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For better and worse, I have, over the years, held views that are anathema to most people, particularly when it comes to the rights of nonhumans. For example, I consider the following self-evident:
(1) Human life and nonhuman life are of equal intrinsic value.
(2) Human rights and nonhuman rights are of equal moral importance.
Such beliefs make moral consistency impossible because humans must kill to live. Even if a person so reveres life that he only eats those parts of plants that don’t require the destruction of the whole, other plants must die and other creatures be driven from their homes in order to make space for agriculture. Some members of the Jain religion become so aggrieved by this that they starve themselves to death.
My cats are so extraordinarily sensitive and loving that I address them with such endearments as Doll, Angel, Heaven, Ecstasy, Lady Girl, All in All, His Holiness, King of my Heart, Most Worshipful Master, He Whom My Love Doth Devour, Most Beautiful Cat in the World, and Patriarch of the Cat Side of the Family. Even so, it bothers me that a cat’s beauty and virtue rest upon a foundation of corpses. Sometimes, I talk to them about this. Yesterday, I brought it up to Ollie during our nightly cuddle, and because he requires that our talks be conducted with the door closed, I learned more from him than I had from others:
Me: “Ollie it troubles me that you just jumped from my lap, killed a spider, and then returned to my lap to tell me of your love with a thousand purrs. Have you no remorse, no consideration for the rights of the little creature whose life you ended?”
Ollie: “Do you mean to say that I am a hypocrite or simply that my behavior is paradoxical?”
Me: “The latter, the fact being that, even when you are dozing, you are but a hair’s breadth from killing. While I too kill spiders, I only do so because they clutter up the house with their webs, and Peggy screams when she sees one. God forbid that a spider should fall on her face while she’s taking a shower or, worse yet, walk across her steering wheel while she’s driving. Decades ago, I caused her to question my devotion to our marriage by announcing that I would no longer kill arachnids. I tried to console her by adding that I would instead ferry them outdoors, but I failed. As it turned out, my plan also failed because, once outside, the spiders went to work building webs under soffits, in front of windows, and on the rear-view mirror of her car. When I observed that they and their offspring were finding their way back in, I returned to killing, often to the accompaniment of Peggy’s screams—screams that scared the dogs as much as the spiders scared Peggy.
“Being a just, loving, and compassionate person, I regret having to kill, whereas you, Ollie, despite your many virtues, take obscene delight in visiting death upon the innocent. If you were human, you would doubtless have a taxidermist mount your victims in fearsome poses and hang them on every wall. Peggy would then scream every time she walked into a room, and you would find yourself in an institution for callous cats. Because of the pleasure you take in killing others, I sometimes wonder if you would kill me if you were big enough.”
Ollie: “Let me get this straight. You knew I was a predator when you adopted me, and that guiltless killing was inherent to my nature. You, on the other hand, are not a predator, yet you find it within your ‘just, loving, and compassionate’ heart to destroy innocent creatures simply because their existence scares your phobic wife and their webs offend your aesthetic sensibilities! You would be better off had you been born a cow or a rabbit, but because you are a peculiar sort of man, you are tormented, and you want me to feel tormented too so I can stand at your feet on your pedestal of moral superiority and proclaim: ‘Oh, what a cruel world it is that loving creatures like ourselves must resort to killing!’ I don’t apologize for being what nature made me. I instead take pride in the fact that I can instantly go from loving to killing and back again because that is how my ancestors survived.”
Because Peggy and I are, for the most part, vegetarians, Ollie doesn’t realize that, like cats, most members of the human species also kill helpless birds and animals, although their killing differs from cats’ killing in that cats are obligate carnivores, whereas meat is so toxic to humans that meat-eaters die eight years younger than vegetarians.*
If the Abrahamic religions are correct in maintaining that humans alone know right from wrong, it is also true that humans alone choose to inflict avoidable suffering, death, and environmental damage simply because we enjoy the taste of corpses. In what way, then, is the only species that knows right from wrong, yet freely embraces wrong, superior to a species that lacks such knowledge and whose existence depends upon meat? We humans—including people like myself who eat eggs, dairy, and the occasional fish—not only tend toward depravity, we run headlong into it. I envy cats their innocence.
*https://www.huffpost.com/entry/plant-based-diet_b_1981838
41 comments:
Nice work. I could be good and perhaps live longer, but oh the boredom so I will stay a little bit bad.
It is a quandary isn't it? I do usher spiders outside. Himself doesn't shriek when he sees them, but he does kill them. And is afraid of them.
I am a vegetarian (he is not). Jazz is not.
And I love them both.
I would put some animal's lives well ahead of some humans on the question of worth.
am just refusing to apologize for being born human - or eating meat once in a while. Don't do it often, because factory farms are total hell-holes for the animals - Bible even says that a man cares for the life of his beast.
Hhmmm, you'd think shelling out $15 for a modest steak, would be enough to fund atleast some sunny breathing space and clean water for the critters. You'd think, but we both know how it goes (reprobate$ be reprobate$).
"I could be good and perhaps live longer, but oh the boredom so I will stay a little bit bad."
What would the boring part be?
"I would put some animal's lives well ahead of some humans on the question of worth."
I simply know a lot more asshole people than I do about asshole other creatures. Of course, I'm mostly speaking about the interactions of domestic pets. In the case of the birds and squirrels at my feeders, there is clearly a lot of heated competition and even violence despite there being enough food for everyone. Yet do those birds and squirrels have the ability to choose their behavior? I doubt it. But do we choose our behavior? Scientific studies are throwing doubt on it. For example, a researcher can tell from watching an MRI what choice a study participant will make even before the participant consciously makes it. Does this not suggest that choice is but an illusion?
"am just refusing to apologize for being born human"
Nor do I regard being human as something to apologize for because it all depends upon whether a person puts a lot of thought into issues of right and wrong, and then does his or her best to be true to the right without regard for what others are doing. Surely, you know that there are farmers who raise their animals in humane conditions, yet they still feel entitled to kill them without necessity. I ate my last meat in 1982, so I'm at the point where the sight and smell of it sickens me. I do eat eggs with the knowledge that nearly all of the baby roosters are killed, and I also eat cheese and butter with the knowledge that nearly all of the baby bulls are killed. And then there's the high amount of carbon that it takes to produce animal products, and also the high amount of methane in cow farts. The more people there are on earth, the less sustainable cows, chickens, and animal products in general become.
What is the point of the human race? It emerged from the slime and grew into the planet's master race of animals.
Humans, like all forms of animal life, are born to procreate and then die. Some rise to the top of the species, the vast majority just strive to exist.
A small percentage of the "top" humans have created easier ways for the lesser mortals to live their lives and in so doing have destroyed much of the world's basic needs. Man's inventiveness is often at the cost of nature's essential needs.
Humans have the potential to end the world, and probably will do so, sooner or later.
So, what's the point??
"What is the point of the human race?
