The starting line

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Vegans want to be thought of neither as missionaries nor as being too mild mannered to speak up. We want to be taken seriously and have what we say considered constructively.
Whatever I say is said on a ‘suggestion only’ basis because I don’t want to sound dogmatic and do want to show respect for the integrity of the person who is willing to listen to what I have to say. I don’t need them to agree with me, in fact I’d be surprised if they did but more importantly I don’t want them to go home and forget what they’d agreed with and slip straight back into old habits. You may nod at what I’, saying but I don’t need to be humoured, I’d rather have disagreement than polite accord. I’m going to welcome robust debate, encourage devils advocacy and try not to sound high and mighty with the uninformed. I stress that I’m not out to win converts but to get people thinking afresh. The trick, as I see it, is to tread a fine line between informing and maintaining an essential equal footing - never me know-all, you know-nothing. I want to guide information along what I expect will always be a very rocky and resistant road.
But however smart my approach, however slick my arguments, however nice a person I seem to be, I know that I just represent just one side of the debate (which is, of course, to my mind, the right side!!). There’s always something valuable to be learnt from listening to the other side of the argument.
Since all of us want to be right, does that create an obstacle? It’s a bit off-putting to meet and talk with someone who thinks they’re right all the time. Over these animal issues and nutrition issues, I suppose I must admit that I feel very right, about the non-use of animals. But my feeling right doesn’t give me ‘the right’ to earbash anyone, and if I’m given the chance to put my point of view I should, our of respect to a listener, be short and sweet. Initially, there’s no need to go into great detail. I imagine that as much as someone might want to hear something about veganism they also want to know how a vegan behaves - are they fair, unfair, interesting, boring, dogmatic?
My aim would be to show a launch pad with a rocket full of ideas, but latent, un-fired-off. I want to make sure, at first, that one things is understood - that I don’t ‘touch’ animals. This is the start of it all. If it doesn’t start there then it’s just a vegetarian diet with something extras thrown in, but without a strong and broad philosophical basis.