Vegetarianism

[Gods_Mercenary]

"We can handle you against us. You state on our part an "ignorance of individual rights," but we state that your acts result in suffering and that makes your rights infringing on the rights we believe animals should have -- thus the movement to get rights recognized for them."

Oh, so now if someone belives that a right should be had, the government has to legitamize it. O.K. I think I should have the right to have 5 smoking hot wives and a million dollars... Nothing, damn deniers of rights!

Anyway, how many candidates running under, "I'll take away your rights to give to a giant pile of beef" are going to win, ever.

[StrongHeartsWin]

Quote by: Gods_Mercenary Oh, so now if someone belives that a right should be had, the government has to legitamize it. O.K. I think I should have the right to have 5 smoking hot wives and a million dollars... Nothing, damn deniers of rights!

Like Kamehameha, you don`t understand the argument is not about what one person or "somebody" believes; I clearly outlined the point that if the values of society change and the majority come to believe such, such legislation can and would have a good chance to come about to guarantee rights for protecting the integrity of the body for animals.

Admittedly, it will be slow and in small increments.

[Chaossaber314]

Quote by: Gods_Mercenary Oh, so now if someone belives that a right should be had, the government has to legitamize it. O.K. I think I should have the right to have 5 smoking hot wives and a million dollars... Nothing, damn deniers of rights!

I could get on board with that. I think you have a national movement on your hands. It can't be any more ridiculous than the one we're discussing.

[Gods_Mercenary]

Very slow, considering meat is a part of humanity ingrained into our genetics. You don't change hundreds of thousands of years evolving to be hunters and killers in an instant.

[Gods_Mercenary]

Quote by: Chaossaber314 I could get on board with that. I think you have a national movement on your hands. It can't be any more ridiculous than the one we're discussing.

2 members already! We just need a name, how about the Association for Mediocre Male's Advancement? AMMA, kinda catchy, don't ya think?

[StrongHeartsWin]

Quote by: Gods_Mercenary Very slow, considering meat is a part of humanity ingrained into our genetics. You don't change hundreds of thousands of years evolving to be hunters and killers in an instant.

Well, it must be too fast for the industries which profit off of animal exploitation, because they are taking it serious. Besides, slavery was a part of human society (still is in some places) for thousands, if not tens of thousands of years, but yet we moved to try and abolish it.

The argument for AR and its success does not rest on the speed of its evolution. It will come when it does and inroads are being made.

You recall the what happens when the proverbial crack appears in the dikes holding back the seas, don`t you? Have you seen a reversal in trends of the gains the animals and ARists have made or been making? If so, point them out. The statutes protecting them are growing more and more and the penalties in some places have gone from misdameanor to felonies.

Ha!

[Gods_Mercenary]

Ya the old Granpa getting jailtime for killing a sickly kitten comes to mind, but the law is the law!

[StrongHeartsWin]

Quote by: Gods_Mercenary Ya the old Granpa getting jailtime for killing a sickly kitten comes to mind, but the law is the law!

Too bad for gramps. lol.

[Gods_Mercenary]

I was actually being sarcastic, but whatever.

[Chaossaber314]

Quote by: Strong Hearts Win You recall the what happens when the proverbial crack appears in the dikes holding back the seas, don`t you?

You really consider the extreme portion of the animal rights movement to be comparable to the sea?

Quote by: Gods_Mercenary 2 members already! We just need a name, how about the Association for Mediocre Male's Advancement? AMMA, kinda catchy, don't ya think?

Indeed!

[StrongHeartsWin]

Quote by: Chaossaber314 You really consider the extreme portion of the animal rights movement to be comparable to the sea? Indeed!

You think lawyers being heard arguing for AR in front of judges who have agreed to hear their cases is extreme?

The "sea" is all inclusive in the analogy. The far end of the spectrum of all movements are just one part of the sum total.

[StrongHeartsWin]

Quote by: SHW brien, address the quote by its parts in more detail rather than just telling me what you think I need. That style makes you look lazy.

[quote=brien;319388]

SHW: Well I did just that. I highlighted your statement that, in textbook fashion, exists in your understanding of how government is supposed to operate. My point was ...

brien, anyone can highlight, and I don`t mind you trying to make a point, however, you didn`t address the parts of the whole. What part do you specifically take issue with and how on the mechanisms I have described? Post some real world examples that show what I have written is false and is so absolutely so that it defines something that is in all cases not what I have described.

In parseled form, I wrote:

In a democracy, the governed are masters of the government.

What don`t you agree with there and show us real world examples where all governments based on democratic principles are not beholden to the people in a way that people cannot affect change through their governing insitutions?

I wrote:

Quote by: SHW The government is the tool of the people -- not the reverse.