Aside from our desperate will to survive, I would agree that there is no INHERENT purpose to the existence of our species or any other, yet it is also true that most of us are able to assign ourselves a reason to live. As with you and I, this doesn't mean that we're happy overall, but then I would view big picture happiness as being beyond a peson's conscious control (Abraham Lincoln reportedly said, "A man is about as happy as he makes up his mind to be," yet Lincoln himself suffered from recurring periods of clinical depression.)
As with humans, I suspect that the happiness of members of other species (the mammalian ones anyway (non-mammalians being too different from us for us to understand well) exists along a continuum and is dependent upon numerous factors. However, I would be amazed if a single cat--or other creature--ever asked himself or herself about the advisability of existence or looked for purpose in life. When I reflect upon how obviously content my own cats are, I wonder how in the hell they do it. They sleep sixteen hours a day and devote a third of the remaining eight to bathing. After that comes playing, cuddling, eating, and observing one thing or another, all within the confines of this house. Yet they're happier than I am. Of course, it's probably true that they have no idea how soon they will die or how vulnerable they are to things that I can't protect them from, but then it's also true that I know these things about myself very, very well, yet they not only fail to add to my satisfaction in life, they seriously detract from it.
"Humans have the potential to end the world, and probably will do so, sooner or later."
Although we are even now destroying thousands of species a year and might conceivably wipe out our own species at some point, new species that can adapt to the mess we've made will evolve from the ones that are left, and it won't even be the first mass destruction that the earth has ever known. This is hardly something to look forward to, just as the fact that the earth and all of its life will someday be destroyed is not something to look forward to, yet I take some small pleasure in knowing that our power for destruction is limited because, were it not, then we would indeed kill ourselves and everything else too.
I agree completely with your first two points. and humans of all of creation, I think, are the only ones who kill just because they can. well, Ollie disproves that with the spider, but I think you get my drift. and I do think that the Abrahamic religions are absolutely to blame for our thinking that only humans are conscious beings and that the world is here for us to use. but every living thing is self aware and aware of its environment, even plants which converse with their peers. I mean how could any living creature navigate its part of the world without self-awareness.
A very interesting discussion, both in the blog and in the comments. I love animals and I love meat. I hate the process that turns one into the other. Is that cognitive dissonance?
A word of advice, do not believe any research that involves Seventh Day Adventists. They are the drivers behind the anti-livestock movement.
I am tormented at times also, over the brutality of nature and the food chain whose top members eat those below. It's life in an ecosystem. Humans have screwed up the concept completely and as a result, will vanish from earth at some point. I don't like the concept of destroying a life, even that of a fly or spider, but I do it. I know they want to live as much as I want to live. A concept of moral superiority for not eating corpses, how does that exist together, as it may inside me, with my basic belief that we are all equal, as living things, that one species or one individual of one species is of no more significance or worth, than another. I am an animal. Nothing more.
Sometimes I think of all life forms as feeding tubes, mouth to butt. The different species--just trial and error add ons to discover the best outerwear to feed the tube.
"...humans...are the only ones who kill just because they can. Well, Ollie disproves that with the spider, but I think you get my drift."
When I observe how obsessed cats are with hunting, I seriously doubt that they are able to choose to do otherwise. What I don't know is whether our actions are any less the unalterable product of cause and effect--that is, are we creatures of choice or rather creatures with the illusion of choice? .
"I do think that the Abrahamic religions are absolutely to blame for our thinking that only humans are conscious beings and that the world is here for us to use..."
Assuming you haven't already seen the following Gallup Poll result, it will no doubt cheer you, the good news being that church membership has dropped by 23% in the last twenty years: https://news.gallup.com/poll/341963/church-membership-falls-below-majority-first-time.aspx
"...every living thing is self aware and aware of its environment, even plants which converse with their peers."
I'm aware that some plants communicate and cooperate, but since they lack a brain is it possible that they are conscious, and if brainless lifeforms are conscious, is it then reasonable to speculate that, just maybe, non-living things are also conscious? I know that, from my earliest memory, I believed that awareness was a universal attribute (a belief that is, for some reason, referred to as the pathetic fallacy), and, even now, I am no less able to say no to my oldest remembered belief than Ollie is to say no to killing.
"I love animals and I love meat. I hate the process that turns one into
the other. Is that cognitive dissonance?"
I assume that, by love, you simply mean appreciation since I cannot imagine you looking an animal in the eye and saying: "Although I love you, I'm going to slit your throat and eat your corpse." ...This reminds me that, while still in Mississippi, I had two bumper stickers on my Datsun truck. One was in praise of the American Civil Liberties Union, while the other proclaimed, "Love Animals, Don't Eat Them," the apparent assumption behind the second sticker being that no one can kill a creature that he loves...
I stopped eating meat in 1983 without missing it except for bacon and pork chops. I gradually got over missing bacon, but 38-years after becoming a vegetarian, I STILL miss pork chops, although I have no idea whether I could enjoy one now. I say this because I used to love cream-filled doughnuts, but when I ate one after years of not eating them, the most I could say for it was that it was okay. I concluded from this that my taste had changed, and I suspect that the same might be even more true of pork chops.
"A word of advice, do not believe any research that involves Seventh Day Adventists. They are the drivers behind the anti-livestock movement."
Come to think of it, I'm pretty anti-livestock too, this due to both humane considerations and environmental concerns. Now...for the purposes of the study, it would make no difference if Adventists buggered dogs and chopped adorable little toddlers into tiny piece for the fun of it, there having been only two study-relevant considerations: (1) Were the subjects of the study vegetarians? (2) Did the subjects of the study live longer, and if so how much longer. However, it's also true that studies of non-Adventist vegetarians yielded the same results.
"Sometimes I think of all life forms as feeding tubes, mouth to butt. The different species--just trial and error add ons to discover the best outerwear to feed the tube."
While I agree that living beings are, among other things, eating machines, I don't know what conclusion(s) you draw from this, but I would guess that it's not a happy one.
"I am tormented at times also, over the brutality of nature and the food chain whose top members eat those below."
I know what you mean. Nature documentaries can be hard to watch because while I'm horrified by the image of a fox killing a rabbit, I'm even more horrified to envision a mother fox and her pups starving because she was unable to kill rabbits.
"I don't like the concept of destroying a life, even that of a fly or spider, but I do it."
If I hated it more, I wouldn't do it because I rarely NEED to. So when do I "need to"? I need to when carpenter ants invade my house, in which case killing them is an act of self-defense. Killing spiders is another matter. I never kill one without regret, and there is even one species (I don't know its name, but they're small, black, hairy, and don't, so far as I know, make webs) that I so adore that I can't bring myself to kill its members at all. But why do I spare that species? Because I regard them as cute, and their cuteness leads me to so personify them that killing one would feel a tiny bit like killing a puppy or a kitten. Aside from spiders, the only things that I do kill are flies, ants, and mosquitoes. Most other species, I try to help in one way or another--for example, in winter, I move earthworms from the wet street to my compost pile; I warmly welcome paper wasps into my storage shed, and I built a home for solitary wasps.
