starryeyedvoyager wrote:
I think the time where vegetarians and vegans needed to publicly justify their eating habits is long over.
ROFL- I'm sorry. Do you live in LA or NY or some liberal state or city? Have you ever been South of the Mason-Dixon line?
starryeyedvoyager wrote:
The reason why people get mad about these things is not because they think that you are doing something wrong, it is because all these "letters" carry that distinct taint of guilt. Deciding to not eat meat or any animal products is a decision everyone has to make for themselves. There is no right or wrong. If you believe that eating certain things is wrong, than do as you please, but leave other people alone with it. I only eat meat one day a week, because I feel that the food industry has evolved in a fashion I don't want to support. When I eat animal products, I make sure they come from organic agriculture. But I don't run around preaching my diet to other folks. It is like a religion, it is something you have to make peace with yourself. Imagine if you were a christian, someone would come and make a list of "10 things everybody needs to know about muslims", where it said "Muslims are ethical people. When they die, they go to heaven", implying that you, as a christian, are both neither ethical or will go to heaven when you die.
Espousing moral relativism isn't considered acceptable anywhere else in society, why would it be in this one instance?
"It's my personal decision to own slaves."
"It's my personal decision to beat my wife."
"It's my personal decision to dump this chemical in this unlined pond."
Libertarian arguments by definition are only applicable if your decisions only affect yourself.
They affect millions of animals, the environment, and arguably exacerbate world starvation, which has surpassed 1 billion people for the first time in humanity's history.
The self-righteousness over such issues ("How dare you say my choices have harmful consequences and judge me for making them?")
must stop- humankind, particularly the West, long ago leapt over the line separating unsustainability from suicide ideation and kept sprinting onward.
"Heaven", whether it's proclaimed Muslims go there or anyone else, is a made-up concept.
When vegans state that their lifestyle choices finance significantly less suffering and destruction,
it is verifiable, objective fact.
_________________
For there is another kind of violence, slower but just as deadly, destructive as the shot or the bomb in the night. This is the violence of institutions; indifference and inaction and slow decay.
04 May 2011, 7:45 pm
