"Vegan is Murder"
As promised a few weeks ago, I have expanded upon my original thoughts about the killing of field animals in plant agriculture and how that impacts the "meat is murder" meme pushed by animal rights activists. It is published in today's NRO. I describe how field animals are killed by being chopped up in combine blades or burned when field leavings are torched. I then point out that this creates an intellectual problem for animal rightists. From my column:
Animal-rights activists certainly don’t mention this inconvenient fact in their advocacy materials. But if the matter comes up in debate, they have a problem: They believe it is “speciesist” to grant some sentient animals--including humans--greater value than others; as PETA’s Ingrid Newkirk so famously put it, “a rat, is a fish, is a dog, is a boy.” Thus, they cannot contend that it is more wrong to kill a pig than a rabbit. Nor can they argue that field animals experience less-agonizing deaths from plant agriculture than food animals do from food-animal slaughtering. Field animals may flee in panic as the great rumbling harvest combines approach, only to be shredded to bits within their merciless blades; they may be burned to death when field leavings are burned; they may be poisoned by pesticides; they may die from predation when their plant cover has been removed.Next, I quote Gary Francione's response to this. He said the issue is primarily intent, but also that omnivores cause more animal deaths than vegans because more vegans can live off the land when it isn't used for raising animals. I respond:
No question: The animal-rights forces hold a weak intellectual hand.
But neither “intent” (as Francione defines it) nor utilitarian comparison of the carnage is the real issue. The argument made by animal-rights activists is that meat is murder, while veganism is supposedly cruelty-free.I refer to the study discussed previously here at SHS, that showed an omnivorous diet with animal products coming from field grazing animals would result in fewer animal deaths than a totally vegan diet, and I conclude:
Contending that meat eating is somehow murder while veganism is morally pristine because it doesn’t result in intentional animal deaths is factually false and self-delusional. No matter your diet, animals surely died that you might live.Like it or not, that's the way of the world.
Labels: Wesley J. Smith Articles. Vegan is Murder. Animal Rights.
posted by Wesley J. Smith @ 8:05 AM
63 Comments
63 Comments:
I posted a brief passage on veggies at a Usenet group in 2002 and repost it here for you and your readers.
The following posted for sentimental reasons:
A Book of Food
by Morton P. Shand
(NY : Knopf, 1928)
Sentimental Vegetarianism (page 160)
The Sentimental Vegetarians are the most numerous and illogical of the
different sects of dietetic vegetarians, quasi-vegetarians,
frutarians, nutarians and the raw vegetable nourishment stalwarts. If
the pretensions of the sentimental vegetarians are to be taken seriously,
not only must humanity forgo all animal foods, including milk and eggs, from ethical motives, but true to the essentially democratic principal
of "sois mon frere, ou je te tu," every single race of mankind should be
constrained -- by force of arms failing peaceful persuasion, since the
offense is greater in the eating than in the killing -- to abstain from
meat nourishment for all eternity.
After making the world safe for vegetarianism, the next step would be
the organization of armed, vegetarianized, humanity (or vegetarianized armed humanity - it does not matter which, but propagandists would declare there was a world of difference) to prevent non-carnivorous animals being devoured by carnivorous, and to put a stop to the outrage of
carnivorous animals preying on each other.
The problem with animal rights activists and their need to label dissenters as speciests is that no matter how hard you try, you have to see a difference between a boy, a dog, and a cockroach. How would it not be speciest to think more of a dog than a cockroach?
That's the difference between animal rights activists and everyone else. Everyone else judges animals based on their capabilities and regard humans as high on them. Animal rights activists try to label every thing that is sentinent equal when even they deep down inside don't believe it.
I have yet to see a picture of an animal rights activist posing with a rat.
Wes,
The issue of taking life of sustain life is extensively discussed in the many Dharmic traditions of India - Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism, and Sikhism. The Jains (to whom the world owes our earliest thoughts on atomism, infinity, and the Hemachandra Sequence - what the West terms the Fibonacci Sequence) hold that every thing is sentient (that is of course not an appropriate translation from Sanskrit - but will do for now. Himsa or oppression can only be minimised and can be eliminated with the total non-engaged cessation of bodily activity. Jains go to great lengths to avoid injuring life. They chose of business over agriculture and soldiering 1000s of years ago. Jains use milk rarely, if at all, avoid tubers - as they must be uprooted - eat no onions and garlic as they excite the senses. Jain munis - do not travel after sunset to avoid trampling insects they can't see, wear a face mask so that they don't inhale and ingest insects, walk everywhere to the extent possible to avoid using beasts of burden, and of course will not eat after sunset or before sunrise. Jains are a progressive community enormously successful, but wealthy Jains in the past are known to renounce everything and retire into Sanniketa - or total withdrawal from the world and eventual death through starvation to reach a state of total ahimsa. Buddhists and Hindus too recognise ahimsa or doing no harm although in a more metaphorical sense. The first rule of any prescription for a classical Hindu or Buddist philosopher is to do no harm. But Hindus and Buddists aren't all vegetarian - not even all Buddhist monks. Hindus do recognise that all life is sentient, but in the case of a plant or a cow you needn't kill it to eat, and if you are careful you can grow your food without killing other animals - c'mon even you understand that!? The Sikhs enjoin that should one eat flesh it should come from an animal that has been killed with a single stroke - or a jhatka. A Gurudwara - a Sikh place of worship - as does not serve any meat. Every Gurudwara has a langar - or a communal kitchen, where the devotees, take turns cooking and serving a simple, delicious, and nourishing meal of chappatis, daal, and sabzi. Everyone is fed, and no one is turned away. Vegetarianism/veganism is extremely popular in Israel as orthodox Jews find it is easier to maintain kosher with a vegetarian diet. Which is why some of my daughter's Jewish friends have never failed to share a meal with us on the Shabbath.
It is common among some who have survived carnage to turn vegetarian as they see little difference between man killing man and man killing animal. It is there for all to see, an animal writhing in agony.
Vegan is murder - yeah right!
Paul is dead, and Elvis lives! Say that and you may be taken more seriously!
A reader disputes Francione's statistics, which I publish with attribution with his kind permission: "Mr. Smith,
In your Veganism is Murder column, you say that Gary Francione claims that 20 vegans can eat from the food produced on 3-1/4 acres. I ran the numbers and that comes out to a space of only 86 feet square. Let’s leave out the facts that: 1: The water comes from an area not included; 2: The seeds come from an area not included; 3: A portion of the ground would have to lie fallow each year to replenish nutrients, and 4: vegetation grown without the benefits of hormones, fertilizer and pesticides is not quite to the standards you see at a Whole Foods Market. Let’s further leave out the probability that they might want dividing lines between their gardens and assume that everything they grow will be habitat-compatible.
Even if you had an Edenic garden on 86 feet by 86 feet of perfect earth with no rows for watering or harvesting it still doesn’t work out. Without describing the simple math that anyone could work out, I came up with 6.76 square feet of earth per meal. While some plants, like corn, produce food above ground-level and potatoes grow below ground, they have to be planted farther apart. All told, if you get 10% of your planted surface area in produce, you’re fortunate. So, we’re down to less than 10 inches square of food per meal in this divine garden. That’s about 3 ears of corn, 5 potatoes or a decent plate of beans per meal.
That sounds possible. Extremely unpleasant since there’s nothing accounting for spices or cooking, but possible. The problem is that, once you add the realities of life, environment and human nature, it falls apart. What is it that Mr. Francione teaches again? Oh yeah, law.
Tim Austin"
Loved the last crack, Tim! And I'm a lawyer, too.
