Veganism is Leftism (lemmy.dbzer0.com)
submitted 6 months ago by to c/mop
 

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[–] 114 points 6 months ago (9 children)

Ah, purity tests, here we fucking go again.

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  • [–] 47 points 6 months ago (5 children)

    This seems like rage bait in its entirety. Gatekeeping that you can't be left if you aren't a vegan as well.

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  • [–] 2 points 6 months ago (4 children)

    Nah, the meme says people who believe in meat eating (carnists) can be leftist on other issues, but they just can't bring themselves to be progressive about animals.

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  • [–] 9 points 6 months ago (3 children)

    Which is 100% bullshit.

    I used to eat meat once every blue moon. Then I got a diagnosis that my body has a super hard time retaining iron and plant-based iron sources are more difficult for the body to process, so I need to eat more red meat.

    I want that meat to be sourced without animal harm - ideally through lab-grown stuff. But that's just not available anywhere where I live.

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  • [–] 2 points 6 months ago (2 children)

    Read the comment you replied to again. You are not among those mentioned.

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  • [–] 9 points 6 months ago* (2 children)

    I pretty much gave up on trying to please people for this reason. There's always something they find flawed about you.

    It's literally impossible to please everyone.

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  • [–] 2 points 6 months ago (1 child)

    This is why i try as hard as i can to phrase things as "i really think you should consider not doing XYZ" or if it's really severe "So: you doing XYZ is objectively quite shitty, i hope you can accept that and be motivated to stop doing it because it makes you feel bad, but also i don't hate you for it it just makes me sad"

    Like with veganism we should all eat as little meat as we can. Eating meat is bad in so many ways but obviously it can be quite difficult to stop, so i don't judge people for eating meat but i will judge people for ignoring that it is bad and refusing to even consider changing their habits, just try to eat less meat or at least switch to meats that are less bad.

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  • [–] 21 points 6 months ago

    Also called "how to make chuds tag themselves in one simple step". It disappointingly never fails...

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  • [–] 37 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (25 children)

    I'm okay with bringing up the contradiction, we all need to be held accountable but too often this can be used as a purity test.

    Food is a deeply personal issue that we should try not to moralize, I understand that can be difficult when there are real consequences to the climate and suffering of animals but If you moralize food you will lose people.

    I say this is a 7-year vegan. I understand this is a meme but memes normalize culture and it is best to lead with invitation, not accusation.

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  • [–] 17 points 6 months ago (21 children)

    Food is a deeply personal issue that we should try not to moralize, I understand that can be difficult

    Personal issues end where others right to exist begin. A personal choice is what color choice you wanna be wear in the morning.

    If your personal choice has victims, claiming it’s a personal choice ceases to be a valid reasoning to do it. And yes. Choosing to eat meat has victims. You’re eating your victims.

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  • [–] 15 points 6 months ago* (4 children)

    You're not going to convince me, you're preaching to the choir but you messaging isn't meeting people where they're at and will leave us with a lonely moral victory.

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  • [–] 10 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (3 children)

    Homie. If there was a magical sequence of words that made people understand that exploiting and committing violence against those who are weaker you was wrong the world would be such a better place already.

    I think the only way to achieve that is slowly through better education. But even that is difficult when people distrust education.

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  • [–] 12 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (2 children)

    Education is how we win, and it is slow because it has to undo the cultural normalization of meat as an identity. The meat industry has spent decades lobbying for subsidies and advertising meat as part of the American way of life.

    It is really hard to fight that because once something becomes part of a person's sense of self, attacking it engages the ego. It is the same issue with car dominance.

    I think it is important to keep in mind that victory is not an all or nothing game. A lot of leftist ideals interlock with a thought structure that makes people more open to persuasion through reason.

    That change comes a little bit at a time, not by one well reasoned argument, but by seeing happy, thriving communities as living proof.

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  • [–] 2 points 6 months ago

    At the same time that "little bit at a time" change can 100% come from a well reasoned argument, the first step i took was to cut out beef since it's by far the worst food for the climate and it really isn't difficult to stop eating it (both pork and chicken are readily available and tasty, so it's basically just a matter of checking ingredient lists for stuff like meatballs and sausages).

    I think the key thing is just that people have to be presented with an immediate action they can take that isn't some huge sacrifice, and ideally actually benefits them in some way.
    Like to make people drive less: Maybe ask them if they've considered that an electric moped would be MUCH cheaper to operate, way easier to find parking for at work, and means that a person at home can still have access to the car. That's very reasonable for a lot of people and might well lead to them ditching the car entirely.

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  • [–] 6 points 6 months ago (15 children)

    In modern society, almost all personal choices have victims, it's all connected.

    If you want to argue the degree of separation between the choice and the victim that's an interesting conversation to have.

    If your personal choice has victims, claiming it’s a personal choice ceases to be a valid reasoning to do it.

    If you truly believe that statement applies 100% of the time (in this context), that implies a lack of imagination, mental flexibility and a level of privilege that taints anything else you might say with the idea :

    "If they can't think of a single scenario where that statement doesn't apply, how much thinking are they really putting in to the rest of what they say"

    For some, eating meat is life and death, through no fault of their own.

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  • [–] 5 points 6 months ago (14 children)

    Oof. It gets repetitive hearing the same arguments.

    In modern society, almost all personal choices have victims, it's all connected.

    This is the there’s no ethical consumption under capitalism argument.

