On Wed, Dec 16, 2009 at 4:41 PM, Bob W <[email protected]> wrote: > As I understand it the vegan position is that we shouldn't exploit animals > at all, so no wool, no honey, no pets etc.
I don't buy wool anymore. I continue to wear the wool that I already possessed at the time I chose to go vegan. When (or if) they wear out, I'll purchase replacements made of non-animal products. I choose not to eat honey. I will adopt a pet as a "rescue" - one who for whatever reason is no longer wanted by their human, or whose human can no longer care for them. I will not buy or adopt a baby animal (or any other animal) from a pet store or a breeder. My cat, Patches, was given to me at the age of 7 years in 1996 by someone whose one year old child had developed a horrible allergy to cats - their pediatrician advised them that they had to get rid of their cats (I took both of them; one's since passed on). Given my current thoughts on the matter, I would consider it perfectly acceptable to adopt Patches under those circumstances today. > In my opinion it's not really a tenable position for all of humanity to > adopt and would, at least in the short term, lead to more animal suffering > than it would alleviate. Nevertheless, individuals are free to make their > own choices. I disagree with the first part of the above paragraph, but this is hardly the forum to get into a lengthy discussion on that subject. Besides, you're way smarter than me and use big words that I have to look up in a dictionary and you'd win any argument between us. ;-) As for the last sentence of that paragraph, I thank you for that position. I take the same non-judgmental position wrt meat eaters. My decision is a personal one and I don't expect others to make the same decision. If one decides that their preference is to eat meat and use animal products, I respect that decision and make no comment on it one way or the other. Hey, I'm in a very small minority; most of my friends are meat-eaters. If I chose not to befriend them any longer, I'd have very few friends! ;-) > Sheep are not really in their natural state any more, thanks to artificial > selection, and would suffer considerably if they weren't regularly sheared, > just as most cows would suffer if they weren't milked. > > Not all sheep need to be sheared, of course. The Ethiopian Hair Sheep is a > good example. They are bred for their hide, which makes wonderful leather > (Pittards). In fact, I have a pair of cycling gloves made from their > leather. Again, no comment wrt the previous two paragraphs as this is getting to OT even for me and in all likelihood my answer will only perpetuate this thread, which I'm not thrilled to do at this point. cheers, frank -- "Sharpness is a bourgeois concept." -Henri Cartier-Bresson -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