"A concept of moral superiority for not eating corpses, how does that exist together, as it may inside me, with my basic belief that we are all equal, as living things, that one species or one individual of one species is of no more significance or worth, than another. I am an animal. Nothing more."
Do you mean to say that you're unable to reconcile the feeling of moral superiority that you get from not eating corpses with the belief that all beings are equal? If that is what you're referring to, I don't believe that individuals are of equal worth, and, in fact, I view some of them as being of such negative worth that I would rejoice upon receiving news of their deaths. Examples include sadists, rapists, dictators, child molesters, various fascistic politicians, people who cheat the elderly out of their life savings, etc. When I speak of equality, I have reference to different things. For example, I believe in equality in the sense that we should all be equal under law; have equal access to medical care, and be afforded equal job opportunities. I also believe that the inherent worth of the members of one species is equal to the inherent worth of the members of another species. If I were to live in accordance with my highest beliefs, values, and ideals, my life would bear little resemblance to what it's like today. When I consider your life, I see in you someone who has dedicated herself to living in accordance with her values regardless of the cost in time, money, self-denial, and aggravation.
What a fabulous conversation that was Snow!
One of my little beauties has just trundled in reminding me in case I forget that it's 30 minutes to feeding time! Their food clocks are amazing, just wish that they could sleep to 7am before their alarms go off.
I don't like spiders & neither do the cats but they just watch them, it's birds & mice they love to chase sadly.
Husband gets the job of taking the spiders outside to continue their work of getting rid of flies etc so we don't kill them.
Hope you Peggy & lovely moggies are keeping well. Take care.
I don't envy cats much, or dogs either, though they look very happy running for a ball. I envy a woodlouse, or a blue whale though.
Beware the Daily Mail, it's known high and low for false reporting, false studies, and general lies, there's no rag I despise more than that one.
We have sun my dear! Woo-hoo! X
"Beware the Daily Mail, it's known high and low for false reporting, false studies, and general lies, there's no rag I despise more than that one."
Sounds like a British version of an American embarrassment called the National Enquirer--or do you have that one too? In this event, the Mail correctly reported a study from a scientific journal entitled Cancer, but upon receiving your objection, I removed the reference rather than rely upon a source that a trustworthy reader tells me is a piece of contemptuous crap.
I thought of you a good bit while writing this post because I wondered if you would agree with the two beliefs with which I started the post, and with the fact that they make moral consistency impossible. Rather than have you go back and read them, I'll repeat them here. First, the two beliefs:
"(1) Human life and nonhuman life are of equal intrinsic value. "(2) Human rights and nonhuman rights are of equal moral importance."
Now, for the problem that they create: "Such beliefs make moral consistency impossible because humans must kill to live. Even if a person so reveres life that s/he only eats those parts of plants that don’t require the destruction of the whole, other plants must die and other creatures be driven from their homes in order to make space for agriculture."
Because, at a bare minimum, morality requires that we avoid eating creatures that scream and attempt to run away when being "harvested" (yes, I've heard the word being used in this way), I didn't intend this post as a criticism of veganism/vegetarianism, but rather as an expression of my own thought that there is no diet so pure that I, at least, could pursue it without guilt. So far as I know, you are my only vegan reader, and as someone who has given a great deal of thought to a compassionate diet, I would greatly value any thoughts you might be so kind as to share. I know that you have often been verbally attacked by meat-eaters who accuse you of thinking that you are more moral than they, and although you deny that you see yourself in such a way, I don't understand why you don't because, in the area of diet, the person who makes a conscious effort to reduce the world's suffering is surely more moral than the person who knowingly dines on creatures that met their deaths in trembling terror. Obviously, a given vegan might be a moral trainwreck in every other way--just as a meat-eater might be a moral exemplar in every other way--but when it comes to diet, I, a non-vegan, view you and your fellow vegans as hands-down superior.
I'll be back later today dearie, I've answered these points before when you've covered them you see, but that was a while back. I don't think you're having a go in the slightest! My Nutshell is to cause as little pain to sentient beings as possible without causing myself pain. It's not been hard to do. I simply do my best and my best seems to go further than most people's efforts, which is their choice. But I'm writing this with one finger on the mobile in huge text so need to review what you've said again. So, much like the terminator, I'll be back. X
"(1) Human life and nonhuman life are of equal intrinsic value. "(2) Human rights and nonhuman rights are of equal moral importance." I think morals are all over the show with humans because they vary so much and people bend them at will to be the shape they want, so it's tricky being general about them. For myself it's morally wrong to purposely ignore torture and killing and cruelty that's purposely inflicted for nothing more than one's own tastes and pleasures. Lots of poeple don't want to hear that. Meat eaters often say 'What about the carrots and the carrot's babies?!' or 'What about the bugs on windshield?' I find the lengths they're going to, in order to excuse their own behaviour a very poor show. Lets say we take a cat and hurt it intentionally because it makes us laugh and compare it to driving to work and bugs, going about their daily life just the same as the driver is, get killed. INTENT. I can't get over the amount of anger from meat eaters towards people who are simlpy saying they themselves don't want to cause unneeded death or cruelty. That's it, just saying 'No thanks I don't eat meat' sets them off into some kind of froth. Do people consider themselves better than killers in jail because they don't go round killing people for pleasure like they do? Yes they do think they're better for it. Do I think I'm better than people who won't look into how much pain and cruelty is behind their lifestyle? No, I think I give more of a crap about animals than they do. That's all. I've heard 'I'm too old' as a reason too which translates to ' I can't be arsed'. Justification is so tiresome, and nastiness towards people who care about these things reflects the worst in humanity I think. Just try not to hurt animals, people, the earth, the planet as much as you can, it's a very peaceful rewarding way to live and perfectly healthy. If people don't want to that's fine, I don't rant at them and call them murderers, I don't pick at everything they say I leave them be until asked questions like this. I admire you for knowing what goes into your diet and making a choices that are informed sweetie. Good on you.
I found your points to be insightful and well-worded overall, yet you lost me with the following:
"Do I think I'm better than people who won't look into how much pain and cruelty is behind their lifestyle? No, I think I give more of a crap about animals than they do."
As you said, you have covered this point before (perhaps years before), but I asked you again simply because I had been unable to make sense of your previous answer, and wanted to have another go at it. To wit, you say that you don't see yourself as "better," but simply as someone who, unlike meat eaters, wishes to avoid the infliction of needless suffering. If that doesn't qualify you as "better," then I don't know how you define the word. While you might not be (and probably aren't) morally superior to a meat eater in every way possible, you're certainly better in the way that is under discussion.
"I don't rant at them and call them murderers..."