    True however there are degrees of difficulty and effect of your actions. Picking soy milk at a super market instead of milk takes barely no effort and has discernible good effects. Sure there’s also exploitation in the making of the soy milk. That’s a different issue. Which if you care enough I can also point you in the direction that I choose to combat that.

    Evil existing isn’t a sensible moral justification for inflicting more evil into the world. Do your part to make the world a better place.

    If you truly believe that statement applies 100% of the time

    This is the let’s make this impersonal and ask “what do words even mean” argument.

    Dont be obtuse is my answer to that.

    For some, eating meat is life and death, through no fault of their own.

    This is the “what if you were on a deserted island and there was only a single cow in it. Would you eat it” argument.

    I’m not sure if your statement is true. But sure. If that is true. They get a pass. I’ve had a meeting with the other vegans. They all agree too.

    That isn’t the case for me though. It isn’t for you either. It isn’t the case for the vast majority of people.

    Maybe the Inuit had to 300 years ago. You have a Walmart near you. Be real.

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  • [–] 7 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (13 children)

    It is indeed the "no ethical consumerism" argument and as I said it's an interesting conversation to have.

    I wasn’t arguing against your general premise. I specifically called out the lack of flexibility in your statement and what that implied to me.

    That isn’t the case for me though. It isn’t for you either. It isn’t the case for the vast majority of people.

    Maybe the Inuit had to 300 years ago. You have a Walmart near you. Be real.

    And this is the exact kind of privilege and/or lack of imagination I was talking about.

    It wasn’t about word choice as much it as what that word choice implied.

    It suggests you don't understand how limited the choices can be under poverty, or how widespread it is.

    I wasn’t positing it as a gotcha, I am "being real" when i say there are very real circumstances (for a non-trivial amount of people) that don't adhere to your ideal.

    Assuming Walmart was your example because it's what you know and not because America is the only place that exists, physical distance is far from the only factor.

    Assuming you have a home, even if you lived next door, that's not even close to a guarantee you'd be able to afford a continuous level of food that matches your ideal and also reaches a level of healthy nutrition.

    The easy example is literal starvation, where it's not possible to secure enough food of any kind, let alone the kind that adheres to your premise.

    This isn't an obscure thing from 300 years ago, this is a reality, today.

    I wasn’t saying you were wrong, i was saying your argument possibly comes from a position of privilege and if you think this is a 300 year ago problem, I was correct.

    edit: clean up

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  • [–] 2 points 6 months ago (6 children)

    I mean the reason they implied you were being obtuse is clearly they are not talking about people in poverty or people who have no other choices. About 70% of people in the US have the option to eat at least 5x less meat, if any at all, yet look for any excuse they can get to not do it. I grew up with people on very low incomes who were vegan, and this was 18 years ago when vegan options were far less available than they are now. They were not "privileged" by any stretch yet they saw it as a moral wrong and sacrificed to follow their morality.

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  • [–] 4 points 6 months ago (5 children)

    I mean the reason they implied you were being obtuse is clearly they are not talking about people in poverty or people who have no other choices.

    That is in no way clearly understood from that single absolutist statement or the context around it.

    They additionally went on to reply with

    Maybe the Inuit had to 300 years ago. You have a Walmart near you. Be real.

    That's not a reply (either literally or in context) that is considering poverty.

    It's not quite a "let them eat cake", but it's in the same general vicinity.

    Regardless, i suspected it wasn't as absolutist as it seemed, which is why my reply was prefaced with "If you truly believe that statement applies 100% of the time (in this context),"

    My issue, as i very explicitly explained, is that using such absolutist statements gives the impression of mental inflexibility which subsequently weakens the perception of any surrounding statements (for me at least).

    If I’m having a conversation about science with someone and they opened with "The world is flat" I’m for damn sure going to scrutinise everything else they say after that, even if it sounds reasonable.

    About 70% of people in the US have the option to eat at least 5x less meat, if any at all, yet look for any excuse they can get to not do it. I grew up with people on very low incomes who were vegan, and this was 18 years ago when vegan options were far less available than they are now.

    Sure, I’m not arguing against any of that, it sounds plausible.

    I'd argue there's a conversation about the difference between "vegan options" and the general availability and accessibility of food that qualifies as vegan (and how that has changed over nearly 20 years) but that's a different subject.

    They were not “privileged” by any stretch yet they saw it as a moral wrong and sacrificed to follow their morality.

    Privilege is relative , people scraping by on 3 full-time jobs just to get food and pay rent aren't rich or affluent but (subjectively) they are more privileged than the unassisted mentally ill person living on the streets.

    I assume the people you knew made their choices after weighing their options and that's all anybody can ask.

    If they subsequently harmed themselves or their loved ones in the short or long term then that's their sacrifice to make.

    However, judging someone else for feeding their family with the food the can afford rather than taking the "moral" high ground isn't something i can get behind.

    And "You live near a walmart" isn't an argument made by someone who's considering their relative privilege.

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  • [–] 1 point 6 months ago (4 children)

    They never implied 100% of people, they said if your personal choice can be criticized if it has victims. Most people don't view "buy food I can afford or I/my family starve" as a personal choice. It is not even close to "let them eat cake." 8/10 people are not in poverty, and 7/10 could without much hardship reduce their meat consumption to near zero. 9/10 peasants could not eat cake.

    "You live near a walmart" is true for the majority of Americans, and probably 99.9% of people on lemmy. The implication is almost anyone reading that statement has no excuse, and that if you don't live near anywhere you can get vegetables, then you are one of the exceptions implied by you not starving not being considered a "personal choice." Arguably you could consider that a personal choice, but when their example is "which T shirt to pick" I don't think that's their implication.

