With the current "anything goes" mentality, no wonder the world is such a state. Too bad Godwin's Law is not widely known outside the internet. Even President Bush would benefit from that - after all, he has been compared to Hitler countless times, and people seem to think that's a valid argument too.

I'm glad I made some of you "fume" because of what I said. Maybe you'll remember how you felt next time someone you don't like uses the sort of rhetoric that Mrs. Atkins did.

I shall drop out of this futile debate now and move on to more positive things.

(edited for formatting)

In my life, and the lives of those around me, I see a profound disconnect between professed moral belief and actual moral behavior.

99% of the single women around me are "bible-believing Christians", and yet, they have sex lives that would make the women of Sex in the City blush - except perhaps for their morning-after, "I can't believe you don't believe in Jesus" speech.

During the time when I volunteered to serve as an escort at an abortion clinic, I recognized one of the patients as one of the regular protestors - it seems that, for her, an abortion was ok, because having a baby would interfere with her scheduled abortion protests.

Likewise, many abortion "supporters" are troubled by the procedure personally (as am I), but are more troubled by the possibility that it might become illegal.

I've yet to meet someone who really loves meat, but won't eat it because they think that would be cruel. I'm not saying that this is impossible, just rare - medium rare, actually.

Oh, and Klodomir, I don't think Bush is like Hitler at all - Bush is taller and has no facial hair; the countries Bush invades are so far NOT his neighbors, and Bush came to power via a court decision, not a majority election.

OK, this is where we are going to have to agree to disagree. I don't think of it as a quasi, psuedo or any other kind of religion. I also have a separate philosophical reason for becoming a vegetarian that actually doesn't have anything to do with a moral belief that animal lives are equal. Perhaps I wasn't clear in that. I just think that if someone wants to eat meat-then they should be willing to eat all kinds and not just some. It doesn't make sense to me otherwise. That is my philosophical stance.

The moral thing is simply this: I do think all lives are inherently equal. What makes human superior anyway? I have never heard an argument that actually convinced me that a human life was somehow more important than any other kind of life. That does not mean that I think people are murderers for eating meat, any more than I think a cat or a dog is. I just get upset when two different sets of rules are applied to humans versus anything else. For example, some moron goes to the zoo, gets into the polar bear area, teases the bear, gets mauled by the bear and the bear gets destroyed.



Again, we are just going to have to disagree. I don't think animals eat each other because of some "lower" form of life thing. We eat them for the same reason every thing else eats meat from animals. However, our TREATMENT of animals is horrible. That is what makes me think we either devalue nonhuman animals or over value our own existences. It is a civil rights issue. The cival rights of animals.

I totally agree. The line is complicated and sometimes all we can do is the best we can.

Insinuating insults in defending one's opinions DOES mean one is being unfriendly!

What insult do you think I insinuated?

ItstheWoo - are you a vegetarian? If not I am confused by your statements that you know how they believe. I know what I believe as a carnivorous Christian woman. What is in the head or heart of say an agnostic vegetarian is anybody's guess.
You know what YOU believe. Period.

I am not trying to butt into something that is none of my business. Well, OK, I guess I am doing that. I reread all the posts and I cannot see where gotbeer insinuated or insulted you. It looked to me like you guys were just debating on opposite sides of an issue.

Iowa-there is nothing going on in my head. It is completely empty.

Hey, hey, we all know that OUR brains have no carbs!

For me, the argument is not whether the lable "Taliban" is accurate or not. Honestly, not one but us low-carb geeks, and probably PCRM-geeks will bother to argue the validity of it.

The reason, as someone posted before, why names like "Hitler", "Nazi", and now "Taliban" are game-enders for serious discussion is that few people take them seriously. It's just a poor debate tactic. She has stopped arguing the valid points on how PCRM has attacked and slandered Atkins and dropped to name calling. That takes her, effectively, out of the debate.

This round probably goes to PCRM, if anyone is really paying attention. My sense is that it didn't really impact anything except low-carber's pride.

So many people are doing "Atkins" that have never even picked up the book, or read past the allowable foods, that maybe they are doing some people a favor by scaring them away from a diet they don't even understand.

well, she could have said something along the lines of "PCRM is a group of ultra vegan animal rights activists who use questionable and arguably unethical means to advance their vegetarian agenda, including extraordinarily selective use of data, lack of solid scientific justification for their claims, etc"

...but that just doesn't grab anyone's attention, does it?

But it would have put her in a better light. You can't take the moral high ground if you sink to the other's level. You always lose.

Exactly. Calling the PCRM Taliban is not a smart argument tactic; if you're opposed to the President, comparing him to Hitler (besides making you look foolishly shrill) also diminishes your argument. People tend to tune that stuff out.

If you have the facts on your side, as Ms. Atkins does, you don't need to call PCRM names. You've got them on every front. You've won. Don't turn people off by saying things that make more tune out, rather than listen to you.

If you are arguing on political issues, it doesn't make since to call a politician Hitler, or a Nazi, unless that politician is advocating similar policies. So if we are discussing a politician who favours violence against a group of people and that the ends justifies the means including terror and violence, then it would make no sense avoiding calling them for what they are.

The disagreement we have with the PCRM is not politics, or nutrition. They are not just vegetarians. They use any means necessary to force their beleifs on others, and do go to bed with terrorists, as they've done before, and will use anything to force their misguided views on the public, without ethical or moral barriers. They have no ethical dilemma forcing chiildren to eat vegan, even write books about it. They have no qualms favoring dog's lives over mentally challanged children. And it's not choices they make for their own lives, they are trying to force it on others.

They are fascists, pure and simple. It will bother many that they are described as such, but it doesn't mean they don't deserve it. They are called as such, because of the views and means they chose. It's their fault, not Veronica's.

Wa'il

And this time I have to agree with you. The Taliban are most guilty of trying to force us to give up our ideas, our lives, our culture, our way of doing things, right up to our very religions, and lives.
It is the same tactics employeed by PCRM.
If they don't like it they can start to behave in a civilized manner.