On Thu, 05 May 2005 16:42:37 GMT, Rudy Canoza wrote:

From time to time, when the issue of animal collateral
deaths in agriculture is brought up, "vegans" try to
excuse themselves for consuming CD-bearing produce by
saying that meat eaters buy goods that have human CDs
or injury behind them. This argument is invalid for
(at least) five good reasons.

1. It is a _tu quoque_, or "you do it, too".

Including human collateral deaths into the discussion
isn't to make the claim that vegans are spared their
alleged responsibility for animal collateral deaths, on
the basis that their critics cause human collateral
deaths. You're thwacking a straw man.

Human collateral deaths and slavery are included to
demonstrate that you have no grounds to conclude
vegans don't respect the rights of animals, simply
on the basis that their rights are systematically
violated during crop production. According to your
logic, while vegans continue to buy such foods they
show a contempt for the rights of those animals. This
is a false assumption, as revealed in a statement you
once made regarding child slavery and the rights of
those children held in slavery.

"According to my logic, if you knowingly continue
to buy chocolate - we know YOU do, you fat
lard-ass - then YOU do not respect the rights of
the children. It doesn't prove they don't have any;
it proves YOU don't believe they do."
Jonathan Ball Date: 2003-07-29

This is exactly the point I make to you; even though
animals are systematically killed during crop production
it doesn't mean to say they hold no rights against us to
begin with. Vegans, then, when buying goods tainted
with collateral deaths, be they human or animal, don't
conclude that either hadn't the right to be killed or
harmed during the production of those goods.

In another post today while trying to lay the blame
for animal collateral deaths at the vegan's feet, you
wrote;

"You incentivize the farmer to keep on farming the
way he has always farmed: you keep paying him.
You KNOW how he farms, you AREN'T OBLIGED
to buy from him, yet you keep right on. The result:
complicity in animal deaths, leading to moral
responsibility for them.
Established."

Likewise, you incentivize the [slaver] to keep on farming
the way he has always farmed: you keep paying him.
You KNOW how he farms, you AREN'T OBLIGED to
buy from him, yet you keep right on. The result: complicity
in [human] deaths, leading to moral responsibility for them.
Established.

I've used exactly the same qualifiers you used to establish
your rule and your own voluntary complicity in human deaths,
yet when that rule is used against you you reject it on the
grounds that human collateral deaths aren't morally comparable
to animal collateral deaths. Though they may not be morally
comparable in your view, on the basis that they hold no rights
against us, when that argument is put to the vegan you in fact
knowingly put it to an animal rights advocate who does believe
they are comparable on the grounds that both humans and
animals hold rights. Your argument is lop-sided.