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  • [–] 1 point 6 months ago (3 children)

    TL;DR;

    My entire original point can be summarised as:

    Check your privilege, not everyone has the same circumstances as you.

    Starting with unfounded absolutist proclamations weakens anything that surrounds it.



    They never implied 100% of people

    As i said:

    ME: Regardless, i suspected it wasn’t as absolutist as it seemed, which is why my reply was prefaced with “If you truly believe that statement applies 100% of the time (in this context),”

    they said if your personal choice can be criticized if it has victims. Most people don’t view “buy food I can afford or I/my family starve” as a personal choice.

    Generally that's a reasonable point to make, which then leads in to the conversation about what constitutes a choice.

    like your example of people making a "sacrifice" for their ideals, at which point does a conscious sacrifice no longer qualify as a "choice".

    Is it choosing to starve ? long term malnutrition ? Heating vs food ?

    It is not even close to “let them eat cake.” 8/10 people are not in poverty, and 7/10 could without much hardship reduce their meat consumption to near zero. 9/10 peasants could not eat cake.

    Just to be clear, are those ratios legit or just an example?

    Either way the way you are using them doesn't make sense.

    The "let them eat cake" reference was to imply they were making statements without any consideration of their relative privilege.

    Not to the same degree as a royal that doesn't understand the peasantry, but in the same vein.

    “You live near a walmart” is true for the majority of Americans, and probably 99.9% of people on lemmy.

    I can't even begin to address that level of ...i'm not even sure what to call it.

    I'm just going to assume you don't really believe that 99% of ALL people on lemmy live "near" to a walmart.

    The implication is almost anyone reading that statement has no excuse, and that if you don’t live near anywhere you can get vegetables, then you are one of the exceptions implied by you not starving not being considered a “personal choice.”

    As i said previously, physical accessibility is only one factor affecting the ability for impoverished people to access enough food for a nutritionally healthy diet.

    I'll quote it here for you :

    ME: Assuming you have a home, even if you lived next door, that’s not even close to a guarantee you’d be able to afford a continuous level of food that matches your ideal and also reaches a level of healthy nutrition.

    If you need examples of another, there is fiscal accessibility (affordability).

    Even if you can physically get to it, if you can't afford it , it's not accessible.

    This includes :

    • outright not being able to afford something
    • having to choose between the cheaper (and nutritionally more acceptable) meat options vs the more expensive non-meat option.
    • being able to consistently afford this level of food without detrimental effects on your overall fiscal situation.


    There's also temporal accessibility, can you get to the food in the time around your 3 jobs ? do you have the time and mental bandwidth to prepare a meal rather than microwave something.

    And before you start in, yes prep and shopping time apply to all types of foods, I’m saying this is a exacerbating factor when taken with the other two.

    Regardless of how you feel about it, the meat industry is big enough in scale and reach that they can price their meat mush at a lower price point that non-meat alternatives in a non-trivial amount of situations.

    I'm not even making the argument that it's a majority, I’m saying it exists and shouldn't be disregarded.

    Arguably you could consider that a personal choice, but when their example is “which T shirt to pick” I don’t think that’s their implication.

    It was, they mention personal choice and them immediately follow up with this:

    THEM: If your personal choice has victims, claiming it’s a personal choice ceases to be a valid reasoning to do it

    They follow up with hyperbolic examples of when someone might get a "pass".

    THEM: This is the “what if you were on a deserted island and there was only a single cow in it. Would you eat it”

    Then follows up with a reply with "vast majority" and "Maybe the Inuit had to 300 years ago. You have a Walmart near you. Be real."

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  • [–] 1 point 6 months ago (2 children)

    Personally I would consider the extreme harm of animal agriculture against all of the sacrifices. I would consider long term malnutrition morally better than continuing the extreme harm against animals, but that's a hard call that they didn't make any statement on.

    Evidently 47 million / 330m Americans are food insecure, so about 1/7 actually have to make a tough choice and I wouldn't fault them nearly as much as the huge majority that eats meat just because they think it's yummy. The reason let them eat cake is ridiculous is because it's unbelievably out of touch with the common person. In this case 80+% of people have access to the "cake" (having a choice). It's like saying "touch grass" is a sign if privilege because not everyone has the capability of moving around outside on their own. You are technically correct, but the implication is "if you are in the small minority that cannot do this, you are not who I am referring to." And even then, the implication with "personal choice" is that it's not a tough moral decision where you are massively hurt by it. Technically it is personal, and it's a choice, but people don't usually say "oh yeah I decided to give up not being freezing in the winter as a personal choice." That's a hard moral decision.

    There is absolutely no shot that at least 95% of people on lemmy do not have access to some sort of grocer in some way. 83% of Americans have access to it, and lemmy skews heavily towards people in tech / more well off people. Even having the time to look into alternatives to reddit and be knowledgeable enough to actually engage in it is a privilege which most people do not have. I might make a post about it just to see, but that sounds so unlikely that more than 1/20 people that educated with the time to invest into learning how to use lemmy would be in the <20% who are food insecure

    I think all of what you showed they said was fair. 83% of people having a choice is the vast majority, and bringing up food deserts and people who can't afford anything else, without starving or great hardship, is something they (implied) they would obviously concede.

