Welfare reforms and the whole “happy” exploitation movement are not “baby steps.” They are big steps–in a seriously backward direction.
They are nonhuman persons. They are not food. If animals matter morally at all, there is one and only one rational response: go vegan. Everything else is just participation in animal exploitation.
Any serious social, political, and economic change must include veganism.
Because animals are property, we consider as “humane treatment” that we would regard as torture if it were inflicted on humans.
If you care about animals, there is one and only one choice: go vegan. Can you choose not to be vegan? Sure. You can choose not to care.
Ethical veganism represents a commitment to nonviolence.
We do not need to eat animals, wear animals, or use animals for entertainment purposes, and our only defence of these uses is our pleasure, amusement, and convenience.
Does veganism require a “sacrifice”? Yes. It requires that you give up that which you never had any right to in the first place.
In order to be a teacher you’ve got to be a student first.
Veganism is the application of the principle of abolition in your own life; it represents your recognition that animals are not things. Veganism is the recognition of the moral personhood of nonhuman animals.
The distinction between meat and other animal products is total nonsense. Vegetarianism is a morally incoherent position. If you regard animals as members of the moral community, you really don’t have a choice but to go vegan.
If you are not vegan, please consider going vegan. It’s a matter of nonviolence. Being vegan is your statement that you reject violence to other sentient beings, to yourself, and to the environment, on which all sentient beings depend.
To say that a being who is sentient has no interest in continuing to live is like saying that a being with eyes has no interest in continuing to see. Death – however “humane” – is a harm for humans and nonhumans alike.
If you claim to ‘love’ animals but you eat animal products, you need to think critically about how you understand love.
Being vegan is not a matter of “lifestyle.” It is a matter of fundamental moral obligation. Is being vegan a matter of “choice”? Only insofar as we are able to choose to ignore our moral obligations not to exploit the vulnerable.
We do not think clearly about our moral obligations to animals.
I maintain that we ought to abolish the institution and stop causing or facilitating the existence of more ‘companion’ animals.
We should stop bringing more domestic animals into existence.
There is no difference between sitting around the pit watching dogs fight and sitting around a summer barbecue roasting the corpses of tortured animals or enjoying the dairy or eggs from tortured animals.
Animal rights without veganism is like human rights with slavery. It makes no sense. None whatsoever.