[551] in Vegetarian_Support_Group
vegetarianism and libertarianism
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (mjacknis@MIT.EDU)
Thu May 11 09:35:00 1995
Date: Thu, 11 May 95 09:35:01 mdt
From: mjacknis@MIT.EDU
To: seta@MIT.EDU
Cc: vsg@MIT.EDU
Reply-To: seta@MIT.EDU
(Let's continue the discussion about advocating vegetarianism and
articles and the government, etc., on seta, not vsg, because it is
more of a political discussion than vsg was intended for.)
Anyway, I tend to think that the philosophy of advocating
vegetarianism, and the political philosophy of libertarianism, go
hand-in-hand. This is because libertarianism advocates compassion,
peace, and freedom through minimal (but not absent) government. A
previous post to vsg suggested that the dairy and meat industries were
taking advantage of the government in order to suppress information
from the public. Under libertarianism, the government would not be
large enough to support the dairy, meat, or any other special
interest. Under libertarianism, no one industry would be able to
control the press (assuming this is the case now...?) Under
libertarianism, marijuana would be legal, as would many other things,
that would allow for improved health and environment, and more
compassionate treatment to animals. Cruel animal tests would not be
required by the government, nor would they be performed by the
government.
In the exact analogous way that doctors go one step away from
advocating vegetarianism, without actually doing so, vegetarian and AR
activists go one step away from advocating libertarianism, without
quite doing so.
mike
