> Anti-vegetarians will argue that the burden of argument rests upon
> those who are advocating vevgetarianism or animal rights/welfare. To
> many, it (the eating, as opposed to the treatment) is not an ethical
> issue at all for various reasons.
Here's what I don't get: why the obsession about *eating*? I dismiss proselytizing vegetarians because eating is only a small part of the ways we humans kill other animals. Pretty much everything we do since leaving behind hunter/gatherer lifestyle ends up killing some animal - e.g. the groundhogs who get killed when we bulldoze to make the foundation for the building I am currently sitting in.
So this movement seems to have pre-sorted animal-killing human behaviors into OK (building a hospital) and not OK (eating them). It also seems to have made arbitrary decisions about which animals are worth saving (chickens and cows) and which are not (mosquitoes). I kill a *LOT* of bugs driving home through farmland during the summer at dusk. I am not sure an animal's cuteness and cuddle-ability is a sound metric of its right to life, especially since I am neither cute nor cuddle-able.
I would also not lump vegetarianism together with advocacy for animal welfare. In fact, doing so distracts from the goal of ensuring that animals raised for food are treated as humanely as possible. The former is viewed as an extreme movement with the appearance of a secular religion, while the latter reduces animal suffering and improves the health of the humans who consume them.
Matt
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We don't know if it was a case of international terrorism... or road rage.
-FBI Agent Frank Perry, commenting on the three-state alert regarding a car containing 'middle eastern men' which alledgedly tried to run a fuel truck off the road.