Derek wrote:
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.

Of course it is! Whom are you attempting to fool?

You're thwacking a straw man.

No.


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.

It means that if "vegans" continue to buy the foods
made from such crops, they are not acting in accord
with their stated beliefs. They are behaving AS IF
they don't believe the animals hold rights.
Introducing the red herring of human collateral deaths
does nothing to resolve their hypocrisy.

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.

OF COURSE they do! They are failing to act on their
alleged beliefs, and that is functionally the same as
not holding the beliefs to begin with.


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.

It is not established that there is any slavery in
cocoa production. It IS established that CDs occur in
agriculture.