    A revelation to me, evidently plant based diets are just on the whole cheaper compared to meat, though this may not be true in food deserts. As for meal prep time, yes that is very fair but can be alleviated heavily with getting a 2nd hand instant pot and making meals in that which take unironically 30 seconds, which is shorter than a drive-thru.

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  • [–] 1 point 6 months ago (1 child)

    Personally I would consider the extreme harm of animal agriculture against all of the sacrifices.

    A sensible approach

    I would consider long term malnutrition morally better than continuing the extreme harm against animals, but that’s a hard call that they didn’t make any statement on.

    A subjective opinion i happen to agree with.

    Evidently 47 million / 330m Americans are food insecure, so about 1/7 actually have to make a tough choice and I wouldn’t fault them nearly as much as the huge majority that eats meat just because they think it’s yummy.

    I think this is on a sliding scale depending on the level of insecurity, but i think we generally agree on this also.

    The reason let them eat cake is ridiculous is because it’s unbelievably out of touch with the common person.

    Which was exactly my point.

    To someone struggling with feeding themselves and/or their family "If your personal choice has victims, claiming it’s a personal choice ceases to be a valid reasoning to do it." sounds a lot like someone talking down to you.

    In this case 80+% of people have access to the “cake” (having a choice). It’s like saying “touch grass” is a sign if privilege because not everyone has the capability of moving around outside on their own.

    Agreed, See response directly above.

    You are technically correct, but the implication is “if you are in the small minority that cannot do this, you are not who I am referring to.”

    That is not at all clear from the reply that i originally responded to. i think we might also disagree on what "small minority" means ( i wouldn’t consider 20% a small minority, but that’s subjective i suppose).

    And even then, the implication with “personal choice” is that it’s not a tough moral decision where you are massively hurt by it.

    Another implication not clear from their original reply.

    Technically it is personal, and it’s a choice, but people don’t usually say “oh yeah I decided to give up not being freezing in the winter as a personal choice.” That’s a hard moral decision.

    I agree, but :

    THEM: Personal issues end where others right to exist begin. A personal choice is what color choice you wanna be wear in the morning.

    THEM: If your personal choice has victims, claiming it’s a personal choice ceases to be a valid reasoning to do it. And yes. Choosing to eat meat has victims. You’re eating your victims.

    Doesn't convey that nuance ( for me at least )

    There is absolutely no shot that at least 95% of people on lemmy do not have access to some sort of grocer in some way.

    Not what i said, or what either of you said, though i will admit to probably taking the "walmart" part of that statement too literally.

    Even so , access to a grocer isn't the same as access to enough food which is explained in my previous replies.

    83% of Americans have access to it, and lemmy skews heavily towards people in tech / more well off people.

    I'm not sure where that number comes from but assuming it's true it's still a far cry from the 99% you claimed (though now I’m thinking that was possibly hyperbolic on purpose and i missed it)

    and lemmy skews heavily towards people in tech / more well off people.

    Agreed.

    . Even having the time to look into alternatives to reddit and be knowledgeable enough to actually engage in it is a privilege which most people do not have.

    Agreed.

    I might make a post about it just to see, but that sounds so unlikely that more than 1/20 people that educated with the time to invest into learning how to use lemmy would be in the <20% who are food insecure

    I'd also be interested to see the results of that but generally agree.

    I think all of what you showed they said was fair. 83% of people having a choice is the vast majority, and bringing up food deserts and people who can’t afford anything else, without starving or great hardship, is something they (implied) they would obviously concede.

    Disagree on this one for several reasons.

    • i wouldn't consider 83% a vast majority in this context, certainly a majority though, but that's obviously subjective.
    • 83% of americans is not 83% of people, you've stated both in your reply like they are the same thing, they are not.
    • The implication was not apparent from their original reply(the one i responded to), they sort of clarified later, but still in a way that implied they assumed physical location was the only issue.

    A revelation to me, evidently plant based diets are just on the whole cheaper compared to meat, though this may not be true in food deserts.

    I'm not sure enough about this to claim on the whole for either direction, best i can say (anecdotally) is that the meat industrial complex has the capability to undercut the agricultural industry in some cases (on a calorie to calorie basis and including nutritional balance).

    The link is interesting though, there's more to the fiscal accessibility of non-meat food than i realised, it doesn't cover opportunity cost, but as a general study of fiscal access it has a lot of information that's new to me, i'll have a proper read.

    As for meal prep time, yes that is very fair but can be alleviated heavily with getting a 2nd hand instant pot and making meals in that which take unironically 30 seconds, which is shorter than a drive-thru.

    There's a few caveats/assumptions to that statement.

    Access (in a fiscal and physical sense) to 2nd hand pressure cookers is not something i'd assume is widely possible with the kind of demographics that have been mentioned.

    Not to say there would be no access, just that i'm not sure it's as much of a game changer as you make it sound.

    I'm genuinely not sure what 30 second pressure cooker meals you are talking about but it sounds like magic, i don't mean this in an insulting way, if you could send me some examples i'd appreciate it, that would be very helpful to me personally.

    Pressure cookers are arguably more dangerous than most other kitchen appliances, in that they are essentially bombs with a lot of safeguards, i'd be wary of purchasing a 2nd hand one of dubious origin, but i know that's partly a privilege thing on my part so it's possibly not as relevant as the other points.

