More people still die from not eating at all than die from those things...

Says you. Starvation is a myth.

Good for you! You have no reason to feel bad about them dying...as long as you're eating them.

Would you feel bad about a severely retarded human being dying? I guess if the person was really tasty you wouldn't care.

You've clearly not spent that much time around the severely retarded.

Wasn't it the head of PETA who said something along the lines of "If I was on a sinking ship and had the choice of saving a smart dog or a retarded baby, I'd save the dog?"

Well, consider this thought: People who are for "assisted suicide" feel that they should have the right to kill themselves when their "quality of life" is below a given point, the point being one that they decide upon.

Consider people who are on life support. The same applies here. Peole make the decision for them because they are unable to decide for themselves, if their "quality of life" is below a given point, where it is better to "let them die".

Given the above, is it reasonable to assume that there is a point at which the "quality of life" for a, as you put it, "retarded person" would be better off left to die?

You have to weigh the severity of the situation. That's what they all do I suppose. I imagine everyone has a point some where that if the QOL is "too low", they would be compelled to think that "Being-X" is better off dead.

Before you say it's not true, let me prove it to you. Every day you decide which has more value: You going hungry, or you killing something, directly or indirectly to eat, assuming you aren't a strict vegan or fruitatarian. Thus, you have made a decision that Being-X is better off dead than alive.

Taken with the above context, is it inconceivable that such a situation would arise, that you'd save a dog over a "retarded person"?

No? How about your favourite dog over a near vegitable state "retarded person" who is a total stranger?

After all, some people say their pets are like children.

Oh, I guess I'm obliged to comment on the PETA picture above for some bizarre reason. Here you go: Wow. Impressive. It amuses me to no end to watch all the "meat eaters" go to extremes to "prove" that they have some right to eat whatever they feel like, or that they're vastly superior to all other life forms. Somehow this picture fails to prove the latter, and for the former, I could care less.

Quzah.

Do you even think about what you type? This makes absolutely no sense in any context.

Quzah.

I've worked with people who have various disabilities (mild to severe) for years, but that is beside the point.

I was just trying to say that "Because it's (he/she/they) stupid," is no justification for killing.

Also, I value human life above other animals. There is no justification of it other than I'm biased, because I am human.

I'm not surprised you don't get it. That seems to be a trait you have.:p

Botulism is most often associated with green beans. Salmonella can also be vegetable-borne.

As for Mad Cow, I stay away from offal. Steak doesn't contain brain.

what's worse: humanely killing one domesticated cow to get 300 pounds of meat, or brutally murdering thousands of innocent, wild insects for one stinking tomato?;)

No, no, no...you don't *kill* them...you simply grow your food in a wholesome and biologically safe organic manner which discourages the insects from eating your tomatoes in the first place.

I'm all for organic tomatoes, especially with bacon and lettuce and mayonnaise on some nicely toasted wheat bread. Lots of bacon.

Don't forget you have to feed the cow... 2500 pounds of grain to raise a cow for slaughter. How many insects do we have to murder just to produce this grain, to feed an animal... to produce "food" that really isn't that useful to humans (albeit tasty to many)?

If only life was fair. I lived in Washington State during the infamous Jack-In-the-Box E. Coli outbreak of 1993. Several children died, including one child who according to the news, had "never eaten a hamburger." The child had caught the illness from a playmate who had eaten a tainted hamburger. (I have been a vegetarian since I was 12. But I remember wondering if somehow I could come down with the illness when it was in the news).

A dear friend of my mother's in SE MN died of Creutzfeld-Jakob (Mad Cow). We were never really sure how he got it. Maybe he ate British beef once or contracted it some other way. He was not vegetarian. But I don't think he deserved to die.

I heard a piece on NPR last year about they're trying to get permission to autopsy more people that die of Alzheimers from the kin. The preliminary results showed that almost 15% really had Mad Cow. It caught my interest because my Dad died from Alzheimers a few months earlier but I was in traffic in NY state with nothing to write on/with. By the time I got to MA, I couldn't remember the details. I must have it too.:rolleyes: