- Anything Else -

Too busy helping our fellow man

Posted by: Nikhil Jaikumar ( DSA, MA, USA ) on October 15, 1999 at 12:07:55:

In Reply to: One last time, since you've asked, Lark. posted by Mike on October 13, 1999 at 15:52:24:

What the fuck, man! You really have to learn what honest disagreement is all about, and you ahve to know to whom you're talking before you throw around vague and meaningless insults. Lark is a Catholic a Communist, in other words he subscribes to the two ideologies that have done more to relieve human suffering and bring about human brotherhood than any others in teh world. What have you done for your fellow man recently? If you live happily within the capitalist siciety then forgive me for laughing because this system is killing and exploiting millions of people every year as we speak.

I'll say this once, since I really have no interest in pursuing teh animal rights issue. Nature is a struggle for survival, and as such, we cannot live without causing the death of other beings, some of themm animals, some plants. The only category that makes sense for usw to give our loyalty is to the species. There are no categories broader or narrower than the species that make scientific sense, and are a realistic absis for equality. We have an obligation to save our species over otehr species.

Yes. probably it is more meritorious, all other things being equal, to refrain from killing and eating animals, especially domestic ones. Bear in mind however, that you can't live in a house without causing teh death of numerous woodland creatiuures through haabitat loss. How many squirrels and deer had to be displaced and killed so that we could live where we do? Also, when you take fish out of teh ocean, many of them would probably have been eaten by larger fish anyway- so what is wrong with us eating them instead?

But to restate, yes [erhaps it is more meritorious not to kill animals. Check that, it IS more meritorious noto to kill aniamls or to eat their flesh if it is avoidable. but on the scale of tehw orlds's ills, it is a sub,sub issue. When we've smashed capitalism and replaced it with a humane society based on equality and freeodm, when we all have access to our human birthrights of food, housing, shelter, and medicine, when we've put an end to possession and privilege, maybe then we can turn to the morality of eating meat. Biut in the meantime, between a semi-carnivorous Catholic Communist and a vegetarian who lives content in his bourgeois society, I think you know who I see as morally superior. (By the way, that wasn't meant to indict you. I'm drawing a hypothetical picture here.)

Personally, I suspect that eating meat may carry with it some moral sin. But the attached isn is so small that I'm content to ignore it. I think it's much mroe important to serve your fellow man and to try and protect what remains of nature than to make sure you never touch a morsel of non-vegetarian food. Personally, I don't eat red meat, but I eat a lot of fish and chicken, because these can be very healthy for you as well as satisfying my personal tastes. Man is naturally equipped to eat both plants and animals, by the way, and teh invention of agriculture, which caused him to shift to a carbohydrate-based diet, is now seen as the cause of many different physical ailments including vitamin deficiency, tooth and bone ailments, a drop in height, lowered life expectancy, etcetera.




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