@Tony Lavis:

‘To be opposed to animal cruelty - really opposed not just saying that for appearances sake - you would argue that people have to be vegan wouldn't you Nick?’

I would argue that veganism is putting the principle of opposing animal cruelty in your daily life. However, I believe many people are concerned about animal cruelty and many take some steps to reducing it – through adopting companion animals rather than supporting breeders/pet shops (therefore reducing the number of animals killed in shelters), through becoming vegetarian, through reducing their consumption of animal products etc. So I think many people, in fact most people, are concerned about animal cruelty, but that the best way to oppose this is to become vegan.

‘rather than just "giving up" and going vegan which inevitably leads to cute little field mice being crushed to death with no hope of a humane death?’

So a diet that includes animal products doesn’t consume any grain? Of course it does. In fact, it consumes a lot more grain, because this grain is fed to other animals, who we then eat, but we get a lot less calories out than we put in. So a non-vegan diet is responsible for the consumption of more animals and also more grains than a vegan one.

Comment continued below…

@Tony Lavis:

…Comment continue from above…

‘As a man with such strong views on animal rights I don't see how you can defend the position that it's fine to kill animals for food as long as you don't eat them.’

Anyone can read my comment on this issue and work out for themselves whether I defended that position. I certainly don’t. In fact veganism is more than a diet and also opposes animals being slaughtered for other reasons such as clothing, which I also mentioned in the article. So both in the article and in these comments, I have raised issues with eating animals, but I am not limited to that. I do not defend animals being killed in the production of plant-based foods and I think that if we had a shift in attitudes and actions towards animals we would be more likely to address more difficult issues like this. As I explained in a comment above regarding the killing of wild animals for plant-based foods:

Just as animals are slaughtered all the time for food when we could easily find other ways to get all the nutrients we need, wild animals are routinely killed rather than exploring other options. I think if we started objecting to the slaughter of other animals for food, we would also start to look for other options to produce crops without harming wild animals. These options may require some “thinking outside the box” rather than just doing what is easy/known because it has always been done and implementing alternative solutions, even if they are more costly/difficult. If we had a change in attitudes towards other animals from merely things for us to use and kill when it is convenient/profitable for us to viewing them as beings with inherent value, then a lot would change for animals, not just domesticated animals, but wild ones as well.

@Tony Lavis
Missed the point of the objection entirely. The fallacy applies to the objectors who claim that it is "natural" to eat meat... . Ergo it is ok to continue to kill animals. Even if it is true that it is natural to eat meat (and I pointed out the logical ambiguity of the term 'natural') it means nothing. Because nothing logically links what is 'natural' with what is desirable. This is a much more plausible claim than the argument you present.

I thought we had put that little sidetrack of yours to bed, CatMack.

>>The fallacy applies to the objectors who claim that it is "natural" to eat meat<<

I know you don't like the idea, but in the spectrum of human behaviour it is equally "natural" to eat meat as it is to eat vegetables. So if you were to claim "it is natural for people to eat potatoes", I would be unable to challenge that statement. In much the same way that if I say "it is natural for people to eat steak", I have the evidence of many millennia on my side.

I will however point out that "it is natural for people to eat tofu" is not something you tend to hear very often.

>>...nothing logically links what is 'natural' with what is desirable<<

That is true. So you should concentrate your arguments, surely, on convincing people that what they see as perfectly natural behaviour, is somehow undesirable. So far, you have shown us only that such behaviour is deemed undesirable by a small number of people, who have themselves chosen vegan as their lifestyle, via a concerted effort to anthropomorphize the creatures that we use for food.

If you are unable to do more than that, I suggest you stop sermonizing. On current evidence, people will stop eating meat only when it becomes uneconomic to do so, since they presently appear to have no latent emotional desire to do so.

In short, your marketing approach appears to have little or no traction in its present form.

Have you perhaps considered asking Gruen Planet to do a segment on promoting the idea of "no more meat" - they might go for it as an antidote to that ridiculous man who spruiks the delights of eating lamb.

That might give you some more practical ideas to boost your pitch, which - if the evidence of this thread is anything to go by - is severely lacking in cut-through.

@Tony Lavis:

…Comment continued from above…

‘Because I don't want to starve to death.’

Nor do I, so the best solution is to eat plant-based foods. A totally plant-based diet = no domesticated animals slaughtered, less grains used, therefore less wild animals killed. Just because it is impossible to have no impact, doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do what we can to reduce our impact.

‘One ought to not cause suffering to sentient beings’

I think that all sentient beings have interests and when someone has interests, this brings about the need for rights to protect these interests. So animal rights theory is based on rights-based philosophy, not just “feelings”. If you do not think there is any reason to avoid suffering to sentient beings, why should we oppose the puppy slaughter I mentioned in the article? Or any other actions towards other animals? Cock fighting etc.

‘in most cases omnivores are knowingly and willingly participating in the killing of cows so they can eat them’

I think that most people know this at some level, however, the meat in the plastic package in the supermarket is very separate to the animal it came from. We are not encouraged to think about the animal it came from and I think most people consume animal products because their parents did, because most people around them do etc – because it’s “normal” – not because they want to harm animals.

‘The pigs band together and install a communist dictatorship’

Haha I haven’t seen any stirrings of revolution or pigs thirsty for power at Edgar’s Mission animal sanctuary.

‘It is different ethically when the slaughtering was performed by a chronic solvent sniffer using a blunt steak knife’

I have addressed this in a comment above in reply to @Pericles:

Comment continued below…

@Tony Lavis:

…Comment continued from above – this is my response to @Pericles on ‘clinical’ slaughter vs the puppy slaughter I referred to in the article…

‘Why does the fact that the dog had their throat cut by a ‘chronic solvent sniffer’ make it worse than the “clinical” conditions of a slaughterhouse? First of all, we may like to think of the conditions as “clinical”, but I think the differences between slaughterhouse conditions and this puppy slaughter case are more a perception rather than a reality. A reality that can be established if we actually look into what goes on in a slaughterhouse, rather than just assuming things are “clinical”. For example, I did an interview with a Western Australian slaughterhouse worker, and not only did the conditions not sound any better than this puppy slaughter (actually they sounded worse), but most people slitting these sheep’s throats were also using drugs to cope with their job: http://ebookbrowse.com/nick-pendergrast-the-silence-of-the-lambs-pdf-d366878864

This case is certainly not an “isolated incident”, as is revealed in more large scale studies such as the book ‘Slaughterhouse’: http://www.amazon.com/Slaughterhouse-Shocking-Inhumane-Treatment-Industry/dp/1573921661 If you look into slaughterhouses, you will find high levels of drug use, so once again, the differences between this puppy slaughter and the slaughter of other animals, is more based on perceptions than facts.’

We may feel better that things are done “properly” because slaughter is ‘carried out in puppy abattoirs [or slaughterhouses for other animals] by trained slaughterers using appropriate tools’ but that is about us – I don’t think the reality for the victim is significantly different.

‘Which was described by the presiding judge as the worst case of animal cruelty he had ever seen.’

Again, I think this had more to do with the species of the victim than any significant differences in the slaughter.

‘There would be monitoring of slaughter practices by outside bodies and avenues of appeal if you thought the puppies were being cruelly treated.’

I think you show too much faith in such monitoring and outside bodies. All of these were in place in the slaughterhouse that the worker I interviewed worked at.