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Re: Karen Winter's evil hypocrisy and evasion; plus, her approval of the eradication of Native Americans

Rat & Swan wrote:



Bill wrote:

Your rotten explanation for your appalling inconsistency stinks. 


  Only because you have no understanding that it is not only my
  individual action which concerns me.

Your abstinence from meat concerns only you, and your self image.

I see more than you do;

No. You fabricate more than I do. I don't fabricate at all.

I am concerned for social change, not personal attack.

This isn't about personal attack on my end, but it is on yours.



Killing animals for meat, and thoughtlessly killing them collaterally in the course of vegetable production, *both* reflect a failure or refusal to recognize what you claim is their intrinsic worth.


True, as far as it goes.

True, period.

  But one results from the other (which is
  far older) and is difficult to continue without the other.

Utterly false.

...


Your adoption of a strictly vegetarian diet does nothing to change the societal view of animals; it is a symbolic gesture *only*, and is plainly seen as such.


Again, true as far as it goes.

It goes all the way to the heart of your hypocritical self flattery.



Likewise, working assiduously to ensure that you consumed only CD-free vegetables *also* would be *only* a symbolic gesture, and would correctly be seen as such.


True, as far as it goes.

It goes all the way to the heart of your hypocritical self flattery.



Why do you engage in one purely symbolic, utterly ineffectual gesture, but not the other?


Because, as I said,

That's AT LEAST the 8th time you've said "as I said" in the last couple of days. Repetition does not turn your lying into truth.

  the entire system of meat and animal-derived
  commercial product production is founded in an immoral concept
  of animals as things, as property.

Irrelevant, and not your objection. We've been through that.

Your answer is a non sequitur. It does not address your different behavior in the face of two identical, ON PRINICIPLE, instances of a view of animals as lacking intrinsic moral worth. Killing them to eat them, and killing them casually and incidentally in the course of growing vegetables, BOTH reflect a lack of consideration of their supposed intrinsic moral worth. But you make a symbolic gesture to protest one, while not making the analogous symbolic gesture - in fact, while doing nothing at all - to protest the other.

Your "because" is crap. It does not explain the difference.

  The system, like slavery, is
  immoral _per se_.

No more so than the casual and incidental slaughter of animals in the course of producing vegetables. This latter is like the indirect annihilation of Native Americans. Not the direct killing of them; the indirect killing of them by destroying their way of life and forcing them off their land.

It is EXACTLY like it.

Vegetable production is not immoral _per se_.

1. Killing the animals collaterally IS immoral per se, in your
faulty world view.

2. Eating the meat IS NOT immoral per se.

3. The methods of producing the vegetables YOU eat ALL
are based on an implicit assumption that it is acceptable
to kill animals collaterally and even deliberately.

You have not established a morally meaningful difference. All you have done is try to rationalize your willful refusal to abide by principle. As before, you fail. You are seen, FOLLOWING a correct analysis of your behavior, to be a liar, a hypocrite, and fundamentally immoral. There is no personal attack. There is a moral conclusion, fully justified by the evidence.

  All that is required is that methods of vegetable production
  be changed,

It won't happen, as long as vegetable farmers are rewarded for farming in ways that kill animals.

  and that we search among existing vegetables for
  ones produced with less harm.

You DO NOT do that.

...


Your answer to date is unacceptable. I asked earlier what distinguishes the two gestures: 


   Refraining from eating meat, and refraining from eating
   CD-causing vegetables, BOTH are purely symbolic
   gestures.  What distinguishes them?


You answered: 


   What distinguishes them is that buying meat and other
   animal products supports a system which represents a view
   of animals which is philosophically opposed to AR: that
   animals are property, that they have a moral standing which
   allows us to use them in unjust ways, raise and delibrately kill
   them without consideration of their intrinsic worth.


That answer is wrong, because collateral deaths in vegetable production *also* occur due to societal failure to give "consideration of their intrinsic worth."


Yes, as far as it goes,

Stop being evasive; "Yes", full stop. It goes to the very end. You gave that answer to try to illustrate some difference, and it DOES NOT illustrate a difference, it illustrates morally identical cases.

but, as I said,

That's about 10 now...

the system of vegetable production is not immoral per se,

The killing of animals collaterally by the methods used to grow the vegetables YOU consume on a daily basis IS immoral per se, according to you. DAILY, you participate in an activity that DOES kill animals. Whether it NEEDS to do so is irrelevant. It does. You are morally complicit in the killing of animals, and you do nothing.

...


In fact, you have ADMITTED as much, in your sleazy rationalization for why you refuse to make the more difficult and costly symbolic gesture, preferring instead to continue to cause CDs:


I would say that I don't cause CDs.

You are wrong. Your participation in the market as it exists is integral. You can't pull a Derek and say you're only paying for the end result, not the methods used.

  My purchase of vegetables
  provides a motive for farmers to cause CDs,

That's all we need to know. It is perfectly analogous, morally, to a buyer of stolen property. Buying stolen property is a crime precisely because it provides incentive to others to commit crime. If killing the animals collaterally is wrong, you are guilty of a moral crime, because you are incentivizing the farmer to keep killing.

  but it is not my
  fault that farmers use unethical methods.