Truti: If you hit a squirrel with your car, isn't it substantially different than if you hit a child? Of course it is. There is a huge difference between killing people and killing animals, and any philosophy or religion that says otherwise--and I don't believe the religions you mentioned don't understand the distinction--is morally stunted.
I am not, of course, opposed to people choosing to become vegan or vegetarian. Eschewing a natural food, meat and animal products, for purely ethical reasons is part of what makes humans the exceptional species.
But vegan diets result in the knowing slaughter of animals. And often more cruelly than that which occurs in slaughter houses.
As the song has it, "a fact's a fact," and all the wiggling won't change it.
Thanks for stopping by.
Can it not be stated, though, that vegan diets cause far FEWER animals to die? There are still more omnivores than there are vegetarians and vegans, and we're still harvesting a whole lot of grain. If animals are (sadly) killed by combines so that we can harvest grain to feed to animals so that we can kill THEM, too, aren't there more animals dying than if we were all vegans?
Furthermore, if intent IS important, then wouldn't someone eventually devise a piece of farm equipment that can emit a frequency to repel those small creatures (like we now have things you can attach to your bumper to prevent a vehicle/deer collision)?
To continue your squirrel example, it's the difference between running over a squirrel in your cloth-seat car versus running over a squirrel in your leather-interior Lexus®. The latter involves more dead animals than the former.
Like in the Jain philosophy, any act of living of any living being will cause harm to another animal. However, we have to consider the morality of a society that enslaves, tortures, and consumes sentient beings for dubious nutritional benefit.
The same society that only a century and a half ago forbid the slavery of humans. A society that at the time, did NOT view all humans as equal.
Now, the question of these field animals is resolved relatively simply. My living on this planet and making use of public transportation and sidewalks involves to necessary destruction of life: the squirrel who crosses the street or the cockroach who happens upon my path. However, such deaths are not an intrinsic characteristic of the system. They are merely accidents, and they occur with the animal taking the risk upon itself. The same is the case with the field animals. These animals have been exploiting the niche of human agriculture and are purposefully putting themselves in harms way for the benefit of the food. Their injuries are not a necessary component of agriculture.
Compare that with the brutality and savagery of the meat industry and the clear suffering that these animals go through to satisfy our taste buds. To make a moral equivalence such as "vegan is murder" is absolutely absurd and designed to avoid debating the crucial moral values that define the animal rights movement.
Bmmg: That was one of Francione's points. But that isn't what the animal rightists have been yelling about. They have stated that meat is murder and vegan is cruelty free. Not true.
Johnson: What is odious is making moral equivalencies between humans and animals, as PETA did in its infamous Holocaust on Your Plate campaign and as you did in comparing animal husbandry to slavery. And the nutritional benefit of meat is not dubious. It is real.
"Vegan is murder" hoists the animal rights movement on its own rhetorical petard and exposes the sophistry of the meat is murder meme. Perhaps you'd prefer,
Vegan is Animalslaughter?"
A supporter of the article opines:
"One should also remember that not one animal welfare law exists in killing animals under crop production laws nor will there ever be such laws, although the meat industry is filled to the brim with such laws. Why aren't vegans pushing for such welfare laws when they know that animals are dying in inhumane conditions as poisons are laid out for them or as machinery runs over them or when sugar cane fields are burnt to a crisp to support the vegan diets.? Hypocrisy is a tough task master when its ugly head is revealed."
Good question. Anyone?
I'm crafting a sufficiently elaborate response to the litany of bad arguments and bad faith that constitute your piece of "analysis," but in the meantime, I'd point out a few things that might not be clear to your readers:
(1) You could've abbreviated this a great deal by simply going, "The harvest is the holocaust, bitches!" and scurrying away like a similarly lazy guy I used to know would've done;
(2) The paper on which you base your entire piece was quickly debunked;
(3) Francione -- who you deserve credit for citing -- is, in fact, a *fierce* critic of PETA, routinely railing against their tactical choices and the illogic of their basic position.
I'm sure you realize all these things -- published NRO commentator and author of an upcoming book, you! -- but the suck-ups here might not have appreciated.
Cheers ...
Have at it ludditerobot. I am aware that Francione does not like PETA, as he considers their approach animal welfare rather than animal rights. His point is that by hitting the more clearly cruel edges of animal husbandry, it makes the rest of the sector far more respectable. He also thinks not so well of HSUS for the same reasons.
I rather like Gary. He has integrity and while I think he is way off the reservation in his radicalness, his abolitionist approach via vegan living by example seems the only ethical one for those who claim to believe in the moral worth of all sentient beings.
My readers are not suck ups, so watch your mouth, or pen, er cyberpunking, whatever. I permit all sides to debate here IF they are civil. And I get plenty of pushback.
More than I see on most animal rights sites.
"They have stated that meat is murder and vegan is cruelty free."
Can it be said with credibility, then, that a vegan diet is cruelty-free but not death-free? "Cruelty" seems to imply willful harm and destruction.
bmmg39. I don't think so. As an earlier commenter pointed out, there have been no efforts by animal rights advoctes to require amelioration of this collateral damage. They just pretend it doesn't happen or that the fact that the animals aren't taken to a slaughter house somehow makes it different. But these animals die more horribly than steers or pigs. So, it seems to me a matter of pretense.
The problem is that most animal rightists believe that all sentient animals are equal. That traps them. They can't say it is preferable for mice to die than pigs.
Now, Peter Singer could because he doesn't believe in animal rights but utilitarian interests. He would sacrifice the mice for the pigs because the pigs have a higher cognitive function than the mice.
Of course, he would sacrifice newborns and people in PVS for the pigs as well, and perhaps even for the mice--and for the same reason.
Frankly, the reason I am getting some heat for this piece-you shold see some of the things being written on animal rights listserves--is that I think it reveals a glaring weakness in the whole meat is murder advocacy tack.
I respect vegetarians and vegans. It is an example of human exceptionalism to eschew natural food for an ethical perspective. I see it as akin to monastics taking a vow of celibacy and keeping to it.
More power to them. But I don't respect the bitter diatribes against those who don't see it the same way. (You are not included in that criticism, obviously.) Moreover, I consider the entire animal rights philosophy to be dangerous to the cause of human rights because it devalues the importance of being human.
So, I poke what I perceive to be their vulnerable spots. And I think this one hit a nerve!
Wesley Smith’s assertion that “no matter your diet, animals surely died that you might live” is absolutely true (just as the Gaverick Matheny paper rebutting Steven Davis admits), and I think Mr. Smith’s assertion is applicable to nearly every activity of our modern way of life! Namely, animals surely die so that we might drive cars, use electricity, etc.
If it’s true that all animal life is equally valuable and equally worthy of protection (i.e. rat = fish = dog = boy), then shouldn’t animal rights supporters and vegans oppose any and ALL activities which cause the very expectable, anticipatable deaths of massive numbers of fellow animals (even if those deaths are secondary intentions)? And since nearly every modern human activity (directly or indirectly) causes the deaths of countless numbers of animals, it seems only one course of action is open to the TRUE animal rights supporter/vegan: go out to the desert and sit motionless in one spot, consuming only rain water and wild plants for the rest of one’s life.
For example, commonplace human activities like driving a car, drinking a glass of water, turning on the lights in a house, using a computer for email all cause animal deaths, directly or indirectly. Driving a car directly kills animals, like when bugs hit the windshield. Drinking a glass of water indirectly causes animal deaths when that water is sterilized, causing the deaths of many organisms. Driving, tap water, house lights, and email also indirectly cause animal deaths because they all require energy, and most of our energy today comes from activities like oil exploration, oil extraction, oil transport in cargo ships, gasoline transport in trucks, electricity transport through power lines and these all result in much animal suffering and many animal deaths. Just think of all the poor, defenseless worms and insects and plankton killed or starved to death when oil wells, oil rigs, oil tankers, gas trucks, and power lines invade their habitat. If, in the mind of an animal rights supporter/vegan, it’s wrong to directly or indirectly cause the harm and death of a human being or cow, then it should also be wrong to directly or indirectly harm and kill a worm for oil. No blood for oil, right?
