****wit, who sometimes uses the alias "David Harrison",
has long insisted that I have "lied" about his beliefs.
I have never lied about his beliefs. He has written
thousands of usenet posts based on his beliefs, and I
have correctly interpreted his writing. His belief
about animals, specifically his belief that animals
"getting to experience life" is a morally good thing
in and of itself, is something that appears frequently
and with (believe it or not) a peculiar kind of clarity.
Read these quotes that I have culled from ****wit's
usenet rantings over a four and a half year period,
and judge for yourselves.
All emphasis in the quotes, by use of asterisks and
quotation marks, is ****wit's own.
You really have to wonder why ****wit even bothered to
start on this at all:
I admit that I'm very weak in the area of
presenting my ideas...I have as much 'right' to
post my spew as everyone else does.
****wit - 11/30/1999
****wit believes that unborn "future farm animals" are
morally considerable "somethings":
The animals that will be raised for us to eat
are more than just "nothing", because they
*will* be born unless something stops their
lives from happening. Since that is the case,
if something stops their lives from happening,
whatever it is that stops it is truly "denying"
them of the life they otherwise would have had.
****wit - 12/09/1999
He claims that he gives livestock animals' lives
"consideration" that "vegans", selfishly, don't. But
in fact, he gives the animals' lives *no* consideration
as having morally considerable value AT ALL; it's only
utilitarian to ****wit:
It's not out of consideration for ****cupines
that we don't raise them for food. It's because
they would be a pain in the ass to raise. We
don't raise cattle out of consideration for them
either, but because they're fairly easy to
raise.
****wit David Harrison - Sep 26, 2005
In fact, the only "consideration" he gives animals'
lives is instrumental, as a means to products ****wit
wants to consume. This exchange with someone named
Dave illustrates it perfectly. The discussion
ostensibly had been about which set of animals' lives,
livestock or wildlife, ought to receive greater moral
consideration. ****wit suddenly abandons any pretense
of moral consideration of their lives, and shows he is
only interested in the products they yield:
Dave:
I am suggesting that we have no reason to
promote life for farm animals ahead of life for
wild animals
****wit:
LOL!!!. We have at least two reasons. Can you
think of either?
Dave:
Enlighten me.
****wit:
Meat. Gravy.
****wit David Harrison - Mar 20, 2006
He claims to "promote decent aw [animal welfare]", but
the fact is he doesn't care if animals suffer at all:
I am not an extremist about it, and if I thought
that all of the animals I eat had terrible
lives, I would still eat meat. That is not
because I don't care about them at all, but I
would just ignore their suffering.
****wit David Harrison - Nov 29, 1999
This last is astoni****ng: admitting that he would
ignore their suffering is an admission that he
*DOESN'T* care about them at all, except for the
products they yield.
He believes they can experience things - loss,
deprivation, unfairness:
Yes, it is the unborn animals that will be
born if nothing prevents that from happening,
that would experience the loss if their lives
are prevented.
****wit - 08/01/2000
What gives you the right to want to deprive
them [unborn animals] of having what life they
could have?
****wit - 10/12/2001
What I'm saying is unfair for the animals that
*could* get to live, is for people not to
consider the fact that they are only keeping
these animals from being killed, by keeping
them from getting to live at all.
****wit - 10/19/1999
If you keep an animal from being born which
would have been born without your interference,
you have denied life to it, whether it actually
exists or not.
****wit - 28 Sept 1999 http://tinyurl.com/2x3ogu
If it is wrong to cut their lives short, it is
even more wrong to discourage them from ever
getting to experience life at all IMO.
****wit - 9 Nov 1999 http://tinyurl.com/38bd9v
I am talking about non-existing entities as if
they will be alive some day. You are encouraging
the idea that they should never be alive.
****wit - 10 Nov 1999 http://tinyurl.com/2nypox
He believes that the "future farm animals" getting to
live at all is what's im****tant, irrespective of the
quality of their lives:
*Whatever* life they get they are lucky to get
it...even if it's only six weeks like a fryer.
****wit - 09/04/1999
All of that has nothing to do with how many
actually get to live. But that is why I feel
that every thing that gets to be born is lucky
in the respect that it *did* get to be born,
since the odds are infinite against all of us
that *we* will actually get to experience life.
****wit - 12/11/1999
Then I guess raising billions of animals for
food provides billions of beings with a place in
eternity. I'm happy to contribute to at least
some of it.
