I just discovered this, and I'm quite conflicted about it:
[I sympathise with the sentiment](https://pixelfed.de/p/tripu/257292372667404288), but:
1. Hybrids and electrics too? Sure, they _still_ pollute. But what doesn't!? Your bicycle pollutes. Electric cars pollute significantly less than equivalent dinosaur-juice-based ones. Electric cars are still quite expensive and some (many?) people make that effort out of concern for the environment. Do they (we) deserve to be punished, too?
1. Isn't this going too far? It's bordering on vandalism. One thing is to put a leaflet on the windscreen, or approach the a driver to start a conversation — a very different thing is to _completely disable a vehicle_. BTW, doesn't the recovery vehicle that will have to be summoned to tow the SUV pollute a ton, too?
1. This kind of actions across the board are always tricky: you just _don't know_ the owners of that car, nor their circumstances. I can think of a few scenarios where an SUV parked on a city street at a given point in time makes sense and is justified.
@tripu "Bordering on vandalism"? It's straight-on vandalism! If you allow it just because the vandals feel justified then what happens when others use the same excuse for causes you might not agree with so much?
You are probably right.
I have doubts because:
There's a gradient of unethical/illegal behaviours. eg, I once left a restaurant without paying the bill because I considered they were being too slow and I was annoyed. What I did was illegal, arguably immoral too. I “robbed” them of their private property (€€€). I was a “criminal” who should have been “found” and “prosecuted”. And still…
Yes: changing the law should always be strategy no. one. Still, civil disobedience is a thing. It's justified sometimes. It depends on the consequences, the importance of the cause, the likelihood of changing those laws, etc. This could (I say _could_) be justified. eg, I probably think that it's “fair” to deflate the tyres of a gigantic Hummer that you happen to know is used just to drive around the neighbourhood?
Nobody said “carte blanche”. I said “gradient”, “sometimes” and “could”, and expressed mostly doubts in the form of questions.
I can think of a couple ways _Tyre Extinguishers_ could be justified, while _Meat Adulterers_ should be condemned:
**“Property” comes in gradations, too.**
My heart and lungs are my property, and so is my motorbike. I want ethics and the law to allow for seizure and expropriation of the latter under certain circumstances — but never the former.
A can of baby formula in your cupboard is your property, and so is the umpteenth billion dollars credited to an individual's bank account. They are taxed very differently (ie, those two kinds of property are “respected” to very different degrees), and I think that's good.
The food I buy for myself, and thus the atoms I put _inside my body_ are “my property” in a very different way that ~~my car~~ / ~~the tyres of my car~~ / _the air_ that once was inside the tyres of my car is “my property” — for very good reasons.
Contaminating meat in the supermarket would affect ~[97.8% of people in Spain](https://efeagro.com/veganos-vegetarianos-flexitarianos-espana/). The vast majority of people eat meat, and I think it's reasonable to think that a good chunk of those people do so for health reasons.
Deflating the tyres of large and medium SUVs in cities would affect way less than ~[27% of people in Spain](https://www.elespanol.com/motor/20200814/primera-vez-venden-suv-espana-coches-convencionales/512949002_0.html) (_Tyre Extiguishers_ denounce only “huge polluting 4x4[s] in the world’s urban areas”), and I think it's reasonable to think that many of those urbanites opted for a large or medium SUV out of vanity, not necessity.
> I think it’s reasonable to think that many of those urbanites opted for a large or medium SUV out of vanity, not necessity.
I think many (most) people opt for meat out of comfort and taste, not necessity, and are causing a great harm. Can I become a vandal now, like tyreextinguishers.com?
I don't see how you can support this argument on a majority/minority basis. You would have used the same logic to support slavery or homophobic laws in the past, "the majority of people support X".
No, I don't think your adulterating meat would be justified. As I said, putting stuff inside people's stomachs surreptitiously is way worse than forcing them to take public transportation or call a recovery vehicle.
I'm not supporting TE because what they do affect less than ~20% of people. I'm saying that your hypothetical MA would be worse because it would affect ~98% of people. That, together with the other argument (above) suffice for me to declare MA immoral.
@tripu The number of people affected doesn't alter the argument, if anything it strengthens it.
My point is that, always following Tyre Extinguishers' logic, if eating meat is a major contributor to climate change, then that 98% of people are culprit and deserve a push in the right direction until they change their ways.
If TE are justified in their means toward an end then surely MA would be too?
If adulterating is too much for you then what about just spoiling large amounts of meat?
Oh, I see. Yes, the argument can work both ways: more people affected means both more (allegedly positive) impact and more annoyance. OK.
Yes, spoiling a product instead of putting stuff in people's stomachs would definitely be less objectionable for me. I think I would put _Meat Spoilers_ at the same level as _Tyre Extinguishers_: a campaign to cause minor annoyance/loss for potentially lots of people, against the law, across the board, ignoring personal circumstances and justified cases, not directly affecting people's health or body, most likely counterproductive and immoral in the end.
@tripu So now that we are in the same page, would you qualify Meat Spoilers as vandals? Because I would personally bet that a huge majority of society would think so, and a judge would find them guilty.
@fidel Yes, it's clear that what they do is illegal. I said “bordering on vandalism”, but I concede they're vandals, OK.
@fidel Ah, I misunderstood. You asked about MS, but I answered thinking of TE. Yes, both are vandals.
@tripu So if climate change gives you carte blanche to go against the heathens that pollute "too much" (whatever that means), what if someone would put a strong laxative in the meat that is sold at the supermarket? Industrialized animal farming is a top contributor to global warming after all. I'd go out a limb and bet that many (most?) of the people in tyreextinguishers.com eat meat. I wonder what they would think of a campaign such as this.
(Please don't put laxatives in meat)