Debate: Vegetarianism vs Non vegetarianism
Side: Vegetarianism

Ok, look. We agree that we should minimize unnecessary pain. Does vegetarianism do that? Maybe, maybe not. Tractors kill a lot of animals. Would humane butchering practices be the best way to reduce pain? Maybe. What if we attempted to minimize harm in our crop-growing practices? Could we avoid a greater amount of pain in that case? Maybe. I see no clear answers here. Arriving at a satisfactory answer would require careful study. This is what I was getting at when I dismissed your claim that butchering animals is ok because some people you have met try to minimize pain."You have a habit of skimming over things without reading the points."You are eager to assign blame to me, but do not consider that you yourself might deserve some. Reading your writing is like staring into the sun -- painful -- I can only do it through squinted eyes. If you cut out the bile, and edit non-essential statements from your arguments, it would make it a lot easier for me to glean your key points."She agreed with me that you can't raise cattle on grass only if you want to use them for beef."Well if that's true, then the grain you feed the cows has to come from the same processes that would have been used to produce grain for humans, and a greater amount will be required due to the inefficiency inherent in indirect consumption. So she has made a good case for vegetarianism."it doesn't matter whether vegetarianism or a normal diet causes more pain to field animals, because either way it is a lot of pain"Without any actual numbers, that's just a guess. Maybe growing, feeding, and butchering animals causes a million units of pain, while growing crops only causes a hundred thousand. In both cases there's a lot of pain, but we see an order of magnitude improvement in the latter."That you think taxing people to force them to..."Those values you list follow logically from the utilitarian foundation. In short, they are correct. If taxing high-fat meat increases the overall level of well-being, then we should tax high-fat meat. It's as simple as that."I'm not debating about the use of force in general, either."Well seeing as how the ideas of utilitarianism and justified force are essential to my argument for taxing high-fat meat, I don't see how we can debate the issue without establishing their soundness."A compromise is dealing with other people's dieting practices."According to the dictionary, a compromise is "a settlement of differences by arbitration or by consent reached by mutual concessions". I think a moderate tax on high-fat meats fits this definition."Regulations don't enforce moral behaviour."I don't understand how you can deny this obvious truth. It's a simple fact that some people would murder others if they could get away with it. The reason they don't is legal disincentives. If law is nothing more than a guide to decision making, why is there a need to punish those who don't follow it? No, the purpose of law is to keep society from arriving at the vastly sub-optimal local maxima that results from people naively serving their self-interest."Laws should exist to punish bad behaviour."It seems to me you are directly contradicting yourself here. But I agree with this point. Yet I would add that if the consumption of high-fat meat causes a decline in the overall level of happiness, then the consumption of high-fat meat is bad behavior."when people are arrogant and need a verbal slap."I think you are mistaking persistent disagreement for arrogance. I think you're lashing out in childish anger."the superior course of action is to work socially, not legally"Working socially has its limits due to the fact that what is in one's own self-interest often conflicts with the greater good."China. North Korea. Saudi Arabia...common knowledge how their citizens aren't morally superior."I think you give too much respect to "common knowledge." Common knowledge is often flawed. Are people in China really more regulated than the United States? Are those regulations as well enforced? How does the people's income level factor into this? How about the culture? How do we even measure morality? No, these are all very difficult questions, requiring careful study. Your claims amount to argument by hand-waving."...follow through with vegetarianism"I wasn't arguing for vegetarianism there. As I have stated multiple times, the point about animals killed during harvest muddles the issue sufficiently to prevent any clear conclusions on that topic. I was arguing about whether it is ok for government to compel people to serve the common good, as part of the argument about the taxation of high-fat meats.