhood indoctrination

[festive1]

*her
And some extra text to make my post long enough...

[KichigaiNeko]

That may be the longest post ever. I skimmed, but you lost me when you seemingly equate the practice of infanticide with eating animals...
People practice/d infanticide because they can't/couldn't bear the burden of caring for the infant or the infant has/had some defect. People eat/ate animals as a food source. Very different... Shouldn't be equated.

Fair enough. I was only making the comparison to show the absurdity of using links to the Paleolithic epoch to justify slaughtering the innocent today. I guess I could have chosen any number of behaviours that took place back then which would not be justifiable now. Summary: I was trying to show logical equivalence, not moral equivalence between the two acts.

Kichigai is building strawmen faster than I can take them down at the moment, and I seem to be making him angry, so it's probably best if I take a break for a while. I hope I have at least helped to change the way some people think about the choices they make. I will still answer PMs.

No Forbi you are not making me angry. You are pathetic and I have found you out.

You refuse to answer any of my questions relating to you specifically and insist on trumpeting the tired "party line"

I will NEVER PM anyone. Will answer them but never initiate them so that line is closed to you.

have a nice night mate

[bennyboy]

Finally got to read some of it.

So you are a card carrying Animals Australia advocate who is nothing but a latte sipping urbanite from Melbourne who is taking vegan/ vegetarianism into politics and corrupting it to bring down a billion dollar export industry at a time when Australia needs every export dollar it can muster? Well done.

You sir are what is wrong with this country. Safe in your urban environment, immune to the water rations and devastation wrought by drought , complaining bitterly that the Government Services have to cut fire breaks to save homes and people and livestock during the Ash Wednesday and Black Saturday fires, happy to see our indigenous population suffer and remain in poverty because YOU don't like the fact that they have found a way to be who they are mustering and running a cattle station for export livestock which enables them to contribute and be a part of the mainstream Australian economy.

YOUR ethics disgust me! How DARE you demean the countless vegan/ vegetarians who chose this life-style for medical or personal preference. How DARE you politicise this choice that would see billions of dollars wiped off our GDP. No. YOU are a political animal and as such will find your answer from the Australian people in September.

It has NEVER occurred to you that IF people could have sown crops in this tiny little spot know as "the Gippsland" they would have done so, instead of turning into pasture land? Has it occurred to you that IF you feel so anxious to obtain vegetarian nirvana that perhaps you might consider creating your own garden? And don't give me that pathetic whine that you live in an apartment block...our own Summer Queen lives in similar conditions and is able to supplement her vegetable stock with balcony planting and she has a much shorter growing cycle than we do here in Australia.

---

Humans are fundamentally flawed and so is life in general.

Are you going to insist that you live in your little bubble of nirvana? Or are you going to get out and see the real world and stop being fed a myth? Are you content to swallow second hand information or are you going to get off that fat behind of yours (metaphorically speaking) and go and see for yourself just what happens?

Obvious appeal to emotion is obvious.

Through time, all appeals to change are met with outrage at the (solveable) pragmatic difficulties. How DARE we put oilworkers out of work by suggesting the move to cleaner, renewable energy sources? Don't we care about the oilworkers' families? How DARE we tell slaveowners that their "tradional" method of getting rich, forcing black people to work without pay, is immoral? Don't we know that black people were put there by the Lord to serve us? How DARE you tell doctors to wash their hands before surgery? Don't you know that the deaths of mothers in the maternity ward is due to their intrinsic weakness?

These are the wrong questions to ask. The right questions, in moral terms, are what kind of world do we want to live in, and how can it be achieved? I think any reasonable person should make as his goal the (non-euphemestic!) reduction of suffering caused by our species, and the minimization of impact of our species on the ecosystems of the world.

It is BECAUSE we no longer ascribe to BS religious doctrines that we can no longer justify the position that humans have been handed the world, and everything in it, to use and abuse as we see fit, simply because it allows us to purchase bigger houses and nicer cars.

[KichigaiNeko]

Yeah, you are right Benny. I did let my emotions get the better of me. So hard not to with so many out of work.

[bennyboy]

Yeah, you are right Benny. I did let my emotions get the better of me. So hard not to with so many out of work.

'sokay.

Anyway, I missed the main point I really wanted to make: that pragmatic reality and idealism aren't mutually exclusive. We shouldn't really be debating reasons not to go all veg. What we should be debating is whether we want to.

My vote is yes. I want to, because I feel I can eat well and spare animals. The real problem, though, is that there are so many people that we can only realistically feed them with industrial farming-- and where you have big industry, you are going to have to trade off for a lot of other things-- clean air, moral issues, etc. give way to the reality of mass production every time. Sure, some rich dude sitting in Starbucks with his $200 hand-stitched satchel can probably find a perfect little organic farm somewhere to eat from. But he probably hasn't taken the time to multiply that by 7 billion mouths.

[KichigaiNeko]

Hmmm.

This is also an issue that I think is not addressed with the whole world vegan ideology. It's one thing to decry veganism to stop animal abuse and quite another to come up with solutions to actually afford a higher level of animal welfare for our food animals. It is a similar stalemate I get to with the whole "save the forests" only to watch them burn down at great loss of live both animal and human.

There's got to be some middle ground between these two extremes.

I am unable to go even slightly vegetarian...don't know why...but wouldn't think that I'm the only one on this planet unable to do so and there are others who have similar physical difficulties.

[littleendian]

No Forbi you are not making me angry. You are pathetic and I have found you out.

You go ahead and tell yourself that

We shouldn't really be debating reasons not to go all veg. What we should be debating is whether we want to.

Agreed, anyone who acknowledges that it would be "better" to go veg but doesn't for whatever reasons won't hear an argument from me. But I won't let it stand unchallenged when Kichi et. al. turn the entire argument around and try to make vegans look like the assholes who cause harm to animals and drive the planet to destruction.

But again, kudos to anyone who gave veggies an honest, commited try and found out they got sick from it, giving it a try and then not arguing against it because one feels bad about not being able to pull it off is all I'm asking.

[Forbinator]

I just thought I should make it clear that it is important for vegans to take a vitamin B12 supplement. Many people use this as an argument against veganism, but this article contains an excellent explanation of why this argument is invalid: http://girliegirlarmy.com/wellness-2/201...b12-vegan/

[The Grand Nudger]

But I won't let it stand unchallenged when Kichi et. al. turn the entire argument around and try to make vegans look like the assholes who cause harm to animals and drive the planet to destruction.

No more or less so than the guy who likes ribs. "Vegan assholes" are the ones who imagine a fantasy world where their dietary decision falls in the "less so" group- and just cant seem to help but tell others all about it..

[thesummerqueen]

I'm sorry, I don't have time to read the next 6 pages (I'm on page 29) - but does anyone point out that lil and forb make the case that nutrients CAN be gotten from the soil, but not that such a way of farming can actually sustainably feed all the people in the world?

Why do vegans never address this?