This is another point that I don't quite understand. On the one hand, calling them murderers would result in anger, and perhaps hatred, toward you and other vegans. However, IF you agree (and you might not) that all forms of life are of equal intrinsic value, then would you not be justified in calling them murderers? For my part, I make no moral distinction between the shooting of, for example, a harmless nonhuman and the shooting of a harmless human, because the only way to justify killing the former is to claim that he or she is unimportant, a claim that, in my view, defies rational justification and therefore amounts to specieist rationalization.
cont.
"I admire you for knowing what goes into your diet and making a choices that are informed sweetie. Good on you."
Arrgh! If I didn't know and trust you, I would suspect you of sarcasm, but because I know and trust you, I can but thank you for remaining open to the good that is within me. However, I can't see that I deserve your kind words because, in my view, I'm simply so callous and depraved that I am able to make choices that are as immoral as they are informed ! Perhaps, I am a better person than many in that I have at least made some effort to mitigate the suffering I knowingly cause (for example by only eating eggs that were laid by cageless hens that are allowed access to the outdoors, but this is surely a low bar to jump...
"What about the bugs on windshield?"
I suppose you could respond with the same level of bullshit that is being thrown at you by saying that you get out of your fucking car with your fucking shovel and give the fucking bugs a fucking funeral... I understand that the people who asked this were merely trying to goad you with what they regarded as a scintillatingly brilliant reductio ad absurdum attack, yet the question is nevertheless, as you acknowledge, valid to the practice of ahimsa, and, as such, Jains use it to justify their refusal to drive (or travel by other means). Decades ago, I spent a few days at a Hare Krishna community near subtropical New Orleans, and the people there lived by a similar standard. So it was that they were tormented by mosquitoes and their food was covered with many thousands of flies (whose millions of eggs would--had they not been eaten--have soon grown into millions of maggots).
"INTENT"
Legally, there are, of course, different levels of murder, and so it is that a person can be so charged even if he had no intention of killing anyone, the reason being that the law expects us to make an effort to preserve life (of course, the law is only concerned with human life). So it is that, for those who revere all forms of life equally, one must be wary lest rationalization assumes the form of justification--driving (indeed all forms of travel) being a common situation in which rationalization might easily intrude. Thoreau wrote that our entire lives are "startlingly moral" in that our every decision has a moral component and speaks volumes about the kind of person we are. In Christian circles, one hears of sins of commission and sins of omission, it not being enough to avoid the intention of doing evil (Jesus illustrates the sin of omission in his parable about the Good Samaritan).
...If there is anything of good that comes from my many moral failures it is that I am less judgmental than I would otherwise be... There's a Quaker self-examination question that goes somewhat like the following: "Although I work to oppose war, do I find in myself the spirit that makes war possible?" In spirit, I would make a bloodthirsty vegan, the kind of vegan that people wrongly accuse you of being.
'To wit, you say that you don't see yourself as "better," but simply as someone who, unlike meat eaters, wishes to avoid the infliction of needless suffering. If that doesn't qualify you as "better," then I don't know how you define the word. ' - Okay, so my experience is that it goes against helping the cause, which is the relief of animals from pain etc to indicate feeling superior or in any way act upon that. Even here it isn't something I would say to be the case, I don't like 'superior' for a start, and no-one who might think again about meat-eating would either. I am all about easing people into the idea, through discussion, any mention of superiority is going to fall flat on it's face. But do you feel it he cries?!! Not like that, I feel disappointed other people who claim to love animals don't educate themselves on it and attack me and my ilk, religious people baffle me as all they go on about is kindness and yet limit it to themselves and their pets.
'However, IF you agree (and you might not) that all forms of life are of equal intrinsic value, then would you not be justified in calling them murderers?' - Being justified is irrelevant and indeed would be a selfish act on my part, piss them off and once again not help people think again. It would make them angry and the angry ones are in a froth of incapability to change as they can't bear to think of themselves as anything but animal lovers etc. Once again, it isn't about me and my right to feel anything, it's about how to help the animals.
I wasn't being sarcastic no! Hahahahahahahahahahaha. It's because you are willing to find out what happens to chicks (many are chucked into meat grinders alive on dairy farms, even 'lovely nice' dairy farms - me stating that alone will make some people very angry by the way), the devastation to a hen's body after years of forced egg-laying (my friend keeps rescued battery hens, they're always in an absolute state and need a great deal of care from a vet usually before they die, but they finally experience kindness and love). I can't bear those who won't even read about it and just baa away about it being natural and that they know their meat is from a wonderful place where all the animals skip freely and play poker and have all the kids round on a Sunday (that was sarcasm).
I know many loud angry vegans, and I admire them for their ability to confront meat-eaters, it is something that has either been beaten out of me over the years or was never happily there. I will have discussions all day long as long as they are civil, but when hatred is turned upon me I leave. It's my way, others abound back or even challenge people as they eat meat. I don't think shaming as a practice for anything works well though. I am angry though, very angry and sad that I've been so alone on my journey for so long and now it's the twelfth hour for humans so far as ecology goes tons of them are jumping up and down pleased as punch because they 'do their bit' and eat plant-based food. I don't tell them I'm angry and think they prove that humans are inherently selfish to the core, but I think it, yet still, whatever it takes, they are eating less animals and less animals are suffering. So be it. Also I'm a an archangel so that helps *beams*.
As I understand you, while you sometimes feel angry and bewildered, you avoid displaying these feelings because they would be counterproductive. Fair enough--that makes perfect sense to me. Maybe you're more loving than I, or maybe you're just just better at hiding negative judgments, but for whatever the reason, I couldn't pull it off. I can't reach meat-eaters just as I can't reach anarchists, Muslim terrorists, Trumpian fascists, global warming deniers, and evangelical Christians. Not only that, if I tried to pull it off, the likelihood would be that they and I would go away hating one another even more than we previously did. I wasn't always like this.
Differences between myself and others used to so intrigue me that I would seek out differences so that I might understand and be understood at a heart level. Of course, I often failed for various reasons. For one thing, people often don't want to discuss values differences, and, of course, I brought my own limitations to the table, in particular my judgmentalism and my belief in my intellectual superiority. Then Trump happened, and my observation of his followers changed me dramatically due to the reasons they gave, not just for supporting him, but for believing everything he told them. Within the space of months, I went from at least trying to believe that people think as they do because, to the best of their ability, they think, read, discuss, and research, to holding the exact opposite view, which is that they believe as they do but because they're ignorant, shallow, inconsistent, immoral, hypocritical, and credulous. So it was that the internal barriers that had always separated me from others to some extent took over completely. I even came to wonder if some of my former tolerance wasn't in fact weakness masquerading as love and respect. (You can see why all of my Trumpian blog buddies went away mad.)
