Yes, I understand that, that's why I'm shocked that cats can be healthy and vegan. I mean, I couldn't believe it, but, the proof has been shown to me in the form of living healthy vegan cats.

I am going to ask him about the exact molecular makeup of the food, how it works in their digestive systems, etc. I want to know what's going on.

Because I am curious. So I like to find out how things work. I am pretty curious to know exactly how there are two cats, who are biologically carnivores (with a different digestive system than ours and 200 times the amount of enzymes for breaking down meat than WE have), who have been thriving for a long time on a raw vegan diet. Aren't you?

I would never ever make a cat eat something it cannot eat.

Please notice, I am the only one who responded to rescuing the cat, even though I really don't have much space for it, and it's not an ideal situation for me but I'm going to do it regardless.

SO, if you want to rescue the cat instead, then go ahead and feed it what you would like.

Otherwise, the cat is going to the SPCA to be put down.

That's not how it works. Buying it creates demand. The more people buy, the more is produced. Eating something that is thrown out, however, is different. That's called "Freeganism", and those ppl are farther along the ethical scale than even I am, by my own standards of ethics.



*palmface* no, dude, they don't plant the trees they cut down for paper. even in Canada where supposedly we plant back more trees than anyone else, it's only like 3 or 10 percent or something.

Heya, I forgot to respond to this. OK, I would NOT make a cat vegan unless I absolutely knew what I was doing, down to a science. I said I would LOOK INTO IT, not do it.

I have a raw vegan friend, who has 2 cats, who have been THRIVING and living happily and healthily for MANY YEARS NOW on a raw vegan diet.

I was just as shocked as you are, but, I have seen it for my own eyes, so I am willing to look into it.

Taking another sentient being's freedom away isn't really a freedom.. it's an ANTI-freedom.

IMO:

Our freedom should end where another sentient being's freedom begins.

and

If the freedom of one sentient being is being taken away, this is the point at which is is reasonable for someone to try to stop the person who is taking that freedom away. To protect the right of freedom of the first sentient being that is getting its freedom taken away.

Making it OK and necessary, right?

Only in response to the unfair accusations put on me. Also, yes, it IS violence and torture, literally, it's not untrue so I don't understand why you see a problem with it.



I'm not accusing them of it, they do it consciously and openly.



I never said they were all cruel. Just because someone causes cruelty to happen doesn't mean that they MEANT for it to happen, or fully understand it. I don't believe all meat eaters are innately cruel, but they are definitely supporting cruelty, whether they know it or not, whether they mean to or not. That's not my doing, shoot me for being the bearer of bad news.



veganism, humanitarianism, socialism...

How can I respect someone's right to take away the freedom of others?! That's not a right that anyone should have!

um no, I'm pretty sure I was always aware of it. Things "being the way they are" does not make them fine to stay that way. Yes I did have a bit of a crisis when I found out what is really happening to the planet and the animals, and how this is the last generation of excess. If I hadn't, there would have been something very wrong with me IMO. It will likely be too late by the time everyone else starts deciding to do something about it too.



Um, I never expected like to be easy...




Oh. Right. Well why don't you read the very first post of this article again, and then get back to me. I suppose this is the right place to post hatrid then?

..n if the rave community is not the place to promote compassion, where is.

Well at least that is not hypocritical.

As for calling my posts a diatribe. What exactly would you call the article you posted? At least my diatribes are factual.



I tried at first to do that on here.



Well that's why I asked you where your animal products come from. Do all your animal products and byproducts come from there?

AND I NEVER SAID I WAS BETTER THAN ANYONE ELSE! You keep putting those words in my mouth when I have repeatedly stated I am nowhere near perfect.

I am not stuck up, hence I don't think I'm so above everything else that it's OK for me to harm animals just because I think they taste good... now THAT takes some ego...

It's not about a personal dietary choice. It's about actions that affect others. I don't think it's OK to stand by and not do or say anything while needless mass genocide and torture in nazi-type camps is happening.

If I only gave a shit about myself and nobody else, I wouldn't say anything at all.

