“…if u invite a vegan to dinner u have to go out of your way to cater for them, if u visit a vegans house, u eat wot ur given…..secondly when ur eating vegetarians and vegans find it perfectly fine to try and convert us…we dont approach you and tell you to eat meat so we dont appreciate people trying to convert us, we are intelligent enough to make our own decisions so why do you always have to bring it up to us.”

This is a very old post but I must comment as this is just absurd. Ethical vegans believe that meat is the result of an unjust institution that turns a rights-holder into a thing, a tool. It seems unreasonable to equate carrots and a cow – unless someone believes that carrots are rights-holders, therefore, our consuming them is unjust. “U eat wot ur given” at a vegan household because vegans are taking an ethical stance; at a meat eaters house, this is only similar if the meat eater believes that carrots have rights, for example, and thus take an ethical stance against eating vegan food. This is self-evidently different: it’s analogous to asking someone who believes in the equality of all human beings to participate in chattel slavery – it’s unreasonable to argue that the racist is placed in an ethical dilemma if they go to a non-racists home who busses their own tables, as opposed to having a Black slave do that work for them.

As this should be clear, you must understand why an ethical vegan would suggest that a conversation is necessary when confronted with a meat eater. We believe that you are violating another individuals’ most basic moral rights, which is unjust and ought to be stopped. Again, an attempt to convert me from veganism on a similar level (i.e., I am violating the rights of a soy bean) is clearly absurd, and illogical. So, it’s not the same. However, please do, start a conversation with me about why consuming meat is ethical and we can go from there.

“…Its like a cult”? Let’s deal with your reasoning process first, and then we will address this absurd statement.

Alex’s last blog post..From the back of my coffee mug.

“Only 17% of vegans often or always try to convert others to a vegan diet. Of the rest 47% never, or hardly ever, try to convert people. However 63% of vegans know someone who has become veg*an because of their influence.”

from: http://www.imaner.net/panel/profile.htm

Also, we know that not all omnivores hate vegans. Heck, most vegans used to be omnivores!