This is total nonsense. First of all, you seem to be forgetting that the majority of people aren't even capable of understanding that there might even be a reason that eating meat is wrong, but more importantly, eating meat is perfectly morally justifiable. Vegetarianism doesn't save animal lives, it prevents animal births. If everyone stopped eating meat and using animal products, cows would go extinct outside of zoos. The fact of the matter is that most animals are intended by nature to be eaten. The only problem with eating meat is the conditions in which that meat is raised. As such, I definitely see eating free range and grass fed meat as being morally superior, but vegetarianism most certainly is not. In reality, almost no meat eaters think the way you claim and that you believe this shows that you are way out of touch with the common man.

Buffalo is yummy, hasn't the Buffalo population been on the rise in the US? A friend of mine has a Buffalo herd on his ranch in Colorado. Amazing animals, the herd is on the roam constantly.

Okay, another scenario. Suppose an alien civilisation shows up, and they are plenty smarter than we are, they make us feel like the shaved apes we are, and they think they have much better capacity to live life well on our planet than we can ever do. And they also find us rather tasty and fun to play with at times. Is it wrong for them to feast on the fattest of us and put the rest to work or in zoos? We won't be subject to too much suffering in their eyes, mind you. How can we know they aren't being "reasonable judges?"

Well said.

It's a fact of nature that humans are omnivores. We can see it in aspects of our biology -- our teeth, where our eyes are located, and I'm sure scientists can point out tons of other things.

We don't NEED to eat meat, but it's hard to say it's morally wrong when we evolved to do it.

Careful, one could justify, cannibalism, war, rape, pillaging, enslavement, so on, based on our evolution, what we as a species have done for ages and are still capable of doing. We've developed our morality along the way in spite of our nature.

It really doesn't when you try to say that it's not rape by the way back definition.

Huh? First expand on the "it" you're talking about. Be specific.

Well if we're being super specific there are two "it" in that sentence so you go first.

I see a distinct difference between what we're capable of doing as a species, and how aspects of our bodies have actually evolved. We've evolved to eat both plants and animals as evidenced by our biology. That's good enough for me.

Same here. I love meat. Ribeye steak med rare or a good Hardees Frisco burger (a biannual indulgence). Don't get me started.

We've also evolved to be attracted to women when they begin developing breasts*, but our morality holds us back a few more years. We've evolved to feel anger and lash out at those we hate violently, but we're working on that too.

*I guess that's wrong, I liked girls in kindergarten, but you get the point I hope.

Do your questions have purpose?

What information do you seek to gain from your first question? What if you choose to do what you choose?

As we can see evident across these forums, using the word racist as a label comes with various levels of accuracy and knowledgeable proficiency. Answers about this central element of the situation must be formed before advancing to peripheral questions, such as your second one.

Does my purpose have to be obvious for my question to be worth asking? If it is not obvious, does it feel like I am trying to manipulate you or herd you into a trap?

As we can see evident across these forums, there is disagreement on what is evident. Maybe we need some meta-discussion about the framework for talking about racism before having a more profitable discussion about racism.

spank- You are not knowledgeable. Anyone who tries to whitewash Bruce isn't in any position to declare proficiency in racial issues.

He did a report though.

What we know about them bring reasonable judges is besides the point.

All we can hope for is that they do recognise us as beings deserving of respect and that they are decent.

The condemnation of slave owners is that they must have done the former but they weren't the latter

From one perspective there has been an ongoing meta-discussion about the framework for talking about racism in this forum since before it's inception and continues now.

We have laid a groundwork to classify and grade discussion behaviors related to the topic . A question is- can it be done equitably to any given post without the inclusion of partisan-like criticism of any given poster's screen name? I think we have an opportunity to try a new thread available on this element of the topic.

Man, not enough lols for the notion that we can't accuse rapers of rape if the rapers didn't define their rapes to be rapes.

Yes, we can hope. But is it possible they find themselves decent and still don't feel we deserve respect? We're just animals of much lower intelligence and awareness than they? They've probably conquered star systems, after all, and we're still beating up our own planet.


So slave owners like Jefferson, who must have somewhat* known better, are worthy of our scorn, but not slave owners in Plato's time when even most of the smartest and wisest were sure slaves weren't deserving of respect?

If you admit that, then it becomes a graduated issue, where people are condemned more the closer they get to realizing our version of morality, until they actually fully make the change. In that case, we'll always end up condemning many of those who fought to instill our current moral values more that those who were far removed from it. Those who fight against global warming ought to be scorned more for driving cars because they know better, even though they are working hard to solve the problem.

*we know he thought black people weren't as smart, a prevalent thought at the time when the study of genetics was young and there was little empirical evidence to prove otherwise.

You can't judge them because you'd be raping people just like they were if you lived back then! I mean, who wouldn't have??

/HoldnRape

How do you guys feel about child marriages from centuries past? Rape?

I think it's pretty sick that you'd be raping women or marrying 6 year olds if you thought it would be culturally acceptable.

It is irrational to scorn at long dead people.

Mr.Wookie does so, while interfering and scorning living people having a discussions about how those long dead people may have thought and why they thought what they did.

He then plays the faux victim, acting like he is being told not to interfere when his interference is merely being noted as a discussion point.

Mr.Wookie is ,of course, free to drop the historic appeals to emotion and the routine of mischaracterizing mockery at anytime if he does not want those weaknesses in his anti-philosophical arguments to be discussed.

Shut up, spank. Only you and maybe Alex believe any of the crap you type.

I've discussed this in PMs with jj, but you have inspired me to finally get around to starting this thread.