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  • [–] 1 point 6 months ago

    The 83% was because 30m food insecure/ 330m Americans ~=83%. 17% is maybe not a "small" minority, but I think it's heavily implied that's not who they're talking about. The person they responded to said "food is deeply personal" and "if we moralize food, we will lose people." Veganism isn't going to "lose people " who have the options of "eat meat or starve" because those people have essentially no choice anyway. Personal implies it's part of their personality/culture/important to them in a way that isn't just about survival. Neither person mentioned extreme circumstances, and it is exceedingly rare for someone to use "personal choice" when referring to something that is at or close to life or death. I would never say "I cut off my leg as a personal choice since there was a risk I could die from infection." That is however the exact language I would use for things I really don't want to give up, like "eating dinner with my friends is deeply personal." I wouldn't say "not starving is deeply personal," it just doesn't really make sense.

    I do think for 95% of people on lemmy it is a personal choice whether they are vegan or not, 99% was maybe an exaggeration but I wouldn't doubt that either. I'm specifically talking about the generally tech literate, educated people that figured out how to get and use lemmy with that 99%, not the average American or the average person.

    Their implication was that "you live in a first world country and realistically are not impoverished (inferred from you using lemmy), as are most people making this argument, therefore you have a grocery store you can access and can choose to not eat meat." I was using America's poverty numbers because that's where I and most people using lemmy live, but many other countries have better social safety nets so there would be even less of a reason to not be vegan.

    The meat industry has massive subsidies, at least in the US, which is why it is so incredibly competitive fiscally with plant based diets. I think also to mention these are staple foods like rice lentils etc, fruits and vegetables still might end up being more expensive, meaning it would still be harder/more effort to do a nutritionally complete vegan diet.

    Here's an example for a 30 second instant pot recipe, it's basically how fast can you dump the cans and spices into the cooker (and coarsely chop a tomato). Just replace the chicken broth with anything else, like vegetable broth. If someone's worried about second hand some of the cheaper ones are $60, or just put it in another room and let the pressure naturally escape overnight, which is what my brothers all do when they use one. The pressure is high but it's not going to do anything crazy to your house.

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  • [–] 1 point 6 months ago (5 children)

    Honestly, I would be vegan-ish rn if not for executive disfunction.

    I might have the cash, but just eat meat slop and peanut butter

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  • [–] 2 points 6 months ago (2 children)

    hmm, I'm interested in what @shapis@lemmy.ml take on this would be.

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  • [–] -1 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 child)

    They get a pass. If they are ever stranded in a deserted island and must kill to survive they get a pass too. Same for if they are about to starve and the only option is hunting a gazelle.

    All the other vegans and I agree. We had a meeting.

    That’s not even a rounding error in the amount of cruelty and murder we inflict upon animals though. The main concern right now is stop the senseless cycle of breeding little mutant animals in hellish conditions just to murder them at a young age. The scale of that dwarfs all other forms of animal abuse by a few orders of magnitude.

    The Vegan Society defines veganism as a philosophy and way of living that seeks to exclude as far as is possible and practicable all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing, or any other purpose.

    I feel like that is a good definition and a good way to go about it.

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  • [–] 2 points 6 months ago*

    All the other vegans and I agree. We had a meeting.

    I fucking KNEW it, secret vegan Star Chamber is always on my bingo card.

    All i need now "proof that koala's control the weather" and some sort of under-earth morlock analogue.


    but yeah, meat industry is horrific, as is a lot of the underpinnings of modern society, my previous response wasn't arguing against that.

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  • [–] 2 points 6 months ago (1 child)

    soylent is a great fit for my executive disfunction

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  • [–] 1 point 6 months ago*

    Fucking right?

    Food in a bottle with little to no prep is where it's at.

    I'm still waiting for them food cubes from starfield

    CHUNKS

    When i can occasionally get focused on some meal prep (or remember that meal prep exists) just coking up an industrial sized VAT of generic food+sauce and sticking that in the freezer is also a good one, if you can negotiate with the brain to make it happen.

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  • [–] 11 points 6 months ago

    I agree when talking with normies, but this is a socialist community on a mostly socialist platform. Like you shouldn't be moralizing about meat when canvasing, but it's fine to do so at a DSA meeting where people are already aware of the problems of exploitation and domination.

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  • [–] 3 points 6 months ago

    I think there's a distinction to be made between "This thing is bad", and "Doing this thing makes you a bad person".

    Telling people in a gentle and understanding way that they're doing something bad, is good. You just have to be very careful to adjust your language to the people your speaking to.
    But saying that people are bad for doing the bad thing is pretty shitty, it might feel righteous but it's extremely unlikely to result in anything but alienating those you talk to.

    This is why i'm "flexitarian", mostly just eat chicken and i try to eat as little as possible, but i'll eat the odd bit of other meat depending on circumstances. I acknowledge that eating meat is "objectively" bad, but that there's also a limit to how much i can actually change my diet without feeling miserable, and it's quite nice to be able to tell people "Well you can just do what i do, sticking to chicken is really not that difficult at all, give it a try!"

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  • [–] 15 points 6 months ago*

    beans are alright but pulses chickpea are what i swear by. god damn i fuckin love lentils im-vegan

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  • [–] 30 points 6 months ago (51 children)

    I think being offended by this meme means that one isn't wholly comfortable with one's own cognitive dissonance

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  • [–] 27 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (47 children)

    Wanting to enjoy animal products and a great deal of the types of food ever made by humans does not inherently necessitate animal exploitation, and therefore isnt necessarily cognitive dissonance.

    Factory farms and legitimate animal abuses are horrific, but the vast majority of human relationships to animals and animal products in history has not been anything like that. I dont take issue with actual husbandry or hunting, its the circle of life.

