From: vanetten@unix.cie.rpi.edu (John S. Van Etten)
Subject: Re: PETA Activities Suspected of Violating FCC Act, Says PPF
Organization: CIE, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY
Distribution: usa
Date: Sat, 29 Aug 1992 02:28:05 GMT

Russell Lawrence writes:

[stuff JSVE wrote about Rev. Niemoller's quote deleted]
>I'm glad that you see quite a few differences between AR folks 
>and nazis.  I'd like to return the compliment by pointing out 
>some of the differences between your presentation above and the 
>sort of presentation one could have expected from Hitler.  
>
>Hitler usually began his orations with lamentations about the 
>victimization of the superior aryan class at the hands of the 
>"jews" and "communists" and "perverts" who were forcing their 
>views on good germans by preventing them from exercising their
>right to rule.  And, Hitler usually ended his speeches with rousing 
>slogans about the need for "aryans" to stick together as "ein 
>volk".  
>
>You, on the other hand, have presented the "ein volk" [Animal 
>Eaters Unite!]  argument first and the "victimization" arguments 
>last.  In view of the inverse order of your presentation, I suppose 
>we could say that your rhetoric is quite a bit different from 
>Hitler's.  Congratulations.

Russell, you seem quite confused about who is forcing opinions on
another group here.  I don't recall myself, or any other nasty, evil
"Animal Eaters" (to quote your words) forcing anyone to do anything
(i.e., I don't recall forcing you folk to hunt or eat meat).  And I
will of course never try to do so, since I respect your right to not
eat meat.  Please read that a few times and try to digest it, no
matter how bitter the pill may be.  Freedom is only a bad thing on
*your* side of the fence, not over here.


>I'm curious about one point, though.  Would you agree with Hitler 
>that we'd be forcing our views on a set of powerful individuals 
>if we prevent those individuals from forcing their views on 
>others?

What others are you talking about?  Clearly hunters like myself don't
want to eat people.  Oh -- you mean the animals.  I guess we'll always
disagree on this, Russell.  I don't see killing them as being any
different than killing celery or carrots for my salad.  The fact that
animals are "sentient," as defined by Peter Singer and Russell
Lawrence, only means that I will make every effort to kill them
without any unnecessary suffering (note: death ^= suffering).  As Ken
Whitehead says (from my fuzzy memory) "one shot, quick and clean."
That's why I hunt instead of buying things like veal in a store
(although if other people want to eat veal, that's just fine with me).


>  As an example, were we imposing on Jeffrey Dahmer by 
>preventing him from consuming his chosen diet?  

Of course we were "imposing" on Dahmer by preventing him from doing
what he wanted to do.  The issue is whether or not society is right to
do so (as it was in Dahmer's case).  Dahmer's victims were people with
rights.  That's the difference.


John

--
******************************************************************************
               John S. Van Etten     vanetten@unix.cie.rpi.edu
       Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute  1000 MIPS GaAs F-RISC Project
       --"If sand didn't irritate oysters, there would be no pearls"--
Newsgroups: talk.politics.animals