On Sat, 8 Aug 1998 06:03:56 -0700, Ray Audette <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>1.  Nothing hurts like extinction.  Without the meat industry, billions
>of animals would be out of a job (and their lives).
No cattle, pig or chicken  would become "extinct" if they weren't
"produced" in big farms. They are millions of the same very similar.
And they are not natural animals, they are genetic massively modified
to cope with human requirements. Milk and meat machines.
What becomes extinct are the natural animals which are displaced
by the food production, necessary for sustaining the farm animals.

If a farm animal would be able to "thank" you
for it's life... then i didn't want to be in your skin....

 E2.  Being squeamish will prevent you from enjoying one of the biggest
>joys in life - reproduction.  Not only will you miss the joy of
>childbirth, (which was dicey even for this daily hunter and butcherer of
>animals), you will also miss important aspects of child rearing
>(Gray-Hawk is in the final (oops) phase of potty training).  Your chances
>of having a child will also be diminished by your refusal to perform
>squeamish sex acts (do you think Americas most famous lover, Monica was
>squeamish?- I think not).  Promiscuous people should be remain squeamish
>as AIDS is a real threat and reproduction requires commitment to be truly
>sucessful.

How nice that we now also have advice for our sex life from
paleolithic lifestyle - "don't be squeamish".

But I don't understand what beeing vegetarian has to do with
beeing squeamish, especially beeing squeamish in sex life.

If I
 prefer a fruit over an animal muscle
or an almond over the eye of an animal
then not because I'm squeamish.
I may do so because i try to listen to my senses,
what they tell me with the odor, taste and colours of things
especially if they are raw.
Then I may judge my feelings about it.
How would this approach be with other big
joys of life (like "reproduction")?

>3.  Meat production, which takes up most of the land used in food
>production, although not sinless, is more ecologically sustainable than
>plant production.
Meat production is plant production and feeding this plants
to animals, loosing about a factor of 7-15.
So whatever criticism can be applied to plant-production,
criticism on meat-production must be 7-15-fold.
...

>Long after the land has been worn out by the plow and
>irrigation, cattle may be raised.
Thats true for very bad land
(spa
rse grass-lands, desert,  land in very high altitudes)
where only few and inedible plants grow,
still some animals to be killed may live on it.
But bioproductivity of this land is low, and unfortunately
factor 7-15 still applies. So the amout of meat produced there
(deserts, highlands) will again be low.
Americas and worlds cattle leave on grains and soy.

>Those promoting the vegetarian lifestyle have included some of the
>greatest propagandists of the 20th century (Hitler, Mussolinni, Stalin,
>Pol Pot etc.).
And of course all meat-eaters (like bosnian tschetniks)
in history have been angels.
>Several great philosphers of the past ( who shaped the
>mess we currently live in) were also of this ilk.
Which vegetarian philosopher would you damn this way?
Plato? Pythagoras? Buddah?
(I'm really interested, you told you were studying philosophy)

Don't t
hink gatherer/hunters were always peaceful.
Mesolithic human sceletons show injuries from spears and arrows.
There are known paleolithic massacres on humans.
Eating deers doesn't make more peaceful than eating carrots.

>Ray Audette
Amadeus Schmidt