a) It’s not really that many people. If you want to claim it’s “lots” of people, cite some stats and back them up with credible sources.
b) In my experience, most of the people who say they eat “humane meat” don’t walk the walk. They say one thing about “humane” meat, but really they just eat any old meat.
c) Even Prof. Francione admits there is no empirical proof for his claim that “improving animal welfare makes people feel less uncomfortable about animal exploitation.” He bases his philosophy on his intuition.

So if you’re going to make a slippery slope argument that being anti-factory farming is the same as being pro-”humane” meat and you want to also claim that being pro-”humane” meat is anti-vegan, then you need some proof, particularly because anyone honestly promoting “humane” meat as an alternative to factory farming realizes that “humane” meat is only sustainable for an elite few and it cannot feed the masses, thus anyone honestly promoting “humane” meat alongside abolition of factory farming, should or will encourage veganism since abolition of factory farming requires that either most people be vegan 100% of the time or 100% of people be vegan most of the time.

I don’t personally promote “humane” meat consumption, but I do support anyone – regardless of their ethics – who wants to abolish factory farming. Factory farming is just that bad. It’s the worst of the worst.

I suggest if you have an alternative viewpoint to mine that you consider starting your own vegan website and/or contributing substantive articles to this one. Please see the submission policy here: http://www.vegansoapbox.com/about/#submission

Lots of people who are appalled by factory farming start eating “humane” meat. Being bothered by the cruelties involved in factory farming does not give anyone a reason to stop eating and using animals altogether.

Bea:

I agree that we need to get people to not see animals as food if we’re going to get them legal rights. The problem with focusing on factory farming is that it gives people no reason to be vegan. For them to become vegan, they’d need to see /all/ farming as wrong.

I didn’t mean any ill-will in my posts. I just disagree with you. I thought that was an ok thing to post about. This is a public blog after all.

“a) Factory farming accounts for the vast majority of animal rights violations. Thus, factory farming is a reasonable place for people interested in abolishing animal exploitation to direct their energy.”

Farming writ large accounts for more rights violations, so if we’re going by numbers, why not critique that? Moreover, I provided several reasons why focusing on factory farming can be confusing to people at best and provides no reason for people to go vegan.

“b) Please consider reading the book yourself rather than asking me to interpret it for you.”

I don’t believe I was asking you to interpret the book for me. I was merely challenging your support of it. You said you agree with 99% of what Foer says, so that seems like an ok thing to do.

“c) Please consider trying to understand me rather than trying to find fault with my reasoning or my communication. The phrases “charitable interpretation” or “giving someone the benefit of the doubt” might aid you in that task.”

I absolutely am trying to understand you. If you think I’m not being charitable in my readings, please point out where I’m being unfairly harsh.

“My post above has little to do with the topics of your curiosity. Rather, it has to do with something you said you agree with:
“Of course many things will need to change to make veganism easier.””

I disagree with what you wrote and I challenged it directly.

“d) If you disagree with me or dislike what I do, please stop trying to change me and start trying to change the world. That is, if you think you can do a better job at encouraging people to go and stay vegan, THEN DO IT.”

I am trying to do my best to educate others. I don’t see how that makes it improper for me to comment on your public blog. I think you’re presenting misleading and unhelpful information to people, so I’m disagreeing with you. I think that’s fair.

“I am not your spokesperson nor am I the representative for all vegan people or all animals. I am merely one person using her skills to try to make the world a better place. I’m not perfect, I’m not a genius, I’m not an angel, I’m nothing but another human being who is actually, truly, DOING something. I’ve written thousands of blog posts that encourage veganism. I’ve made over a hundred videos that encourage veganism. I’ve passed out thousands of vegan leaflets. And I’ve successfully encouraged countless people to go vegan. Kindly, get off my back!”

Sorry if you thought I was on your back about this. I don’t claim to be perfect either. I do think that it’s important for us to be thoughtful about how we go about our advocacy though, and because I disagree with what you wrote, I posted a comment. I’m not sure why you’re taking so much offense to that.