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- Path: sparky!uunet!olivea!spool.mu.edu!uwm.edu!cs.utexas.edu!torn!utgpu!Bisco.CAnet.CA!molnar
- From: molnar@Bisco.CAnet.CA (Tom Molnar)
- Newsgroups: rec.food.veg
- Subject: Re: Vegetarian guidance network
- Message-ID: <C182yB.Fry@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca>
- Date: 21 Jan 93 21:13:21 GMT
- References: <1993Jan16.152147.29859@abo.fi> <1993Jan20.224216.8817@sequent.com>
- Sender: news@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca (USENET)
- Organization: UTCS Campus Access
- Lines: 46
-
- In article <1993Jan20.224216.8817@sequent.com> amy@sequent.com (Amy Paschal) writes:
- #
- # ... Many people on this news group talk about how
- # much better the world would be if everyone ate a vegetarian diet. While
- # I think much could be accomplished by this I think more could be
- # accomplished if we could live in a world where people are truly
- # tolerent of different ways of living. By tolerent I don't mean
- # putting on a forced smile and saying "yeah, I don't mind X". I mean
- # tolerent to the level that we all truly rejoice in the differences
- # that make us unique. Off soapbox.
-
- Amy,
- permit me to offer an observation. I found the following extract,
- but I am not able to identify the source.
-
- Q: "You can be a vegatarian if you want, but it is a personal
- choice. Don't try to force it on everyone else."
-
- A: From a moral point of view, actions that harm others are not
- a matter of personal choice. Murder, child abuse and
- cruelty to animals are all immoral. our society now
- encourages meat-eating and the cruelties of factory farming,
- but history shows that society also once encouraged slavery,
- child labour, and many other practices now recognized to be
- wrong.
-
- This helped me understand the point of view of the people trying to
- convince me with moral arguments on various issues. Almost daily we
- read or hear about different moral dichotomies, such as abortion,
- smoking, and animal rights. Each side simply cannot accept a
- counterview since one position affects the other.
-
- If you were a non-smoker, should you be tolerant of carcinogenic second-hand
- smoke for example?
-
- We cannot deny that we are destroying our planet, nor can we deny that we
- have to change our ways. At some point, we all be forced to change our
- ways.
-
- I find I am unable to remain silent when someone else's action adversly
- affects me or those people or things important to me.
-
- Finding middle ground is so difficult.
-
- Regards,
- Tom
-