I really don't understand meat eaters who argue that veganism is more cruel because plants are also living beings. This is clearly not a serious argument that anyone who has completed elementary school would make. Kate, do you really think the cow whose flesh you ate yesterday lived its entire life without eating anything? That cow probably ate more plants in her short life than you've eaten since you were born. By eating animals, you're killing many, many times more plants than you would by eating plants directly. And on top of all that, you're killing an innocent animal who wanted nothing more than to live.
I wish vegans would stop feeding these trolls. If they want to stuff their faces with the flesh and bodily secretions of animals, they should go right ahead. There is karma when it comes to this sort of thing. It's impossible to eat animals or animal products without clogging one's arteries and stressing one's kidneys. The cruelty of paying for the torture and slaughter of innocent animals eventually comes back in the form of something like heart disease, kidney disease, or Alzheimer's.
First off, you make some really good points. And I agree with them all and have awarded you the highly coveted "Winner".
You make one mistake and that is addressing your comments to the OP, Kate. She is long gone. Banned. She can't hear you.
but no biggie, sooner or later someone like Kate will come along and read your comments.
As far as the "not a serious argument" and "feeding the trolls", I can actually sympathize with these idiots. Because in the early 70s, I was a lower level college student AND taking a heavy load of life sciences, when someone gave me a copy of
The Secret Life of Plants. I can't remember the details but I bet they said something like, "You gotta read this man, it'll blow your mind. A total life changer. So groovy. Awesome!"
In case you are unfamiliar with the book it came out in the early 70s and the authors, a pair of scientists, did groundbreaking research with plants. Using all kind of scientific instruments that supposedly measured the plants' reactions to inputs. I don't remember all the details any longer, but I'm pretty sure a lie detector was involved somewhere. One of the author's main conclusions was that plants have feelings.
I think at the time I was reading Carlos Castaneda, too. And had room in my world view for alternate realities.
Anyway, I took the Secret Life of Plants in. hook, line, and sinker. Ok, I was gullible. but I was 20. And lots of other people got taken in as well.
A dozen or so years later I was semi-surprised to find that no other scientists had been able to actually replicate the results of the experiments, and most scientists considered the whole thing a hoax.
I was not surprised to find out that over the ten plus years since the book came out lots of people had accepted the book's findings as facts. Many of these people had not only
not read the book but hadn't even heard of it. Another example of Mark Twain's "A lie goes around the world in the time it takes Truth to tie its shoes". or maybe, in this case, Lies are longlived, and before a lie dies of old age the truth gets tired and goes back to bed.
So although a lot of the people who tell you that you can't justify eating plants because plants have feelings, too ARE trolls. I think some of them are just misinformed and it is up to us to take a minute and explain. Your explanation (in your post) might work for some of them.
