Moosekub
Tourist
I always found the vegan argument confusing and exhausting. Tearing up forests to grow soy and wheat is not exactly ethical or harmless. The victims of mass farming may generally be smaller (mice, insects, deer, birds, fish) or directly or indirectly impacted (predators, habitat loss, water availability or quality, displacement of communities, exploitation) but there is harm all the same; seen and unseen. Not to mention, the people harvesting the food are not exactly treated like human beings. In the U.S, fruit pickers frequently live in unheated, overcrowded sheds working for hours in the hot sun for pennies. Discrminationatory practices are common and abuse is rampant, where are the ethics in that?
Their environmentalist position is shaky too, thier food is grown usually with GMO plants which require an obscene amount of pesticides which damages the soil and kills animals and sickens humans. Then, after the trucks and tractors belch thier exhaust into the sky, the food will be will be packaged in plastic, cardboard, and smaller still into single use packages and shipped across the world travels in the same vehicle as my meat. The lower visibility of suffering does not mean vegan lifestyles do not cause less suffering. To say their lifestyle is better simply because a factory raised animal didn't die, or a cow wasn't milked ignores the mechanisms behind how our food is made and supplied and the actual suffering involved for all aspects.
What is more, the Vegan position lacks cultural relativisim, and is extremely ethnocentric, it callously conflates eating meat with a lack of concern for animal wellbeing regardless of the individuals circumstances, cultural background or individual ethical considerations. People who buy, raise, hunt, catch and eat meat for self sufficiency and/or sustenance are not eating meat to be cruel and conflating taking a life with a lack of respect for life is a conceited and condescending argument; especially to those who engage in methods and practices to preserve and protect the environment or their animal's welfare.
The all or nothing position of vegans interlaced with condescension, oversimplification, and arrogance makes your fears understandable. However, I do not see policy makers siding with anyone on banning pets, let alone getting people to surrender them.
Their environmentalist position is shaky too, thier food is grown usually with GMO plants which require an obscene amount of pesticides which damages the soil and kills animals and sickens humans. Then, after the trucks and tractors belch thier exhaust into the sky, the food will be will be packaged in plastic, cardboard, and smaller still into single use packages and shipped across the world travels in the same vehicle as my meat. The lower visibility of suffering does not mean vegan lifestyles do not cause less suffering. To say their lifestyle is better simply because a factory raised animal didn't die, or a cow wasn't milked ignores the mechanisms behind how our food is made and supplied and the actual suffering involved for all aspects.
What is more, the Vegan position lacks cultural relativisim, and is extremely ethnocentric, it callously conflates eating meat with a lack of concern for animal wellbeing regardless of the individuals circumstances, cultural background or individual ethical considerations. People who buy, raise, hunt, catch and eat meat for self sufficiency and/or sustenance are not eating meat to be cruel and conflating taking a life with a lack of respect for life is a conceited and condescending argument; especially to those who engage in methods and practices to preserve and protect the environment or their animal's welfare.
The all or nothing position of vegans interlaced with condescension, oversimplification, and arrogance makes your fears understandable. However, I do not see policy makers siding with anyone on banning pets, let alone getting people to surrender them.