Anyone who knows me, knows that I am a practicing vegan. In the nearly three years that I have been "this way" I have had to defend my choices on a routine basis. I don't know if it is because I have recently uprooted (yet again) and made a whole new peer group (yet again) or for other reasons, but I find myself defending my choices much more frequently in the past little while. As a result of this, I have decided that I will start a new feature here on my blogeroo (yet again), where I discuss some reasons why I am indeed a vegan. I realize that a few times before I have posted some news related articles about animal cruelty, but these posts will be less anecdotal and a bit more serious. Before I start, I would like to thank my good friend and long time hero, Kermit The Frog, for inspiring my title, God bless you frog, God bless you.
I guess I need to talk a bit about myself before I explain this reason. While I tend to act pretty off the wall sometimes, I consider myself to be a pretty mellow person at heart. While I am passionate about many things, I rarely ever get honestly or truly angry at anyone. As a result of this, I haven't been in a fight since Grade 4. I find violence to be completely unnecessary in the vast majority of cases and I think that the more level headed approach is often the best one. I guess what I am trying to say here is, at the very core of my beliefs and value systems I consider myself to be a pacifist.
Editors Note: If I may, I would like to take a moment to meta-blog here. I have a feeling that any of you out there who eat meat (omnis as I call "you people") are wondering when I will get to the point, but any of you out there who are vegans/vegetarians are realizing that I have already proven my point. Anyway, back to the point...
Violence is rarely about causing pain, it is rarely about proving a point, it is rarely about emotion, it is often about one thing, power. It is about taking the power from the victim and giving it to the perpetrator. It is a way of forcing your will upon another at the purest most basic of level. I have been a firm believer that might does not make right, and I hope many of you are as well.
What does this have to do with not consuming animal products you ask? Well, omnis out there, raise your hand if one of your main reasons for eating meat is because you like the taste...if 99.99999999999999% of you out there don't have your hands up then you are either filthy liars or not playing along with my game, and what fun is that?
So if you eat meat because you like the taste, then you eat it because you want to. Your will is to eat the animal's flesh. No matter how smart or dumb you think that an animal is, they all have the most basic desire when confronted with a potentially lethal situation "I am going to die, I don't want to die". When you kill that animal to eat it (or have someone else do it for you) you are clearly forcing your will upon that animal.
How can you justify violently forcing your will upon something? Is it ok because we have the canine teeth and technology? If so then that sounds like justifying something because you have the means and the power to do so. So does that mean then that might makes right?
It never has to me, and it never will.
I'm going to close with a video here called "Meet Your Meat", which shows just how violently animals can be treated en route to your plate. I warn you, it contains some very graphic footage.
Until next time,
G
Take 1 - Pacifism
Take 2 - The Environment
Take 3 - Pesticides, and Poo, and Pus, Oh My!
Take 4 - Distribution of Resources
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