Response to "vegan is murder"

Unfortunately, there are some brainless people in the animal rights movement who give us a bad name. Free market singularitarians are a very small component of it. Nevertheless, in response to a post
on the killing of field animals in agriculture as evidence of veganism's hypocrisy, I wrote this on the same blog:



Like in the Jain philosophy, any act of living of any living being will cause harm to another animal. However, we have to consider the morality of a society that enslaves, tortures, and consumes sentient beings for dubious nutritional benefit.

The same society that only a century and a half ago forbid the slavery of humans. A society that at the time, did NOT view all humans as equal.

Now, the question of these field animals is resolved relatively simply. My living on this planet and making use of public transportation and sidewalks involves to necessary destruction of life: the squirrel who crosses the street or the cockroach who happens upon my path. However, such deaths are not an intrinsic characteristic of the system. They are merely accidents, and they occur with the animal taking the risk upon itself. The same is the case with the field animals. These animals have been exploiting the niche of human agriculture and are purposefully putting themselves in harms way for the benefit of the food. Their injuries are not a necessary component of agriculture.


Compare that with the brutality and savagery of the meat industry and the clear suffering that these animals go through to satisfy our taste buds. To make a moral equivalence such as "vegan is murder" is absolutely absurd and designed to avoid debating the crucial moral values that define the animal rights movement.




Not as well written as I had hoped, but whatever. This is kind of just a rehash and I think that the vegetarianism articles written in the aftermath of the slate/IQ incident were far more compelling than addressing stupidity like "vegan is murder".