I have nothing to offer people who believe absurdities without evidence. 75% of Republicans believe that Biden stole the election by using rigged voting machines to change Trump votes to Biden votes; a similar number of Republicans believe that that the capitol invasion was conducted by Antifa members (Antifa has no members) pretending to be Trumpians; 23% of Republicans believe that the Democratic Party is run by sex-trafficking pedophiles who sacrifice babies to Satan; and about as many believe that Covid is a lie. But what does this have to do with meat-eaters? Have you noted the number of meat-eaters who believe that God gave us meat to eat, so to refuse to eat it is to slap God in the face; that eating meat is important aspect of a sound environmental strategy; that vegetarians die young because they don't eat meat; that animals are incapable of feeling pain (one theory being that God programmed them with the appearance of pain in order to teach compassion to children); that vegetarian women are frigid and vegetarians men are impotent sissies; that vegetarianism is part of a vast leftish conspiracy to take over the world by destroying traditional values; that animals lack souls and are therefore property no less than cars and cellphones?
Me: IF you agree...that all forms of life are of equal intrinsic value, then would you not be justified in calling them murderers?'
You: Being justified is irrelevant and indeed would be a selfish act on my part, piss them off and once again not help people think again.
I understand your point, and it makes sense to me, but I had the impression that many--perhaps most--meat-eaters approach you and not you them, and that they then try to goad you into saying that you regard them as morally wrong so that they will have an excuse to ignore your arguments.
Hi Snow. I admire Ollie's simplicity and absence of ambivalence. I tend to agree with that approach, although it's no doubt easier for Ollie to live that way than for me and for most of us.
I've arrived at a place where I am content that I am a good human being. I am thoughtful, even about spiders (but not about flies!) and I am self-reflective and kind. I love my work and my family and friends and know that I am randomly lucky that my life is comfortable. My parents lived in the same way, and I'm sure I model most of how they looked at the world and their small place in it. I avoid guilt like the plague. It never helps me.
love kj
"I am content that I am a good human being."
I can't understand what you mean without first understanding how you measure good.
"I am self-reflective and kind."
I am too except when I'm not, so, again, I'm at a bit of a loss. Do you know this by comparing yourself to others? by envisioning yourself at an advanced point along a one to ten scale?
"I love my work and my family and friends and know that I am randomly lucky that my life is comfortable. My parents lived in the same way..."
My parents were unhappy people who lived hard lives, worked long hours for what little they had, and, even then, could only afford short, cheap, and infrequent vacations. I have no idea the extent to which this affected me.
"I avoid guilt like the plague."
How does one consciously decide to avoid guilt? There's a NPR interview show called "To The Best of Our Knowledge." Two of the interviewers are married, and upon reading the biography of the man, I strongly concluded that he's a psychopath. I later heard the wife of the pair report being told by her husband, "You should never feel guilty about anything." Of course, he would say that, I thought--he's a freaking psychopath, and psychopaths can do any cruel and unethical thing to anyone--including their wives--without it interfering with their sleep AT ALL. I don't mean to say, KJ, that you're a psychopath. I do mean to say that it has been my conclusion that guilt results in discomfort, and discomfort results in better behavior. I don't mean to say that one can never feel too much guilt, but that is only because an excess of any virtue can lead to a bad outcome. Since this post was partly about cats, I'll add that I very much doubt that cats are capable of guilt. Dogs, maybe, but then is it guilt that dogs feel or simply chagrin at getting into trouble? Researchers tend toward the latter conclusion.
Thank you for your kind words, Rajani.
We are created in the image of God. We are a body with a spirit & soul. It’s what separates us from animals. Hope you & Peggy are doing good. I’m hanging in. xo
Genesis 1: 26 - 31 “And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let him have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.
28 And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.
29 And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.
30 And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so.
31 And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.”
"We are created in the image of God. We are a body with a spirit & soul. It’s what separates us from animals."
Imagine that two people--we'll call them Marion and Snow--repeatedly find themselves in the same room, and, in response to everything Snow says, Marion quotes long Bible passages. Since these passages were shared in response to what Snow said, Snow listens to them in the belief that they are relevant to his thoughts. Because he can't tell that they are, he regularly asks Marion about them, but, in response, she jumps from her chair and runs from the room. If Marion would not really behave this way in person, why does she behave this way on Snow's blog? Instead of copying and pasting long passages from the Bible, why doesn't Marion take responsibility for her passages by engaging in discussion, defining terms, answering questions, and proving her assertions? Does not the Bible say:
"Always be prepared to answer everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have, and do this with gentleness and respect."
When Snow is ignored, he does not conclude that Marion is treating him with gentleness and respect? He concludes that Marion is passive-aggressive and therefore uses the Bible like a club. He believes this because he tells himself that if she were a person of intellectual substance, she would engage in honest and straight-forward dialogue rather than copying, pasting, and running away like a frightened rabbit until his next post when she does the same thing.
The Apostle Paul wrote, "I have become all things to all people, so that I might reach people who are not like I." Marion somehow believes that because Snow spent half his life in Mississippi, Snow is much like herself, and so there is no need to believe him when he says otherwise. This does not endear Marion to Snow. This instead leaves Snow feeling disrespected, and it causes him to conclude that Marion is someone who lacks intellectual substance, and she therefore goes through life believing whatever she wants to believe without regard for logic and evidence.
Here are just a few of the questions that Snow referred to earlier, questions that arose for Snow upon reading Marion's latest pasting. Who know? Because there are so few of them, perhaps Marion might actually answer them, and perhaps Marion will even do so by looking inside her her heart and her intellect rather than by, for the thousandth time, simply parroting of the Bible in the fanciful belief that the Bible can prove itself ("How do you know the Bible is true?" "Because the Bible says it is true.")
(1) How does Marion define God?
(2) How does Marion know that God exists?
(3) How does Marion know we were "created"?
(4) How does Marion know that we possess a "spirit & soul""
(5) Does Marion regard "spirit & soul" as two words for the same thing?
(6) How does Marion know that "animals" lack a "spirit & soul"?
Anyone who believes animals have no souls have either never had a dog or a cat, or have and are too blinded by dogma(no pun) they can't see said souls shining brightly within their eyes. They love, and if you love you deserve the good grace to be described as having a soul. It's also a handy way to deny your own callous selfishness towards any living being who isnt human. There is no 'humanity' in such beliefs, and if any such Gods exist, such higher beings would never surely degrade every species on the planet other than humans. It is phenomenally arrogant to deny animals souls when they can light up a room, save humans from the darkest of hours with the light and joy that eminates from theirs.
(This is written with one eye open on my mobile as I am in bed, so forgive any errors in grammar.)
Your own reply Snow to Marion is straight to the point and as well written as ever. I think religious people have no answers to such questions because all they have to fall back on is what's written in one book, whilst the rest of us go off thousands of books and life experience. They are boxed in so at best paste another quote, say they'll just have to disagree, or flee.)