This argument sounds a lot like Truti’s earlier post about the Jain tradition which claims, “oppression” (presumably this includes the destruction of any animal life) “can only be minimised and can be eliminated with the ... cessation of bodily activity.” I think that hits the nail on the head! No animal rights supporter/vegan can drive a car, fly in an airplane, use a computer, watch television, or talk on the telephone without becoming a deliberate, willing participant in a gigantic web of mass killing (and mass harming) of animals. And any animal rights supporter/vegan who claims it is OK for insects, worms, and plankton to suffer and die so that the human can drive his/her car is the one who is being a “speciesist” (and perhaps also a “genusist” or “phylumist”). No one can live a modern life today and claim to be a true-blue animal rights supporter/vegan without also being one of the following: illogical in their thinking, ignorant of the tremendous animal suffering/death caused by their actions, or a hypocrite.
First, not only do animals die so that vegans can eat, they died or were displaced so that you can live in a house, ride on a bicycle path, and plug in your computer. Habitat destruction wipes out more species than meat eaters could ever consume.
Second, the point of "intention" to kill, which I would call the "I didn't mean to, so it shouldn't count" argument. Try this on MADD. Or use it as a drunk driving legal defense. We are all responsible for the results of our actions, or should be. At least that's what I teach MY children.
Third, "suck-ups"? AR is one of the few areas I'm in agreement with Wes on. I'm big pro-stem cell and I've challenged Wes on other points. However, not being the moralizing snob I've found most AR's to be, I can communicate civilly with persons of differing views.
BTW, kcook? "Genusist" and "Phylumist"? Those are bloody brilliant. I plan to use them extensively on anyone that uses the idiotic term "speciesist" in my presence. As in, "No, I'm not a speciesist, but I am a genusist, so no stinkin' nematodes better try to move into MY neighborhood."
A reader GETS IT:
"This one made me laugh. Not only are you, in a sense, poking fun at the ludicrous nature of animal-rights activists, but even the way you present the argument, quoting someone, and presenting a point of sheer foolishness made me laugh. I don't think that you were trying to write comedy, but you were so tongue in cheek about the whole matter. I found it humorous. This makes me excited for the new book."
Precisely.
whoa. i have to take a deep breath and say a pray to God, the loving Creator of ALL creatures great and small, before being able to dive into this murky fowl stench of your illogical cruelty.
so much, but so little time at present, so for now -
to feed a human that eats murdered animal parts, requires more, many more acres of grain production to feed the cows and pigs and other animals you have such little regard for, whose decomposing body parts end up on the plate of that meat eater,
than it does to feed a vegan
thus,
the diet which needs less acres of productions to sustain a life - a vegan diet, causes less cruel suffering.
your theory is so easily debunked and so dripping in the ugly advocacy of cruelty against the innocent of God’s creatures, that it reminds me of maybe a … grade school bully in the guise of a full grown human whose weapon, instead of a fist to harm another innocent, is a pen which will write a book. a sad day - that you care so little about logic and kindness.
I would ask you to simply contemplate Jesus’ command that one treat others - ALL others as you would want to be treated. and if you continue (also in book form?) this bashing and rant against those who courageously attempt the path of kindness for all, without compromise (vegans): this rant against animal advocates who work to end this insane cruelty practiced against the ‘least among us’ without a choice or a voice… what does one call this except the ugly cruelty of an ignorant bully?
Jody: Get a grip.
As to Jesus, as a good Jew, his Last Supper was Passover lamb, so that kind of takes the wind out of your sails on that particular line of thought.
you know right after hitting 'publish your comment', i wondered if i really needed to mention that the Golden Rule is most often the number one tenet of almost all religious and philosophical practices. this again seems obvious to even that grade school bully so i was hoping that it was understood, though i only used the example of Jesus. attempting to continue the rant against those who choose a path of kindness for all, because arguably Christ ate meat - you can't be serious.
Well Jody: I appreciate that. But it seems to me that the only person personally attacking anyone is you. I merely pointed out a fallacy in the "meat is murder" and vegan is "cruelty free" meme.
As for those who wish to be vegan, as I have often said, good for them. That is part of human exceptionalism, giving up a natural human activity for ethical reasons.
how am i unjustly attacking on a personal level - or more precisely because i vehemently disagree with the gist of your article and see cruelty and bullying and flaws and am pointing them out - IN DEFENSE OF INNOCENT LIVES, does this constitute an unwarranted personal attack to you? do you prefer to be coddled? i am simply treating another as i would want to be treated. i welcome others to speak their mind, who offer an argument which may help enlighten me and would wish that they voice their uncensored heartfelt disagreement especially if the motivation is in defense of innocent lives, especially if their argument might help me to be a kinder person. and i actually think this is true of you as well, or there is a glimmer of hope that this is true of you or deep down inside of you this is true for you as well.
oh and again, the time thing, last post for the night, but you did not 'point out a fallacy': Meat is murder and a vegan diet is a conscious choice to do as little harm as possible and causes less suffering than an omnivores diet.
the moral thing for you to do at this point is to print a retraction, a new article which clarifies the mistake. and just think of the peace that you would earn by doing the right thing… i'm totally serious. i wish for you enlightenment which helps you become kind, as you are meant to be, so that you can claim the greatness that is meant for you.
Jody, you asked where you were "unjustly attacking on a personal level" -- here it is.
"whoa. i have to take a deep breath and say a pray to God, the loving Creator of ALL creatures great and small, before being able to dive into this murky fowl stench of your illogical cruelty."
I think the "murky fowl (sic) stench" part qualifies as personally insulting, at least.
I expect you'll argue that it was just, and use your twisted idea of Christianity to back up what is actually self-justification and egomania. I would recommend the book "When Religion Becomes Evil" by Charles Kimball if you'd like to identify exactly where your search for spirituality turned into an ego and power trip.
here at SHS, that showed an omnivorous diet with animal products coming from field grazing animals would result in fewer animal deaths than a totally vegan diet
Bogus statement, eating vegetables does NOT kill more animals than eating Animals!
If Meat is Murder--So is Vegan
What you fail to confront time and again is the fact that it takes more than 10 times the amount of vegetables to feed the animal meat we generate at Factory Farms than for a person to directly eat the vegetables.
By your method not only are animals slaughtered in an increasingly inhumane manner, but 10 times the collateral field killing also occurs.
To paint vegans as animal killers makes your opinions on other subjects less credible. My advice would be to stick to legitimate topics and quit fabricating issues, there is enough real trouble in this world to deal with already, without calling vegans animal killers.
The number of deaths of animals is irrelevant in the grand scheme of the issue. The issue is that meat-eaters are portrayed as murderers, whereas the vegan diet is portrayed as cruelty-free according to animal rights activists. But the main problem with that assertion is that animal rights activists also claim that every sentinent being is equal. So therefore PETA and other animal rights organizations should also protest the vegan diet because mice, rabbits, snakes and other field animals have to suffer through means of torture so that the vegan human can eat. If one believes that humans should choose a vegan diet because less animals would die--fine. I don't know the true statistics on the matter.
But animal activists do not claim that. Animal activists will never be truthful about this issues because their diet still leads to creatures being killed. ARA's claim that every sentinent being is equal. So why do they not speak out against the torture methods that have to be carried out so they could enjoy their vegan lifestyle?
Jody: I don't care about your vehemence. I don't even care about your personal attacks. I care that you accused me of doing what you were doing.
