Live now, pay later

1518: 

The real friction between non-vegans and vegans is that what they relish we avoid.  They still enjoy animal foods and wearing animal clothing, whereas we avoid it like the plague.  Our advantage is that we can speak-out about animal treatment but they can’t, even if they wanted to.

Our main emphasis is on sentience - most people probably don’t even know what the word means or how significant it is, whereas if you’re sensitive to the plight of domesticated animals you’d know its meaning very well.  To us, the mistreatment of an innocent, sentient creature is obscene.  The easy availability of animal over centuries of tradition have brought billions of animals into slavery.  It's become such a routine habit for humans that it is largely un-thought-about.  Omnivores don’t actually think what is done to animals is bad.  And even if they did they mustn’t, otherwise they couldn’t be omnivores any longer.

Omnivores have to sit in the ‘quiet corner’.  The only satisfaction for them is to take full advantage of what’s on offer, and in consequence they are, in a very important way, subservient to The System.  That might be morally bad enough but it's also self-abuse.

Eating animals and their various secretions may give people lots of present-time enjoyment but it usually, eventually, means a lot of chronic stomach and digestive problems.  If you still eat animal produce you’re sure to be wrecking your body, as if by slow poisoning.  And what a waste!  To disqualify your body from working properly, plus denying yourself the chance to be an agent of peace in the world, seems sad.  To hold back on both counts because of a food attachment or insisting on having feet bound in leather, is a high price to pay for something so unnecessary.

To a greater or lesser degree, most people have got blood on their hands and plenty of poison in their bodies, simply by ingesting animals’ body-parts on a daily basis.  By consuming the concentrated toxins from these foods plus the adrenaline surge at the point of an animal’s execution, we weaken our immune system.  Vegans say, “Keep off the stuff if you want to maintain good health (and a clear conscience)”.

I suppose it’s safe to say that by being vegan, I’d automatically be avoiding many of the crap foods and treats on the market, as if I was no longer living under a 'tastebud dictatorship'.  Personally I worry about the ethics of those who aren’t avoiding crap food, but it’s not only food but shoes and zoos and thousands of other goods and services provided by our animal slaves that demean us.  By using animals we lose our best chance for a truly meaningful life, and we’re in very real danger of suffering years of chronic health disorders and dying unfulfilled too.