It absolutely is straw-manning, you cannot seriously see a vegan use the word "murder" to refer to the slaughter of an animal and jump to the conclusion that that same person is saying that there is a moral equivalence between a human and animal being killed, that's just asinine. We literally just don't want animals--which have the capacity to suffer--of any kind to get killed for our own selfish needs if it is avoidable, it's not rocket science.
edwardligma is right about the confrontational nature of using "murderer", the OP may have used the word in part to be provocative and draw attention to the suffering of animals.
When non-vegans hear "meat is murder" their #1 thought is "so you're saying killing a deer is the same as killing a human?" That's what the words are communicating, regardless of what you intend to communicate.
It's like talking about the dictatorship of the proletariat to a non-leftist. Their #1 thought is "so it's a dictatorship?" It doesn't matter what we're trying to communicate with that phrase -- what is actually communicated is what the recipient gets out of the message. Maybe you can salvage it with additional explanation, but maybe not.
I personally don't really tend to use the word "murder" myself to describe the slaughter of animals because non-vegans routinely react in the exact same negative way toward it, but I also won't chastise another vegan who uses that term.
Again, I will reiterate that you cannot get into the inner psyche of every vegan who says that and know in no uncertain terms that they are saying that killing an animal is the same as killing a human. "Murder" as a concept doesn't have to be inherently tied to humans--for most of us, we literally just don't want any creature with a capacity to suffer to be slaughtered, human vs. animal comparison be damned. edwardligma is also correct, a stereotypical western pet like a dog is often seen as a member of the family by some people, and there are articles that exist that refer to dogs deliberately getting killed as "murder". Besides, there are literally some dictionaries that have additional definitions of murder as "to kill or slaughter inhumanly or barbarously" or "to slaughter wantonly", which seems a pretty apt way of describing animal agriculture. Definitions of words, just like all facets of society, also don't have to be permanently rigid, so there's no reason to think that the society-accepted definition of victims of "murder" couldn't eventually evolve to include non-human animals as well.
It absolutely is straw-manning, you cannot seriously see a vegan use the word "murder" to refer to the slaughter of an animal and jump to the conclusion that that same person is saying that there is a moral equivalence between a human and animal being killed, that's just asinine. We literally just don't want animals--which have the capacity to suffer--of any kind to get killed for our own selfish needs if it is avoidable, it's not rocket science.
edwardligma is right about the confrontational nature of using "murderer", the OP may have used the word in part to be provocative and draw attention to the suffering of animals.
When non-vegans hear "meat is murder" their #1 thought is "so you're saying killing a deer is the same as killing a human?" That's what the words are communicating, regardless of what you intend to communicate.
It's like talking about the dictatorship of the proletariat to a non-leftist. Their #1 thought is "so it's a dictatorship?" It doesn't matter what we're trying to communicate with that phrase -- what is actually communicated is what the recipient gets out of the message. Maybe you can salvage it with additional explanation, but maybe not.
I personally don't really tend to use the word "murder" myself to describe the slaughter of animals because non-vegans routinely react in the exact same negative way toward it, but I also won't chastise another vegan who uses that term.
Again, I will reiterate that you cannot get into the inner psyche of every vegan who says that and know in no uncertain terms that they are saying that killing an animal is the same as killing a human. "Murder" as a concept doesn't have to be inherently tied to humans--for most of us, we literally just don't want any creature with a capacity to suffer to be slaughtered, human vs. animal comparison be damned. edwardligma is also correct, a stereotypical western pet like a dog is often seen as a member of the family by some people, and there are articles that exist that refer to dogs deliberately getting killed as "murder". Besides, there are literally some dictionaries that have additional definitions of murder as "to kill or slaughter inhumanly or barbarously" or "to slaughter wantonly", which seems a pretty apt way of describing animal agriculture. Definitions of words, just like all facets of society, also don't have to be permanently rigid, so there's no reason to think that the society-accepted definition of victims of "murder" couldn't eventually evolve to include non-human animals as well.
I'm not saying this, come on.