x-member

I'd almost enjoy reading this thread but if I really wanted to read a book on vegganism, I'd go to the library. There is such a thing as excessive quotation.

That said, I'm convinced. I'm not only never going to eat meat... I'm going to become an activist.

People, Cow's have rights too! I am going to begin a lobby to win Cows their Franchise! That's right folks, I'm through with Bovine suffering, I'm fighting for Bovine Suffrage!! Beware McDonalds, when Cows can Vote, your Meals won't be so Happy!



[ March 12, 2002: Message edited by: Jon Up North ]</p>

Pseudonymph

Kally...It is a blanket statement. I know that, I didnt mean to insult your intelligence but I misunderstood you.
I assumed that you knew that it was common knowledge that elderly people often times must watch what they eat.
they more often have strokes, heart attacks etc.
This shouldnt come as a surprise to you, but I guess I could rephrase my statement to say that "most people here know someone who must watch what they eat." Esp. elderly people...
I still dont see how you mistook that statement...is it really worth getting upset about?
Just wondering

pepperlandgirl

This is absolutely untrue. As someone else already pointed out, chickens do this naturally. I hardly lived on Tyson Chicken farm. We had a small farm where the chickens were free-range for the most part, with a warm, insulated, coop to nest and roost in.
Guess what? They were still blood-thirsty little bastards. Do you know what chickens will eat if they get the chance? Eggs. They love eggs. Even the brooding hen will eat her own eggs. Did you know that?
The hen I mentioned earlier? By the time we found her they had literally eaten a hole right through her back and you could see right through her body. Yep, them chickens are sure sweet peace-loving cuddly little animals.

Your lack of knowledge on the nature of chickens, turkeys and pigs makes me wonder what other little facts you are misrepresenting?

Also, which do you think is more cruel? Me hunting and killing 2 deers a year to feed my family, use the hides for blankets, and use the carcasses for dog food, or to let the deer die a slow and painful death because we're entering the 3rd year of drought, and they don't have enough body fat to last the winter? And even if they did...there wouldn't be food for them in the spring anyway.

alek0

Jon, that is maybe a very good idea, you know. Somehow I can't see cows embracing Judeo-Christian nonsense, and then with all the cows voting we infidels would have clear majority

Punkerslut,

would you please address the following issues (briefly, please):

1) You claimed that cats can do well on vegeterian diet. Prove it. in particular address the issues of taurine and vit. A, as well as necessity of having different set of enzymes to digest vegetable matter. Also address the issue of our enormous knowledge on animal nutrition which results in "experts" recommending alfalfa for cats which is listed among poisonous plants for cats.

2) Concerning claims that vegeterian diet is good for health, it is always possible to find medical literature which will claim the opposite. How do you explain that? Or you prefer to just look at "evidence" which supports your point of view? Some examples given below.

3) Do you advocate extinction of domestic animals? Or extinction of other animals if suddenly released domestic animals would prove to be more competitive?

Let me reiterate again - I have been vegeterian for 16 years, and I am strongly against factory farming and some forms of animal testing. However, I disagree with the claims that exclusive vegeterian diet is better healthwise than a diet with moderate intake of animal products from organically raised animals. I disagree with existence of some universal ethics which is aplicable to everybody. Should we make bone marrow donations mandatory? Where would you stop in trying to enforce that everybody behaves as highly ethical as possible?
---------------------------------------------

Examples of medical articles:

TITLE: Lifestyle risk factors and coronary heart disease prevalence in Indian men.
AUTHOR: Gupta,-R
SOURCE: J-Assoc-Physicians-India. 1996 Oct; 44(10): 689-93.

"Odds ratios (95% confidence intervals) for coronary heart disease and lifestyle risk factors showed significant positive associations with nuclear family 1.61 (1.15-2.24), &gt; or = 4 children 2.10 (1.51-2.93), crowded housing 1.48 (1.04-2.10), sedentary lifestyle 1.47 (1.00-2.25) and smoking 1.30 (1.00-1.80), and inverse association with high fat intake 0.42 (0.28-0.63), and not with illiteracy 0.99 (0.70-1.39), alcohol intake 0.84 (0.53-1.32), non-vegeterian diet 0.89 (0.61-1.29), absent prayer habit 1.26 (0.88-1.81), or obesity 1.42 (0.83-1.32)."

TITLE: Retardation of myelination due to dietary vitamin B12 deficiency: cranial MRI findings.
AUTHOR: Lovblad,-K; Ramelli,-G; Remonda,-L; Nirkko,-A-C; Ozdoba,-C; Schroth,-G
SOURCE: Pediatr-Radiol. 1997 Feb; 27(2): 155-8.
"We report the case of a 14(1)/2-month-old child of strictly vegetarian parents who presented with severe psychomotor retardation. This severely hypotonic child had anemia due to insufficient maternal intake of vitamin B12 with associated megaloblastic anemia. "

TITLE: Long-term vegetarian diet and bone mineral density in postmenopausal Taiwanese women.
AUTHOR: Chiu,-J-F; Lan,-S-J; Yang,-C-Y; Wang,-P-W; Yao,-W-J; Su,-L-H; Hsieh,-C-C
SOURCE: Calcif-Tissue-Int. 1997 Mar; 60(3): 245-9.
"Long-term practitioners of vegan vegetarian were found to be at a higher risk of exceeding lumbar spine fracture threshold (adjusted odds ratio = 2.48, 95% confidence interval = 1.03-5.96) and of being classified as having osteopenia of the femoral neck (3.94, 1.21-12.82). "

TITLE:Vegetarian nutrition--ideology or "evidence-based health benefit"?
AUTHOR: Theobald,-S
SOURCE: Med-Monatsschr-Pharm. 2001 Feb; 24(2): 54-60.

