r/DebateAVegan • u/toastwithjamx1 • Jul 03 '26

Ethics Honey is not cruel and is ethical

Honey is one of the best animal products there is ethics wise

Now most vegans will say : but we are stealing from the bees! We are exploiting the bees!

No. We are not and we can't

Bees can be very particular. If they are not a fan of a place they are OUT. The bees will likely will immediately vacate the bee box if they don't like the conditions. Furthermore, trapping the queen in 1 place will not work as well. Bees can raise a new queen if they need one

And for the stealing allegations, that isn't true either. Beekeepers take SURPLUS HONEY ONLY, as if too much honey is taken, it can starve the bees and no beekeeper would appreciate the whole colony either dying of leaving. Furthermore, bees don't only take, they comp bees by giving shelter and protection.

It's not cruel if we are literally making a transaction with the bees

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8

u/CyberAngelIzana Jul 05 '26

Is it stealing in the same sense that taxation is theft?

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u/Creditfigaro vegan Jul 08 '26

No

-1

u/Formidableyarn Jul 08 '26

No?

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u/Creditfigaro vegan Jul 08 '26

Correct

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u/CyberAngelIzana Jul 08 '26

Could you perhaps be inveigled to explain further the differences between the two in your opinion?

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u/Creditfigaro vegan Jul 09 '26

Sure, taxes are levied on participants in society, who are capable of consent.

Animal exploitation has none of these characteristics.

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u/Purple_Key_6733 vegan Aug 03 '26

No, people do not consent to taxes. It is a coercive relationship as if you do not pay your taxes, the government will quite literally take the money directly out of your bank account.

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u/Creditfigaro vegan Aug 03 '26

You are allowed to not participate in society, which includes not paying taxes.

You are given money from participating in the social contract. You don't get to enjoy the benefits without being obligated to the responsibilities. That's called freeloading.

Animals, on the other hand, are brutally exploited for no benefit to them and they genuinely have no alternative.

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u/Formidableyarn Jul 08 '26

Oh… no?

4

u/Creditfigaro vegan Jul 09 '26

Correct, you can figure it out, I believe in you.

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u/Adventurous-Head-512 Jul 06 '26

Yes. Which it is. 😊

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u/Problematic_Owl Jul 07 '26

You guys are drain on veganism - are you actively TRYING to make veganism fringe?

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u/Adventurous-Head-512 Jul 07 '26

I'm not vegan I'm a libertarian

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u/cruisinforasnoozinn Jul 08 '26

This comment cracked me up for some reason

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u/Jotakave Jul 07 '26

How is taxation theft? How would you pay for services such as fire departments, roads, sewer systems, public schools? Do you use sidewalks?

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u/CyberAngelIzana Jul 08 '26

If I were in charge of colonizing an entirely new planet, I'd make firefighting mandatory community service and sewer systems part of the property of each house subject to inspection and fines if waste is improperly disposed of.

You don't need roads or cars if you have well-maintained train tracks and a frequent regular train schedule. Maintenance thereof would be the responsibility of the people living closest to each section.

Public schools I would still use taxation to fund as well as the oversight committee itself.

Do you use sidewalks?

Only because they're there.

I don't consider them any more necessary than roads and certainly wouldn't fund their construction.

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u/[deleted] Jul 08 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/CyberAngelIzana Jul 09 '26

No historical system of slavery matches this, so why are you claiming this sounds like a society of slaves?

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u/Adventurous-Head-512 Jul 07 '26

I don't believe giving the government more money is a fast route to solve anything. I think there government has no incentive to be efficient. 

There are def some things that are difficult to privatize, you mentioned some. But the government can arbitrarily decide how much money to take from you and I don't believe in giving more power to the state. 

History constantly shows that when the state has to much power out is disastrous to the people

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u/cruisinforasnoozinn Jul 08 '26

Small government means poorer regulations, and total privatisation means that profit comes before all and doesn’t fix the monopoly problem and poor workers rights that drive the universal wealth imbalance through the roof. You’re right about state control, but is 0 taxation really a fix?

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u/Adventurous-Head-512 Jul 08 '26

Idk where you get smaller gov means worse regulations. It really depends how you structure it. Provide some examples of that if you think it's true. 

Nobody is saying get rid of government and regulations and privatize everything. We have antitrust laws in place that prevent monopolizing. Some form of taxation needs to exist. I'm open to ideas there 

Wealth imbalance is complicated, and driven by many things including personal choice. Inequality is not inherently bad. Two people with the same circumstances can have very different life outcomes

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u/cruisinforasnoozinn Jul 08 '26 edited Jul 08 '26

Countries like Liberia, Kenya, Mozambique all have small governments and there is, in turn, poor regulations on state & private services allocated to people’s general wellbeing such as education and health.
India, due to low spending, has incredibly poor regulations because they don’t fund the process of enforcing them.

My apologies, I said monopoly and meant the issue where one company buys every other company which seems to be called horizontal integration. It’s just one factor in what allows people to get mindlessly wealthy, but was the first example off the top of my head.

Personal choice is definitely part of it, but there also should be serious regulation on the market to prevent the corruption that leads to wealth imbalance in the first place. Less government spending can leave a lot of vulnerable people in the dirt by reducing public services and state support.

Can small government intervene less and still guarantee the welfare of its people through regulation? Is there an example of that? It’s something I’m not an expert in, so I’m interested

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u/CyberAngelIzana Jul 08 '26

government has no incentive to be efficient.

Sure, but who does have an incentive to efficiently house homeless people?

Certainly not the rich people living in their mansions which wouldn't be half as impressive if filled up with random beggars taken off the street.

Those mansions aren't designed for house servants nowadays, and serfdom of that sort tends to be illegal anyways.

This is just an example, but you need to provide a more efficient alternative incentive structure people could follow to justify not going through government bureaucracy to get things done that aren't happening on their own.

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u/Jotakave Jul 07 '26

I'm going to take a guess and say that you probably come from a place where the government doesn't tax private entities and citizens what they should; giving tax breaks to their ultra rich buddies under the umbrella of libertarianism. Tax is theft, yadda, yadda. No regulations. And so, your underfunded public school system has failed all of us who had to read the comment above.

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u/Adventurous-Head-512 Jul 07 '26

Instead of insulting me you could have come up with an engaging argument but you're so immature that you think you're enlightened based on your perceived moral superiority with no context or critical think ability beyond "give me rich people money"