    One of the great failures of activism in this area is that vegans conflate horrific animal abuses like factory farms with any form of eating animal products, which most people would not agree with, and it makes it easy for people to write off any activism to close factory farms and things like that as just “crazy vegans” or whatever.

    I would love to see lab grown meat and other things that mean we could move beyond killing animals for consumptive purposes, and eventually we will. In the meantime, we can have ethical farming practices that ensure quality lives for animals that will be eaten. There is no cognitive dissonance in that. I dont think the majority of people believe there is an ethical issue with eating animals at large, just that there are unethical ways to raise animals to be eaten. I dont take issue with anyone believing that eating any animal products is unethical, but I also do not believe that there is some universal ethical truth to that idea whatsoever, nor that people eating meat is purely a social construct. Humans are omnivorous animals, we evolved to eat animals. If anything, veganism is far more of a socialized construct than biological evolution.

    Beyond that, there are plenty of animal products that vegans refuse to eat even though taking them doest harm the animal or cost its life. Eggs, dairy or butter, etc.

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  • [–] 15 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (7 children)

    Beyond that, there are plenty of animal products that vegans refuse to eat even though taking them doest harm the animal or cost its life. Eggs, dairy or butter, etc.

    You should do some research on what industrial scale dairy and egg farms are like. It's not much better, and in some cases worse.

    Common practices include:

    • Throwing live freshly born male chicks into blenders

    • Chickens being confined, thousands at a time, in small dark spaces where they spend all their lives. Often dying to wounds from fighting each other due to being kept in such unnaturally close proximity

    • Due to a variety of tactics to maximize eggs per chicken, they often deplete their calcium, meaning they break their bones when attempting to stand

    • Dairy cows often spend most of their 'useful' lives (4-5 years) in concrete boxes barely larger than their own bodies, head pointed to food, and grates behind where waste can flow

    • The calves taken from dairy cows (necessary for them to begin lactation) end up in the same meat industry if male

    • Dairy cows, once out of their prime, end up in the same meat industry

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  • [–] 2 points 6 months ago (5 children)

    You should do some research on what industrial scale dairy and egg farms are like. It’s not much better, and in some cases worse.

    And you should maybe read the entire comment before responding? OP clearly addresses these issues...

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  • [–] 7 points 6 months ago (4 children)

    OP addresses it by simply saying it's not exploitation and the animals are not harmed. Both things are false. OP has nothing further to say to sustain that view. So what the fuck more are we supposed to have read?

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  • [–] 1 point 6 months ago* (3 children)

    OP addresses it by simply saying it’s not exploitation and the animals are not harmed.

    In some cases.

    Both things are false

    In the cases OP isn't talking about.

    So what the fuck more are we supposed to have read?

    Everything the other guy listed is the standard industry-scale production. What you should've read is that there are alternatives that ensure the animals are happy and taken care of.

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  • [–] 1 point 6 months ago* (2 children)

    It is a fallacy to say there are alternatives that ensure the animals are happy and taken care of. That is simply not true from an ethical point of view, which isn't really concerned with your subjective measure of another individual's "happiness."

    There is no ethical way to create an individual with the preformed intention of forcing that individual into a state of life-long dependence, where you are its only means of survival. That on its face is already profoundly unethical, it's a truly monstrous and selfish thing to do to another individual.

    The animals we create are morally equivalent to our own children. They are entitled to the exact same unconditional love and protection.

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  • [–] 3 points 6 months ago*

    There is no ethical way to create an individual with the preformed intention of forcing that individual into a state of life-long dependence, where you are its only means of survival. That on its face is already profoundly unethical, it's a truly monstrous and selfish thing to do to another individual.

    By that logic, having a pet dog is somehow deeply unethical, and the fact that humanity created dogs from wolves over tens of thousands of years is an abomination

    Does that actually make sense? I would say no, I dont believe pet dogs suffer through their existence if they are well treated and cared for. I dont think having a dog is unethical, even though I have never had one

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  • [–] 11 points 6 months ago (37 children)

    What in the cope did I just read

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  • [–] 7 points 6 months ago (36 children)

    Well, clearly you didn't read it, since you see it as cope...

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  • [–] 10 points 6 months ago* (35 children)

    How do you eat the body of someone who doesn't want to be eaten and think it isn't exploitation. Do YOU even listen to the words you are saying, or are you just distracting yourself from rational thought until the bad feelings go away?

    We can tell you've never thought seriously about the subject in your entire life because you make claims like eggs and dairy don't harm the animals producing them. That's so ignorant, you have to be going out of your way to avoid learning about where your food comes from. But you have paragraphs of arrogant shit to shovel down our throats. Read a fucking book, okay?

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  • [–] 4 points 6 months ago (31 children)

    to be fair, the person that responded to me isn't the same that wrote the initial response I responded to (???) but I share your sentiment wholly

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  • [–] 4 points 6 months ago (30 children)

    There's a massive difference between industry-scale production and free-range, small-scale production. The former can never be ethical, by definition. The latter: absolutely can. It requires humans to cut down on animal products consumption drastically, so campaigning and education is necessary, but equating ALL non-veganism with animal cruelty does more harm than good to that goal.

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  • [–] 4 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (9 children)

    Free range, small-scale "production" (disgusting word to use in this context imho) - why would this be any less exploitative than what animal AG is doing in the billions? Sure, the animal is treated better, which is good in a vacuum, but the animal still can neither consent nor object to being exploited. At best, it's a chicken laying eggs for reproduction or for its own sustenance and is robbed of these, at worst it's a cow that's being force-impregnated to give milk, to sustain its calves which it can't, or it's killed for meat. The end result is, whatever way you wanna spin it, a dead or exploited animal.

