The Radical Vegan

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I sometimes give dinner parties. Some of those I invite only eat Kosher. Some only eat vegan. Some won’t eat gluten. Some won’t eat pork or shellfish. I respect that. And they all know I do. I cook accordingly. When I visit their homes, I eat what is served or politely decline and drink water.

When I visit their homes, though, they don’t go out of their way to cook to my dietary needs and choices. And I would never ask them to. And they, usually, don’t ask me to; I do it voluntarily, even when I don’t relish their choices.

Enter the radical vegan to my house, a guest of a guest. Upon seeing that meat as well as purely vegan offerings were present at my table, the individual launched into a tirade, then proceeded to spit on the meat dishes and into the plate of deviled eggs. into the casseroles and salads that were clearly marked as either Kosher or non-vegan.

The meal was ruined. I was shocked. I told the person to leave my house and property and never return. The guest with whom the vegan came escorted her out and saw that she drove away…which left him stranded. (They’d both come in her car. Later, someone kindly took him home.) Once she was gone, he came back inside. He was mortified, as were the rest of us, and he offered to pay for the meal. I took him up on his offer by asking him to order from a local good restaurant that delivers. The folks around the table were conservative in their orders, and, within forty-five minutes, we were seated to a fresh table of not quite as extensive a meal.

The point of me recounting this ugly little drama is this: Today, vegans seem to think that they have the right to dictate what I and others put in our mouths. But these same vegans don’t want anyone dictating to them what they put in theirs. Vegans, I ask you: what if some radicalized meat-eaters group coerced the politicians to legislate the enforced eating of meat upon vegans, just like vegans are attempting to do via legislation to others? You vegans wouldn’t like it. In fact, you would feel your rights were being violated. Well, radical vegan, you are violating the rights of others with your actions and demands. Please stop, because, just like you don’t want someone dictating that you must eat meat, omnivores don’t want their choices dictated by you.

What you put into your mouth is your business. What someone else puts into theirs is not.

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Hate is Hate, whether it comes from the Right, Left, or Middle. Get Down Off Your Outraged Pedestal.

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I just read an article linked to by a gentleman in my feed. Now, this gentleman and I don’t see eye-to-eye. At all. But, still, I like to read his viewpoints, just like I do folks who hold other perspectives which I might or might not share. Listening to different perspectives with which I might disagree allows me to learn and to constantly question my own perspectives. I like alternative narratives. I love it when some new viewpoint makes total sense to me and changes my mind…using legitimate arguments, well-substantiated by fact and logic.

I listened to Black Lives Matter…and wound up dismissing them as just more hate-mongers and racists. I listened to the new feminists and came to the conclusion that they were the Female Supremacists, just like, previously, I’d dismissed the Black Panthers, the Christian Coalition, the White Supremacists, and similar groups, finding in them just more hate and intolerance, advocating violence against those who didn’t share their faith, mores, ideologies, and/or perspectives.

I’ve listened to the [insert label of choice] and found, by and large, that most groups, most movements, are simply promoting hatred and unfairness toward some other group, using blame and scorn, encouraging castigation, excoriation, punishment, subjugation, and even eradication of whichever group they decide is their victimizer, responsible for all injustice in the world, all of their fervor fueled by self-righteous rage masquerading as righteous outrage.

The article I just read, concerning the murder of MP Jo Cox, used phrases like ‘toxic masculinity’ and blames homophobia, misogyny, the right-wing, and a basket-full of other buzz-terms as promoting hate and fear, never acknowledging that ‘toxic feminism’, heterophobia, misandry, and the left-wing are equally to blame.

The only thing in the article that actually speaks any fair truth is this, and we need to apply it INDISCRIMINATELY<Important!:

…that we all unite to fight against the hatred that killed her. Hate doesn’t have a creed, race or religion, it is poisonous.”

 

It’s not too late to pump this poison out of the system. One brave woman is dead. Others must work now to emulate her example: to place compassion above fear, hope above hatred, to fight against the intolerance tearing apart our communities. To work and speak and vote against bigotry and blame.

 

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Fairness

There’s a saying that “life isn’t fair.” Okay, in a Darwinian sense, that’s very true. It’s true because of chance and circumstance. However, humans try very hard to make things fairer…for themselves…and vehemently object to being treated unfairly by others. This objection to unfairness brought those. such as the Calvinites, who were persecuted for their beliefs in Europe and Britain to the “New World” in search of religious freedom for themselves…and went on to institute the very same, and, in some cases, more violent, persecutions against others who did not embrace their religious doctrine. Wanting fairness for themselves, they were willing to deny fairness to others. Don’t you find that hypocritical? I do (though, I don’t find it surprising.)

In Israel, the Jews, victims of genocidal persecution, in turn now persecute the Palestinians, including invidious methods of genocide– denying water, livelihood, and shelter. The Jews wanted fairness, but refuse to, themselves, be fair.

In the U.S. today, I see a great deal of this kind of hypocrisy embraced–the “I’ve got mine, and I’ll deny you yours” mentality. I find this level of unfairness based in intolerance unacceptable, yet the socio-political direction most evident through the media, in the workplace, and in interaction between people online and off demonstrates to me that we, having been purposely factionalized by power brokers playing us for pawns for their own agenda, are evermore embracing unfairness, intolerance, and injustice. I think we really need to pull ourselves up and take a keen look at who we are becoming.