Example: You said that my post was "ugly cruelty of an ignorant bully," surely you can see that is an adhominem since you were not just saying I was wrong--which you also tried to do--but were also calling me an ignorant bully.
i apologize for not being diplomatic. I don’t have the time. i am fighting against the worst cruelty practiced against the most defenseless and innocent and without a voice. i have seen it first hand. innocent lives are at risk of torture and suffering because of your words and your false supposition. i truly cannot understand choosing to spend precious time attacking those who try to help animals, attempting to justify cruelty against the innocent.
you and anyone else here advocating for cruelty against the innocent, are not innocent in this situation - obviously. you are attempting to justify the inexcusable and participate by encouragement in cruelty against the innocent for a mouth full of bloodied flesh??? beyond my ability to understand. this is why i am in battle mode because so sadly, this is the bottom line result of your article to those who read it and are encouraged in their disregard and callousness towards the innocent, and those not able to decipher the sophistry and the flawed logic as pointed out by several different posters here (i hope and pray not where you plan to go with your book. is this really what you want your legacy to be?)
so my actions here do not qualify as cruelty or harming of the innocent. again you are wrong in accusing me of cruelty against an innocent because of my words here.
if i had more time i could approach this more diplomatically because of course, i want to be as effective as possible and I do not want to hurt anyone. i want to help stop the insane cruelty. i believe anyone with an honest heart will not let the bluntness of my words, my calling things as I see them, overshadow the truth of the message.
Jody: No apologies necessary.
I know what it is like to believe something very deeply and not understand how others don't see it as you do.
In public advocacy, it helps to think more and feel less. One becomes more effective--I have learned from hard knocks--not to assume bad motives from the other side unless their actions so demonstrate, and not to personalize. Still working on that myself.
You are welcome here any time.
If one believes that humans should choose a vegan diet because less animals would die--fine.
I have no problem with people eating meat, but lets regulate an industry that tortures animals in the name of profit to ensure these animals have a respectable existence before they are slaughtered for consumption.
This propoganda that vegans kill animals because some field animals die while defending factory farming methods and proponents that the Humane Society is battling in court is a load of chewed up, digested, and wasted cow pie.
Furthermore it seems hypocritical for one to claim Human Exceptionalism if one won't stand to be proper steward of the animals we owe humane treatment too.
Wesley seems proud to befriend and defend these Factory Farming industry lobbyists:
My friend David Martosko--who is the driving force behind the industry sponsored Center for Consumer Freedom-
Well David Martosko and his boss Rick Berman at the CCF are nothing more than henchmen for a big tobacco and meat industry front groups.
The CCF is the current incarnation of the Guest Choice Network
Its no surprise they will make baseless attacks and rely on people like Wesley to manufacture arguments to defend their industry (which is rife with inhumane treatment of animals).
Here is an article about their tactics in the NY Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/12/business/yourmoney/12food.html?_r=1&ei=5070&en=851bb2c0fac865c4&ex=1119240000&adxnnl=1&emc=eta1&adxnnlx=1118575772-lXj3nOvxQr/iI5mBE9/wJw&oref=slogin
""They make a lot of noise, but nobody in academia takes their arguments seriously," said Dr. David Ludwig, director of the obesity program at Children's Hospital in Boston and an occasional target of Mr. Berman's group. "They stand for food industry freedom, not consumer freedom."
"Consumer Freedom (Foundation) is little more than a thinly veiled front for the interests of the food industry. "The companies that are working with them want their critics debunked and trashed," Mr. Jacobson said"
Wesley is just helping do their dirty work.
Of course Wesley wont engage me on these issues because I expose to much light to his sources.
Reading through all of the comments that have appeared here since I posted two days ago, it appears I was kind of a dick. Wesley, you actually don't seem such a bad sort, and I apologize for the rudeness. On the other hand, you're completely wrong.
The issue that hasn't been touched on once here is the property/commodity status of non-human animals. The entire argument has been framed around principles of "least harm," a comparison of relative fatality stats -- as though that were a fair vantage point from which to assess the way humans relate to non-humans in our world.
The killing of field animals and the breeding, rearing, exploitation, and slaughter of food animals are qualitatively different. It's awful that field animals die as a result of modern agricultural techniques -- and, to the degree that this can be changed, it absolutely should -- but, as Francione implies with his reference to intent, killing field animals isn't the point of those techniques.
However, it is the point with regard to food animals. They are living commodities, traded on open markets and quantifiably valuable on any given economic scale you like. We could determine the average exchange rate between a cow and x number of iPods, provided we have the relevant specifics. Non-human animals are, in short, a form of capital. We can argue sentience, I suppose -- but I hope we'd agree that the average cow and the average iPod are significantly different.
So, yeah. It's deeply regrettable that field animals die in modern agriculture, and it would be a good thing if we implemented farming practices that didn't result in those deaths. But we don't, for instance, bet on them for sport, or pay to watch them die, or buy their carcasses at grocery stores wrapped in "Naturally Killed Through Modern Agriculture!" packaging.
And, as noted somewhere above and in a different context, cars kill animals, too -- but I don't think the argument, "Some vegans own cars. Murderers!" holds up any more than the eternal "Vegans step on bugs, too" dilemma. Humans do, however, unquestionably bring into existence, rear, and kill billions of non-humans every year, in a very sophisticated, methodical, regulated, and profitable way.
Finally (I will stop eventually), the equivalence that Ingrid Newkirk makes in her "a rat, is a fish, is a dog, is a boy" quote is demonstrably dumb, and what I meant to get at by pointing out that Francione (for one of many) doesn't support PETA. The only relevant right to speak of for non-human animals is the right not to be deemed property -- not to exist as a living commodity. Several other obvious points follow from that. Aside from being an interesting discussion, there's no real point in talking about the different kinds of sentience exhibited by (or experience of the world lived by) rats, fish, dogs, or boys (or girls, for that matter. Ah, PETA) -- any artificial hierarchy (or half-hearted equivalence) is morally irrelevant as far as we're concerned. The point is that the instrumental use of any one of them, and their reduction to pure capital, ought to be regarded as a moral wrong. As I think Jodi might've been trying to point to, it *is* a version of the golden rule, by way of Kant's principle of respect.
So that wasn't exactly the elaborate thing I was going to write and post elsewhere, but there you go. Cheers ...
Ludditerobot: Thanks, but don't call yourself bad names. It isn't warranted.
I don't think the argument made by vegan and vegetarian activists has been stated much previously, as you framed it here. My piece seems to have stimulated that argument. As far as I am concerned, that is a far more honest argument to make. But even here, it seems clear to me that the deaths of the field animals is far more terrifying and painful to them then the deaths in properly operated slaughter houses.
The response to that is usually, "factory farms!" But what about humane meat? Animal rights advocates oppose that, too.
Some info that most vegans are unaware of and others ignore like the plague. 39 billion dollars was spent to kill more then 39 billion sentient beings last year and 33 billion in 2003 in crop spraying procedures. Mr. Smith mentioned Davies report but his report was only tracking Machinery killed animals. He wasn't privy to modern information such as how much money is used to spray, pound , cripple and pollute the animals that he wasn't even aware of. I suspect the loss of bees in the might be tagged to the sprays used to control crop production. Certainly animals are dying from those sprays and the resultant pollution to our waterways and is bound to effect song birds & fish kills.
Coumarin/warfarin als kills millions of animals such as pigeons and rodents in Grain elevator settings. Takes fifty hours to bleed one of those animals out as the anticoagulants work their magic. Without those pellets your vegan meals would be filled with feces & other animal matter.