Why do you think the opposite of that is absolute in the U.S.? After all, if the people in my state want a new road, they petition the government on the appropriate level through city planners, commisioners, or representatives and then the creation of the road is brought into affect. Laws, too, are petitioned for by the people.

Quote by: SHW If the will of the people is such as they come to value something new that has not been enshrined in their laws, then through their voting powers by voting in representatives that represent their views and values, it only follows that those representatives will vote for whatever those persons in those districts sent them to the legislature to do.

Witness the change in view of drinking and driving from 40 years ago up until now and the onslaught of stricter laws and statutes against it. People were getting fed up with the laxed laws that were resulting in needless deaths.
Now,why do you think that is not the case, and why do you think the values of the people changing against the freedom to drink and drive was trumped over by others if the will of the people did not affect change through their representatives?

A government set up on democratic principles does not have to be perfect to work in order to bring about new laws representing the values of its citizens. Surely from time to time there are shortfallings. However, in the U.S. and such places as the UK or Australia or Canada, where institutions are strong, they are more than adequate to enact new laws concerning AR that could reduce the amount of meat consumption and encourage more to consider going vegetarian.

Harsh restrictions on smoking and taxing tobacco themselves are said to show corresponding drops in the number of percentage of smokers. Laws and economic pressure work to encourage change in society at even a more quicker pace once the values of the majority reaches a tipping point.

[Chaossaber314]

Quote by: StrongHeartsWin You think lawyers being heard arguing for AR in front of judges who have agreed to hear their cases is extreme? The "sea" is all inclusive in the analogy. The far end of the spectrum of all movements are just one part of the sum total.

Even Nambla has lawyers.

[StrongHeartsWin]

Quote by: Chaossaber314 Even Nambla has lawyers.

Yes, but are Nambla`s lawyers being propelled by a movement that is growing and shaping legal thought on issues and redefining the terms that affect those thoughts?

[pikatore]

Quote by: Kamehameha34 I've been compelled to employ it repetitiously whilst fraternizing with you. I don't arbitrarily type "subjective" at my sole discretion. You could determine the frequence of my use of the word.

Can you stop trying to throw in big words? It hurts my eyes, and more importantly, clouds what you are trying to say. Just speak in english, we wont assume its because you are young.

By the way, its frequency in that grammatical context, not frequence.

[Osborn F Enready]

SHW said: We can handle you against us. You state on our part an "ignorance of individual rights," but we state that your acts result in suffering and that makes your rights infringing on the rights we believe animals should have -- thus the movement to get rights recognized for them.

Exactly, the rights YOU believe animals should have.....

Subjective, not in the concern of the animals, or with their express desires even KNOWN.

This is your fight, not the animals. The fight has no legs, because of it.

SHW said: Yes, you do have that right -- now. But don`t be 100% sure that the law will recognize that for all generations down the line for hunting.

People like me are growing in number as the Police State and Global Society emerges. To be droll, "Don't count your chickens, before they hatch".

Many people, like myself, will willfully ignore laws that go against basic rights.
The more that are created, the bigger the lawless society will become, and eventually the end of the government that would impose such laws.

SHW said: As for the Constitution, it has a system/mechanisim to affect and allow change within it. If those changes occur, then the right you speak of now will have been redefined. The Constitution is not a deat stagnant document. It is alive and at anytime can become dynamic -- thus changing to widen rights to other beings. Just a matter of legislation.

You and I are opposite on this issue. Rights are not infringible by government. Yes, they are now, but people like myself are working everyday to reverse these crimes by government, upon citizens.

SHW said: Our difference is that you are a violent person who feels compelled to threaten the person they are in debate with by inferring you would kill them if you ever crossed paths with them. Errrrr...creepy.

Thats pure nonsense. I didn't threaten anything. I promised, that anyone regardless of what uniform they wear, what authority they work under, what badge they carry, if they infringe upon my rights they will be dealt just equal and opposite force, as they attempt to use to seperate me from my rights. That in itself is a right, and it is not a threat by any means, but a statement of self defense from undue injustice.

What you are doing is attempting to use the police and government (state and federal) to infringe upon the rights of citizens, to GIVE privlidges to animals that they haven't earned, nor do they deserve, at the exepense of citizens, with a trust in government to oversee and enforce it using force, against citizens. That is almost an open plea for war, with U.S. citizens who value their rights. I am simply saying that is what you will have.... a war.

SHW said: I have no thought likewise to you. Perhaps my diet makes me a more peaceful or moral person than you. After all, I am not the one threatening murder. Maybe red meat does that to some.

Again, no threats. If you consider it a threat, YOU ADMIT to being the aggressor, and ADMIT to wanting to use force to REMOVE my rights.
I haven't said anything to you I wouldn't say to a policeman, a judge or my grandmother, if she were alive today.

You need to tune your perception, not critique my delivery.

