(Posted February 28, 2017) The article about vegans causing more harm to animals than those who continue to exploit them because insects and small animals are killed during the cultivation of crops is circulating again. I’ve addressed this issue before but wanted to revisit it so everyone can respond properly. My detailed response is quite lengthy but worth the read.
I’m going to focus on 5 issues: (1) how disingenuous the accusers are, (2) the farmers of the world are carnists, (3) 50% of the world’s crops are used to feed animals in the meat, dairy and egg industries, (4) the freedom that wild animals experience is 1 million times better than a short lifetime of rape, having your babies stolen after birth, being taken from your mother after birth, slavery, and murder, (5) there’s no guarantee that any wild animals died for any single vegan meal, yet, animals are harmed or killed every time someone eats meat, dairy and eggs.
(1) Those who continue to exploit other animals love to ignore the intentional acts of cruelty they perpetually commit when they indict vegans as animal-abusers in the same way a sleazy defense lawyer with a rapist-client ignores the rape and tries to blame the victim’s behavior for causing the rape! This vile tactic is highly disingenuous because how can someone who excuses rape - OR slavery, baby-stealing and premediated murder - hurl indictments against others when they won’t acknowledge or show remorse for their own crimes?
Those who still regard other animals as resources are a walking array of endless contradictions. They demand equality, and the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, but refuse to extend those beautiful rights to the animals they’ve instead commodified as food, clothing, research specimens and entertainment. They treat dogs and cats like Gods, but happily munch on the cut-up corpses of murdered cows, pigs, chickens, turkeys and fish, all the while claiming that killing animals/insects during the cultivation of crops bothers them. Next time there’s an article online about animal abuse, scroll down to the comments section. If the victim is a dog or a cat, carnists will say the victimizer should be tortured, castrated or beaten to death, and how THEY would love to deliver that punishment. If the victim is a pig or a cow, carnists say, “Mmm, bacon” or ”I love steak” and “It’s just a fucking animal. Who cares.” The reality is, without using one drop of hyperbole, those who continue to use other animals care as much about animals as pedophiles do about kids! Their vacuous rebuttals are no different than a 5-year-old whiny brat saying ‘I know you are but what am I’ over and over and over again.
Since vegans don’t eat the flesh and secretions of other animals, and refuse to wear animal-skin, when we beg carnists to minimize the cruelty that animals endure, our plea is genuine. We acknowledge that animals die because humans roam this planet but that there’s no need to maximize the cruelty by enslaving, raping and stealing their babies, and then murdering them in houses of slaughter that have been carefully constructed in city after city all over the world. On the other hand, carnists always consume as many as many other animals as possible — their flesh, secretions and all, mock or deny the pain and suffering that cows, pigs, chickens, turkeys and fish experience, and urge everyone else to do the same because eliminating the evil things humans do to animals isn’t even an option for them! Screaming “but animals are killed when cultivating crops” is akin to racists screaming “but there’s black-on-black crime”. No one denies that both problems exist but the goal of veganism is to minimize and eventually eliminate the killings, while the goal of pointing out racist behavior is to minimize and eventually eliminate racism.
(2) Since the world is run by carnists, anything to do with agriculture is, once again, THEIR fault. Ethical vegans are forever trying to clean up the blood trails that oppressors leave in their paths! If we were in charge (not the apologists/pacifists/intersectionalists vegan community), issues of injustice would be solved because we actually care about ending cruelty. We cause the absolute minimal amount of suffering to animals and the environment, while those who continue to exploit other animals are hell-bent on causing the maximum! If we had power, insecticides and pesticides would be banned, and we would create a safer way of planting and harvesting crops instead of doing it the same lame way. Einstein once said, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over, and always expecting a different result.” Time to evolve WITH the animals AND the earth in mind.
(3) Those who continue to treat other animals as food and products conveniently ignore the fact that 50% of the world’s crops are fed to 150 billion animals worldwide (generously low estimate) enslaved in the meat, dairy and egg industries. Those crops are also sprayed with at least twice the amount of chemicals than crops set aside for human consumption. In America, 95% of soy, 80% of corn and 70% of oats is animal-feed! Remember, carnists claim that humans are the only ones who matter, yet they choose to use half those crops for animal-feed instead of feeding starving humans! They also ignore the fact that cows, pigs, chickens and turkeys are doused with insecticides/pesticides to keep flies, mosquitos, and other critters from biting them and spreading disease from animal to animal.
(4) Even if it were impossible to prevent the deaths of wild animals and insects when cultivating crops, the freedom these creatures experience is 1 million times better than what enslaved animals in the meat, dairy and egg industries experience. Those who continue to treat other animals as food and products gleefully support killing hundreds of millions of day-old male chicks every year at egg hatcheries by tossing them ALIVE into rendering machines because they don’t lay eggs (only females lay eggs). Carnists pay people to steal male calves (veal industry) from their mothers after birth and kill the babies when they’re 6-weeks-old. They have no qualms about murdering 60-day-old chickens, 6-month-old pigs, 2.5-year-old bovines in the beef industry, and 3-7 year-old cows in the dairy industry who suffer the most because before labeling the mothers “spent” and sending them to the slaughterhouse to turn them into hamburger meat, they’re raped every year to impregnate them so we can steal THEIR milk that was meant for THEIR babies who were stolen from them after birth! I mention the ages of the animals because – most of the time – carnists are also BABY-animal killers to boot! But what kind of sick fuck kills babies? They also support the mutilation of live animals in the meat, dairy, egg and honey industries (debeaking, dehorning, castration, teeth-cutting, tail-docking and ripping the wings off of Queen bees).
