There’s a difference between actively choosing to kill an animal, and having an animal die as a consequence of another action.
Driving a car means that you’ll inevitably hit an animal at some point, but the alternative (walking) is often impractical and you’ll still try your best and stop or swerve when a cat runs into the road.
Eating meat, on the other hand, is an active choice that always involves someone killing an animal. The alternative is always there and is as easy as can be: eat something else.
But you have to respect other people lines as well.
Your personal freedom stops where someone else’s freedom begins. The question is whether you consider animals to be someone or something.
The fact that you don’t see the bugs being killed in the agricultural process do not mean they do not die because of your choosing. Killing bugs is a necessary part of the making of all the food you eat. It’s not an “accident” or “undeliberated”. The word “pesticide” for instance should give you a hint. Also a lot of the cleaning process of any vegetable is meant, among other things, to get rid of any bugs present.
You also, presumably, live in a house, what do you think that happened with the thousands of bugs that used to live in that plot of land. They didn’t die by accident, they died because you wanted a cozy house instead of sleeping on the grass. The clothes you wear, all consumer products you use, your phone. Millions of bug deaths could be prevented if you decided to live caveman style. If they die is your choosing. And everyone else respect that choice. Respect yourself other people choices that imply a small margin more of animal deaths.
I’m very well aware of the impact my existence has on the planet, but I can still try and minimize that impact as much as possible, even without taking it to the extreme and ending society. It’s not all or nothing.
If you want to minimize the amount of bugs killed, not eating meat is a great way to achieve that. Instead of harvesting tons of crops to then feed to animals, you could just eat those crops yourself. You’d even end up needing less space to grow your food overall, meaning you could re-naturalize a lot of farmland and create a habitat for billions of insects.
Respect yourself other people choices
How about you respect other animals right to bodily integrity.
You pit your line respecting animals body integrity at one particular position. As you have already recognized.
Respect that other people’s position of that line are different. At the end of the day you kill 1000 animals a day, eating meat I might kill 1050 animals a day. Not that much of a difference so… Just respect, it’s not that hard not to try enforce your way of life in others for such a small difference in animal deaths. Who knows maybe due your other habits you end up killing more animals than me. Do you do international travel by any chance? Do you drive cars or mount on motorized vehicles daily?
Be aware and prepare to be heavily judged by others if you pretend to judge people on those basis.
At the end we should just make a throughout body count of animals killed, including insects, you’ll probably be surprised by the results.
Or, much easier option, just respect that other people eat meat. And don’t try to enforce your traditions on others.
I think you’re grossly underestimating how much land and it takes just to feed an animal until it is ready to slaughter. I’m sorry to say but you’d be indirectly killing an order of magnitude more insects by eating meat, when considering all that feed.
I think a veggie or vegan diet, maybe even organic veg if possible, would help you preserve insect life (which really needs preserving as you rightly point out)
I agree! so we should try to get locally grown food without pesticides and then people can stop coping. Somehow my family manages to grow food without it and if there’s a bug we just dust it off into the grass. People who freak out over a little bug or fruit that’s not totally perfect are actually part of the problem.
It’s pure cope to say “I can’t avoid causing suffering so me making a deliberate choice to cause MORE suffering to animals that are the same intelligence as my dog is actually fine.”
It’s just using logic to destroy some common militant-radical-vegan arguments.
These people kill thousands of animals each years. And get angry that you kill a thousand and one.
They get angry that you say that human beings are more important than cows. But then they act as cows are more important than ants.
At the end that line of thinking is approaching religion levels of dogmatism. Thus why I feel compelled to rebate some arguments.
Your history for instance doesn’t really hold up. A little home leisure grows doesn’t provide for a family. To provide food for humans you do need proper agriculture, and proper agriculture, even traditional one, means the destruction of animal habitats and their massive killing.
If you don’t want to eat animals, specially the bigger ones because you feel sorry for them that’s ok. I would never question your personal choices. But if you start trying to enforce your personal choices on me, and start trying to moral shame me in a religious sort of way, then is when I have to push back. I already had my cup of religious moral shaming on catholic school, I don’t need more of it.
There’s nothing inmoral about eating meat. And not eating meat doesn’t make anyone a better person.
There’s a difference between actively choosing to kill an animal, and having an animal die as a consequence of another action.