SHW said: What I do want is for society to move on the spectrum of their common beliefs and values to elect officials that will reflect their beliefs for the integrity of body for animals or AR.

I question your means, and alledge your methods are unconstitutional at their core. THAT is what is different about us.

You see it as being acceptable to use force to enforce law that 51% of the people think is just. I do not, and for good reason. This is not a democracy, and it never was. Our rights are inalienable.

People who share your perspective are what in my opinion, is ruining this nation, as well as playing right into the global hedgemony perspective of the NWO.

[StrongHeartsWin]

Quote by: Osborn F Enready And again, you and I don't agree on what "rights" are, so how can we debate them without a mutual understanding?

I think we agree on what they are -- we just don`t agree on what beings should be entitled to them and to what extent. That is the point we are debating and that is the point people and courts consider, or will increasingly do so.

You seem to think animals RIGHT NOW are not equal in some way?

They are equal, more superiour, and less superiour in some ways to us than in others -- particularly when it comes to the ability to suffer -- which is what laws and rights are made to protect from being a target of for exploitation. Surely a beagle has a more sensitive nose than you, and a rabbit more sensitive ears. Why do you think you have the ability to feel pain and suffer from that pain more greatly in all areas of all other animals?

Yes, we are not equal like you said, and particularly in the eyes of the court and legislative systems in place now -- but we are equal in our desire to move away from the sources of pain.

They kill for food, as do I.

They must and do not have a choice in the matter. You do not have to and most certainly do have a choice.

They kill for property, as do I.

They are instinctively driven to do so as a means of guaranteeing the survival of their genes being past down to future generations. Our laws and civilizations make it so we have a choice to not have to do that.

They kill for defense, as do I.

Every being has a right to defense when threatened with death.

Your score is only one out of three above. 33.3333% is a failing score. Your argument fails.

SHW said: Well, we will disagree there and society has seen it proper to elect officials who seem to think they are needed. If anti drug laws are unjust to you, then if 100 years or whenever there is ever any anti pork or beef or chicken law, then you will just have to whine about how unjust they are like the cocaine users who now whine about cocain prohibition laws.

Seperate issue, feel free to join the other "drug" threads and speak your points so I can shred them there. This is not the place.

Then you don`t understand the value and use of analogies in debate. The properties inserted into the construct, by nature of the construct being an analogy, entails that the properties be different from the one under discussion.

It stands.

Animals are food, deal with it.

We do. That is why we are not paralyzed by apathy and have organized to affect change.

Deal with that! Ha!

They have a means of defense, but our offense is better.

lol. Dusting out the old "Might makes Right," argument -- a bankrupt moral style of reasoning and justifying things for one`s own benefit.

They kill for food, just like we do..........

They have to -- we do not have to.

We deal with it when a baby is taken by a wild animal.

Oh yes. The reality of animals snatching our babies these days is just rampant. I can`t open the newspaper or turn on the tv without hearing news of raccoons or deviant bovines raiding our homes and kidnapping our children. After all, I hear there is a factory in the forests where the tetes of humans are hooked up to tubes to provide milk for wolves and bears. <snicker snicker> Choose absurd or hyperbol to label your argument here -- if such thinking could be considered argument -- errrr probably comedy.

Animals have no rights,...

Not so. There are many many statutes on the books to protect them. They just have not evolved to the highest level yet.

...other than what they can claim.

An entity with no legl standing and therefore unable to claim them before the law, can still have rights claimed on there behalf by a third party who does have standing. That is why statutes reflecting animal rights to some degree have already been enacted -- because humans petitioned for them -- not because animals went to court to get them.

Even pro-life groups use the same argument in fighting for the rights of a feotus -- and to some extent have been successful. Being able to claim rights for one`s self is not a litmus test for winning or being granted rights. Laws on the books already prove you to be wrong.

...you claiming rights for animals is a false fight, since THEY aren't doing it, you are.

Irrelevant who fights or claims them. Whites were the ones who won the right of freedom from ownership for blacks. Tell your false argument to historians and blacks and the abolitionists.

Your reason is one of "selectivity" and reason is not meant to be such. Reason is non-prejudicial and cuts across the constructs -- one reason why one of the symbols of law is a person blindfolded but holding balancing weight trays.

Ask Iraq how they liked US winning them a democracy and rights.........

lol. Oh, you are funny, Osborne -- if not hypocritical. Above you want to dismiss the cocain analogy simply because the properties are different in that analogy to what we are discussing here, but then you feel you have the right or imunity in debate to posit an analogy with differing properties yourself. Is that arrogance, sense of entitlement, or hypocracy? You tell me.

But, I will not cower from your analogies like you do mine. Although you`ve demonstrated you can`t handle them, I can.

