i know its not the crux of the discussion, but the specific phrase "meat is murder" is a punchline these days (due to pop culture use), people dismiss it without even engaging and i absolutely think its a tactically-incorrect phrase for vegans to use regardless of truth or otherwise. but saying equivalent things like "that animal that died for your dinner was murdered" does still have some power, i think, and is what people on this site have been saying. so id like to steer clear of discussing "meat is murder" itself (pedantry but kinda important i think).
and also just something thats easy to forget - most of us here werent brought up vegan, most of us have been non-vegan leftists much like you, and most of us have been on both sides of this argument. and i can tell you 100% from my personal experience that for me the reason i disliked the word "murder" was because it made me uncomfortable about my own actions, and that the answers i was telling myself as to why calling it murder was ridiculous just werent cutting it (i of course wasnt 100% consciously aware of it at the time).
and yeah, not intended to be funny and novel, intended to be confronting and uncomfortable. if instead of saying "murder" i said "deliberately and immorally killing - for pleasure - a thinking, feeling being that doesnt want to die" it doesnt quite roll off the tongue in the same way but would provoke the same angry response because its not about technicalities of whether killing an animal and killing a human are exactly 1:1 or not (and i would refer you to @BeamBrain s excellent post addressing this very point). its about being told "your actions make you not as moral as you like to think you are" and reacting defensively because deep down you know theyre right.
but if you can convince yourself you proved vegans wrong on some semantic technicality, its a great way of avoiding grappling with the rather obvious truth that killing animals that dont want to die just for the sake of yumyums is wrong, but that people dont want to stop because taking action to stop doing it seems scary and hard. ps for anyone reading its actually not that scary or hard at all and its actually very liberating to free yourself from the cognitive dissonance of being a leftist trying to justify unnecessary death and suffering for the sake of treats
so yeah please stop deliberately and immorally killing - for pleasure - thinking, feeling beings that dont want to die, its good for them but also for you
i know its not the crux of the discussion, but the specific phrase "meat is murder" is a punchline these days (due to pop culture use), people dismiss it without even engaging and i absolutely think its a tactically-incorrect phrase for vegans to use regardless of truth or otherwise. but saying equivalent things like "that animal that died for your dinner was murdered" does still have some power, i think, and is what people on this site have been saying. so id like to steer clear of discussing "meat is murder" itself (pedantry but kinda important i think).
and also just something thats easy to forget - most of us here werent brought up vegan, most of us have been non-vegan leftists much like you, and most of us have been on both sides of this argument. and i can tell you 100% from my personal experience that for me the reason i disliked the word "murder" was because it made me uncomfortable about my own actions, and that the answers i was telling myself as to why calling it murder was ridiculous just werent cutting it (i of course wasnt 100% consciously aware of it at the time).
and yeah, not intended to be funny and novel, intended to be confronting and uncomfortable. if instead of saying "murder" i said "deliberately and immorally killing - for pleasure - a thinking, feeling being that doesnt want to die" it doesnt quite roll off the tongue in the same way but would provoke the same angry response because its not about technicalities of whether killing an animal and killing a human are exactly 1:1 or not (and i would refer you to @BeamBrain s excellent post addressing this very point). its about being told "your actions make you not as moral as you like to think you are" and reacting defensively because deep down you know theyre right.
but if you can convince yourself you proved vegans wrong on some semantic technicality, its a great way of avoiding grappling with the rather obvious truth that killing animals that dont want to die just for the sake of yumyums is wrong, but that people dont want to stop because taking action to stop doing it seems scary and hard. ps for anyone reading its actually not that scary or hard at all and its actually very liberating to free yourself from the cognitive dissonance of being a leftist trying to justify unnecessary death and suffering for the sake of treats
so yeah please stop deliberately and immorally killing - for pleasure - thinking, feeling beings that dont want to die, its good for them but also for you