Animals as large as deer are run down in all facets of crop production by heavy equipment. 7 combines working side by side and running swaths through fields of grain would knock off anything in their paths and the tilling equipment will do the same. Deer and a myriad of animals are shot & trapped to keep farmers in business as some lose tens of thousands of dollars to infestations of four legged pests to protect vegan diets.
500,000 muskrats are trapped and killed in the Netherlands every year to protect the farming dikes and thrown into garbage piles because the trappers are not allowed to sell the animals due to anti fur sales in Netherlands but the critters will not miss their fur because they died to protect crops not for economic gain though they would have made tens of millions of dollars for the government.
Homes for wild animals such as marshes and ponds must be destroyed to make room for those heavy pieces of equipment or the crops wouldn't get in on time. The window of opportunity for crop farming is small enough because of weather patterns that farmers can't even stop to pull crippled animals aside even if they want to.
Another cruel series of deaths happens when sugar cane fields are burned. Humans have died in those fires as have deer and fast moving rabbits . Raccoons are a goner in those fires to.
Those are torturous deaths marked under collateral but in the mix not one animal rights person is pushing for animal welfare for any of those critters. Isn't that strange? Binky the lab rat gets sedation and animal welfare laws in a biolab but his cousin Bucky the field mouse will be facing 50 hour poisonings for a long long time because nobody wants to eat rat poop though a certain amount of fecal matter is allowed to get through because there is so much of it despite the poison bait traps.
If a person is a front man for the Tobacco industry wouldn't that be like a front man for the liquor industry who is being targeted for growing dangerous foods that are not MEAT? Wink
you eat tobacco?
;>
Let me refresh your memory. You claimed ,"David Martosko & his boss Rick Bermen at CCF are nothing more then henchmen for big tobacco & meat industry front groups. You claim about problems with meat is strange when you miss the problems associated with the tobacco plant or the various fermented spirits dirived from plant sources.
However I find it quite funny that anti meat folk are so negligent of the realities of modern diets. In fact meat consumption claims are way of base when compared to the truth. The median average life span, for modern man has risen from 49 years to to 80.5 years, in the years from 1930 to 2008. That statistic also coincides with higher meat consumption per capita for 97% of the general population that practice a omnivore diet. Only 3% claim to adhere to a vegetarian/vegan diet.
A second factor in that median age climb would also be better health care and medical procedures bought with Binky the Lab rat and the cures found in their research. a 30 year climb in life span and more meat consumed per capita for 97% of the General population. The real international statistics don't weigh well against the Vegan claims as the vegans can't seem to realize to live 30 years more then your ancestors requires better diets then they had. Seems the extra meat and better medical procedures are working despite vegan claims.
Dear Wesley J. Smith:
If you are writing a book on these issues, you should know that the academic study your NRO piece draws on has problems. Gaverick Matheny, in the article linked to above, points out some of them. I also wrote a journal article responding to Davis's argument regarding field animals, which I would be happy to email you. In the meantime, here is the press release about my reply to Davis.
Andy Lamey
******
Good news for ethical vegetarians: fewer animals killed in crop cultivation than previously thought
30-05-07
Contact: Andy Lamey
E: alamey@...
Perth, Australia—How many animals are killed to cultivate wheat, soybeans, corn and other staples of a vegetarian diet?
In recent years both academic research and media reports have popularised the idea that harvesting crops and vegetables kills large numbers of mice, voles and other field animals. Such findings have been thought to call into question the ethical basis of vegetarian and vegan diets. A new report examining the issue, however, concludes there is little evidence to support this view.
The ethical significance of field animals killed in crop farming was first raised by Steven Davis, an animal scientist at Oregon State University. In a widely discussed 2003 article, Davis drew on empirical findings, as well as a concept from moral philosophy known as the least harm principle, to determine what type of diet killed the fewest animals. Davis concluded that a diet containing grass-fed beef, not vegetarianism or veganism, was the least harmful overall.
Davis's findings were widely reported. Time magazine said he had revealed a "harvester Hiroshima." The New York Times Magazine invoked Davis to argue that, "if America were to adopt a vegetarian diet, the total number of animals killed every year would actually increase."
A new article in the current issue of The Journal of Social Philosophy (JOSP) re-examines Davis's findings. On an empirical level, the JOSP article says, Davis misreports important data. On a philosophical level, Davis fails to consistently apply the principle of least harm.
A widely quoted statistic from Davis's original article stated that mowing an alfalfa field caused a 50% decline in gray-tailed vole population. However, the JOSP rebuttal points out that the 50% figure actually refers to vole birth rates and migration patterns. Davis mistook this statistic (originally derived by a previous researcher) to refer to animals killed by harvesters. The JOSP article also notes that many of the genuine animal deaths Davis discusses were caused by other animal predators, not agricultural machinery.
The JOSP article is authored by Andy Lamey, a doctoral student at the University of Western Australia. Lamey notes that Davis is inconsistent in his application of the least harm principle because he fails to address human harms. As Lamey writes, "More than just animals are accidentally harmed by agriculture and food production. People die as well. And if we are going to count every last field mouse run over by the combine harvester, surely we should also weigh harm to humans in the scale."
When agricultural harms to human beings are taken into account, Lamey writes, the least harm principle does not favour eating beef over vegetarianism, as beef production involves several harmful activities (such as slaughterhouse accidents) not found in vegetable production.
Vegetarians and vegans should not change their diets due to a concern about field animal deaths, Lamey concludes.
References:
Andy Lamey, "Food Fight! Davis versus Regan on the Ethics of Eating Beef," Journal of Social Philosophy, 38 no. 2 92007): 331 - 348
Steven L. Davis, "The Least Harm Principle May Require That Humans Consume a Diet Containing Large Herbivores, Not a Vegan Diet," Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics 16, no. 4 (2003): 387–94.
Richard Corliss, "Should We All Be Vegetarians?" Time, July 15, 2002.
Michael Pollan, "An Animal's Place," The New York Times Magazine, November 10, 2002.
Andy: That doesn't matter and I saw the Davis report as somewhat tongue in cheek, as I said. IT WASN'T COMPARING the carnage. IT WAS THAT VEGANISM still results in dead animals, and moreover, we could add, nobody is doing anything to try to stop that in the same way they are interfering with other activities that they consider to be animal cruelty.
This reader got the point in an earlier comment: "This one made me laugh. Not only are you, in a sense, poking fun at the ludicrous nature of animal-rights activists, but even the way you present the argument, quoting someone, and presenting a point of sheer foolishness made me laugh. I don't think that you were trying to write comedy, but you were so tongue in cheek about the whole matter. I found it humorous. This makes me excited for the new book."
Moreover, somebody didn't read Davis very carefully. He did not assume that every missing vole was dead. There were 25 before mowing per hectare and 5 after. He assumed that of the 20 missing, 10 were dead. (Thus, it is a mistatement to say that he saw a 50% decline and attributed it all to deaths. I'm not good at statistics, but that seems an 80% decline, half of which he attributed to deaths.) He assumed the others had migrated and etc. Add in the dead snakes, deer, and other animas, the dead rats poisoned in silos, etc. you get quite a toll.
But again, that's not the point of the piece. Davis said that a true least harm lifestyle would include some animal products, and meat from ruminants left to graze and not raised industrially.
If vegans and animal rights activists want to argue comparitive killing tolls, with better lives for the wild animals but worse deaths than slaughterd food animals, go ahead. That is an honest argument.
But "meat is murder" and vegan is "cruelty free" is false.
Hello Andy . Good Morning to you. In reply to your post ,I would suggest you are making the same mistake as Davis with regards to animal deaths in Vegan versus animal production of food for humans and even their pets.Here are some new resources that Davis was not privy to but bear a significant point that vegans might be missing the big picture.
