Everyone may *think* they hate country music, but when Jolene, Before He Cheats, Take Me Home Country Roads, or Life is a Highway comes on, everyone is suddenly a liar.
I don’t hate country, I hate gun-totin’, beer-swillin’, truck-fuckin’ bro-country.
becoming vegan because factory farming is unethical is like deciding that since walmart and amazon mistreat their employees you are now going to get everything you need out of dumpsters
in a nutshell, instead of reforming the bad parts of your society, you
try to opt out of it in a way that has really no effect, and wouldn’t
work at all if the majority of people weren’t still part of the industry
you dislike.
there was, for a while, a real movement of people who tried to get everything out of dumpsters, as a way of opting out of capitalism. but the problem was that you couldn’t get what you need when you need it, leading to you being kind of a drain on your community, and someone had to buy that stuff in the first place for it to end up in that dumpster anyway. it was Fundamentally Silly.
going vegan to opt out of farming practices has similar problems. for instance: you (hypothetical vegan you) won’t buy honey, but the bees are being used to fertilize the vegetables and fruit you eat, they’re making the honey anyway, all you’ve done is – well, nothing, because you’re not a big enough demographic to make an impact, but even if you were, honey sales are a much smaller part of beekeepers’ income than crop pollination. and beekeeping is not a big faceless corporate interest. it’s not monsanto. it’s a bunch of single-family or partnership business with a truck or two and a couple hundred hives. the bees make honey after a pollinating run, and the beekeepers sell it for a little extra income. if you made a dent in that, you’d be achieving nothing but making joe beekeeper buy his kids’ t-shirts at k-mart instead of target.
animal farming and plant farming are deeply interconnected. plant farmers grow animal feed; animal farmers sell manure for fertilizer. most non-corporate farmers raise both plants and animals. it’s more economic and gives them more resilience.
if you were a big enough demographic to hit ‘the farming industry’ in its wallet. you would be making things MUCH harder for small farmers than for factory farms. you would be making it easier and easier for factory farms to crowd family farmers out of business. so that’s pretty much achieving the opposite of what you want, right there.
and then there’s the fact that plant farming is just as rife with gruesome factory farm conditions as animal farming, but it’s humans who are exploited in those. i’m not going to level accusations of racism here, but it really is unfortunate how little the vocal internet vegan contingent seems to know or care about the exploitation of the mostly nonwhite workers in the industry. it makes y’all look racist, whether you are or not.
look, i keep saying this, even though folks never seem to hear me: i don’t hate vegans, i’m not trying to stop you being vegan, i do not care what you eat.
my problem is with defensive internet vegans trying to promote their dietary restriction lifestyle as a solution to problems in the real world. it is not. it may create more problems than it solves, or maybe it breaks even, i don’t know. it certainly doesn’t solve anything that can’t be solved just as well without it. it can only look reasonable from a perspective of deep ignorance about where food comes from and how the farm economy works. you basically have to be young, urban, and somewhat privileged to embrace it. and it is, fundamentally, very silly.
Furthermore I’d like you to look at a sheep farm. Actually look at it.
You CANNOT grow crops there. That’s WHY there are sheep on it.
You refuse to use wool, well aside from.the fact that it’s a fantastic fiber and how polluting polyester and other plastic fibers are, it doesn’t harm the animal to remove and in fact is done for their benefit.
Above - a sheep farm (note steep and craggy hills), an uncompressed bale of freshly shorn wool and some sheep being shorn.
It’s not stressful for the sheep. Sheep are dumb. Be confident, dont hurt them and they’re good. Wool is a good fiber - strong, warm - even when wet - renewable and biodegradable.
My issue with Veganism-As-A-Cult is the lack of critical thinking. By all means eat what you want, wear what you want to wear but a blanket ban on all animal products because they’re HARMFUL is in itself an extremely harmful philosophy.
Do you refuse to eat plants that were pollinated by bees or fertilized by manure since they’re a product of animal labour?
Honey doesn’t hurt bees. Wool doesn’t hurt sheep.
What about animals that are going to die anyway? We are currently in the process of exterminating possums in our country as they are a pest and destroyer of our native species. We kill them humanely but they’re still going to die because its them (introduced pest) or our endemic endangered species. We use the meat for pet food and the fur for a lot of things now - in making yarns or fur items - because the alternative is to let it rot. Which is just bloody wasteful tbh.
What would (generic) you prefer we do here? Let sheep die of over heating or the weight of wet wool? Force bees into swarming (90% casualty rate) so we can avoid taking their honey? Leave pest animals to rot and encourage the use of set-and-forget traps since there’s no incentive to check them?
What’s the humane option?
see: why I hate militant veganism
Veganism, as I have encountered it, tends to be a thing that morally smug white people try to spring on others as a quick fix solution for the world, and I resent it more every day.
Not to mention a lit of veganism is tainted with racism, and white vegans will antagonize poc for their traditional foods. Native peoples hunting practices in particular are demonized and we’re called savage for hunting like we’ve always done: respectfully, ethically and using everything. But vegans will still criticize Natives despite hunting being a big part of our culture and literally the reason some of us don’t/haven’t starved
I look after friends, and friend of friends kids a lot, and the personalities molded by the people around them is so… obvious. Kids who have parents who allow them to be themselves are, confident, out going, happy to talk about things they like, have no issue telling you “yes I’m happy with this” “no I’m bored”
But the kids whose parents/authority figures don’t support them? Scared to tell you what they like because they don’t want to be made fun of. Quiet, scared to form an opinion, if they don’t like something they just suffer through it because they don’t see their happiness as something important, as something anyone cares about.
And a lot of parents prefer it? They would rather have a quiet kid than a happy one. It’s so disgusting. Don’t even fucking have kids then. Get a pet rock, you’ll have more in common.
Me: Yeah due to my disorder I barely feel any emotions, if Im feeling anything at all
Coworker: Haha, wow! I wish I didnt feel anything! I feel too many things honestly lol
Me: Ha ha. Yeah. Its not like the constant internal boredom and lack of caring for anything–not even caring enough to do the things that keep me alive–makes me want to fucking rot or anything
this is a straight couple. it’s straight. you’re in a heterosexual relationship. there is nothing remotely “queer” about this in the slightest whatsoever. jesus h christ
this is why i hate “reclaiming” queer
Are you fucking kidding me do you hate bisexuals that much that you’re willing to go along with terfs for a dunk on the bihets? Is that it now, is that the community? Is shitting on queer people so important to you that you’ll throw away all your standards?
We also don’t know if these people are binary but let’s judge them at a first glance and base their identity on their presentation because that’s so progressive!
I love how people are all “Bisexuals are JUST as much a part of the LGBT+ community as Gay people”…
And
“Trans 👏People 👏 Don’t 👏 Need 👏 To 👏 Pass👏 To 👏 Be 👏 Respected”
But yet are totally willing to throwout bisexuals and trans people and other sexualities.
Because it feels very good to outwardly judge people we don’t know anything about their identity or life’s experiences - because that’s not at ALL the exact thing that non-lgbt+ people do to tear down the community. No.
This is my husband and I. I am sure if you saw us on the street you would assume we were a cishet couple.
News flash: we aren’t.
I am a bisexual who has been in relationships with only women. He is a Transguy who has been on T for over a decade. We have been together for 18 years. We both identify as queer. We are out. We are active in the LGBTQ+ community.
But all of you calling that couple above straight, you just keep judging people on a photo alone and pretending you know who they are and what their stories are.
Us queers in relationships you judge will keep being happy and healthy and living our best life while you choke on your bullshit.
