When I’m cooking, and my brother’s around, I generally have to just make everybody’s good vegan. Sometimes I like the challenge.
Except when he came for thanksgiving. Then I just made a few of the sides vegan-friendly.
If he were vegetarian, it would be so much easier, but cooking anything without milk, eggs, or butter can be a bit difficult.
Everybody’s food vegan.
This for my boyfriend. He believes for himself that he does not want to participate in the trivial suffering created by eating meat. He also believes that it’s not his place to determine other people’s ethics for them, so he doesn’t.
And the discussions above are really why he doesn’t (and I don’t) much get into a discussion of it. He chose his path a long time ago, and it’s tied into his spiritual and personal philosophy, which he does not expect or demand others to follow.
For both of us (even though I’m not vegetarian), we realize that this is one of those things that probably can’t be discussed, due to the above.
Now that’s just an asshole move, and I can guarantee it’s happened (maybe not to you personally, but to others) with people other than vegetarians, too. The guest who won’t eat anything but free-range chicken, or grass-fed beef, or non-farmed salmon, or whatever, and wants you to accommodate their request instead of shutting up and/or providing their own is just an asshole. Not because of their diet.
Interesting definition of vegan…I always thought a vegan was someone who didn’t consume animal products. Seems like if you give up meat, you’re cool passive and fun, but if you also give up milk, eggs and cheese you become a political extremist, correct?
So, what is the secret ingredient in dairy products that keeps one cool, passive and fun without turning into some sort of liberal extremist? (not that there is anything wrong with that, in fact, maybe a benefit of a vegan diet is that it opens your mind to liberal political views)
Not necessarily. I don’t believe it’s wrong at all to eat meat. In fact, I believe we’re evolved to eat meat (along with grains, vegetables, etc.). I do, however, feel I’m incapable of killing an animal with my own hands. I really don’t think I could do it. Therefore, I don’t think that for me personally, it’s right to let someone else do the “dirty work” I’m not willing to do.
If anything, I’ll joke that I’m “evolutionarily defective” because of this! 
Hilariously, the person in question was actually living in Ohio at the time. Columbus, maybe?
Anyway, here is the original thread.
Read for amusement. Kindly do not raise any zombies.
Why? It does not appear to be a vegan website.
I’m going to create a message board just so Curtis can’t join it.
You have been banned for the following reason:
You are Curtis LeMay
Date the ban will be lifted: Never
Yes, the message board I create will be strictly and aggressively anti-Curtis… even expressing courtesy will be grounds for a warning.
OK. To the extent that anyone cares, i’m here to explain why i don’t think it’s unethical for other people to eat meat. If you don’t give a fuck about my own rational for being a vegetarian, or my worldview on the subject, please skip this post. But a couple of people have asserted that, if i avoid meat for any ethical reasons whatsoever, then i must perforce believe that anyone who eats meat is unethical; i’m responding to that accusation.
I don’t eat meat for a variety of reasons, some of which pertain to health, some of which pertain to the treatment of animals, and some of which are related to issues surrounding the politics of meat production and global food distribution. Leaving aside the health issues, i’ll focus on the other two, because they have pretty clear ethical components.
First, regarding the treatment of animals. I have no particular problems with the simple act of killing an animal for food. My ethical vegetarianism is not one that elevates animals to a plane equal to that of humans. I understand and empathize with the positions staked out by animal ethicists such as Peter Singer, but i don’t really share them. Hell, i went to an agricultural high school with people who grew up on farms; i’ve chopped the head of a chicken with an axe, i’ve helped castrate sheep and goats, and i’ve used rifles and shotguns to kill rabbits, foxes, and kangaroos.
I do, however, believe that people have a responsibility to treat animals with a certain level of respect and without cruelty, even if the purpose of the animal is to be eaten. For this reason, i dislike many modern farming methods that force animals to live in cramped, painful, miserable conditions for the whole of their awful lives, and that pump them full of various antibiotics and similar crap in order to force them to grow as much as possible as quickly as possible.
In any case where meat comes from an animal that has led what i would describe as a reasonably torture-free existence, i have no trouble with it at all. There are, for example, farms in Colorado, described by Eric Schlosser in Fast Food Nation, where cattle graze in open fields and lead a pretty unhindered existence until the time comes to slaughter them. They aren’t crammed into feedlots and forced to stand in their own crap on hard dirt or concrete floors for their whole lives.
My other ethical objection to eating meat revolves around the global politics of meat production and food distribution. Some people have already alluded to some of the arguments in this area, such as the fact that huge amounts of plant protein are used to produce far smaller amounts of meat protein, mainly for consumption in wealthy western societies. As someone noted earlier, Ethiopia was, during its 1980s famine, a net exporter of food for precisely this type of use. One of the works that i found very instructive in this area was Susan George, How the Other Half Dies: The Real Reasons for World Hunger, which made clear that it was not a lack of food that caused hunger, but a lack of will to effectively distribute the food.
