Back Page Veganism, and my rant against it.

In today's NY Times opinion section, a large portion of the back page was given over to an "ethical vegan" to wax non-poetic about how awful all us animal eaters are (yes, even those of us who go in for the humane treatment of the animals we eat). Unfortunately, the guest author's arguments are as unconvincing as the arguments made by the Times' stable of op-eders not named Krugman or Rich.

Mr. Steiner, the oh so ethical vegan, takes it upon himself, a vegan to decide which arguments meat eaters trot out to defend their (our, mine, humanity's) delicious decisions to eat tasty, tasty meat. And yes, I do think that Mr. Steiner might be so crumedgenly because he doesn't get to eat bacon. Suffice it to say, I take issue with Mr. Steiner's article. First off, as I said, he decides which two justifications (as if we need any) meat eaters make. The first, is that us humans are closer to god's image, so its ok for us to eat the less god-like animals. I feel ok, at this point, using the cliched and somewhat childish, OMFG! I don't know a single meat eater that makes this argument, and I pretty much only know meat eaters. His other "justification that meat eaters make" is that humans are capable of suffering, and animals aren't, so again, its ok for humans to eat animals. And, again, no one I know makes that argument.

Hmm, Mr. Steiner (and if you can't tell, I'm calling him Mr. Steiner sarcastically, he actually sounds like a little kid with his simplistic writing), how about a little something called the food chain? We're on top, that's the way things roll, we eat what we will.

I think its perfectly fine to take issue with meat eating, especially excessive meat eating from a carbon footprint standpoint, but Mr. Steiner doesn't make this argument. And while he does somewhat back-handidly acknowledge that at least some of us care about where our meat comes from, Steiner dismisses folks who choose free range meat because those animals still suffer and still, in the end die.

Good for you Mr. Steiner, living your boring little life, not eating meat, pissing off all your friends, and not being able to use band-aids because they have an animal by product in the adhesive. Please, keep on doing what you're doing. That leaves more meat for me.