[Jerry K]

Awesome post Joey, it's always refreshing to engage in dialogue with someone online and have both us still respect the rules of respect that apply in real-life conversation.

I agree wholeheartedly with nearly everything you are saying. If you took my point to mean that any vegan who isn't also engaged in humanitarian efforts to mean that any humantarian is not vegan is also a hypocrite than I didn't make that point clearly. Most vegans I know do NOT try to push other people to veganism but rather are inspirational in their dedication to their own moral pathway and also happen to live very compassionate, healthy lives.

I do however maintain that for anyone to equate animal suffering to the Holocaust means that that person must be dedicated 100% in their life to solving problems of humans, or else it is an empty argument. Let me put this another way. I have grieved often for my relatives and the millions of others who were killed in the holocaust and for all of society's loss of their energy. I have also grieved for the way that animals are treated in factory farms. However, my grief over the relatives I will never know from the Holocaust FAR outweighs the grief I feel for the way animals are treated in factory farms. Perhaps that is just a signal of my own capacity for compassion, which I am actively working on developing more fully.

I'll pose this question, and I'm curious to hear your answer because I can tell you've thought a lot more about this than I have and this is the first time I'm really articulating this. If a non-meat-eating person is going to say that the rest of humanity who eats meat are metaphorically murdering Nazis, but then that same person fails to stop the actual murder of actual humans in actual Nazi fashion that is going on right now in our immediate world, what does that say about the moral system of that person? Is that not a de facto declaration that the desire to protect animals who are being eaten for meat is at least equal, if not morally higher, than the protection of humans being killed for sport or bizarre religious/racial issues?

To say that this person should be concerned for the animals because there are plenty of people already concerned about the humans, is to duck the question. I wouldn't not teach kids how to read because enough kids already know how to read - that wouldn't be a reasonable answer. Making the choice of where to place your energy is not a response to where others have placed their energy. The choice indicates what you think is most deserving of your passion and energy.


I would say in response to your point:

"Are you also saying then that anyone who does a ton of humanitarian work but is not vegan is also a hypocrite? There is the assumption in this point that the most important thing we can do as human beings is help out other human beings."

I don't think we have a responsibility to help other humans more than animals, or animals more than humans. I think we have a responsibility to be compassionate and mindful in all of our dealings, whether with animals, humans, or social issues. For where I am in my own moral development, I think that we need radical change in how we handle animals and also how we handle the fruits & vegetables.

Let me pose another question. If you had a gun, and you saw a tiger attack a human for no reason, would you kill the tiger and save the human? I would assume yes?

Same situation, you have a gun, but now you happen to stroll out back of a circus tent and you see an animal trainer whipping a tiger until it bleeds to teach it how to do a trick. Would you shoot the trainer and save the tiger?

Jerry