Concerning tractors accidentally killing animals in a field, even our unjust legal system recognizes the difference between a premeditated murder and an accidental death. Murdering 150 billion animals with premeditation in slaughterhouses is diametrically opposed to any accidental tractor-death. Since no one uses a tractor to intentionally harm gophers, grasshoppers and snakes, you never know when, where, or whether it’s going to happen at all. Yet, EVERY SINGLE TIME a slaughterhouse starts slicing, animals suffer horribly! EVERY SINGLE TIME a carnist eats meat, dairy, eggs or honey, animals suffer horribly. When vegans eat plants, there’s NO proof that any animal/insect was harmed or killed for THOSE plants.
Concerning technology, when tractors and other machines are used, animals AND humans will accidentally be harmed! Isn’t it conveniently hypocritical that those who bring up the tractor-animal-killing issue still drive automobiles, even though that technology kills 40,000 Americans annually and hundreds of thousands worldwide! But those accidental killings are always okay with them because carnists aren't human-killing addicts; they're animal-killing addicts. And addicts are ALWAYS irrational when their habits are questioned. Have you ever known an alcoholic, a cigarette smoker or a heroin user to be rational when it came to alcohol, cigarettes or heroin? Of course not. And there is NO such thing as a rational—or ethical—carnist when it comes to animal issues and whether humans should be enslaving, murdering and eating animals. Right now, vegans have a solution for the cow, pig, chicken, turkey and fish massacres. It’s called VEGANISM! We are eagerly awaiting their rational solution for cultivating crops, which they do not have because they don’t give a shit about reducing or eliminating cruelty to animals.
Furthermore, why is it so difficult to understand that vegans eat plant-based foods so we can cause NO harm to cows, pigs, chickens, turkeys, fish and any other creature who has been placed on the menu? This is simple logic so follow me here. I don’t rape women and children so I can voice my opposition to heterosexism. I don’t rape women and children so I can cause no harm to women and children. I support gay marriage to oppose heterosexism. When I buy fair-trade clothing (as of 2013), I don’t do it to help animals enslaved and killed in the fur industry, or to be kind to black slaves forced to work in the diamond mines of Sierra Lione. I buy fair-trade so someone doesn’t have to work 18-20 hours a day for 30 cents an hour on my behalf! I don’t buy fur in order to help animals in the clothing industry. And I don’t buy diamonds in order to oppose the vileness of the diamond industry.
(5) As I mentioned earlier, there is simply no proof that every harvested plant involved killing an animal in a field because wild animals always have the chance to escape once land is being cropped. At least they can hear us coming and make a run for it, which is something cows, pigs, chickens, turkeys, sheep and goats NEVER have a chance to do. This is akin to the wild herbivores who have a chance to escape attacks from hyenas and other carnivores unlike the enslaved herbivores of the meat, dairy and egg industries. So, first and foremost, it would be wise and quite easy to solve intentional, premeditated acts of evil (animals being killed for food, clothing, research and entertainment). Then we can find solutions to reduce and eventually eliminate the harm caused to animals when cultivating crops, and driving cars, etc.
There is also a fact the people raising this argument never volunteer: animal agriculture is the primary driver of ocean dead zones. Vast stretches of ocean have been stripped of life by agricultural runoff from livestock operations. The scale of marine animal death caused by the meat, dairy and egg industries dwarfs any calculation of crop incidentals. The people pointing at crop deaths are directly driving the system responsible for the largest-scale animal death on this planet.
And even setting that aside: yes, crop deaths are also a wrong. That injustice stands on its own. But it has nothing to do with the question of whether you should stop treating other animals as property for human purposes. You do not address one injustice by refusing to stop another. The argument is not a reason to keep exploiting other animals. It is a reason to change how crops are grown; a separate obligation, not a substitute for this one.
In closing, those who continue to exploit other animals intentionally kill billions of cows, pigs, chickens, turkeys and fish for a meal they do NOT need, intentionally destroy the earth with animal agriculture for meals they do NOT need, intentionally cause world hunger problems by feeding 50% of the crops to animals enslaved in the meat, dairy and egg industries, accidentally kill insects and small animals in the fields to gather crops used to fatten up the animals they will soon be dining on, and then intentionally kill even more animals by dousing the soon-to-be-eaten animals with chemicals! BUT ACCORDING TO THEM, vegans are the problem because we eat plants that they, too, eat? In a nutshell, it’s called cognitive dissonance because in THEIR warped minds NO solution exists because any solution would require them to change THEIR evil ways, which they are simply unwilling to do.
If so many animals didn’t have their babies stolen from them, and they weren’t being enslaved, raped and murdered by the billion, and the earth wasn’t being polluted by our species, I’d be laughing hysterically at the carnists’ rebuttals. I wish they would try thinking logically, and acting compassionately, for a change. They’d be amazed at the results. And if it helps calm their inflated egos, I fully admit that humans are the Kings & Queens of the planet. We won the world-domination battle, and have proven that no other creature can fuck with us. Congratulations! Way to go! Now, is it possible to show some mercy to our victims, and release them from bondage, since all they want is to be left alone? Can we rule with a loving hand instead of an iron fist?
Sadly and shamefully, I am willing to bet my life that if this piece was printed on MSN.com, all of the comments would be “mmm, bacon” and “who cares, they’re just fucking animals” because the reality is, without using one drop of hyperbole, those who continue to use other animals care as much about animals as pedophiles do about kids!