Those points are easily found on the net today under amounts of pesticides and chemical fertilizers sold to crop production industries by the industries doing the selling. Understanding those sales and how massive they are would be a very important case showing the real carnage of collateral deaths versus Davis rather limited exposure to the real impact of vegan diets upon sentient animals.
The missing points not addressed are;the money spent, the tonnage attained,the impact of such sprays on song birds, insects,small mammals,fish and long term effects of such collateral kills in an ecosystem. Then we have such things as poison bait kills at grain elevators. The burning of fields after harvest when the fields are filled with critters looking for all those nice seeds in those nice dry dusty fields or the preburning of sugar cane fields which has been known to fry even fleet footed animals like deer and fox let alone rabbits ,snakes raccoons. Then we have the application of chemical fertilizers a known crop enhancer but also a known pollutant of streams and waterways plus all the critters shot and trapped as pests so the crops don't get eaten by those same pests.
If 97% of the general population were to shift to vegan diets those tonnages would need to be extrapolated to the point where we would be living in a chemical soup much worse then todays.
Do you think that the 39 billion dollars spent to spray todays crops is placing the Davis report in a more honest light then his calculated machinery deaths? Do you think that each dollar represents one animal death or are you smart enough to know 39 billion spent means many more then 39 billion animals died? Do you know that it takes upwards of fifty hours to kill a pigeon or rat with coumarin that even children can face poisonings from? Do you realize that compared to those poisonings the cow and the lamb had much less cruel ends to their lives? The snap of a bolt gun is meant to apply instant death under welfare laws but coumarin and such deaths as being wounded by tractors or equipment are not under such laws. Do you think that having no welfare laws and not seeking any by vegans is a fair place for you to be judging the morals of omnivores from or is it a hypocritical nuance that vegans would rather avoid?
It's ridiculous to act as though it's OK to eat meat simply because most plant farming results in some unintended animal killing. There's a BIG difference between intentionally killing animals for food and unintentionally killing animals for food. There is a big difference between a) breeding, raising, and slaughtering animals in order to eat them and b) accidentally killing wild animals during the process of harvesting plants. Intent matters.
Moreover, "meat is murder" does not imply that veganism is cruelty-free. Vegans acknowledge that our lifestyle is LESS harmful than omnivorous lifestyles. We don't claim to be perfect, rather, our claim is that we're better ;)
I'm pretty sure farmers use pesticides and traps with the intent to kill pest animals.
Since animal right's people like to compare animals to people, would it still be okay if these were homeless humans accidently being killed during harvest? Wouldn't you protest for safer harvesting methods or something?
Don't organic farmers use natural pest control like praying mantises, lady bugs and other insects? Wouldn't that count as animal slavery since they're bred purely for human use?
I don't underestand the "Oh well, at least we kill less animals" thing. You're the ones comparing killing animals to murder. Does it suddenly not become murder because you're killing less than someone who eats meat?
Elaine:
Meat is okay since it is a natural food for humans. How we raise and slaughter the animals that provide that meat is certainly a legitimate subject of debate. And I respect vegetarian/vegans for putting their beliefs into action. But I reject that it is wrong, unethical, or immoral for humans to eat a natural food.
These field animals are not killed by accident. Their deaths are a given and are predictable. Vegans may like to turn their heads and pretend it isn't so. But to be consistent, they should try to stop the combines as they try to stop the factory farms. Unless, that is, a pig is more important than a mouse or a snake. But that would be speciesist.
Moving to protect these animals would cause prices to rise since it would require the levels of mechanized farming to be cut way back. It could be done. It would be to put humans second, but it could be done. So, where are the protests?
The problem for animal rightists is that this issue hoists them on their own value system. Pretending that it doesn't, changes nothing.
And as Rawr said: pesticides to save grain intentionally kill rats and other animals--and these deaths are not swift. Should farmers stop that to "save the animals?" If not, why not?
Peter Singer doesn't have this problem because he can say that under his utilitarian outcomes analysis, the needs of people count more than the needs mice. The needs of pigs, count more than the needs of mice.
But the true animal rights believer doesn't have that out.
Thanks for your comment and for stopping by SHS.
What is a "true animal rights believer"? Presumably, it is someone who believes that not only humans but also many animals are equally entitled to be treated with respect. That is certainly the position of Tom Regan, whose book The Case for Animal Rights (1983, 2004) is the benchmark for animal-rights philosophy. The animal-rights advocate holds that every human being, from the most brilliant and powerful to the weakest and most vulnerable, has the same right to be treated with respect, never being used merely as means to the ends of others -- and that many animals also have this basic right.
In cases where rights conflict -- e.g., a cave-in at a coal mine where only the miners in one shaft can be rescued at the expense of miners in another shaft, or two people who need a heart transplant where only one heart is available -- the choices we are forced to make do not imply a lack of respect for those whose rights must be overridden. Tom Regan does not hesitate to argue that in such cases, preference ought to be given to a normal human over an animal. Indeed, in his (in)famous lifeboat case, he argues that, if necessary, a million dogs ought to be sacrificed to save one human. (He rejects utilitarian calculations. And, no, medical research is not a lifeboat case, because the animals are not in the boat to begin with.)
Many people confuse the idea of equal inherent value (everyone has the same right to be treated with respect) with the idea that death or injury will harm everyone equally and therefore we must not choose one individual over another.
Ultimately, what we have is a clash of paradigms. Human exceptionalism says that all humans and only humans have the fundamental right to be treated with respect. Regan and the "true animal rights believer" say that all humans and also many non-humans have the fundamental right to be treated with respect. Regan and the "true animal rights believer" maintain that there is an intimate and supportive connection between human rights and animal rights, and that to reject one is to undermine the other. Believers in human exceptionalism, who see animals as legitimate objects of exploitation by humans, deny this.
Aelos: Nice post.
First, you misstate the attitude that those who accept human exceptionalism have toward animals. While it is true that only humans have rights, it is not true that only humans should be respected. Indeed, HE rejects the idea that we can do whatever we want to animals.
But we accept the animal welfare model, not the animal rights model. Our first duty is to humans and our own thriving and flourishing. Toward that end, it is acceptable to use animals, under the proviso that it be done humanely--an ideal I concede has not yet been achieved fully.
Regan, is no utilitarian, but he believes that our duty to respect animals is at the same level as our duty to respect humans. He claims that the key question is whether an individual is the "subject of a life." If so, they are entitled to equal respect.
There are two types of beings that are the subjects of a life: Moral agents--normal adult humans--and "moral patients"--human children, the developmentally incapacitated, the cognitively injured, etc.--and animals. Hence, as moral patients, animals have the same fundamental rights as people, e.g. to life, to liberty, to not be used for the benefit of others, etc. And our duties to moral patients and agents are binding on humans, but of course cannot be on animals since they can't comprehend the concept.
Ironically, animal rights moral philosophy proves the truth of human exceptionalism, of course, since we are the only beings who would sacrifice our own welfare for other species. And, if also demonstrates that what we are really talking about is the extent of human duties, since the rights street will be one way--us to animals, and never animals to us or to each other. Thus, even though "rights" is used in the lexicon, it is really about purpoted human duties. But I digress.
If equal respect isn't the same thing as equal moral worth, I sure don't see much difference between them, hypethetical lifeboats notwithstanding, at least not in normal life.
Regan is not necessarily the most influential animal rightist either.
Francione says sentience means the right not to be owned.
Ryder, who coined the term speciesism, says the ability to feel pain is the only rational basis for conveying moral value.
PETA says it is the ability to suffer: a rat, is a pig, is a dog, is a boy.
Back to Regan: He has written that speciesism is akin to racism, anti-Semitism, and every other act of human bigotry. That sinks his moral teaching as far as I am concerned. Lynching an African-American or the Killing Fields of Cambodia are not akin to the Harris Ranch slaughter house.