    All these hypotheticals of people having "small-scale productions" or, for some reason not being part of the larger issue at hand just because they raise their own animals, is ultimately just cope to justify cruelty and exploitation. Accept that fact and move on, but at least be aware of what you're doing, or change something about your perspective.

    Veganism explicitly mentions to reduce the exploitation of animals in all facets of life, more or less. If you're dependent on animal products because you're living isolated and have no access to other nourishment - sure. I doubt the average Lemmy user is in such a predicament, however. Thus, it's absolutely within the realm of reason to assume that living as a vegan is possible and should be strived towards - especially if you're a self-proclaimed leftist.

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  • [–] 1 point 6 months ago (8 children)

    Ah, I misunderstood your intentions. I thought you were against the extermination of all farm animals, who have no way of surviving outside of, you know, farms.

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  • [–] 3 points 6 months ago (5 children)

    Not so much "exterminating" but more so liberating. Get rid of farm animals but set them free to farms to just chill and live their lives. I'm not sure if this concept exists outside Germany, probably, but we have so-called "Lebenshofe" here - literally translated to "life farm" where former farm animals are rescued to and can find shelter and love. That's the ideal 💚

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  • [–] 0 points 6 months ago (4 children)

    Yeah, that's exactly what I was talking about, mate.

    Enforce free-range, but just don't let the food they're producing and not utilising go to waste.

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  • [–] 2 points 6 months ago (3 children)

    No, that's where you misunderstood me. Let them be animals and not products to be exploited

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  • [–] 0 points 6 months ago (2 children)

    So, the cow milk and chicken eggs all just go to waste for a higher ideal?

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  • [–] 1 point 6 months ago* (1 child)

    Yes, that's literally what I've been arguing with you about here for the past few days

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  • [–] 1 point 6 months ago

    Yeah, so here's where your ignorance shows.

    Chickens might do fine, I'll give you that. Although, probably not, their population would skyrocket and they'd starve to death. Not a great way to go.

    Cows? They NEED TO be milked, or they'll die in incredible pain.

    Etc., etc.

    On top of that: how exactly literally wasting food helping anyone or anything....?

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  • [–] 3 points 6 months ago* (1 child)

    Apply this logic to human slaves producing transplant organs. If we didn't create them, then they'd never exist; so we are actually doing them a favour by creating them and forcing them to serve us.

    It's just cope after cope after cope. I've been there. They are all trying to lead you away from the same place, but that's the place you have to go if you want to be a person who does not commit cruelty and violence against vulnerable individuals.

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  • [–] 4 points 6 months ago* (19 children)

    what in your mind makes it ethical to do the things to a chicken that would not be ethical to do to a human? you can't just say "it's ethical;" that is the entire debate.

    You are ignorant of the realities of "free range" ranching, but that is not really relevant yet so we'll ignore it.

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  • [–] 0 points 6 months ago (18 children)

    Ah, OK, I misunderstood you. I didn't realise you're a proponent of exterminating all the farm animals.

    Because, if they're not used on farms, they have no way of surviving in the wild. Not to mention there either not being "enough wild" for all of them.

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  • [–] 5 points 6 months ago (17 children)

    "The animals we bred to be genetic freaks are so deformed they will no longer survive in the wild so we should continue breeding the genetic freaks." Amen brother.

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  • [–] 2 points 6 months ago (4 children)

    That only applies to industrail scale farming which Alaknar has taken distance away from in this thread.

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  • [–] 3 points 6 months ago (3 children)

    I mean I'm not super opposed to non-factory farms but, just as 2 examples, chickens for meat grow so quickly that they can barely stand and their hearts literally can't keep up and they end up extremely sick and often just dying of heart attacks. Egg laying chickens are bred to essentially be constantly ovulating, which can't be great for their health or well-being, but this one's harder to say.

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  • [–] 2 points 6 months ago (2 children)

    I agree with you about that it is horrific. No animal should suffer that. And I do see that the machine is incentivizing this through merciless efficiency.

    But just because it is incentivized doesn't mean a farmer has to be ruled by the machine. They don't have to be ruled by efficiency. They can choose to care for their animals instead of disregarding their gleedity.

    This necessarily means there will be much less meat, but the meat that is produced will come from animals that has had a good life, instead of being tortured throughout their life.

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  • [–] 1 point 6 months ago (1 child)

    I'm just saying those are the breeds we have now, and we would basically have to selectively breed less productive animals, which I don't see happening any time soon.

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  • [–] 0 points 6 months ago* (6 children)

    Yeah, if only I didn't specify cutting down on consumption which would drive a "wind down" of breeding...

    But hey, good to know you're so concerned about farm animal welfare that you want to kill them all.

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  • [–] 1 point 6 months ago (5 children)

    The goal should be no breeding at all. I don't have a perfect solution, but bringing millions more into factory farming while "tapering it down" causes as a whole far more suffering. I don't see an animal dying of an infection and say "well killing is wrong so have fun writhing in agony until you die, adios!"

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  • [–] 1 point 6 months ago (4 children)

    Which is why I'm talking about enforcing free-range farms where the animals can be happy.

    It's not a perfect solution, but it's an achievable solution. Suddenly ending all farm animals is not.