Strangedalia, there is no point talking to you because you ignore every bit of reason that I've gone over. I've explained my feelings very fairly and yo just ignore it and post a bunch of unreasonable stuff anyways. For the very last time, from me to you, I do not try to guilt people, I am not imposing myself on others, that is what *you* are doing and if you feel guilt from it, fine. You are just realizing the blame for yourself then. You made the association on your very own between the things you do to animals, and guilt.

databoy - I find it very weird that someone can claim to love animals and then defend the system they're tortured in. I asked to please answer my question so I can have a better perspective on it.

I added an update to the post above:

and natural doesn't = right, anyways. I think we have evolved to know better than that by now, to be able to distinguish between the two.

Please fully answer what I asked, databoy. I thought those were very fair questions.

What we are doing to animals now is not "natural" and it's nowhere within the realms of natural suffering. It's something else altogether. Please answer the things I asked.

---
Strangedalia: I'd like you to take a look at a factory farm (concentration camp) and tell me, who are the nazis.

and natural doesn't = right, anyways. I think we have evolved to know better than that by now, to be able to distinguish between the two.

--copter XD lol

My family doctor seems to think I'm in amazing shape, and I've done tests and everything is optimal. I am also an athlete and require a lot of (complete) protein, and I don't eat soy.

What do you think is in animal protein that we need that we can't get in vegan protein?

I think what happens is that mainstream society refuses to educate people on proper vegan diets, and then people go vegan and don't know what they are doing and get unhealthy. That's not veganism's fault, it's the education system that needs to advance. Most doctors don't even know anything about nutrition!!! I had to tell mine where I got my protein. O.o



I know a bunch of raw vegans who have been vegan for about 15 years now and they are the healthiest people I know. There is no difference in the lifespan of vegans and omnivores, despite the fact that this is talking about vegans from a time when there was virtually no nutritional information available for them, like we have today. In fact the guy who coined the term "vegan" died a few years ago at like 95 years old. He went vegan alone when he was 14 and had no nutritional info available.

I actually had to cut down on my protein because I was getting too much of it :P lol.

When your point of view runs against the grain and there is so much pushing on the other side, it can require outspokenness to balance it out. Especially if there is only one or two of me speaking on this side, and about 10 people on the other side, I have to respond in equal measure even though I am less people (though really, we are all on the same side :)



It's the only thing that's ever changed the world. I don't know exactly how much I will change it but I want to do what I can.



Showing in actions does that too, and speaking out about it helps. Every social justice movement is like that. I think it's good for info to be presented in a variety of ways. :)



I think it's a misconception that vegans are trying to guilt people. I simply state a fact (animals are enslaved, mistreated, needlessly) and they feel guilty. That's their own conscience telling them to feel guilty, not me. I have never once told someone, "you are a bad person because you eat meat!"

I ate meat and I wasn't a malicious person, just wasn't connecting my actions with my values.



This is completely not a personal attack, but I want to understand how you think, and why:

You love animals and respect life? Have you seen where all of your food comes from, what happens to the dairy and egg animals, how your meat was raised *before* it was killed? How is it in coherence with loving animals if you abuse them at all to get things you don't need from them?

These aren't loaded questions or to make you feel bad, they're completely honest. I think if I can get a decent reasoning on it from anyone here, you seem to be one of the people who would be more likely do give one.

..which is one of the many reasons I'm vegan. All the ressources and veggie food matter that we feed to livestock could feed the hungry people of the world instead! Livestock is an inefficient system because we get much less out of it than we put in. If a smallish fraction of the population went vegan, we could feed the hungry people of the world.

While on the issue of human rights, since livestock production is the number one cause of pollution in the world (I'm not just talking greenhouse gasses, I'm talking actual pollution), if more people go vegan now, our future humans will live in a much better world too.



Deadfunk, I don't even support PETA and that's not true. They kill a lot of animals, but nowhere NEAR the most.

About PETA... presenting people with their issues is not a good argument against veganism, because PETA doesn't have very much to do with vegans. Many of us don't support PETA and many members of PETA are meat eaters. Go figure. Trust me I could go on about it but it has no relevance to this thread.

In response argument about it being evolution/natural/designed etc. - I understand exactly where you are coming from, because this was my argument and point of view ever since I heard about veganism (which I thought was "like vegetarian, but even more extreme, noble idea but not natural, we are natural omnivores"). I do understand your point of view, completely.

Over time I realised that "natural" is not synonymous with "good". Then I learned that its is completely possible (and even in some places in the world, natural) for people to not eat any animals or animal products whatsoever and get *absolutely* all of the nutrients that you would get from the animals... and now I've been finding, it's actually more.

So, regardless if it's naturally possible for me to be an omnivore, or if I grew up that way, or if my ancestors grew up that way... the fact is PRESENTLY: we live in a world where we don't need to any more. There is no good reason to exploit or kill other animals for food any more, because we don't need to, for ANY of our nutrients, name me one nutrient and I will tell you where you can get it in a vegan diet.

I have nothing against you on a personal level so please don't get so upset and insulting. These are things I've learned, and I wish someone had "been imposing" and kindly shared them with me sooner.



You honestly think that is valid reasoning for torturing something its entire life in a prison system and then killing it? I love the taste of cashew butter (better than peanut butter hehe) but if it had nociceptors, there are also 10000 other things that taste good to eat instead.



Of course they wouldn't be subjected to our laws if they were liberated. The pidgeons are liberated and are not subjected to our laws. Animals like bears don't come into the city... If they did, for some weird reason, they would be tranquilized and transported out back into the wild. Fear of these things is unreasonable. Fear breeds hate and the perceived need to dominate.



It's very easy. I thought it was going to be hard (it looks hard from the outside in) but it only seems that way because it's a foreign ideology but it's very easy after not very much digging.



That's right! There are many different vegan diets for many different dietary needs. Absolutely all the nutrients that are found in meat (except for an overload of certain carcinogenic amino acids) can be found in vegan foods. Vegan does not depict one set diet. It's a very broad spectrum. There are people with all sorts of health requirements who meet them as vegans.



Absolutely everything that different humans need is found in a vegan diet. If anyone wants to call me on that, please tell me which nutritional requirement you're concerned about and I'll let you know which type of vegan diet is good for it.



A half assed diet in general is bad for people, and that is true all around and does not apply any more to vegans than it does to omnis.

...so did a lot of other things...

There were so many very unfair things said through this thread. It's I hope that everyone can read this carefully, and mull it over:



It's accepted for people to laugh and joke about torturing animals and how much they hate vegans etc, but if ONE vegan has the guts to speak up and defend it and say, "It's wrong to torture and kill animals! We don't need to!" Then you freak out and label it with self-rigteousness and extremism and a whole ton of other fallacies.

My posts were in RESPONSE to a thread that is calling all veggies/vegans a whole ton of bad things. I never came on here and troll-posted a thread myself, calling all meat eaters names and stuff (though believe me I have QUITE as much or more feelings on the issues as the guy who wrote the article does, and have just as much of an inclination to post a thread about it, but did I? NO.) and I never ONCE said (through all the attacks) that "I hate meat eaters" because I don't, I WAS a meat eater for most of my life. But I've always been a very curious person and I did a lot of research (from many different sources) and have come to the conclusion that it's not reasonable, with everything that goes on in the industry today that is not OK, or natural (including taking the freedom of other animals at all), and even if it was natural to keep things in prison camps and pump them full of drug before eating them and drink the maternity milk of another species (it's not), natural does not necessarily = good. "All natural" is normally just a mar

In fact, if you'll read my first posts, I specifically kept saying how it was NOT an attack on the person who wrote it, or on any meat eaters, I was only sharing things I've learned out of non-biased research. Because it counters what we have been force-fed our entire lives, I was jumped on for it.

Calling me a hippy as if it means anything is silly. I have nothing against "hippies", whatever they are, but I don't think I fit into that or any specific category. I'm not calling you "redneck conservatives" in response, because it's meaningless.

Call me defensive if you want but it's easy for a sensitive person like me to get defensive when there is an article of anti-me and conservative anti-compassion propaganda posted on here.

Not all vegans support PETA, you can drop your stigmas now, and I vote Steven Best over Pete Singer.

____________________________________________________
I would like someone to ACTUALLY respond to this, and try to make it a reasonable response:

How can someone call me self-righteous when I've decided specifically NOT to push myself on others (like, keeping them in torture camps and eating them is a way of pushing yourself on others). It's the entire basis of veganism, NOT exploiting others, NOT forcing my ways (prison camps) on others, not forcing death on them even though in THIS DAY AND AGE (regardless of WHAT we have been doing before) when we don't need to any more... (natural does not = good, though I'll point out, we are obviously as a species capable of eating both plants and meat or only plants).