I love you and your absolute straight as an arrow honesty and logic dearie X
Always enjoy reading your posts. Wanted to say Hi and be safe
"Anyone who believes animals have no souls have either never had a dog or a cat, or have and are too blinded by dogma (no pun) they can't see said souls shining brightly within their eyes... It's also a handy way to deny your own callous selfishness towards any living being who isnt human."
Most Christians, Muslims, and practicing Jews determinedly deny the obvious in favor of the Biblical teaching that humans were made in the image of God with other lives being made for our use.
Frog-Fart, I'm honored by your interest in my blog. What with the possibility of a Russian invasion, might I ask if you live anywhere near a border across which they might attack? Blog Fodder says that his family is preparing to evacuate to Turkey or Bulgaria. Might you also evacuate? If you would be comfortable in doing so, let me know what city you live in--or at least what part of the country you live in--so that I might find you on a map. Any information about yourself that you are willing to share will better enable me to envision who you are and hence to feel that I know you. There is something else, of a technical nature, that I would like to ask of you. When you quote me or someone someone else -in your comments, please leave no more than two spaces between the quotation and your response to the quotation. I ask this so that there won't be wasted space in your comments.
Me: "How do you know the Bible is true?" "Because the Bible says it is true."
Frogfart: "I found this precise verse, suggested by some smartass, to use against religious "literalist."
I'm a bit lost here, but will proceed as best I can. By verse, I assume you meant quotation. As for calling someone who questions Biblical authority a smartass, if someone tells you that you should believe something based upon the word of an authority, are you uninterested in establishing the authority's qualifications? For example, if we should be discussing anti-Semitism in Ukraine, and I quote Bill as an authority on its existence, wouldn't you want to know who Bill is and what makes Bill an authority? If you did ask, how would it strike you if I said that I know Bill's authority can be trusted because Bill himself said his authority can be trusted? That's the kind of reasoning that you appear to support regarding the Bible. A popular verse for the purpose is II Timothy 3:16-17: "All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness." Another retort is to simply say, "God said it; I believe it; and that settles it." Perhaps, our ability to communicate is such that I am badly misunderstanding you, but if I am understanding you correctly, and you intend to attack anyone who questions the authority of the Bible, it would be an utter waste of time for me or any other nonbeliever to discuss the Bible with you because you would have nothing to bring to the discussion aside from authoritarian pronouncements.
"That IS false flag worry of yours. I am fervent and sarcastic anti-clerical and atheist myself. Period."
A False Flag Operation is based upon dishonesty, and I'm not dishonest. I simply have trouble understanding you at times. You know English words well, but the way you express yourself with those words is unusual in my experience, and this sometimes makes it hard for me to understand what you're trying to say. Because sarcasm is already open to misunderstanding--especially in print, and especially when I don't know someone well--my problem with understanding you becomes more difficult when you're being sarcastic. Please understand that I'm not criticizing your use of sarcasm, I'm just saying that your meaning isn't always obvious to me. I should also add that I, too, am often sarcastic, but that I've hurt people's feelings with it enough that I don't engage in it much around people I don't know (like my dear friend, Ruby End who commented above) or who might conclude that I'm ridiculing them. I've written for an atheist magazine, and I belong to an atheist rights organization, so I've known atheists who use sarcasm in order to show contempt for what they regard as the stupidity of believers, but I don't consider it much of a joke if only one of the two parties is laughing at it. On the other hand, making fun of a belief can be far more powerful than refuting it logically, so if sarcasm works for you, break a leg (as the theatrical saying goes).
"But is it a big deal there?"
Is what a "big deal" here? Biblical literalism? Yes, very much so (I grew up in such a church but began doubting its teachings when I was eleven), and this points to a mindset that has created a oneness between conservative Christianity and Trumpism. The reason for this oneness is that both Trump and religion say, "Trust me. Believe me. Only I can fix it." Those Christians who crave certainty and authority regard Trump as God's Chosen to lead their country, which is why they believe without evidence that Biden "stole" the election. It is also why they don't trust science--and hence Covid vaccines--and the reason that they are susceptible to fascism. In America, social gains that took decades--or longer--to accomplish are being overturned rapidly by those who came to power in the era of Trump, although the country as a whole is becoming rapidly less religious. Because 29% of Americans are now religious "nones" (a group that is growing by more than a percent a year), I assume the day will come when the pendulum will swing back in the other direction, but I fear there will be a great deal of violence accompanying that swing in this country in which military-grade weaponry is commonplace in the private sector. Few Americans on either side of the religious/political fence are optimistic about America's future.
By the way, in watching the Olympics, I'm struck by how many Russian athletes wear crosses around their necks--I even saw a skater who had a cross tattooed on his hand. Given my experience with religion in this country, I regard the cross as a symbol of ignorance, bigotry, violence, oppression, and immorality, rather than of God's love--talk about a "false flag operation." In this country, I'm seeing them more and more on celebrities and have therefore come to think of them as being like so many metastatic cancers, Even so, I am comforted by the fact that the poll numbers make it clear that religion is losing its grip. Maybe it is for this very reason that it has become increasingly aggressive.
By the way, may I have the honor of calling you Frog, or would you prefer Mr. Fart?
Me: "if we should be discussing anti-Semitism in Ukraine, and I quote Bill as an authority on its existence, wouldn't you want to know who Bill is and what makes Bill an authority?"
Frog Fart: "I would not. Because. I am pretty confident in my ability to analyse things from first principle. And that is Logic and Scientific Facts"
If you don't trust authorities, how can you trust the validity of the "scientific facts" those authorities have discovered, that is unless you have the time, the money, the facilities, and the expertise, to duplicate the authorities' experiments and observations for yourself, and, hopefully, come up with additional experiments and observations? I think it would be fanciful for any of us to claim that we operate independently of the opinions of experts, the deciding factor not being IF we trust but WHO we trust. Intelligent people trust the consensus of experts, not because the experts are always right, but because they're the best shot we have at knowing the truth, that is unless we want to go through years of specialized study.
"That was name you chose, remember."
I didn't tell you to call yourself a silly name. I asked that you to select a name that I might know you by, and I spontaneously used that name in order to say that I had no intention of telling you what name to use.
"Do frogs can fart, physiologically?"
Are you asking for the conclusions of herpetologists, or are you asking for logical arguments and scientific evidence so you can examine the matter for yourself?
P.S. to Mr. Frog
After my last response to your response to my response, etc, I had a few more thoughts to share...
"I have tears in my eyes now. So, end my screeds here. For today."
Dear Frog, I understand that the history of your country under Nazi occupation is of such consuming interest to you that I can't even tell that you have other interests; and that you strongly believe your country's Nazi-era history has been unfairly and ignorantly represented. Yet you surely understand that most of the peoples of the world neither know about this narrow window of Ukrainian history, nor are they interested in learning about it.
