An article titled…
Abuse, intimidation, death threats: the vicious backlash facing former vegans
…would be no surprise on several sites I read – but to find it in the Guardian!! It’s enough to have me call it the Guardian instead of the Grauniad in the rest of this post. 🙂
The article is more nuanced than its title might suggest. Maybe these apostates just need better advice on vegan diets – advice that might include admitting the odd issue with veganism. Maybe discussion would reclaim them better than hatred. And besides, never forget – being vegan is good for our planet’s health.
But although reading it through gives you all that balance (some might call it ‘balance’), the article starts with specific examples of what its title promises, and reports those who say that, whatever their vegan diet did for Gaia’s health, it did much less than nothing for their own. It also quotes one of the ‘balancing’ people saying veganism is “like a religion” for her.
Analogies to how the trans-mafia treats those with trans-regret, or how a certain actual religion is commanded by its prophet to treat its apostates, occurred to me. If they occurred to Guardian editors, the article does not let on. I could sort-of respect a focus on staying on-topic, especially while enduring the knowledge that allowing the article meant they would occur to readers. There again, I never saw reading the Guardian as helping its readers or editors spot such analogies. But who knows.
I have been Vegan for a few years now, not because I want to reduce my ‘carbon footprint’ or to improve my health, which is no better or worse without meat, but simply because I find industrialized farming of livestock cruel. But that is a personal choice.
I have zero interest in veganism as it relates to some sort of broader culture war, or as a badge of identity.
Mila, check out youtube channel “Harry’s Farm”, he grows Sussex breed beef cattle, nothing industrialised about it. I buy beef from my local butchers, they offer Limousin breed beef amongst others, likewise. The way they handle their livestock is the opposite of cruel.
Thank you for the suggestion Jussi. I tend to shop at supermarkets where the providence of meat can be difficult to know, but if I can be certain that meat comes from a high welfare source then its not something I would have a problem consuming. Vegan sausages and burgers are pretty good these days, but a joint of roast meat or a steak is not something that can be replicated!
Perhaps it is the decline of the Christian faith – people whose ancestors were Christian now reject the Christian faith and seek substitutes. Worship of Gaia being such a substitute – although “Climate Justice” (like “Social Justice” and “Racial Justice”) mixes the “Green” faith with Marxist egalitarianism “from each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs”.
The late Murray Rothbard was often wrong about historical matters (indeed many of his historical writings at least border upon madness), but I think he had a point about socialism (including egalitarian Greenism) coming from a religious impulse.
One of the oldest Christian heresies is the effort to build Heaven on Earth. In their student days the members of the Baader-Meinhof Marxist terrorist group, used to pass the remains (bones) of at least one leader of the nightmare Anabaptist Commune in Munster (it did not deter them) and modern “Greens” in Germany are in the government. Although if they will succeed in their aims of getting rid of hydrocarbons and nuclear power (thus destroying the German economy) and wiping out Jews (sorry I mean wiping out “Zionists” – as the Baader-Meinhof gang used to say “we are not Anti-Semites we are only against Money Jews”), remains to be seen.
Bit off topic but, wow, I knew German terrorists of the time were pretty-well Nazis but I didn’t know the Baader-Meinhof gang’s own words demonstrated their National Socialism as precisely as that. That was exactly what student Nazis said in the days when they had to explain themselves to voters. For example, Nazi students in Gottingen University (in the early 30s, the Nazis typically got twice the percentage of votes from students as from the public at large – and many of the remaining votes went to the communists) used to tell their Jewish professors that, “Oh, no, we don’t mean you, we mean those wicked Jewish financiers who started the world war.”
Yes Niall – they say things like that in the early stages, later it is all Jews. Of course in most Western lands, including both the United Kingdom and Germany, law and custom is confused – one can point out that certain parts of the Gospel of Matthew do not seem likely (for example why would a crowd of people say they take upon their heads, and their heads of their children, the blood of an innocent man?) – but to point out certain parts of the Koran and the Hadiths invites punishment in various ways.
The Frankfurt School Marxist doctrine that Freedom of Speech is “repressive tolerance” because it “harms” “disadvantaged groups” is part of the law in Britain and Germany (and other lands) and is enforced by the “Woke” corporations in the United States.
There is still some freedom of expression in Japan – but it is under attack even there, with people starting to be dismissed from their jobs (or forced to resign) for “sexist comments” and-so-on.
Christians have traditionally held that the vast majority of the Bible are the words-of-man inspired by God – but the words-of-man. This is why, for example, the Gospels differ (compare the account of the Gospel of Matthew and the Gospel of Mark on the women discovering the empty tomb).
The mainstream Islamic view is that the Koran is the word of God – given to Muhammed by an Angel. This view is quite different to the mainstream Christian view of the Bible. The Muslim view was not, originally a reaction to Christianity – it was a reaction to Judaism (which was more important than Christianity in Arabia when Muhammed was starting out).
Muhammed noted (with disgust) that Jews interpreted their scriptures – that they did not treat them as the direct word of God, for example they did not stone women to death for adultery.
Indeed Jews even put their hand over certain parts of scripture when reading it aloud – for fear of reading those parts of scripture in front of people who would act upon the words (kill women as witches and so on).
The Islamic cry of “raise your hand” was not a demand for surrender (it was not “hands up Tommy – for you the war is over”) – it was a demand that Jews take their hands off scripture, read it aloud, and act upon it.
“Paul, Central Office will punish you for typing this”.
It is early in morning, I am in some discomfort (as normal) and I do not really care what they do.
Helping my South Dakota cattle-relatives over the past few years, I’ve had broken ribs from a cow using me as a scratch post, a busted foot from being trod upon, disgusting hair from being licked repeatedly, barbed-wire cuts and the associated tetanus shots from unwinding calves from fences . . .
So, yeah, the cruelty must stop! I’m getting too old for this.
You can easily trace the provenance of your area’s beef. Unless you’re in one of the huge metro areas served exclusively by the massive factory farms, most beef is coming through relatively humane small-farm-to-finishing-lot systems, not the huge-crowded-lot-for-life ones. In the smaller systems, cattle live rather nice lives mostly, until that final couple-weeks period when they’re packed in like . . . well . . . cattle . . . and fed desert for weeks for final fattening.
We’re omnivores. And, even vegans ignore the sad screaming of broccoli as it’s ripped from its roots.
Mila:
Agreed on roast beef and steak; but my understanding is that vegan “sausages” and “burgers” contain seed oils and soy.
While the phyto-estrogens in soy might not be damaging for women, men should stay away.
And everybody should regard seed oils as poison.
bobby b – long may the family farms and ranches continue. Broken ribs and all.
As you know they (and small business generally) has two great enemies – the government (including the Federal Reserve system) and the corporations (Bill Gates and co), although these days the government and the “Woke” corporations are essentially part of the same thing.
Internationally the plan (Agenda 21, Agenda 2030, “Sustainable Development”) is to “nudge” people into “smart cities” where (due to government regulations and fiat money) everything and everyone would be controlled by government and the pet corporations – “from the cradle to the grave”.