...Yet I am the one pushing myself on others?

Over and over in this thread, this clear logic is being ignored.

So please, for the first time, actually read this, take it in, and respond to it:

If I am "forcing myself on you" (which I never was, until I was attacked and equally responded with the other side), to get you to stop forcing YOURSELF needlessly on other sentient beings, and then you accuse me of being the forceful one? HELLO, YOU ARE FORCING PHYSICAL TRAUMA AND DEATH ON OTHERS, without need. I'm not "forcing" anything upon you, please wake up and

realize

where

the

force

is

being

applied.

oops. sorry, up there I meant to say "All Natural" is often just a marketing scheme. It's not so important though, I half deleted it instead of deleting it by accident.

Exactly.

In the future people will see this reality and won't call it conspiracy "theory" anymore.

Mike grab some weaponry and stock up like Scotty said :) I've got my bike and tent and backpack and everything all ready... Woot! Come on, it'll be fun.

Wahahahahaha. *bows down, in reverence and servitude*... .... (jk)

I always thought that plur should be something that's naturally in the scene and that each person would do their part to let it flow.

I come from a place thought where there was at a time a lot of unplurriness in the scene where people would start stealing backpacks, being dishonest etc. I remember being virtually the only one trying to get ppl to wake up to it and "crack down" on unplurriness, so I can see where you're coming from.

At the same time, having the most heavily smokey raves in the ENTIRE country is something that needs to be seriously looked at, smoke assaulting innocent party goers including under-18's is something very non-plur, no matter what you say. You're not the God of all, or the inventor of the concepts of peace, love, unity and respect... you're not the only one with an valid opinion.

Obviously there was a hard fought social movement in the direction of clean air, hence the smoking ban in public places.

A scene that's (cigarette) smokey encourages young people to start smoking. Cigarettes are everywhere, offered continuously, and seen as a social norm. Also, a scene where it's smokey makes it harder for people to quit, since they cannot escape it!

As a "progressive" scene, there should be no smoking in doors, or at the VERY LEAST if there IS smoking in doors, have some fucking ventillation!

Otherwise, as Rawali poined out, smoking indoors when there are non-smokers around is DISrespectful. Therefore unplur.

You are not the sole judge of what is plur.

You can get off your "non-newbie" superiority cloud about being on the boards longer, it's not like I popped into existence yesterday. I've been to a lot of parties in different cities. This is the smokiest of them all and it repulsed a number of other people as well. I'm just the only one with the guts to say anything about it, simply because I don't care about the social reprocussions.

ekshellent! let's get something going sometime next week shall we?

I'm actually thinking of getting a bunch of poker chips and painting them with my blacklight paints and taking them to parties. How rad would that be?

ORRRRRR the cops want to INCITE peaceful protesters into violence, by way of infil-fucking-tration etc. It's not like they haven't done it many many times before.

This is a blow towards Animal Rights protesters too. The governments (especially in North America after what GWB did in '06 that has turned everyone for good against AR) are very angry with people campaigning for compassion, you see, it gets in the way of their nasty business!

They're trying to find a way to further persecute people who aren't down with the G summits.

People have a right to gather and protest and not have the government see their face so that they can track them and hunt them easily later!



Damn straight. For the above reason. We're not out of the dark ages yet people, just hit a lull, and we are going back in.

:( That must be very tough for the ones who usually smoke every few minutes.

I'd honestly rather the whining than the smoke :( At least I'd be able to sing the next day.

Bahahahahaha XD bien sur

Hahaha I know it really is a ridiculous proclamation to make. XD



Aw it's ok, I type faster than I talk so it's just like breathing :) But those things were in response to serious subject matter *insert serious face*. Though I like to joke around a lot, this is something that wasn't being joke material.



Awwww shit. I've made myself unpopular here! XD That so sucks, I'd better stop dancing now. *looks down, sadly*

....but maybe the poi will be in FIRE. Did you ever think about that?! EH?! DID YOU?!



Hmm, it was really embarrassing actually when I took some out-of-town raver friends of mine to a couple parties recently and both times the smoke was so intense that it kind of shat on our otherwise awesome nights. It wasn't even me who commented on it either, in fact I was the one who was trying to make excuses for it, you should have heard me trying to defend the party when I knew they were right... "well it's not so bad now... it's cleared out a bit!" ...and then we looked around and the smoke hung so thickly in the air that it was a haze... and it was no smoke machine smoke...

