502a4596   
   XPost: alt.animals.ethics.vegetarian, misc.education, alt.philosophy   
   XPost: rec.pets.cats.misc   
   From: lojbab@lojban.org   
      
   Rupert  wrote:   
   >On Dec 5, 6:40 pm, Bob LeChevalier  wrote:   
   >> Rupert  wrote:   
   >> >There are plenty of respectable arguments for ethical vegetarianism.   
   >>   
   >> All based on assumptions that are peculiar to the ethical vegetarian,   
   >> and hence utterly meaningless to all the rest of us that reject those   
   >> assumptions.   
   >   
   >No, actually, that's not right.   
      
      
   It inherently must be right.  Otherwise everyone else would be ethical   
   vegetarians.   
      
   >We can have a serious discussion of these arguments if you want.   
      
   I never have a serious discussion about ideology.   
      
   >> >You have given no evidence that you are aware of what they are.   
   >>   
   >> There are meaningless to me, so I have tuned them out.   
   >   
   >I don't think you've actually encountered the strongest arguments.   
      
   That would require that people who have discussed the topic in my   
   witness have avoided their strongest arguments, which strikes me as   
   implausible.   
      
   There are no arguments that I would consider, since I consider the   
   subject to be silly.  (Indeed, I consider the topic of ethics to be   
   not subject to serious theoretical discussion - in order to make it   
   theoretical, you have to make assumptions, and I reject unnecessary   
   assumptions).   
      
   >> >   
   >> I laugh at all isms.   
   >   
   >Well, that's pretty silly.   
      
   I'm glad you see the humor.   
      
   >> >It's very interesting that you can dismiss a belief system purely on   
   >> >the grounds that it is "ideological". What's your definition of an   
   >> >ideology?   
   >>   
   >> The inherently flawed idea that a group of assumptions is Truth and   
   >> that they can be systematically applied to real life.  This usually   
   >> ends up involving the redefinition of words from the meaning used by   
   >> everyone else to some peculiar form that is a nice inside-joke for the   
   >> True Believers.   
   >>   
   >> The redefinition of "murder" to include animals is one such   
   >> redefinition, and it begs the question of why killing animals is   
   >> murder, but not killing vegetables?  Hence the song I posted.   
   >   
   >Yes, well this really is incredibly stupid.   
      
   The topic is, indeed.  I don't much care what someone else eats.  If   
   they tell me what to eat (or tell me what to do in general) based on   
   their personal choices of assumption, my *least* offensive response is   
   to laugh.   
      
   >We can try to have a   
   >serious discussion about it if you like. I don't get the impression   
   >that you're interested.   
      
   I'm not.   
      
   >> >I apologize if your newsgroups have been polluted with a topic you   
   >> >don't regard as worthy of serious consideration. It was David Harrison   
   >> >who did that, for reasons best known to himself, not the ethical   
   >> >vegetarians.   
   >>   
   >> No apology is necessary. One merely had to look at the header lists to   
   >> see that it wasn't serious discussion.   
   >   
   >It is your contributions that are not serious.   
      
   If you want serious philosophy (an oxymoron), stick to philosophy   
   groups.  If you post about vegetarianism and mention killing of   
   animals on the education newsgroups, where the topic is almost   
   invariably spam, then it will likely remind me of that song, which   
   causes most anyone who doesn't take themselves too seriously to laugh.   
      
   lojbab   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)