Anyway, you can agree with my reasons, or not. That’s not really the point of the exercise. I just wanted to tell you what they were.
And now we get to the crux on the matter: if i have ethical reasons for not eating meat, why (or how) is it that i don’t believe that people who eat meat are necessarily acting unethically?
Well, there are a few reasons. First is the ethical absolutism issue alluded to earlier by Qadgop. The fact is that we are forced to make choices, and in modern society it is often very difficult to make choices that conform to all of one’s ethical ideals. For example, in an ideal world i’d prefer not to buy products made in sweatshops, in dangerous conditions and for awful rates of pay. And, when i can, i do avoid such products. But the fact is that i’m not rich, and so i know that i’ve brought products whose manufacturing history would probably appall me. And there are other products where i simply don’t know the conditions under which they were made. But the fact that i can’t be perfect here doesn’t necessarily make me a bad person, and i feel the same about people who eat meat.
Even further, food is an absolute necessity. I can live without a new pair of Nikes, but people can’t live without food. Furthermore, it’s often the case that food prepared in ways that i find ethically preferable are more expensive and/or harder to obtain. I’ve already conceded in this thread that vegetarianism, as an explicit lifestyle choice, is only really available to people who have a certain level of economic security. While i’m not rich, we can afford to make some choices about how we eat. We’re also well educated and aware of some of the ethical and scientific issues surrounding meat consumption. There are plenty of people with much less money than us, and who might also not be as well read on topics of vegetarianism, and who struggle every week to put any kind of food on the table. I have no desire at all to impose my vegetarian ethics on those people, and nor do i think that their food choices are unethical. The fact is that people have to apportion their energies and resources in certain ways, and if making sure that you have enough to eat involves serving meat, even meat produced in ways i might not like, then i’m completely, totally fine with that.
Also, as others have pointed out in this thread, in American society eating meat is sort of the default option. Most people are raised eating it, are told that it’s good for them, and have trouble imagining life without it. Whether that’s good or bad, it’s a fact, and i’m not really interested in making ethical critiques of people who are simply doing what they’ve done all their life.
People also have a hierarchy of issues that are important to them. In that respect, i’m no different from anyone else. And for me, vegetarianism isn’t at the top of that list. I eat vegetarian because it’s an easy thing for me to do, because i like the food, and because i feel good about making the choice to do that. But, in the big scheme of things, i’m far more concerned with other issues than i am with vegetarianism. If i’m going to devote energy to convincing other people to think like me, i’d prefer to do it on issues such as health care reform, gay rights, reduced fossil fuel usage, more investment in public transport infrastructure, etc.
Finally, even within my own vegetarianism i’m not completely consistent. For example, given that part of my reason for being a vegetarian is that farm animals are poorly treated, i should really refrain from eating dairy also, because battery hens and dairy cows are, on many farms, some of the worst-treated of all farm animals. When i buy dairy products, i do my best to get products from companies known to have more animal-friendly production processes. But i’m not naive enough to believe that all is happiness and light for the chickens and cows that produce what i consume. If i were stronger-willed, i’d probably give up those foods. But i like milk in my tea and on my cereal, i like eggs for breakfast, and i love cheese too much. Does this make me a hypocrite? Well, i’ll leave you to decide that for yourself, but at least i live in full knowledge of my own inconsistencies which, it seems to me, is better than denying that they exist.
I also own one leather belt, and quite a few pairs of leather shoes. Again, for a vegetarian whose habits are based partly on an opposition to the treatment of animals, this is not an ideal situation. The problem is that i need to keep my pants up, and i need something to wear on my feet. I guess i could use a piece of string for the former, but people at job interviews and academic conferences tend to notice if you’ve got baling twine holding up your trousers.
As far as shoes go, i run into another problem. I need footwear of some sort, so i have to have shoes. I could, theoretically, give up leather shoes and wear synthetic ones. But making a decision like this often brings with it a whole new sets of moral conundrums. For example, if i buy sneakers of some sort, chances are they’ve been put together by some poor bastard in a third-world sweatshop making a couple of bucks a day. Also, the processes used for making the rubbers and synthetics are often very bad for the environment. These are other situations that i prefer to avoid.
I could go the whole hog and buy some “vegetarian” leather shoes, which look like leather but are made from a special synthetic material. But this runs me up against another dilemma. Those shoes are (or were, last time i checked) a lot more expensive to buy, and i’ve already noted that i’m not made of money.