All of us have been raving for a long time, in different cities, and we have never, I mean NEVER, been to parties with such a concentration of smoke. Maybe you guys are used to it but to us it's completely... I can't find a good enough adjective.



Oh totally, I feel bad for people who are addicted to something like that. My mother smokes and has tried to quit many times, I love her dearly (but she was compassionate enough towards me as a kid not to subject me to it). I'm sure it's very hard for any of them to try to quit, too, when their parties are filled with smoke.



o XD I'm honestly sorry, I understand you now. I would not want that for anyone. I guess it really is excrutiating for them to just not smoke for a few hours. What the heck do they do on air planes, trains, busses, in school, at work, if they go to the hospital!?!?!?

..in response to you not getting it and saying the same inaccurate accusations over and over again. You're right, I shouldn't humor you like that. ...n what did I say that was a dogma?



Putting words in my mouth again. Never did I put everyone into the same basket. What do you mean when you say "humane"? What e.x.a.c.t.l.y does the word define for you?



Indoctrined by who? I have done my own research, come to my own conclusions based on nutritional fact and reason, nobody came to me and told me to be vegan... but I wish they had years ago though! If someone else had been more outspoken about it (like this) earlier in my life, I would have come to this understanding much sooner.

What are you trying to say about your persecution of other animals (keeping them enslaved, inflicting pain and death)?.. You do those things, why do you have an issue with the statement? You should be perfectly fine with it, since you believe these things are perfectly fine to do... or else why would you do them?

I stated the fact in response to your accusing me of "forcing myself on others". I can't bear the idea of forcing myself on others any more, that's the reason I went vegan. It's an integral part of the philosophy. "...to exclude — as far as is possible and practical — all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals..." ...animals, which includes other humans!



I do and have done that. If I didn't ever care what other people thought I would not talk to them at all or have any friends. In certain situations though, I feel that it's good to let go of caring for the idiocy of others and not let it get to you. That's what I meant about not giving a flying fuck what they think. You continuously make false accusations, based on your own misconceptions. You've absorbed enough brainwash against veganism that you think we all have some sort of weird motive to "control others". Dammit, NO, we only wish that you would STOP controlling others!

Oh I remember now in what context I said "I don't give a flying fuck.." that was when you were criticizing the legitimacy of me having common values factor into who I date. 0.o

---------------------------------------------------


Exactly. And contrary to popular misconception, there is nothing outside of reason or extremist about veganism. It can be perfectly healthy and fit into a happy, full life. There is nothing extreme about choosing to live with a big importance on the value of compassion and respect for all other life, enough respect that you wouldn't cause harm to another animal if you could help it. There is nothing extreme about putting my compost into a compost bin instead of tying it up into plastic bags to put in a landfill. There is nothing extreme about using shampoo that wasn't pointlessly tortured on animals, and there is also nothing wrong with encouraging others to do the same!! There is nothing extreme about wanting people to stop pointlessly hurting other animals. Am I trying to "force" a compassionate lifestyle on others? LOL! What a ridiculous thing to criticize. I used to get the same criticism in Jr High school when I tried to get people to stop being mean to the Gay kids. IMAGINE THAT, I WAS THE ONLY ONE STANDING UP FOR THE GAY KIDS. If only I had that ability to convince people to stop causing needless harm and suffering.

meep. :S thank you :/

I saw the one side, which is lacking so much fact and propagated so often, and felt that it was an appropriate time to respond with the rest of the story.



I actually had thought, at the time that I wrote back, that you meant raw vegan because they are the only type of raw foodist that I have known until now.



I'm sure that to me, this behavior you're speaking of, is spewing out truth that nobody wants to hear, and to you it's "self-righteousness".



I'm not sure torturing and killing others works with PLUR does it?

This convo has gotten me thinking a bit more than I wanted to tonight.



In retrospect, maybe what they should have instead for the title of the menu would be something more accurate: "exploitation-free grill" or "cruelty-free grill".

Maybe those words make what we do to the animals sound harsh because it *is* harsh. But it's not untrue. They are exploited, and in very cruel ways. Maybe the owners of the restaurant felt that the truth words were too harsh, so they softened it up a bit and put "guiltless" instead in hopes that it wouldn't offend people.