Whether the U.S. is successful in thier efforts or not is irrelevant as to whether they "can" or have the "right" to fight for a cause for or on behalf of someone else. Success or falure is not tied to "can" or the "right" to do so.

btw, we sure did like the aid of the French in our civil unrest in breaking away from England and embracing democracy here.

Your entire argument is riddled with intellectual flaws, and statist intentions.

lol.

Declarations prove nothing and all your arguments have been nothing but selective reasoning, based on prejudicial arguments sitting on top of the moral bankruptcy of "Might makes Right."

[Osborn F Enready]

SHW said: I think we agree on what they are -- we just don`t agree on what beings should be entitled to them and to what extent. That is the point we are debating and that is the point people and courts consider, or will increasingly do so.

NO WE DON'T agree. You think rights can be "given", and they can't.

For example, blacks EARNED their right to be equal, there was no warm plate heated for them. They had to fight cultural stigma, and prove they were equal with ACTION. A shame it took that, but it did. They earned equal rights with blood and tears, lives and labor.

Animals are in NO WAY capable of meeting that mark, not even close.

They don't even form collective societies, let alone work as a collective. They can't comprehend, or respect rights. People USED to say that about blacks too, which I am sure you will say, but BLACKS took it upon themselves to prove that "theory" wrong. Animals CANT DO THAT, and some special intrest group doing it in their name is simply a false call to action, to support the special intrest groups agenda of becoming a power wielder, having little to do with animals at all. Just another facade for influencing the power of the state.

SHW said: They are equal, more superiour, and less superiour in some ways to us than in others -- particularly when it comes to the ability to suffer -- which is what laws and rights are made to protect from being a target of for exploitation.

Our laws against animal cruelty are to help protect the fragile society that we have, and reflective of our value for all living things, which has been growing as technology has allowed us to look away from killing to support life. Simply saying we should respect life by NOT creating undue pain to animals, is much different than saying animals have equal rights, and should be treated as equals.

Our system is based on an inherant value for life, which is why we frown upon UNDUE pain and suffering of any living thing. Animals are still food though, and you WOULD think so if you were stranded on a raft at sea with no food and water, and all you had to eat were fish, and all you had to drink was spinal fluid from the fish you caught, and the nary fresh rain water you could collect.

SHW said: Surely a beagle has a more sensitive nose than you, and a rabbit more sensitive ears. Why do you think you have the ability to feel pain and suffer from that pain more greatly in all areas of all other animals?

It has nothing to do with an ABILITY to feel pain.

It has to do with ability to defend, respect and perceive rights.....

People can, animals can't.

SHW said: Yes, we are not equal like you said, and particularly in the eyes of the court and legislative systems in place now -- but we are equal in our desire to move away from the sources of pain.

And we are also equal in one other important way, you always neglect to mention.....

WE BOTH KILL EACH OTHER FOR FOOD, if we have to, for survival.

So you want people to give some "right" to animals, they can't and WON'T respect for humans? That is idiotic, and is a form of retribution as opposed to equalization.

SHW said: They must and do not have a choice in the matter. You do not have to and most certainly do have a choice.

BS. That is simply untrue. We were BRED to kill, and all of our senses and abilities show that, our tools reflect that, and our collective history bears a testament to that. We are where we are because we dominated the animal kingdom to the extent WE COULD move on past simple food provision to focus on education, technology and society.

Meat, and its essential proteins and amino acids provide a basic building block of mankinds progress and evolution, and development of muscle and mind, as well as our ability to live almost anywhere on earth, from fish, plants or animals or even insects.

Our digestive ability is what makes us the natural top of the food chain, coupled with our opposable thumbs ability to provide the tools our minds can imagine. Again, animals don't have this.

SHW said: They are instinctively driven to do so as a means of guaranteeing the survival of their genes being past down to future generations. Our laws and civilizations make it so we have a choice to not have to do that.

And your utter dependence on that, shows your true weakness. The moment we become dependent on society, is the moment we provide the weakness for our eventual collapse. Government is only worthwhile if kept in check by the people, and once the people become dependent on it, they surrender their ability to be individuals, and instead become slaves.

As it is now, though it is lessening quickly thanks to groups like yours, we as people have a CHOICE to be A PART OF SOCIETY, or simply individuals.
You want to remove the choice of individualism, by law.(force)

SHW said: Every being has a right to defense when threatened with death. Your score is only one out of three above. 33.3333% is a failing score. Your argument fails.

???

Any animal threatened attempts to defend itself, but we have tools and they don't. Does that mean we should create a means of defense for animals? No. If animals desire a better means of defense, they have the same natural opprotunities and materials we did, to form them. They aren't, therefore they don't deserve the right to expect EQUAL defense.

SHW said: It stands.

It stands as being an inappropriate analogy. So be it.

I can shred your logic, but this isn't the thread for debunking your myths about drugs, and their prohibition.