I’m not asking anyone to feel sorry for me here. All i’m trying to do is point out that, in the modern world, it is almost impossible to avoid giving money to some company or process that i find problematic. Jesus, even one of my breakfast cereals is made by a tobacco company (Post -> Kraft -> Philip Morris). Anyone who wants to avoid supporting tyranny or cruelty either directly or indirectly has a huge task ahead of them. I think that, for most of us, the best we can do is decide how much we can do with the resources at our disposal, and set our priorities accordingly. There will be times where we have to compromise on certain issues in order to maintain integrity on other ones. In my opinion, this isn’t hypocrisy, it’s just part of being human.
Do me a favor: tell me what percentage of vegetarians think that calling candies “buckeyes” is unacceptable. Do you think it’s higher than, say, one-tenth of 1 percent?
Someone’s already linked to the threads about OpalCat’s buckeye meltdown. Basically every vegetarian in those threads was telling her that she was being stupid. Here’s how i signed off one of my posts:
He didn’t just list “some personal opinions,” you brain-dead piece of shit.
He described vegetarianism as a “fraudulent lifestyle,” and made very clear that he thought vegetarians were stupid people who would be far happier if they’d just eat some meat, and that it was just a fashion statement. Someone else in the thread (Marley23?) dredged up some quotes showing similar disdain expressed by Dio in the past.
Sorry douchebag, but if someone suggests that my vegetarianism is the result of simple dishonesty on my part (how else would you parse an accusation that it’s “fraudulent”?), that’s a personal insult, and they’re going to get some personal insults back.
What you’re saying is that this all started because you overreacted to DiC’s use of the phrase “fradulent lifestyle,” which would be his opinion.
And also that you like to call people names when they disagree with you.
Look, you say that if DiC thinks vegetarianism is “fraudulent,” then it must mean that he thinks YOU are fraudulent.
At the same time, you struggle to maintain that while you find it unethical to eat meat, we shouldn’t expect that you think it’s unethical for US to. Most of your post above is an assertion that just because A is B and A thinks/does C, not everybody who is B does C.
Those two things are fairly similar. If DiG thinks vegetarianism is fraudulent, he must think you are fraudulent. If you think you eating meat is wrong, you must think us eating meat is wrong, right? Because that’s what you just said.
And I still maintain that with your unqualified “go fuck yourself” (can we call that “pulling a Cheney”?) you tanked this already-stupid conversation into a cross between mud wrestling and a pity party.
Who cares if it was his opinion or not? Nobody’s debating that Dio is arguing as fact that vegetarianism is fraudulent, it’s pretty well founded that they’re debating whether his personal opinion on the matter is supported by anything.
Ascribing a derogatory quality to a group and by extension taking that derogatory statement personally if you are part of that group is logical. Holding yourself to certain ethical standards based on your own experiences and worldviews does not necessarily therefore follow that you by definition of having an ethical framework ascribe those standards to other people.
He doesn’t particularly have a right to an opinion about my lifestyle. He also said a lot more than that, and you know it. Please, don’t defend him. He started this war of words, not mhendo.
Well, doesn’t it? He didn’t say it would be fraudulent FOR HIM, he didn’t qualify it in any way, he made a blanket statement of judgment.
This is just wrong, as all of the vegetarians in this thread have taken pains to say that it is unethical FOR THEM because of THEIR VALUES, which they are not arrogant enough to presume that everyone should share. Can you see the difference now?
While I think mhendo would have been wiser to just say, “Forget it Jake, it’s Diogenes” instead of responding with vitriol, Diogenes began the offensive line of discussion. That is just the fact, and you’re only defending him because you agree with him, not because God is on your side in this one.
Okiedokie.
Man, several people here need a good hamburger apparently
According to THEIR VALUES it’s unethical for anyone to eat meat (Basically, if everyone shared these values, nobody would eat meat)
I understand that they are saying that other people don’t have to share those values, but it remains fact that under THEIR VALUES eating meat is unethical.
It’s like saying: Under my values, beating my wife is unethical, but hey, I can’t impose my values on others, so if they beat their wives, I can’t judge them.
Maybe you need to be force fed some tofu, like a veal calf in a pen, only vegan. 
back atcha.
No, it’s not. It’s unethical for THEM to eat meat. You assume that people universalize their values, but I for one don’t. It’s wrong for ME. I wouldn’t presume to tell you what’s wrong for you.
So what? Why do you care what my values are? They only reason you know what mine are is because we’re eating together and you notice or ask. Otherwise, I wouldn’t get into it with you. Do you have a problem with the mere fact that I hold different values than you do? If so, you must have lots of problems with all kinds of people, not just vegetarians.
No, it’s nothing like that at all; what an unnecessarily inflammatory analogy. It’s more like saying, I am an atheist and I don’t believe in God, but as long as you don’t try to impose your religion on me, I don’t care what you believe. Why? Because it’s none of my business. Savvy?
Everytime I order or mention veal in a converstation, I make a point of saying :
"Veal !, its the baby tears that make it tender ! "
I can be such an un PC correct jerk sometimes…everybody needs a hobby