I guess they should have just put "non-animal-and-non-animal-byproduct grill". Hey, that's catchy! ;)

For fuck sakes you could say that about so many things. What is a value you must share with your romantic partners? Maybe they're not allowed to murder and torture other human beings? For me, it's that they think that torturing and exploiting ALL animals (not just humans) is wrong and that they won't do it!! I will not live in the same place with someone who is doing it, I will not live around that stuff in my fridge!! Like you probably wouldn't date someone who wears human skin and has human skin lampshades, I wouldn't date someone who wears the skin of ANY animal, not just humans.

If someone is not compassionate enough to think causing unnecessary harm to animals is wrong, they are not compassionate enough to be my partner!

I will date people who believe in religion when I do not, but if someone from any certain religion does not want to date outside of their religion, I'm not going to mock them and tell them that it's silly! If it's important to them to share that with their partner, they are entitled to that.

When I get involved in human rights issues (which I do), nobody accuses me of being in a religion. Why? Animal rights (which includes human rights) is just so much more taboo right now than human rights on its own, spurred on by our scared government and the scared industries that sit behind the mask that is our "government".



How many times do I have to say that I don't think I'm anywhere close to perfect. I'm not, however, going to stop standing up for innocent tortured animals just because people think I'm somehow self-righteous for it. In fact, it's the people who harm those animals who are the self-righteous ones that they think they have any right to do those horrible things.

IMO you have to be prettty stuck up to think that torturing and killing another creature is OK, when you know that you don't need to.



I'm not trying to make friends. Please tell it to someone who actually knows what peer pressure feels like.

I didn't ostracize myself, I learned one day that the doctrines I was taught were false and decided to stop contributing (as much as possible) to the horrors. Now all I want is to heal some of this this crazy mess and I don't give a flying fuck if I am popular or not for it.



I do practice what I preach... now it's your turn...
When you say "let other people live as they wish" I say "let ALL the animals live as they wish, not only humans" and I assure you, that does not include confining them to tiny cages, skinning them alive, etc.



Speciesism.



Your (and my) freedom should end where another's begins (another animal who does not have it in their interest to be confined to a cage and subjected to your violence!!!).



What's extreme are the gross injustices that are done for NO GOOD REASON to the other animals!



Then stop forcing mass violence upon other animals!! Hypocrisy!! The only thing I try to get other people to do is to STOP FORCING THEMSELVES ON OTHERS. Other creatures. Why must people insist on forcing a sick twisted prison system on them.



Obviously people always think their opinions are right, that's what an opinion IS. And opinions do count, since they determine the decisions we make.
_______________________
_____________________

I will never stop caring about the victims of this shameful torture camp system.
______________
____________________

You're the one who needs to lose your ego, thinking you are so much greater than every other species on Earth, that you feel you have license to persecute them all, in the most vile of ways.
_____________________________
___________________

Walk your talk.

...SO THERE! hate me! bwaaa.

It's not about religion... it's about if my partner holds certain values that are very important to me that I share with my partner.

Personally I'm a very staunch atheist, the idea of religion is whack to me. But I would date someone who is spiritual/believes in God because that's a difference I'm willing to have with my partner.

Trust me this is for the best that I only date vegans.

I am very lenient/open minded in other aspects of the relationship though... much more than the vast VAST majority of people in the world...

So no comparisons with religion pls, that's not fair, it has nothing to do with supernatural beings..

CORRRRECTAMUNDO!!!!!!! :D

<----vegansexual
teehee
(diss0nance was referring to if we swallow or not)

!!!!!!!! oh my Flying Rice Vermacelli Monster... that's getting me SO WET!

..wait for it... waaaait for itttt....


!!!@*&#&Aaaaaaaaahhhhah aU!(*&(#!&&! yAAAAAAAAAahhhhhhh h h h hhhh hh hh hhhhhh....#&! <<<vegangasm

Right well, to stop the hate, not torturing and exploiting animals would be a good way to start.

<<<Everyone will hate me but at least I have the guts to point out the facts.

That's the whole point of veganism, to not force yourself on others (i.e. other living creatures).

Non-vegan consumers are forcing their way of life on animals, which unfortunately results in the torture and exploitation of those animals.

