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".

One cannot excuse one's own bad behavior by pointing
to (allegedly) bad behavior of one's accuser.
To do so utterly ignores the fact that you ARE
behaving badly - in the issue at hand, by not
following the dictates of what you claim to
believe. The accuser may well be doing the same
thing, but that doesn't excuse your own failure
to abide by what you claim to believe.

2. Lack of moral comparability

Animal CDs in agriculture are not morally comparable
with human CDs and injury in industry (or with
human rights abuses in other countries, or human
CDs in war). There are at least four solid
reaons for the lack of moral comparability:

a. Scope: animal CDs occur *throughout* agriculture,
as well as storage and distribution. By contrast,
many areas of human industry have virtually no
deaths,
and only very minimal amounts of injury: no
insurance claims processing clerk has ever been
killed in the course of his work duties by a
co-worker negligently operating a piece of heavy
machinery without regard to employees' safety.
b. Scope: animal CDs in agriculture are massive, due
to the lack of efforts at:
c. Prevention: we actively try to prevent human
collateral deaths in war and industry; and if
there
are any, there a
d. Consequences: when birds and rodents and reptiles
are slaughtered in fields in the course of
farming,
there are no consequences for anyone; but when
civilians are killed in war, and when humans are
killed or injured in industry, there are always
investigations, and there is the possibility of
punishment if the negligence is found to have been
present.

Taken together, these reasons establish that the animal
CDs simply are not morally comparable to human death
and injury in industry.

In fact, radical self-styled "workers' rights
activists" DO organize boycotts of companies that, in
their opinion, do not do enough to protect their
employees from death and injury, or that don't
"respect" what the activists feel ought to be the
employees' "rights", and many people participate in the
boycotts; the boycott of Nike over their alleged
mistreatment of workers in Southeast Asia comes to
mind. If you REALLY believe that workers have rights
that are being abridged by a particular firm, then you
are morally obligated not to buy that company's products.

What we see, when "vegans" engage in the (cheap and
easy) symbolic gesture of refraining from meat, but do
not engage in the (difficult and costly) symbolic
gesture of refraining from consuming CD-contaminated
produce, is that they don't REALLY believe that animals
have rights; in particular, they don't REALLY believe
that it is wrong to kill animals.