I would suggest that such moral equivalencies are not only wrong, but are profoundly misanthropic.
Wesley:
I have now emailed you my paper responding to Steven Davis. I suggest you read it before making any further attempts to draw on his research.
You might be interested to know that Davis's paper is not actually meant to be tongue in cheek. I interviewed Davis several years ago, and after going to a conference where he heard a discussion of agriculture and ethics, he found that his thinking took a step toward that of Tom Regan and other animal protection advocates.
In your comment you again cite Davis re vole deaths. With respect, you are making a mistake. In my paper, I look up the original paper on vole deaths Davis was referring to. It turns out to be citing a second paper, which I also looked up. When you go back and read those sources, they turn out to be simply irrelevent to a discussion of field animal mortality. As I wrote (in footnote 26):
On page 389 of his paper Davis also cites the following sentence fragment: “mowing of alfalfa caused a 50% decline in grey-tailed vole population.” The fragment is taken from W. Daniel Edge, “Wildlife of Agriculture, Pastures and Mixed Environs,” in David H. Johnson and Thomas A. O’Neil, Wildlife-Habitat Relationships in Oregon and Washington (Corvallis: Oregon State University Press, 2000). However, when one looks up the passage to which Davis is referring, it reads, “Edge et al. reported that mowing of alfalfa caused . . . “. In other words, the sentence in question is itself a citation, and the ultimate reference is to W. Daniel Edge, Jerry O. Wolff, and Robert L. Carey, “Density-Dependent Responses of Gray-Tailed Voles to Mowing,” Journal of Wildlife Management 59, no. 2 (1995): 245-51. When one turns to this second paper, it turns out to be a study of the effects mowing has on voles birth rates and migration patterns. Importantly, the scientists do not describe any voles being killed by the act of mowing itself. It is also worth noting that the study did not take place in an actual alfalfa field. Rather it was conducted at an experimental farm where alfalfa was planted inside 45 by 45 meter enclosures, which were “constructed of galvanized sheet metal extending approximately 1 m above ground and 0.6-1.0 m below ground level to prevent escape by burrowing rodents.” Edge et al., “Density-Dependent Responses,” 246. A study with this aim and methodology is not relevant to a discussion of field animals killed by harvesters. Davis would appear to have misunderstood what Edge meant in his single-authored paper by population “decline.”
Hi Donnie:
I agree with you that pesticides and traps will kill many insects, rodents etc. in the harvesting and storage of plant food. Two considerations, however, prevent this from posing a problem for vegans.
One, many of the animals killed by persticides are insects, and not all animal advocates are opposed to their being harmed, as there is scientific evidence suggesting they may not feel pain.
Two, even if we do extend moral consideration to insects, with the exception of grass-fed cattle, all animals raised for meat are fed some sort of crop while they are raised, so all the problems you cite also apply to diets which contain meat. The difference, of course, is that with omnivorism you get a double whammy, the dead food animal along with all the production casualties you mention. Veganism therefore remains the diet that minimizes animal harm overall, even after taking your argument into account.
One person reading this thread has already looked up my student email at the University of Western Australia. If anyone else wants to contact me that way, I will be happy to send him or her a copy of my paper, which says a lot more about these issues (I would post my email here, but I am having spam problems).
In the meantime, for anyone interested in finding out more about veganism, I recommend the Vegan Outreach Web site. I am a fan especially of the pragmatic attitude of VO founder Matt Ball:
"Being vegan, for me, is about lessening suffering and working for animal liberation as efficiently as possible. It has nothing to do with personal purity or my ego. If, by some bizarre twist, eating a burger (or, better yet, a triple-cheese Uno's pizza :-) ) were to advance animal liberation significantly, then I would do it."
http://www.veganoutreach.org/advocacy/definingvegan.html
Andy: And yet PETA opposes bee keeping because it involves putting queens on "rape racks."
THIS DISCUSSION is the kind of debate that I want SHS to be all about.
Bravo to all.
If pain is your main reference point and 98% of animal slaughter(such as beef and pork) is done so quickly that the animal feels no pain, I wonder at your motives then. You will also note that I made specific reference to animals that die with horrific maiming, poisoning and loss of habitat that cause slow deaths in nature.
I fear that your complaints are not concerns about animal suffering and death as much as controls over human diet and thus gratification for yourself. Check out the pesticide industry impact. Check out the chemical fertilizer impacts. Check out the loss of small mammals and song birds or even the lost birds of prey that were almost wiped out by DDT. Folks are crying about lost song birds, lost amphibians such as frogs and declining fertility in numerous animals or birth defects but haven't figured out the relationships to crop production sprays? There is a correlation . All that aside though, claiming that a tree falls in the forest and nobody hears it fall, isn't the same after you were told it fell on your tree house.
You folks have had a free ride poisoning the well for meat eaters and crying about welfare laws while you seek NONE for your obvious non cruel free diets. At least you drew a rather suspect but very subjective line in the sand. You seem to class insects as less worthy of life. How about bees? They are one of the most important animal species on this planet but no welfare laws exist to protect them. A bear was crushed in it's den by a farm tractor. The tractor operator died. Two deaths to get a crop produced and both animals felt pain while alive.
Vegans think, by trivializing those crop deaths they have higher moral ground. In factual reference it is assured that most cattle will die in a humane standard. However one ton of beef killed via animal welfare laws sure makes the Vegan claim look rather shallow as pigeons and rats slowly bleed to death from warfarin or song birds from eating pesticide sprayed locusts.
Not one animal welfare law exercised in a grain elevator but rats are intelligent animals that scream in fear as ferrets chase them through rat runways. BTW ,most ARA leaders are on the record supporting the extinction of all domesticated animals. Are you familiar with the term incremental piece by piece destruction and how that will really cause those extinctions?
Good Day Wesley. You might have figured out by now that I am glad you opened up this debate. It is relevant that the kliadascope of food production does get such a debate. I am a devote Christian myself and believe our Living God set up a plan whereby all flesh will die but it is the Souls of humanity that God frets over. Having stated that Religious belief I must note that under such A plan we eat our meals amorally as God designed. If I see it from the evolutionary platform it behooves me that we have folks today that refuse to recognize the omnivore physiology of the human body as a sign that we are pre-programed to eat meat in a mixed balanced diet. Quite the conundrums in the ARA Vegan ideology from either evolution or Creationary design because our body screams "Omnivore!,Omnivore!"
Our diets are amoral as we serve it best by mixing meat despite vegan claims and pills.
Rape Racks????? Does PETA know that nature designed queen bees for that specific purpose?? Fact is some mothers in the insect world die just before the young are born so they can feed on their mothers flesh. Rape Racks are common in the NATURAL world of bees without human interference. PETA doesn't line up well in cognitive reasoning classes.
Veganism therefore remains the diet that minimizes animal harm overall, even after taking your argument into account.
Oh Ive been saying all along but thats just to simple for this forum.
Its a given that some level of harm will come no matter what diet is consumed, then it just seems ridiculous to state that vegans are cruel and inhumane as factory farm producers because they consume food on some level.
The basic attitude that If meat is murder than so is Vegan is just playground politics and ridiculous assertion from the start.
To take a fractional percent of the most strict vegans who think that stepping on a bug is murder and conveniently apply that standard to all vegans and vegetarians who are conscience about what they eat and what sources they eat from qualifies Wesley's assertion, as Ive stated all along, as bogus propaganda.
It says nothing about resolving anything, just Wesley putting his stick in the mud and clouding up the water for no reason.
