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From: Halcyon eyed Devil Dude on 5 Jul 2008 10:58
Omnivore. Right off the bat. I eat batteries too. D-Cells.
From: Rupert on 5 Jul 2008 12:35
On Jul 3, 9:53 pm, dh@. wrote:
> On Wed, 2 Jul 2008 01:58:34 -0700 (PDT), Dragonblaze <dragonbl...(a)apexmail.com> wrote:
> >On 1 Jul, 18:54, Rupert <rupertmccal...(a)yahoo.com> wrote:
> >> These quotations from David Harrison are certainly very interesting.
> >> Engaging in an activity which is like to cause injury or death to
> >> humans, or for that matter any sentient being, is not an ethically
> >> justifiable way to behave and it's a very poor strategy for doing
> >> something about animal suffering, which one would hope is the ultimate
> >> goal. I will not donate money to PETA because I do not wish my money
> >> to end up in the hands of the Earth Liberation Front and many of us in
> >> the animal protection movement frequently have cause to feel annoyed
> >> with PETA as one of the more publicly visible organisations in the
> >> animal protection movement who identify themselves as "animal rights".
> >> Your typical animal rights activist doesn't really fit the image you
> >> would normally have of a terrorist.
>
> >PETA's track record in animal welfare is abysmal - since they think
> >pets should not exist due to their belief in "animal rights" - and
> >there was a scandal with PETA killing than 90 percent of the adoptable
> >animals in its care during 2007. Which means the sadistic PETA freaks
> >will not get a single penny off me - EVER!http://www.petakillsanimals.com/
>
> > Now, I'm an omnivore, and very interested in animal welfare
> >(something quite a few vegans deny is possible).
>
>     It's people like yourself who contribute to better lives for livestock
> with your lifestyle. Vegans do NOT. It's people like yourself who care
> about those animals' lives, NOT vegans. They have no argument
> against your interest in AW. Their elimination objective works against
> providing decent lives.
>

Most animals in modern farms do not have decent lives, and this is a
consequence of the mindset which says that it is okay for us to use
animals for our own ends. Veganism is a perfectly reasonable strategy
for reducing suffering, and there is no basis for saying that vegans
don't "care" as much as conscientious omnivores, that is idiotic.
There is no reason why providing "decent" lives for livestock is
better than allowing wild animals to fill up the ecological niche.
From: Dutch on 5 Jul 2008 16:52
Rupert wrote:

> Most animals in modern farms do not have decent lives, and this is a
> consequence of the mindset which says that it is okay for us to use
> animals for our own ends.

It's a consequence of the mindset that says that the quality of the
animals' lives is of little or no importance.

> Veganism is a perfectly reasonable strategy
> for reducing suffering,

It may be a fairly effective strategy but "perfectly reasonable" would
be an overstatement. Avoiding the use of animal products at all cost may
be counter-productive, for example buying high quality locally made
leather goods or even local meat or fish products may ultimately reduce
suffering more than than using imported or manufactured goods. You
cause less suffering by wearing those recycled leather shoes than by
buying the made in Indonesia plastic ones, even if your vegan friends
look down their noses at you. Vegans typically dismiss or minimize the
impact of their own consumption while addressing the issue of animal use
with extreme exaggeration and over-reactions. A typical example of this
is the common view by vegans that anything containing animal products is
akin to poison, the belief, without evidence that it would make them
violently ill, or that it would diminish them morally.

A "perfectly reasonable" strategy might have a lot in common with
veganism, but would be less hysterical and more pragmatic.

> and there is no basis for saying that vegans
> don't "care" as much as conscientious omnivores, that is idiotic.
> There is no reason why providing "decent" lives for livestock is
> better than allowing wild animals to fill up the ecological niche.

Exactly right.
From: Rupert on 5 Jul 2008 16:59
On Jul 6, 1:55 am, Rudy Canoza <pi...(a)thedismalscience.noot> wrote:
> Rupert, slavishly adoring of a third-rate philosophy prof who spent his
> career at an academic backwater, uncritically quoted the third-rate prof
> and blabbered:
>

It would be widely agreed in the academic community that the author of
"The Case for Animal Rights" is not a "third-rate prof", but
nevertheless I do not slavishly adore him, I just thought the
quotation would be of some interest.

