Rusting Car Bumper

No. People who are cruel to animals tend to be cruel to other living things as well. I support animal cruelty laws not because I want to protect animals necessarily but because I want to protect myself and other human from those people who would harm animals in a cruel way.

The same cannot be said with regard to harming plants.

DC

tronvillain

DigitalChicken:
Oh please. Empathy is necessarily relatively selective and arbitrary. I for example feel less and less empathy the further "down" you go, but apparently ethical vegans do not experience as quite a sharp decline.

It is impossible to empathize with plants or bacteria, as they do not feel - a prerequisite for empathy.

The AntiChris

Just for argument's sake, if it could be proven that there were no direct link between cruelty to animals and cruelty to "other living things" (humans I assume), would you be at all concerned about protecting animals from human cruelty?

If so, why?

Chris

Rusting Car Bumper

That was already discussed and refuted.

DC

Rusting Car Bumper

I can't answer unless I can actually concieve of such a state of affairs. However, I can't so the best answer I can give is "I don't know."

DC

Strawberry

So suffice to say that nobody is going to change anyone else's position on the issue and everybody has something to say about it.

I'm a little disturbed by the comments along the "they can't make me stop eating meat" lines because they so closely resemble my fundy relatives' ideas about homosexuality (i.e. the "they can't make me have sex with another man/woman" argument). Just 'cause someone is vegan doesn't mean that they are putting your meat-eating future in jeopardy. Some may be overzealous, but look on the bright side: at least they're preaching about something that has positive socio-environmental effects instead of trying to get you to join the People's Temple.

Please, please, please, be respectful. I know lots of vegans who are really cool people taking part in one alternative lifestyle out of the myriad of options. They're proud of who they are! Remind them to be respectful if you feel they're out of line, but don't condemn them as a group, because no matter what anyone says, stereotypes *never* hold.

I'm not vegan, but I don't eat any meat. I preach as little as possibly because I hate the concept of preaching in general, but I do agree with all the tree-hugging vegan arguments presented above. If I thought I could go vegan and eat a responsible diet that still included chocolate, I might even (if only briefly) consider it.

Nevertheless, when "the" conversation comes up with my omnivorous friends--and it inevitably does--a lot of people are surprisingly angry about my dietary choices. (Why the anger? The only time I get militant is when someone asks me to dissect something or handle meat myself, which seems to me to be fairly reasonable in most circumstances, or begins telling me what I am or am not based on what I don't eat.)

I have been told a lot of things about "us vegetarians," and let me just say how the stereotyping never makes anybody want to be anything but hostile and hurt.

A few blanket statements about "us" that are really hilarious:
--We never shut up. Any of us.
--We're all homosexual. Every last one of us.
--We'll all die of malnutrition by about four years ago.
--All those pro-environmental arguments are made up to make people fall for vegetarian logic.
--We only eat salad and tofu. (Yeesh, I wouldn't want to be veggie either if I thought that.)
--A woman will never be able to complete a pregnancy or have healthy children without eating meat.
--Kids have to eat 12 bowls of beans a day to make up for the protein they would have gotten from 2 slices of bologna, some cheez whiz, and a hotdog.
--Kids get sick without meat. I have *so* many perfectly healthy friends who have never touched a bite.

Anyhow. Enough of this. I just see some of the anti-vegans here being as malicious and preachy as the militant vegans themselves. I'd like to hope that even if you "don't like vegans," you'll still show enough respect (not to mention maturity) to hear them out and then respond *civilly* with your own views.

Strawberry

The AntiChris

Strange. You seem to have no concept of "empathy" as applied to non-human animals.

This certainly explains why you made the extraordinary statement expressing your puzzlement at Vegans' lack of empathy for plants.

Like you, I view with suspicion humans who are gratuitously cruel to animals. However, I have equal concerns about people who appear to display absolutely no empathy for non-human animals.

Chris

tronvillain

DigitalChicken:
Exactly where was it "discussed and refuted"? Certainly not between your post and mine. In fact, I have looked at every one of your posts on this thread and as far as I can tell no such refutation exists.

Now, do you or do you not experience empathy for non-human animals? If you do not, then it is unsurprising that you find that portion of the vegan position uncompelling. I on the other hand do experience empathy for non-human animals, but the amount I experience is not sufficient to overcome my desire to consume meat and associated products.

Why don't vegans eat eggs? For some of them, it is the conditions under which many chickens are raised. For others, it is disgust at the idea of eating something that had the potential to grow into a chicken. Still others may simply dislike the taste or texture or digestive effects. What exactly is so hard to understand about that?

Kip

Do you really think that drinking booze, cigarettes, and crisps is going to exempt you from living those "6 years"? No. The years will come earlier to you than to vegetarians.

Not only will you also live those "6 years", but the quality of life during those years will probably be worse for you than vegetarians because, as I noted earlier, nonvegetarians have drastically lower rates of heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and many other diseases. You say "your are welcome to those years" as if vegetarians are more likely to be suffering illness or insanity. Studies also show that vegetarians tend to have higher IQs than nonvegetarians. But if all of these diseases are not killing vegetarians, what is? Probably stairs and automobiles.

Furthermore, consider again these "6 years" that you so casually dismiss. I am 21 years old right now. As a vegetarian, I have a life expectancy of about 80 years. What do you think the world is going to be like in the year 2060? More specifically, what sorts of biomedical technology do you think will be available then? What sorts of discoveries about longevity, life extension, and disease prevention will be made between now and 2060? Perhaps a better question to ask is "what sorts of biomedical technology were available in the year 1940?"

6 years is a long time.

GPLindsey

Kip --

Science is advancing rapidly, and someday it might be able to replace food. What if, in the future, you could live 120 years, so long as you kept your diet to just eating small, flavorless wafers that meet all your nutritional needs, and water? Would that be a life worth living? I don't think so.

As for your life statistics: statistically, people who never ski are less likely to get killed or injured skiing than those who do ski. Statistically, people who never ride in cars/buses/planes/trains are less likely to die in such vehicles than those who do. Statistically, people who never go outside in the sun are less likely to get skin cancer than those who do! People who never go for walks in the woods are less likely to get bit by rattlesnakes or accosted by bears than those who do!!! How much of Life would you give up in order to live longer?

As I said in my OP, food adds greatly to the quality of life. People should eat a healthy diet, but there is no reason why they should give up the fantastic delights that comes from eating meat--which IS part of a healthy diet!--just on the off chance it will extend their longevity a wee bit (also, most any doctor would agree that the genes you inherited from your parents are far more of a determinant of your longevity than whether you have beef or chicken as part of your diet). To paraphrase a verse I dimly remember: It isn't the length of days, but what we do with them that matters. A man may live long, yet live very little.

As for children, see my other post where I quote a definitive source on the nutritional shortcomings of a vegan diet. Strict vegan diets are also not recommended for pregnant women without nutritional supplements. If a vegan diet is so healthy, why does it need to be supplemented at all?