Claiming folks are to simple to accept your assertions isn't exactly an exercise in civil discourse or integrity Black Swan. Just because you think that you can pretend that collateral damage is insignificant doesn't make it so. According to slaughter house statistics from government officials 98% of animals killed in the slaughter house are killed before they know what hit them. Pretty hard to find that ratio in any animal deaths in crop production foods. In fact the ARA Vegan only represent 3% of the general population and they aren't even interested in seeking animal welfare laws for anything other then my omnivore diet. I think that is rather disingenuous of them.
This comment has been removed by the author.
Just because you think that you can pretend that collateral damage is insignificant doesn't make it so.
I dont think that, where did I say this? It was Wesley, not I that started comparing collateral damage to calculated slaughter.
At which point I pointed out (For the Xth time) 10 times more collateral damage occurs to feed the livestock we slaughter than if we just consumed the crop nutrients themselves. So its pretty obvious that if your intent is to do the least harm you'll adopt a vegetarian lifestyle to some level.
Wesley just want to snipe at these people by manufacturing ridiculous arguments that sound like they were written by or for the Meat industry lobby to paint PETA and the Humane Society as Big Bad ANIMAL KILLERS.
His assertion that PETA drives around looking for cuddly little animals to euthanise is another load of misguided puckey.
I'll repeat it all again if you don't understand the concept.
DS: I don't like to reply to you because of your continual inaccuracies. First, Gary Francione brought up the comparison. I quoted him fully as I promised I would when I interviewed him.
Second, PETA does kill animals, and adopts out very few.
Third, I never said HSUS killed animals. Anywhere.
But then, accuracy is not your strong suit.
Well, Well: I also just learned that Dark Swan and Shawnee are apparently the same person. I receive e-mails of all posts, whether or not they are discarded by the author. And S and DS sent the identical post, but S deleted his/hers.
DS: Pretending to be more than one person doesn't make your arguments any stronger.
It is apparent that Dark Swan or Shawnee or whatever name she is going to use at any given time has difficulty with integrity issues. She doesn't have to say collateral carnage is insignificant for others to realize she thinks those collateral deaths are insignificant. BTW, could someone please explain to her that food stuffs eaten by animals raised by humans are in symbiotic relationships. We eat seeds off crops and ungulates eat the throw away portion.
Stating that "vegans indirectly kill animals" is a fallacy like saying you and me and everyone else is a murderer just because we buy Chinese stuff!
No altenograt: It is more direct than that.
But that is a good point. I try to avoid buying Chinese precisely because of the labor conditions. I can't as much as I would like, but I try.
I see NO EFFORTS by vegans to ameliorate the admitted toll. Just pretend it isn't real and that veganism doesn't come at the cost of animals who die more horribly than those slaughtered professionally.
None of us live without animals dying to supoort our lives. Simple fact.
Well, Well: I also just learned that Dark Swan and Shawnee are apparently the same person. I receive e-mails of all posts, whether or not they are discarded by the author. And S and DS sent the identical post, but S deleted his/hers.
Really Wesley, of all the things I post and say this is what you respond too? Ballsy!
It seems that some people have more than one email address (including me) and if I have signed into google with another address it automatically uses that account name in the posting. Since I was signed in google with my other email account it used the other name, WOW. As a service not to distract from the point and obfuscate my message I deleted the message and signed in to my dark swan account and reposted.
So, as it happens often here you are making an issue of nothing and further you are stating the opposite of what the reality of the situation is.
Pretending to be more than one person doesn't make your arguments any stronger.
Show me where this has happened Wesley, back up your accusations bud. It should be easy for you, its your blog..
Has anyone else scene this Shawnee guy backing up my points? No?
Oh its just Welsey making a racket for no reason.
She doesn't have to say collateral carnage is insignificant for others to realize she thinks those collateral deaths are insignificant.
Don you just prefer inhumanly murdering animals. You don't have to say it for others to see its so.
It was Wesley, not I that started comparing collateral damage to calculated slaughter.
I don't like to reply to you because of your continual inaccuracies. Gary Francione brought up the comparison. I quoted him - Wesley
So what did you mean when you originally brought up this topic by responding to Alistair Currie's statement
"eating meat is about suffering and death".
Yeah? Well, so is going vegan. PETA won't tell you this, but I will: their vegan lifestyles also come at the expense of the deaths of countless animals...I wrote a 1000-word piece on this today...
..so how can you now say this was not a comparison you drew? whatever...
Another quick look finds you responding in the comments:
"Animal rights activists charge falsely that meat is murder and veganism is cruelty free. Yet the animals killed in mechanized plant farming die far more agonizing deaths than beef do in slaughter houses."
Why try to now try to deflect your words to someone else when you made the direct comparison yourself several times? weird.
But that is a good point. I try to avoid buying Chinese precisely because of the labor conditions.
hmm its that ironic you'll do that for goods and services but not for the humane treatment of animals in your own country, on your own blog, which is supposedly about the exceptional qualities of humanity.
Just pretend it isn't real and that veganism doesn't come at the cost of animals who die more horribly than those slaughtered professionally.
Once again, last months exposure of "professional" slaughter standards by candid HSUS cameras in a highly unregulted industry.
but really if your going to qualify yourself as some sort of expert on this topic shouldnt you have accurate facts?
Basic math skill shows -
Davis suggested the number of wild animals killed per hectare in crop production (15) is twice that killed in ruminant pasture (7.5). Even if this is true, then as long as crop production uses less than half as many hectares as ruminant-pasture to deliver the same amount of food, a vegetarian will kill fewer animals than an omnivore. In fact, crop production uses less than half as many hectares as grass-fed dairy and one-tenth as many hectares as grass-fed beef to deliver the same amount of protein.
I’ve been too busy to get back for about a week and a week ago - until you subsequent posts Wesley - I had planned to post this:
‘Thank you Wesley, for the kindness of your last comment to me. The decision each must make on how to treat the least among us, I believe to be our biggest test of character I look forward to watching where you go with this decision. Oddly, I believe that you may have the strength of character to rise above the (insane) conditioning to which many of weak character fall prey, the brainwashing that lulls one into accepting and justifying cruelty against an innocent life.’
Sadly, since catching up on your posts through this last week, I have to reconsider.
You spoke about it being ‘natural’ to eat meat.
The following is written by a philosophy professor addressing this very issue. It is one of the most brilliant things I have read.
""Is it normal, natural, and moral to eat meat."
Is it normal? If that means _common_ or _not unusual_, sure. Meat-eating _is_ common in our society. That doesn't make it right unless you think it's impossible for lots of people to go wrong. Compare, "lying is common in our society," or "infidelity is common in our society."
Is it natural? Who cares? It's natural to want more salt, sugar and fat than is good for us. If you're talking about how our ancestors lived, crowding animals into factory farms is definitely not natural. What we _should_ be concerned about is what's actually good for us individually, for our fellow human beings, and for the other creatures with whom we share this world. Once we've got an answer to that question, who cares about natural or unnatural?
Is it moral? That's just what we're debating. If you want to give reasons for believing that it's moral to eat meat . . . well, then, you have to give reasons. As we've just seen, "it's normal" and "it's natural" don't amount to much. And "it's moral" _is_ your conclusion, rather than a reason for it.
Do you have anything better to offer?
I do. I have an argument against eating meat. I start with an assumption about right and wrong that most people agree with, when they think about it. Then I add a bit of explanation and some simple facts, before drawing the obvious conclusion. Here it is.
1. It is wrong to unnecessarily cause suffering and death.
2. Suffering and death are unnecessarily caused when we could live just as well without causing them.
3. Eating meat causes suffering and death.
4. We could live just as well without eating meat.
5. Therefore, eating meat unnecessarily causes suffering and death.
6. And therefore, eating meat is wrong.
- Rob, Philosophy Professor”
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