Me encouraging people to go vegan and live a more compassionate lifestyle (aka forcing my lifestyle ruthlessly upon them) results not in torture, but would actually benefit them or at the very worst be neutral.

So I see a very big difference there. I find it very rich of non-vegans to accuse us of forcing ourselves on anyone, in light of what results from their own lifestyle.

It seems like people often accuse others of the things they do themselves. Redirect the blame.

Oh diss0nance. That's an extremely ignorant and misinformed view of it in so many ways and not really even worth commenting on. Honestly. Absolutely every bit of it is true the other way around.

Oh and completely untrue as well.

.

I'm not even going to go there right now, but I REALLY could.



Unfortunately for you, your choice *is* narrowed. Since I went vegan, my diet actually expanded bigtime. I eat things now that I never even knew existed before. I discover new awesome dishes all the time. I'm totally addicted to food, love love love it. I'm a total foodie. The best things I've ever eaten were vegan, a whole world of food I never knew about before.

It's a big misconception of the omnivore world that we eat *less* diversely than you. If anything, it's the other way around. I was there less than a year and a half ago. I didn't have any clue what vegans ate, but thought I did.

Vegan food is not simply, what you eat, minus the animal products. There are so many amazing things you are missing out on because they are replaced with meat, dairy, eggs etc. If you didn't have that stuff, you would find a world of thousands and thousands of awesome ingredients that you don't use because you block it with dairy, meat, eggs, and other animal byproducts.

It's like saying my shampoo and conditioner are somehow lacking something that yours have, because they have no animal ingredients and were not tested on animals like yours were. No; they have other things in them that yours do not. For example, the hair care products that I found *only* because I went vegan (that are biodegradable, vegan, non-animal tested, etc etc) are the best hair care products I have ever owned, and don't even cost any more than the other stuff. I would not have discovered them if I was using the "normal" brands that just HAVE to be tortured on animals to work.. evidently...



I know you said this to be funny but I'm gonna reply anyways - we're talking about billions of people, not an individual. As each individual changes in their own time (some people over night, some people years), this affects society as a whole on a more gradual scale.



As I said before, I am not a perfect person and this is not about me. I guess I am being a good role model in a way? Doing my best to minimize impact, be as responsible as I can, and realizing what that means? I don't want to be an egomaniac but I have to appreciate myself on some level here.

I'm not putting you guys down here but I do think that it's time for the human world to take responsibility and more towards more compassionate choices.

As you can see in the definition of veganism, it's not just a dietary thing:

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[T]he word "veganism" denotes a philosophy and way of living which seeks to exclude — as far as is possible and practical — all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing or any other purpose; and by extension, promotes the development and use of animal-free alternatives for the benefit of humans, animals and the environment. In dietary terms it denotes the practice of dispensing with all products derived wholly or partly from animals.[1] (Donald Watson)
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I keep seeing this whole "I choose to be compassionate... but if someone else chooses not to, that's fine by me!" Well then why are you choosing compassion then? Why would it be okay for other people to cause excess harm to animals, but not for you?

If you went vegan/vegetarian out of ethics/compassion, then IMO is *is* hypocritical to say that you accept the choice of others to cause excess harm to animals, since they do not need to for survival.

How I see it:

I'm not going to give birth, but maybe one day I might adopt a kid. I am going to be nice to that kid, I would never confine the kid to a cage, force-feed it with tubes, castrate it without painkillers, give it tons of drugs/hormones/antibiotics, sensory deprive it, cut off its lips with hot metal, burn marks into its face, conduct crude experiments on it, put screws in its head, (all of this without any painkillers), force it to give birth repeatedly then kill the infants, then drink it's maternity milk, etc etc ETC ETC.

I'M not going to do all those things, because I think those things are wrong to do to another.

Well... there are other people that will adopt kids too.... what if its *their* "lifestyle" to do all of those things to the kids they adopt? What if those things are legal, and a regular part of human culture? Do I say "well I don't do those things, but if somene ELSE wants to do them, IT'S THEIR OWN CHOICE AND NOBODY SHOULD BE CRITICIZED FOR IT, WHETHER THEY DO THOSE THINGS OR NOT" ?????

NO!!!!!!!

That would not happen, it would be a gradual change. We would simply stop continuously breeding them as the demand decreases.