It is your fault that you continue to trade with them, knowing how they farm. You cannot escape the stain.

They choose to do so.

Because they have no reason to stop.

Meat producers ALSO don't stop producing meat, subsequent to your symbolic, self aggrandizing refusal to eat meat.

You are stuck, Karen.


   I am convinced that veganism is a more ethical
   position, since it rejects such animal deaths in
   principle, and if the vegan position is accepted,
   collateral deaths will decrease as a result of the awareness
   of farmers. But CDs will be invisible to society as
   a whole until a moral stance against the intentional
   deaths of animals in production of food and other
   products is seen as obligatory.  Then society can
   and will advance to the consideration of
   unintentional deaths as well.


So, your claim about what the distinction is is FALSE. What IS the distinction, then?

The distinction is: cost and ease. Being "vegan" is cheap and easy, relative to refraining from eating CD-causing vegetables. BOTH are merely symbolic, but one is much more costly than the other.

Your engagement in one symbolic gesture, but not the other, clearly is NOT based on any legitimate principle, because the principle - recognition of the intrinsic moral worth of animals - should dictate BOTH.


Thus, we see that you are a thorough-going liar, three times:


1. why you're "vegan": it is not based on principle


Yes, it is.

No, it is not, at least not the principle you allege. There is no way to continue to claim that it is.


2.  why you don't abstain from CD-causing produce:  it
    *is* based on cost and convenience,


To a degree.

Solely.

I live in a real world, not in a fantasy.

That doesn't stop you from indulging in the fantasy that your abstinence from meat is meaningful.

  I wish it were possible for me to be more sure about the
  sources of my own food.

Easily said. For all practical purposes, you don't care about the CDs attached to the sources of your food. All you care about is cost and ease.

But my personal actions are not the issue,

Yes, they certainly are. They illustrate that your abstinence from meat is not based on principle.

  except to tunnel-vision Antis whose only
  argument is personal attack.

There is no personal attack, and you know it. This makes a fourth lie.

I'm talking about systems
and general social change

Neither of which your utterly symbolic abstinence from meat brings about. You aren't interested in effecting any such change; you're interested in making a self aggrandizing claim about it.

-- I don't attack you personally.

Yes, you most certainly do. Not as savagely and unethically as you attacked John Mercer, though.

Why do you never see beyond the end of your nose?

I see far beyond it, much to your consternation.


    and on making
    your adherence to principle contingent on others'
    acceptance of your views


I do not.

Yes, you do. I have shown that you do. Then you lie about it.


3.  what you have said about your dirty rationalization
    of #2


???

Right below, dummy.


You LIED when you claimed you didn't base your refusal to abstain from CD-causing produce on others' views and behavior. It is *exactly* what you do: 


   > You claim that your inaction - your continued
   > participation in the collateral slaughter of
   > animals you don't eat - continues only because the
   > slaughter of animals that are eaten continues.



   I don't claim any such thing.  I do claim that unintentional
   CD deaths will not be seen as a major issue by society in
   general until intentional slavery and slaughter of animals
   for food and other products is seen as immoral by society in
   general.  I think that is both true and obvious.

I have never claimed any such thing.


You are a liar. You do it above: 


   ...if the vegan position is accepted, collateral
   deaths will decrease as a result of the awareness
   of farmers.


Which is true. They will.

First: you DID blame your refusal to abide by your supposed principle contingent on other people changing their thinking and behavior first. I just showed it, and you didn't dispute it.

Second, it is irrelevant if it will or will not happen. We're talking about your behaving according to moral principle TODAY. You could do it today; you CHOOSE not do to so.


YOU could stop participating in CDs today, but you won't, 


  If, as you say, my individual action is a useless,
  ineffectual, symbolic gesture, how would my individual
  action change general social forces that create both
  meat production and CDs?  That is my goal.

Why do you abstain from meat? That is every bit as useless, ineffectual and symbolic. This is the whole point: one useless, ineffectual and symbolic gesture is cheap, easy and provides you with an unwarranted sense of being virtuous, of making a difference. It is no different in effect from the other, but it is cheap and easy.

The one emptily symbolic thing you do does not do a thing to advance your supposed goal. Thus, you are not doing it based on any principle, except the principle of moral self aggrandizement.


because others won't. You are waiting for CDs to go away by virtue of *others'* changes in attitudes and behavior.

Calling you a liar is not a "personal attack".


What else could it be?

An objective analysis of your very public behavior and statements.


You throw that out there
as if it invalidates the analysis of the appalling inconsistency in your behavior, but you are wrong. The analysis of your shoddy moral pose is correct. Your lying doesn't begin until you react to the correct analysis, and the labeling of you as a liar follows that. You ARE a liar, Karen.


Why only address personal attacks?

I don't.

Why don't you ever discuss ideas?

I do. I have shown that your idea that you are behaving according to principle is false. Following that, I have shown that you are a liar, and people wishing to be morally good do not take moral instruction from demonstrated liars.



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