Finally:

TITLE: Der vegetarische Appell und die Tiertotung. Eine ethische Herausforderung.
[The vegetarian appeal and killing animals. An ethical challenge]
AUTHOR: Luy,-J; Hildebrandt,-G; von-Mickwitz,-G
SOURCE: Berl-Munch-Tierarztl-Wochenschr. 2001 Jul-Aug; 114(7-8): 283-9.
JOURNAL NAME: Berliner-und-Munchener-tierarztliche-Wochenschrift;
INTERNATIONAL STANDARD SERIAL NUMBER: 0005-9366
LANGUAGE: German; Non-English
ABSTRACT: The demand for renunciation of killing animals has already been discussed by mankind since ancient times. Many arguments for and against this demand have accumulated in the meantime. The reproaches of the vegetarians repeatedly forced the ones who eat meat to justify their diet. Today most of these historical justifications however have to be rejected because of lacking plausibility. Many of the vegetarian arguments on the other hand must be rejected for similar reasons as well. Remaining as morally convincing is the demand for doing the killing absolutely painless and without frightening the animals, which was already formulated for example by Kant and Schopenhauer. Arguments which consider this way of killing as still immoral belong in a broad sense to the "anthropocentric" animal ethics. They do not belong to what is called in Germany "pathocentric" animal ethics, because an animal that is killed without being frightened or tortured, has not suffered, for it hasn't consciously realized anything like danger or harm. We do even argue that these animals are not harmed at all, because it seems senseless to talk about harm without negative conscious phenomena. To push ahead a ban on animal slaughter for moral reasons could be itself morally wrong because it would disturb indirectly many people's conscious well-being without being justified by protecting an animal's conscious well-being. It is however possible to derive from a general duty not to make animals suffer (pathocentric animal ethics) a duty to boycott food of animal origin if these animals had to suffer during their lives.

tronvillain

spin:
Hey, fuck you too you little bitch. I'm in no mood to tolerate being compared to racists, sexists, or Jeffrey Dalmer.

If you define "much" as "enough to prevent eating them" then I don't care about them much at all. Well, that's true of cattle and chicken anyway - I'd be less enthusiastic about eating dolphins or chimps.

What a ridiculous assertion - I care more about human than I care about whatever enjoyment Dalmer derives from eating them.

I eat meat because I enjoy eating meat and it is convenient, not because it is necessary.

Even if that were true, which it's not, it has nothing to do with the ethics of eating meat.

[ March 12, 2002: Message edited by: tronvillain ]</p>

bonduca

I simply cannot put the cat on a vegetarian diet, tofu pigs or not.

Queen of Swords

Heck, I cannot put me on a vegetarian diet. As underweight as I am, I'd probably die.

tronvillain

punkersluta:
I'll assume you meant "exhibit" rather than "inhibit." Anyway, there is nothing unreasonable about my posts - hostility was a perfectly reasonable response to being insulted.

spin

spin: "How do you justify eating meat without justifying Dalmer?"

PB: "Not everyone uses the same rules of justification that you do. Is this concept really all that difficult? Watch me justify the slaughter of those animals we use for food without justifying Dahmer's actions, using contract theory:"

"Contract theory"! This is cute...

Justification through obfuscation. Old trick, still doesn't work.

Let's get into Plato's heaven...

PB: "Rights do not exist as "things in the world." They are the result of an actual (in the case of legal rights) or hypothetical (in the case of moral or "natural" rights) negotiation process, as a result of which each negotiater agrees to grant a right to all other participants, in return for which, those participants agree to grant that right to him/her."

So, you'll take Swift's advice and eat children who are in no position to negotiate such things.

"Cows/pigs/sheep/chickens/etc.,..."

...people in comas, the insane...

"...being fundamentally incapable of participating in such negotitations, or even agreeing to abide by the otucome of those negotitations, do not get to take part in the agreement. Thus, no one is obliged to grant them rights. Dahmer's victims, on the other hand, were capable of engaging in such negitiations, and of agreeing to abide by the outcomes. Thus, other participants in the negotiation were obliged to grant them rights."

Dalmer of course simply rejected your logic, thus nullifying your argument. Did you ask the animals if they wanted to die? Did you attempt to negotiate with them? They mightn't have the same mental facilities as you or Dalmer, but they'll tell you in no uncertain terms, given the opportunity, that they don't want to die. But I guess you want them to sign the contract before you believe them.

"I do not want to discuss the merits of contract theory here. I merely want to demonstrate the invalidity of the notion that we are somehow unable to simultaneously condemn Dahmer and eat meat without hypocrisy."

You weren't able to demonstrate anything. You simply tried to crap on like a pompous bastard about things that you haven't attempted to verify. Come on, own up, when was the last time you attempted to check to see if animals wanted to die for your stomach and prove themselves silly enough to be incapable of communicating their own desires not to die, ie to fill your wanton gut? You've never given them a chance of negotiating in any meaningful way, for they can indicate that they don't want to die. They mightn't satisfy your species-centric arbitrary demarcations, but then mere mortals such as yourself can't satisfy those of supermen, which naturally includes the Jeffrey Dalmers of the world, so your contract theory is equivalent to a contract on your life.

x-member

I notice nobody has voiced their support for giving Bovines the right to vote. But, if we are to extend them greater rights, why stop at liberty? Why not equality and fraternity? If allowing Bovines their franchise seems silly, then it quite possible indicates that there is a certian limit to their rights.

I'm calling my lobby group Bovines Ultimate Life and Liberty, Suffrage and Health Into Tomorrow, aka BULL SHIT.

Jon