From: claudiak@spider.co.uk (Claudia Kale)
Newsgroups: rec.food.veg
Subject: Re: A suggestion for rec.food.recipes
Keywords: This is NOT a recipe.
Date: 13 Apr 92 09:04:49 GMT
Organization: Spider Systems Limited, Edinburgh, UK.

In article <1992Apr10.181744.23900@Princeton.EDU> asannuti@dae.Princeton.EDU (Arun M. Sannuti) writes:
>In article <1992Apr9.073323.14475@rtf.bt.co.uk> traub@rtf.bt.co.uk (Michael Traub) writes:
>
>>I  really  wonder  why  we  keep  getting  this  sort  of  thing. This is a
>>newsgroup  for  *vegetarians*.  If  meat eaters want to read it fine, its a
>>free  net,  but  please  remember  if  we consider meat eating intolerable,
>>that's *our* problem.
>>
>>We  don't  need  you to tell us we are intolerant, we know we are, and most
>>of us are quite happy being intolerant.
>>
>>I  think  *everbody*  should  stop  killing  animals  for  food,  clothing,
>>experimentation,  whatever.  No  if's  no but's, no nothing. If you think I
>>am  a  looney,  good for you, I probably am, but you aren't going to change
>>my  mind  just  by telling me I am. Come to that you aren't going to change
>>my  mind  no  matter  what  you say, so please go away unless you can leave
>>your  preaching  out  of  this  newsgroup.  This  is  *not* a newsgroup for
>>animal  killers  to  convince  vegetarians of the errors of their ways, nor
>>is it a newsgroup to teach tolerance amongst vegetarians, so just butt out!
>>-- 
>>Michael Traub
>>BT Customer Systems, Brighton Systems Centre. traub@rtf.bt.co.uk
>
>Ditto.  I thought the reason talk.politics.animals existed was to get
>all the vegetarian haters out of rec.food.veg.  If its that important
>that you convince us ignorant vegetarians the errors in our ways, then
>do so there.  Or advertise in the real world.  I would love to have a
>vegetarian newsgroup that was for vegetarians, where we can talk and
>be ourselves freely, without having to defend ourselves all the time.
>If you can't deal with that, leave.  Please.
>

Me: (please read disclaimer first)
Standard Up-Front Disclaimer: I was an ovo-lacto veg for 2 years some
time ago, and am working my way back to that status now. I read this
newsgroup to a) read about successful ways others have found of getting
the adamant meat-eaters in your life to be more tolerant of vegetarianism,
b) to get some new recipes and information about where one can find
new products and ingredients and c) because I enjoy the discussions on
ethics, etc. I do not now, nor never have, hated vegetarians of any sort.
I am not now, and never have been, too lazy to type "n" if I see an
article I am not interested in reading.

Points for your consideration:
Unless I misunderstood the purpose of newsgroups, they are public forums
and are not "owned" by anybody - much like a large room full of people
who have registered for a workshop on a broad topic: everybody is free
to say what they like as long as it pertains to the workshop's topic;
nobody in the workshop has the right to dictate which topics will be
discussed and which won't be. If any person in the room is uninterested
in the subject under discussion, he/she is free to ignore the discussion
or start a new thread which does interest him/her. Topics which don't
interest anybody will die of their own inertia. And *nobody* in the workshop
has the right to speak on behalf of the entire group.

Maybe it's just me being overly PC, but I have a real problem with
groups who say "our membership will be restricted to persons who are
just like us because we don't need the stress of having to cope with
incomers who have a different culture/skin colour/religion/sex/income/
dietary preference/whatever". When I was a young tenderette, I was
a lifeguard during my summer holidays. I guarded lives at a private club
for about 3 weeks when I noticed that all of the lives I was guarding
were white. Hoping it was mere coincidence, I asked the manager of the
club about the paleness of his membership. He replied that the club did
not allow "persons of colour", as the other members were unfamiliar with
their cultural perspective and would find relaxing around them difficult.
NB: I am *not* saying that Arun is a bigot or holds bigotted ideas; I am
saying that the logic behind that club policy has an eerie echo in the
call for a newsgroup for "vegetarians only".