Driving a car means that you’ll inevitably hit an animal at some point, but the alternative (walking) is often impractical and you’ll still try your best and stop or swerve when a cat runs into the road.
Eating meat, on the other hand, is an active choice that always involves someone killing an animal. The alternative is always there and is as easy as can be: eat something else.
Your personal freedom stops where someone else’s freedom begins. The question is whether you consider animals to be someone or something.
Arguing that driving a car is mandatory while eating meat is a choice must be the most braindead argument I’ve seen from a vegan.
It’s semi-related but this meme comes to my mind:
and also this one:
sorry for the poor quality of the second one, i couldn’t find a version with more pixels.
The fact that you don’t see the bugs being killed in the agricultural process do not mean they do not die because of your choosing. Killing bugs is a necessary part of the making of all the food you eat. It’s not an “accident” or “undeliberated”. The word “pesticide” for instance should give you a hint. Also a lot of the cleaning process of any vegetable is meant, among other things, to get rid of any bugs present.
You also, presumably, live in a house, what do you think that happened with the thousands of bugs that used to live in that plot of land. They didn’t die by accident, they died because you wanted a cozy house instead of sleeping on the grass. The clothes you wear, all consumer products you use, your phone. Millions of bug deaths could be prevented if you decided to live caveman style. If they die is your choosing. And everyone else respect that choice. Respect yourself other people choices that imply a small margin more of animal deaths.
I’m very well aware of the impact my existence has on the planet, but I can still try and minimize that impact as much as possible, even without taking it to the extreme and ending society. It’s not all or nothing.
If you want to minimize the amount of bugs killed, not eating meat is a great way to achieve that. Instead of harvesting tons of crops to then feed to animals, you could just eat those crops yourself. You’d even end up needing less space to grow your food overall, meaning you could re-naturalize a lot of farmland and create a habitat for billions of insects.
How about you respect other animals right to bodily integrity.
You pit your line respecting animals body integrity at one particular position. As you have already recognized.
Respect that other people’s position of that line are different. At the end of the day you kill 1000 animals a day, eating meat I might kill 1050 animals a day. Not that much of a difference so… Just respect, it’s not that hard not to try enforce your way of life in others for such a small difference in animal deaths. Who knows maybe due your other habits you end up killing more animals than me. Do you do international travel by any chance? Do you drive cars or mount on motorized vehicles daily?
Be aware and prepare to be heavily judged by others if you pretend to judge people on those basis.
At the end we should just make a throughout body count of animals killed, including insects, you’ll probably be surprised by the results.
Or, much easier option, just respect that other people eat meat. And don’t try to enforce your traditions on others.
I think you’re grossly underestimating how much land and it takes just to feed an animal until it is ready to slaughter. I’m sorry to say but you’d be indirectly killing an order of magnitude more insects by eating meat, when considering all that feed.
I think a veggie or vegan diet, maybe even organic veg if possible, would help you preserve insect life (which really needs preserving as you rightly point out)
I agree! so we should try to get locally grown food without pesticides and then people can stop coping. Somehow my family manages to grow food without it and if there’s a bug we just dust it off into the grass. People who freak out over a little bug or fruit that’s not totally perfect are actually part of the problem.
It’s pure cope to say “I can’t avoid causing suffering so me making a deliberate choice to cause MORE suffering to animals that are the same intelligence as my dog is actually fine.”
It’s just using logic to destroy some common militant-radical-vegan arguments.
These people kill thousands of animals each years. And get angry that you kill a thousand and one.
They get angry that you say that human beings are more important than cows. But then they act as cows are more important than ants.
At the end that line of thinking is approaching religion levels of dogmatism. Thus why I feel compelled to rebate some arguments.
Your history for instance doesn’t really hold up. A little home leisure grows doesn’t provide for a family. To provide food for humans you do need proper agriculture, and proper agriculture, even traditional one, means the destruction of animal habitats and their massive killing.
If you don’t want to eat animals, specially the bigger ones because you feel sorry for them that’s ok. I would never question your personal choices. But if you start trying to enforce your personal choices on me, and start trying to moral shame me in a religious sort of way, then is when I have to push back. I already had my cup of religious moral shaming on catholic school, I don’t need more of it.
There’s nothing inmoral about eating meat. And not eating meat doesn’t make anyone a better person.