****wit - 04/12/2002
But it's still every bit as morally acceptable
for humans to kill animals for food, as it is
for any other animals to do so imo. And in fact
more so, since we provide life for most of the
animals we kill.
****wit - 04/20/2002
Life is the benefit that makes all others
possible.
****wit - 06/25/2003 (and numerous other posts)
Okay: Existence, and then life itself are the
most im****tant benefits for any being. Though
life itself is a necessary benefit for all
beings, the individual life experiences of the
animals are completely different things and not
necessarily a benefit for every animal,
depending on the particular things that they
experience.
****wit - 03/22/2005
Lately (winter 2008), ****wit has been lying about his
focus. He has taken to claiming that he is concerned
with existing farm animals, and their enjoyment of
[ugh; wretched ****wit phrasing alert] "lives of
positive value". This is another ****wit lie. As the
above quotes largely show, and as the next two amplify
and reinforce, ****wit has *always* been maniacally
obsessed with the "wrong" done to non-existent "future
farm animals":
If it is wrong to cut their lives short, it is
even more wrong to discourage them from ever
getting to experience life at all IMO.
****wit - 9 Nov 1999 http://tinyurl.com/38bd9v
I am talking about non-existing entities as if
they will be alive some day. You are encouraging
the idea that they should never be alive.
****wit - 10 Nov 1999 http://tinyurl.com/2nypox
****wit tries to deny that he attaches any im****tance
to the mere fact of "getting to experience life" per
se, but as usual, his words betray him. Here, we see
that ****wit believes that "providing them with life"
earns humans some kind of moral bonus points:
As for whether or not providing them with life
is an acceptable trade off for taking it later,
no one has ever had a problem with it.
****wit - 10/12/2003
He believes that "aras" are doing something terrible to
the unborn "future farm animals" merely by *wanting* to
prevent them from being born:
People who encourage vegetarianism are the
worst enemy that the animals we raise for food
have IMO.
****wit - 09/13/1999
You also know that "ARAs" want to deprive
future farm animals [of] living,
****wit - 01/08/2002
That approach is illogical, since if it
is wrong to end the lives of animals, it is
*far worse* to keep those same animals from
getting to have any life at all.
****wit - 07/30/1999
What I'm saying is unfair for the animals that
*could* get to live, is for people not to
consider the fact that they are only keeping
these animals from being killed, by keeping
them from getting to live at all.
****wit - 10/19/1999
[like Humpty Dumpty, I pay this quote extra!]
****wit claims, falsely, that what the animals feel
about their lives is what matters:
But!! Since *we* are not the ones that we are
discussing, what *we* know has nothing to do
with it. Instead, the way the animals feel
about their lives is what matters, and in order
to get some idea of what that is, we have to
ignore the things that we know, and that they
do not (like the fact that they will be
killed). If a person is not willing to try to
do that, then they really don't care about the
animals, but are worried more about their self.
****wit - 08/20/1999
But of course, he's lying. It's what *****wit* feels
about them, about his connection to them, about his
ability to "appreciate" them for a while, that matters
to him:
Over in cat ng world I've been flamed pretty
well for letting [****wit's cat] have any
[kittens]. At least one of them feels that for
every kitten I let a person have from "my" cat,
a kitten in a shelter will die. Of course the
ratio is not likely to be anywhere near one to
one, but some folks tend to be a bit fanatical
about things. Even if it were that way, there
is really no reason for me to encourage life
for some kittens in a shelter, at the expense
of kittens that could get to experience life
from a cat that I actually care about, and
kittens that I get to appreciate and like at
least for a little while.
****wit - 09/23/1999
At least my "insanity" allows appreciation for
what life has to offer [to animals].
****wit - 05/06/2004
****wit sleazily and dishonestly tries to keep
insisting that the people arguing with him need to show
how the "'ar' proposal" to eliminate farm animal is
ethically superior to providing "decent" lives for
them. But as we see, ****wit isn't at all concerned
with providing "decent lives" for them. He's
interested in seeing them "get to experience life",
period, irrespective of the quality of that life. And
he feels anyone who wants to try to stop that is evil.
No one needs to show any ethical superiority of one
"proposal" over another, at all, as long as ****wit is
lying about *his* proposal and as long as he continues
to insist on presenting the bogus, logically invalid
choice that he does.
The record, in ****wit's own words, speaks for itself.
No one has "lied" about ****wit's beliefs. ****wit
believes everything I have said he believes, as
sup****ted by ****wit's own ranting.
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