Debate: Vegetarianism vs Non vegetarianism
Side: Non vegetarianism

If referencing an article makes one an expert, then I am an expert in a great many fields.Which is something I never said. You need to read more carefully.I'll give you a quick run-through of our discussion on this point:You said, paraphrased: "Butchering animals is needlessly cruel to the animal."I said, paraphrased: "It depends on the type of butchering method. Kashrut and Halal rituals are less painful."You said, paraphrased: "Minimal pain is still pain. Regardless."I said, paraphrased: "Read the report."You said, paraphrased: "Well it won't be painless every time, slip-ups, etc. occur."I said, paraphrased: "In small farms this is less likely to occur, farmers take pride in their work and are not so overburdened with production. I live in this type of area."You said, paraphrased: "I'm not listening to anecdotes."...Your entire position was tenuous and yet you clung onto that position in the face of someone who knows better, having lived in a country town, owned livestock, etc. Yet you refuse to concede that you may be wrong, instead you dismiss it as anecdotal.This whole paragraph is nothing more than bitter ad-hominem.You really need to reread the list of fallacies. This is at least the third time that you've misidentified a fallacy.Eating as a vegan or vegetarian is not thinking for yourself, neither is meat-eating retained religiously. However if you wish to talk zeal, people who spray paint "vegan power," after breaking into a complex and freeing animals are pretty zealous. So are people who toss paint upon people to support their cause. So was Adolf Hitler, a vegetarian and leader of one of the most zealous armies ever. The point is, don't make this into an issue it isn't.I suggest you re-read the paragraph. You have a habit of skimming over things without reading the points.It doesn't completely undermine it, because it's not clear which scenario leads to the least pain. I have agreed, however, that it calls vegetarianism into question. Again, my argument, and yours, is that we should minimize unnecessary pain. If grass fed cows could do that, then we should have laws that promote the consumption of grass fed cows. If a purely vegetarian diet does that, then we should tax meat.I talked with a woman who raised all sorts of livestock, especially horses, for almost fifty years. She agreed with me that you can't raise cattle on grass only if you want to use them for beef. It's also clear that Halal and Kashrut butchering methods cause the least pain to animals which are used for meat. Since your argument is about minimising pain, and harvesting fields causes it catastrophically, then it ends your position there. Unless you wish to eat grass, or you wish to have your own garden, or you wish to advocate the replacement of harvesters with human gatherers. At this point 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, to the point of dwarfing your concern for cows, sheep, pigs, etc.I'm not even going to legitimise your suggestion of taxing meat. It's absurd and speaks volumes for your simplistic thinking with regards to shaping society.Ok, so from a health perspective, certain meats are ok. We agree that meats high in saturated fat are a bad idea. Meats low in saturated fat, such as turkey breast, would be fine were it not for the moral question.I tend to empathise less for turkeys, from what I've seen they aren't as smart as chickens.For the millionth time, I don't want to penalize others for not sharing my values. I want to penalize others for logically sound health and ethical reasons. Please refrain from abusing this strawman any further.That you think taxing people to force them to eat right is your value. That you think it is very important to eat healthily is your value. The amount of importance you place on physical pain is your value. Learn to distinguish your values from the rest of society's values. I shouldn't have to explain this to you. It should be obvious that taxing people so that they eat in a manner congruent with your tastes is the same as imposing your values, because if they shared your values they would be eating a similar diet in the first place.You ducked my question over when the use of force is appropriate. I believe this is because you cannot give a satisfactory answer given your extreme anti-compulsory views.I believe I answered you thusly:I'm not debating about utilitarianism, nor am I debating about government and its coercive laws. I'm debating your need to penalise others financially because they don't have a diet like yours. I'm debating the lack of respect that your behaviour shows for other people's freedom of choice by trying to force them into what you approve of as a diet, with refusal to comply leading to wasted money.I'm not debating about the use of force in general, either. Try to keep on topic. These are separate debate issues which are very complicated and serve to only distract from the main topic.I agree that a free society should be based on compromises. That's why I'm not calling for the police to throw people in jail for consuming fatty meats. A moderate tax is a compromise.No it isn't. A compromise is dealing with other people's dieting practices. This is why we don't have a fat tax/candy tax/and so on. How people eat is their decision.If you can force people to follow regulations and those regulations enforce moral behavior, then clearly you can force people to be moral through law.Regulations don't enforce moral behaviour. They free people from the process of decision making, so that they need only to look at a book. You're an atheist, right? What exactly have you learned by watching fundamentalists and their capacity for complicated moral choices?You can't make a serial killer empathize and concern themselves with the welfare of humans, using law. But we should legally disincent them from killing just the same.Which is the point. Laws don't build empathy or morality in a society. Instead, laws burden already empathetic and moral people, and can make them even avoid the business if it is too cumbersome. Laws should exist to punish bad behaviour. There is a difference.Is it really necessary to be such a condescending jerk?Sometimes, when people are arrogant and need a verbal slap.You have said nothing in these three paragraphs that I disagree with. I also don't see any refutation of the idea that both culture and legal incentives shape behavior. The central question of whether it is ok to disincent people from taking a particular course of action is not addressed.I thought I implied that the superior course of action is to work socially, not legally. Working legally would only make a culture which disapproves of your views either avoid enforcing the law, or evade the law, or both.Skepticism is important. I'm not bluffing it. I'm simply asking you to provide reliable sources when you make statements of fact. Why does that upset you?It's not scepticism when it is common knowledge that is being denied in an attempt to avoid conceding a point. It's neither an anecdote to bring up common knowledge.China. North Korea. Saudi Arabia. Look them up, everyone knows about how regulated their citizens are, it's also common knowledge how their citizens aren't morally superior.That's true, but I'm arguing that viewpoints should be measured by rationality.Which is besides the point of the discussion, and a topic for a different debate.I'm arguing that it is.If your view was the most logical, you could state your premises, your major and minor points, and follow through with vegetarianism. You'd then support your premises with unassailable evidence, and we'd be through. As it stands, you made an ambiguous case for health (because the true relationship between saturated fats and heart disease is unknown, and not all meats are high in it, and not all fruits are free of it). You made a shaky case for morality (because not everyone even agrees that pain should be minimised, because eating a vegetarian diet causes pain). A most logical argument should be better than this.That's not true. Give me one equally valid and equally inescapable perspective.Okay, here's three:Premise: Unnecessary pain is bad.Premise: Eating meat causes pain.Premise: Eating vegetables from farms which use harvesters causes pain.Causing unnecessary pain is undesirableEating anything but plant-life which comes from a home garden (or manually collected farm) causes unnecessary painErgo we must only eat from home gardens or manually collected farms (to do less is undesirable)Premise: Unnecessary pain is badPremise: Eating poorly butchered animals causes painPremise: Raising animals in factor farms causes painPremise: Eating harvested grains/vegetables/cereals causes painCausing unnecessary pain is undesirableEating properly raised and butchered animals, and manually collected vegetables causes no unnecessary painEating properly raise and butchered animals along with manually collected vegetables is desirablePremise: A meat-eater's diet will cause painPremise: A vegetarian's diet will cause painVegetarians and meat-eaters cause painEating fungi doesn't cause painA fungitarian has a pain-free diet