You write so much about the topic that I am finding it necessary to block, I would guess, one-third or more of your comments, although doing so is painful to me. I have only, in the past, blocked comments for the purpose of keeping my readers from receiving spam in their inboxes. Because of this, I have, in the interest of openness, allowed many comments that were either insulting to me or that I didn't consider worthwhile. Your comments are neither of these things, but due to their sheer quantity, they run counter to the purpose of this blog, which is for me to write about things that are important to me, and to discuss those things with people who find them at least marginally interesting. Except for you, those people have their own blogs, and I enjoy visiting them.
I appreciate the fact that you try to tie your thoughts about Ukraine to the topics of my posts, yet I consider a steady diet of Ukraine to be a distraction, and the connections you make to my posts often appear, to me, to be motivated, less by any interest in me and in my posts that by looking for a jumping-off place from which to talk about how unfairly Ukraine has been treated in regard to things that happened in WWII. I have suggested that you send me an email address through which we might communicate, and I have wondered why you don't start your own blog regarding Ukrainian history. You haven't sent me an address, and I'm sure you could have thought of starting a Ukraine-centered blog on your own.
You wrote something in this chain about the affairs of America being remote to your interests, and the same is true for me about the affairs of Ukraine. A little of Ukraine's history, I can handle, but I'm feeling deluged, and unless I care to go to a great deal of trouble to investigate your nation's history, I'm in the position of doing something that you say is anathema to you, which is accepting the word of another that something is true. Yet my interest is simply not great enough for me to want to read extensively about WWII era Ukrainian history. In fact, I've heard more about the history of Ukraine in the last week or two than I heard in my entire previous life, yet my interest in its history isn't that great. I hate blocking comments, but, again, this blog simply isn't geared to receiving two to four comments a day regarding a topic that is alien to the subject of my posts and to the interests of myself and my readers (I include them because none have responded to your comments). Ukrainian history is a narrowly specialized field of study that, I suspect, is mostly limited to historians, and this blog is not geared to that.
I like you; I value you; I'm intrigued by you; but everyday when I see that you left additional comments about Ukrainian history during the Nazi occupation, I feel a little more burdened than I did the day before. Unless you feel unsafe in doing so, I implore you to start your own blog because you simply aren't reaching much of an audience here. If you should someday start a blog, I will be your first "follower," and I will look forward to hopefully getting more of a sense of whom you are than I am getting from your comments regarding a narrow window of Ukrainian history.
"You on the West must be MORE worried. No matter how successful Putin will be in Ukraine. THAT IS NOT THE END, but beginning."
Obviously, but what to do about it is another matter. The political reality in America is that Biden has a low public approval rating, and the sanctions that he and NATO are imposing will run up prices and increase an already high rate of inflation. As for Ukraine, most Americans couldn't even point to it on a map; they're not greatly concerned about its fate; they are sick of spending trillions of dollars on wars that we never seem to win; they're sick of worrying about Covid; their nation is at serious risk of destroying itself along political lines; and they want nothing so much as to jump into an isolationist rabbit hole. The sanctions that Biden is promoting might very well cost him the next election and, sooner than that, it might cost his party both houses of the American Congress, which would have the effect of putting the control of the government into the hands of Trump, an outcome that might very well spell the end of democracy in America. What's happening in Ukraine is a seriously sucky situation that, no matter what happens, will cost the world trillions of dollars; will destroy god knows how many thousands of homes lives, and businesses; will leave a legacy of physical and emotional lameness; and will leave your democracy in the hands of a psychopathic dictator.
I fear that you might fall off the radar, so I'm going to put an email address in a comment window following this one. I will remove that address immediately, so please make a note of it in case you ever wish to get in touch other than through my blog.
Yesterday, I cried upon seeing a Ukranian woman carrying what is to me the world's most beautiful cat--the Turkish Angora--as she ran for safety from bombs. All of today, I have been in awe upon hearing the guards at a tiny Ukrainian post tell a Russian warship, "Go fuck yourself!"
https://nypost.com/2022/02/24/ukrainian-border-guards-killed-after-telling-russian-warship-off/
"I'm here. Just don't know what to say. By obvious reason."
I'm finding events in Ukraine to be overwhelming (I think of your nation throughout the day, and it's the first thing I think of when I awaken in the night), yet it's not my country that's being attacked, and it's not me and mine who are in immediate danger (now that Putin has put his nuke crews on high alert, I can't say we're in no danger), so I understand that words would come hard. I should imagine that it's all like a bad dream...but might you answer a few questions? Are you in a city that is under attack? If you are a man, are you of military age and able to fight? Will you fight? Do you have family nearby? Are there electrical outages? Have Russian troops entered your area? Have you considered fleeing to another country? Do you have friends to help and comfort you? Are you able to stay informed of events? Are there food shortages? Are Ukranians finding inspiration in the courage of Zelenskyy?
As for the good news, no Ukraine city has fallen, and 5,000 Russians have been arrested for protesting the war.
"you can find Ukraine and point your finger in the middle of it -- most certainly you'd hit place where I am now, where I or my relatives is or was living. I see this explanation as more suiting, than trying to point you to some meaningless names, like Kah'niv or Zvenigorodka"
I can locate any Ukrainian town, city, or oblast within minutes. Of late, my attention has been on the city of Kharkiv, but if you feel comfortable telling me where you are, I will turn my attention to your area. Nothing spurs my interest in a faraway place like feeling a connection to someone who lives there.
"Ukrainians are inherently peaceful people. Beyond reasonable levels even."
For what, if anything, it's worth, rabbits are also peaceful, the result being that they live their lives in fear, and it's by sheer luck that any of them escape being abused and/or murdered. Of course, rabbits have no other choice.
"Am I that hopeless pacifist? (shrugs)"
Surely, there are things you can do to help without having to pick up a gun--things like giving blood, rolling bandages, comforting the wounded, digging people from bombed-out buildings, volunteering to help overwhelmed medical personnel, taking refugees into your home... In this country, pacifists have always played an honorable part in war, some as front-line medics and others on the homefront taking on jobs that were the hardest of the hard and the most dangerous of the dangerous.
"Zelensky -- it's our Ukrainian Trump, for you to know."
Either your ignorance of Trump is bottomless, or the war has addled your brain. Zelensky clearly didn't take the Russian threat seriously, nor has he done enough to end government corruption, but as for him being like Trump, if that is what he is like, then he is also very much like Putin (of whom Trump is a tremendous admirer--especially since Putin invaded your country). I have read nothing to suggest that Zelensky--like Trump--is a racist, a plutocrat, a bully, a braggart, a psychopath, a megalomaniac, a person who holds science in contempt, a despiser of human rights, a panderer to Christian hatred, bigotry, and intolerance, a person who kisses the asses of brutal dictators while snubbing the leaders of democracies, nor have I read that Zelensky has a cult-like following of morons who will do anything and believe anything that he tells them to do and believe as he attempts to destroy your nation's democracy. The only surefire similarity that I see between Zelensky and Trump is that they were both entertainers, although, unlike Zelensky, Trump is humorless. By the way, Zelensky's popularity rating has supposedly gone from the mid 20s to the high 90s of late, although I have no idea who is out conducting polls while bombs are falling.