>
>
>
>
>
>
> > [Regan, the third-rate prof:]  Consider this possible scenario. Why not hire someone to infiltrate
> > the animal rights movement, as an agent provocateur, with one main
> > purpose: to find a malleable person in the movement who could be
> > "encouraged" (shall we say) to try to do something that would really
> > discredit ARAs. Like, maybe this person could be "encouraged" to try
> > to murder someone. And not just anyone. No, the "someone" should be a
> > pillar of the community, someone who (what an odd coincidence) just
> > happened to be a leader in a major animal user industry, someone who
> > just happened to have been famously outspoken in his criticisms of
> > ARAs. An attempt on his life would be perfect. It would show the
> > public that ARAs really are extremists who will stop at nothing to
> > further their ends. It is not hard to visualize the headline: "Animal
> > Rights Terrorist Attempts to Murder Pillar of Community".
>
> > A few problems would have to be solved. It takes time to find the
> > right person for the job. It takes money to pay all the players. Who
> > is going to come up with the necessary cash? Well, suppose the pillar
> > himself could pay for the attempt on his life. Suppose the pillar
> > himself (such is his influence) could arrange to have the local police
> > on hand to arrest the would-be murderer. "Nah", you might say, "This
> > is too fanciful, too conspiratorial. I don't think anyone in a major
> > animal user industry would ever do anything like this." Think again.
>
> > Leon Hirsch, past president of the Norwalk, Connecticut-based U. S.
> > Surgical Corporation, played the role of the pillar of the community.
> > Hirsch's former company manufactures staples used in place of ordinary
> > sutures in many operations. During Hirsch's tenure, physicians
> > received training by practicing on live dogs, who were vivisected,
> > then killed. ARAs (led by Friends of Animals, also locate in Norwalk)
> > mounted an in-your-face campaign against Hirsch and his company back
> > in the late 1980s. His ingenious way of getting even was to put up the
> > necessary money to arrange for an ARA to try to murder him.
>
> > On November 11, 1989, a man on the payroll of a firm Hirsch had hired
> > drove a young woman named Fran Trutt, a self-professed ARA, along with
> > her two recently purchased pipe bombs, from New York City to Norwalk.
> > When she placed the bombs adjacent to Hirsch's parking space, Hirsch's
> > friends in the Norwalk police department just happened to be on hand
> > to arrest her.
>
> > The resulting story (not the bombs, which never exploded) was the real
> > bombshell. There it was: "Animal Rights Terrorist Attempts to Murder
> > Pillar of Community". As John C. Stauber and Sheldom Rampton observe,
> > "Normally, of course, company presidents do not arrange their own
> > murder, but Hirsch was neither crazy nor suicidal. He was trying to
> > engineer an embarrassing scandal that would discredit the animal
> > rights movement."
>
> > Hirsch would have succeeded, too, except for one thing: the ensuing
> > trial brought ot light extensive tape transcripts that implicated
> > everyone, from Hirsch on down, who had hatched the plot to discredit
> > ARAs. Friends of Animals sued Hirsch, who sold U. S. Surgical in 1998,
> > but their suit was unsuccessful, and he never faced any criminal
> > charges. Perhaps not surprisingly, Fran Trutt was the only person to
> > serve time (a year in prison, followed by a year on probation). She
> > seems to have left the movement.
>
> False.  There was no entrapment, and the firm did not set Trutt up.
>

Well, that's interesting, I wonder why Hirsch doesn't sue Regan for
defamation.

"No entrapment", eh? Strong words, Ball.

I can't read your link because my anti-censorship software has stopped
working, I'll have to look at it later.
From: Rupert on 5 Jul 2008 17:10
On Jul 6, 4:52 am, Dutch <n...(a)email.com> wrote:
> Rupert wrote:
> > Most animals in modern farms do not have decent lives, and this is a
> > consequence of the mindset which says that it is okay for us to use
> > animals for our own ends.
>
> It's a consequence of the mindset that says that the quality of the
> animals' lives is of little or no importance.
>
> > Veganism is a perfectly reasonable strategy
> > for reducing suffering,
>
> It may be a fairly effective strategy but "perfectly reasonable" would
> be an overstatement. Avoiding the use of animal products at all cost may
> be counter-productive, for example buying high quality locally made
> leather goods or even local meat or fish products may ultimately reduce
> suffering more than than using imported or manufactured goods.  You
> cause less suffering by wearing those recycled leather shoes than by
> buying the made in Indonesia plastic ones, even if your vegan friends
> look down their noses at you.

Well, maybe, you'd want to look into that further. Or I could go the
whole hog and set up my own vegetable garden.

My shoes were made in Australia, by the way, by a company called Vegan
Wares.

> Vegans typically dismiss or minimize the
> impact of their own consumption while addressing the issue of animal use
> with extreme exaggeration and over-reactions.

That might be true but it's not really relevant to assessing veganism
as a strategy. I didn't say there was no room for improvement.
Veganism is not such a bad rule of thumb. Worrying about whether your
beer and wine contains traces of fish and egg products is misdircted
energy.

> A typical example of this
> is the common view by vegans that anything containing animal products is
> akin to poison, the belief, without evidence that it would make them
> violently ill, or that it would diminish them morally.
>
> A "perfectly reasonable" strategy might have a lot in common with
> veganism, but would be less hysterical and more pragmatic.
>

All right.

>  > and there is no basis for saying that vegans
>
> > don't "care" as much as conscientious omnivores, that is idiotic.
> > There is no reason why providing "decent" lives for livestock is
> > better than allowing wild animals to fill up the ecological niche.
>
> Exactly right.

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