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  • [–] 1 point 6 months ago (3 children)

    I mean I don't think they would even disagree with that, they were just saying it is still exploitative to kill something or take eggs from something that does not want that to happen, as it would be for a human. Their contention was that while having small scale farms would be practically more moral, that doesn't make it moral.

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  • [–] 1 point 6 months ago (2 children)

    My point is that if vegans go all "eat meat == murderer" narrative, the actual winding down of the animal industry slows down. So it's amoral to do that, because you're extending the suffering of animals. We need the wind-down to happen ASAP, so we can kick the lobbies out, and start working on lab-grown equivalents. Which will be hard enough to introduce to the public, without the guilt-shaming added from the other side.

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  • [–] 1 point 6 months ago (1 child)

    I mean yeah it's not a good narrative, if someone eats less meat but I see them buying eggs ill go ehhhhh.... and look the other way. But if someone asks me "am I morally right to buy eggs?" I'll usually say something like "well it's still not great but it's much better than eating meat." They were only speaking to the veracity of your statement, I think any non-insane vegan would agree that "switch to small, humane farms" is better messaging and far closer to being moral.

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  • [–] 1 point 6 months ago

    There's also going to be a whole 'nother can of worms opened when we finally figure out that plants also feel pain, which also makes eating them amoral.

    Until we figure out fully artificial food sources, 100% lab grown matter, we will be causing some pain to the world, it's inevitable, it's how this world works.

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  • [–] 0 points 6 months ago (4 children)

    genetic freaks are so deformed

    holy ableism batman. If animals are people, then denying domesticated animals reproductive access because of their genetics is genocide.

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  • [–] 1 point 6 months ago (3 children)

    um... if 2 humans wanted to bring a child into existance that would suffer its whole life and then die of a heart attack into the world I would also say that's immoral. An animal having low social awareness or being mentally disabled is not the same as ovulating 3 times a day every day for their entire life, or having a heart attack by 6 months old.

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  • [–] 1 point 6 months ago (2 children)

    if 2 humans wanted to bring a child into existance that would suffer its whole life and then die of a heart attack into the world I would also say that’s immoral.

    So what would you want to do if they kept making such children? Imprison them? Forcefully sterilize them? Would you like the political system of your society to have the authority to decide what "suffering your entire life" is?

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  • [–] 1 point 6 months ago (1 child)

    I mean I might, same as I would if they took a homeless person and caused them to suffer their whole life, that's legitimately evil behavior. We may not have an exact definition of "suffering your entire life," but whatever factory farmed chickens are experiencing is certainly it. This is like saying "we can't define exactly what constitutes abuse so what are you going to do, have society decide an arbitrary line?" Yes, and that is what we do.

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  • [–] 1 point 6 months ago

    Congratulations, you support eugenics. Historically governments have forcefully sterilized all sorts of people because their children would suffer unacceptably by the government's standards.

    Now please look into the history of eugenics and see what the policy you support has meant in practice.

    Much like historical eugenics supporters, you are ignoring the outside factors that are causing someone's suffering in your judgment, blaming a factory farmed chicken's suffering on them being a "genetic freak" rather than on the people that lock them in cages shoulder to shoulder.

    The descendents of chickens will produce so many eggs that they will start rotting near the nest and become a health threat, so they need assistance with getting enough protein and with removing the eggs before they rot. This is not a life of suffering, they only need a tiny bit of assistance to live as full life as any bird.

    Chickens choose to make their nests in coops if they are built for them. Fences around a chicken yard are usually there to stop predators from murdering them and most chickens will not fly over them even if they can, as long as the fenced off area is large enough.

    The same goes for dairy cows, who need assistance getting the milk out because they produce more milk than their calfs can drink. A farmer with a bucket may be approached by cows that want to relieve the pressure.

    Some vegans consider honey to be provided with consent if the beekeeper is gentle enough. By the same standard, chicken eggs gotten when helping them clean their nest and milk gotten from cows whose udders would otherwise break would be vegan.

    Of course without killing the males, a farmer probably can't saunter up to a cow and help them get the milk out quite as easily, but that's a skill issue.

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  • [–] 3 points 6 months ago

    How do you eat the body of someone who doesn’t want to be eaten and think it isn’t exploitation

    I take it you never heard about eggs or milk...?

    We can tell you’ve never thought seriously about the subject in your entire life because you make claims like eggs and dairy

    Ah, no, you have! So why do you only and specifically associate "non-veganism" with "eating the body of someone who doesn't want to be eaten"?

    That’s so ignorant, you have to be going out of your way to avoid learning about where your food comes from.

    Let me guess: your argument is the cage-locked, industry scale production, yeah?

    But you have paragraphs of arrogant shit to shovel down our throats. Read a fucking book, okay?

    Are you capable of taking a deep breath and not spazzing out here, or is that out of the question and we won't have a conversation?

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  • [–] 6 points 6 months ago (2 children)

    It’s simplistic and implies leftism as a monolith. That being said, it’s a meme not an essay. Starting an argument from a talking point devoid of context invites dissent. As well as ridicule.

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  • [–] 3 points 6 months ago (1 child)

    It's completely accurate. There are so many right wing arguments responding to this post it's not even funny. So many white liberals setting the timetable to another's liberation, so many LGB people who think the T is just going too far, so many workers threatening to vote for the party that dismantles workers' rights if the pro-worker party supports migrants.

    And the same happens every time. Non-vegan self-identified leftists' arguments against animal liberation are almost always right wing logic and right wing talking points.

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