"I see all people of my country as my friends!"
Including the separatist traitors who gave Putin an excuse for the invasion and are even now giving aid and comfort to your nation's enemies?
I must go for now, my friend. I am extremely distressed and concerned for you and your nation. I know I write bluntly at times, so if I've offended you, I will beg your forgiveness.
"Have nothing against if you'll decide to not disclose this post, or stop talking with me."
You are welcome here, and I would very much miss you if you left. I do have a few issues with you, the main one being that you are secretive. You don't have a blog, so I can't know you that way, but you ignore basic questions that I ask in order to at least have sense of whom you are. The rest of my regular readers have blogs, and most of them have given me their email addresses, phone numbers, and physical addresses. I know their health issues, what their hobbies are, whether they have pets, whether they're married, how many children--if any--they have, whether they're straight or gay, and many other things. I count one of those people as my best friend. I don't expect that you share all of this information, but I am disappointed that you share none of it. I don't know if you're thirty or seventy (I'm 73), in good health or at death's door, married or singe. I don't even know where you live (other than in a rural area in the middle of a country that's the size of America's second largest state--Texas). I know even know for sure whether you're male or female. The fact that you are unwilling to share even basic facts about your life bothers me. Of course, you haven't been coming around for long, but on the other hand, you've submitted more comments than have some people who I've known for years. The implication of your secretiveness is that you want to know me, but you don't want me to know you, and this is proving to be growing a barrier to the affection that I would like to offer you.
As for Trump, he and thousands of his followers tried to stage an insurrection when he lost the last presidential election (his political party formally labeled their violent attempt as "legitimate political discourse), and millions more of his followers tried to have the election overturned by other disreputable means, among them countless death threats. These people are vicious fanatics who despise freedom. You say that I call them fascists because I don't the meaning of the word. I take that as an insult, but since you don't regularly engage in insults, I've tried to move beyond it. I would, however, like to have a sense of whom I'm corresponding with. I won't refuse to dialogue with you if you refuse to establish a line of communication aside from blog comments, but it will get in the way of me feeling as warmly toward you as I would like.
"I do not understand your silence."
I've been busy. I'm having lower back pain, so I had an MRI done. It showed that I either have a tumor or a broken sacrum, so I go in today for two more MRIs to try to figure out which it is. I also had a prostate biopsy last week to determine whether I have cancer. For some reason, I'm now finding a lot of blood in the toilet when I poop, and I don't know what it's from since it's unlikely that the prostate biopsy would be causing it. So, I guess I need to go to a doctor about this problem also.
Finally, I don't want to debate the nature of fascism. For one thing, when it goes on and on, intellectual debate just isn't that interesting to me. For another thing, when I put up a post about a given subject, I feel a little bad for my readers when I depart from that subject in the comment section. After all, they signed on to receive comments regarding the subject of the post, so the further I stray from what I gave them a right to expect, the more I feel that I'm doing them a disservice.
Frog, as I said in my very last comment to you:
"...when I put up a post about a given subject, I feel a little bad for my readers when I depart from that subject in the comment section. After all, they signed on to receive comments regarding the subject of the post, so the further I stray from what I gave them a right to expect, the more I feel that I'm doing them a disservice."
This is why I'm not allowing your comment from earlier today to appear, and it is why I haven't allowed a great many of your previous comments to appear. Yesterday, you wrote:
"I'll refrain from posting my comments for now."
Yet today you are back. My patience with you is at an end. Further comments from you will be deleted without being read.
P.S. Frog, if you would like to discuss what I've said, email me at the address I gave you.
\\P.S. Frog, if you would like to discuss what I've said, email me at the address I gave you.
I don't have it. You placed it in wrong time and deleted before I saw it even. Well, after you deleted my comments and showed your baseless (as I see it, but ready to reconcider after proper explanation -- even if that "acid outflux from indigestion") outrage... credit of you being decent person droped below certain threshold...
well, that is not big problem, as you know I can talk with ruSSians who killing MY folk -- have enough tolerance.
But do not wait it to be "business as usual", same warm and forgiving. Still, that is not like I outraged at you or something.
Just Golden Rule applyed -- treat other people as you want them to treat you.
"I don't have it. You placed it in wrong time and deleted before I saw it even."
In my experience, people who follow a blog generally have comments mailed to them, which is why I put my address online so that it would be mailed to you, and then took it back offline so that new visitors to the post couldn't see it. Because you don't have comments mailed to you, and because I don't want to leave my address online, you'll need to give me your address (I won't allow it to appear) if you wish to write to me.
"But do not wait it to be 'business as usual,' same warm and forgiving."
You're unwilling to continue being "warm and forgiving," you say? Oh darn! What have I done now? Oh the shame! Oh the regret! Oh the remorse!
...If I'm understanding you correctly, you see yourself as the victim here and me as someone who has so mistreated you that your ability to forgive me has finally become impossible. I see things a bit differently. The reason I told you that I was going to stop reading your comments was because you have consistently ignored my requests that you stop leaving comments that have nothing whatsoever to do with the posts that you leave them on. I hardly consider this a difficult concept to grasp, yet the last time I made this request, you IMMEDIATELY left yet another such comment. This suggests to me that you are indifferent to my wishes, or contemptuous of my wishes, or, perhaps, mentally ill to the point that you lack the ability to imagine how the world might appear through the eyes of another. I am personally acquainted with the fact that you have left one blogger in a frothing rage over what he considers your mistreatment of him, and you've admitted to me that the owners of most of the blogs you visit come to regard you as a troll. You are beginning to appear that way to me also due to your unwillingness to drop a subject until the person you are arguing with agrees with you, and because of your appalling persistence in ignoring the wishes of others.
After telling you that I had become so frustrated with your behavior that I was going to stop reading your comments, I decided to make one last attempt to reach you. I am doing this partly because I recognize that I had acted in haste, and I don't want to be a person who takes drastic steps without careful consideration. I am also doing it because I like you and find good in you. However, I truly need you to honor my wishes by not using my blog as a vehicle for writing about subjects that are unrelated to my blog. In other words, I need you to stop blogging on my blog. Yet again, I'm allowing you the same option that the aforementioned blogger tried to offer you, which is that you email me comments that you feel you simply must make, but that are unrelated to the subject of a given post. However, you must not take this to mean that I'm open to a prolonged discussion of subjects that are, at most, of little interest to me. Another option would be to start your own blog so that you could write about any subject that interests you. If you take the second option, I will look forward to signing on as your first "follower." If you don't wish to do either of these things, and if you continue to leave irrelevant comments on my blog, I will most assuredly delete all of your comments without reading them. This is my position, and it's neither negotiable nor is it open to discussion.
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