Bring on the debate

If this were a debate, the subject might be as interesting as it is controversial. Two opposite positionssides delivered in a very ordered. But in the real world outside the debating chamber, stereotypes, prejudices, half truths and misinformation abound. Before attitudes will turn around, there are two things to get clear, activists must seem to be okay people (ie not aggressive) and the meat eaters must seem fair-minded (ie not dishonest). No progress can be made until people on both sides can discuss these difficult issues calmly. It’s a very emotional subject and yet we should steer clear of emotion. Our adversaries should know that we still "like" them and they should show that they’re willing to “respect” us.
Because we are taking the initiative, to draw the majority towards a minority view to initiate debate, ours is the responsibility to set the standards of behaviour. If we can get our non-violence across at the outset, then we can establish a fair footing. And if we seem confident it shows we are at peace with our position. We need to show faith in the power of logical argument so that we never feel the need to go on the defensive. And because we have such a powerful argument anyway, there’s no need to lose that advantage.
But to get the pot boiling, we might need to be a bit cunning. We are after all coming from a minority viewpoint, so we need to find just the right opening for what we have to say. Demanding that we have a right to speak isn’t going to do the trick. We have to let them want us to speak. Even if only to take us on. We mustn’t pick a fight, although we can prod and kid and fool about with people’s sense of their own truth. We can’t make them respond to us. It must come from them, this wish to talk about all these issues of cruelty and animal slavery.
Once we are up and running, discussing freely, exchanging views, then our arguments have a chance to appeal to reason, the reasoning based upon ant-violence. However hard they try to defend animal use, however hard they try to argue that “it isn’t cruel”, their arguments ultimately fail on this one unsupportable premise – that animal use always involves violence and is therefore unethical. As soon as they engage us in discussion we don’t need to labour the point, merely mention it. Nothing much more needs to be said!