My Thoughts on The Melbourne Vegan Protests Against Farmers

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I don't claim to support everything the Vegan protesters are doing but I am 100% in support of them protesting to have abattoirs shut down and prevent farmers from slaughtering these animals. I make no concession about that as it is completely unnecessary and our treatment of these animals is a blight on the human race. I've been hearing a lot of arguments on social media about how the Vegan extremists have been disrupting peoples lives and have no respect for the laws and rights of farmers.

Rights, however, if one is being logically consistent, apply to all sentient beings not just human animals. Consequently, just as if someone was violating the rights of a child or an animal on their property, an outsider would be within their rights to use the necessary amount of force, including trespassing, to intervene in self-defense on the victims behalf. That's how it works in common law and how it should work in a society that respects the universality of rights inherent within all human and non-human animals.

The protest, spurred on to commemorate the release of a documentary titled 'Dominion' has brought focus to the arguments around Veganism and I've found myself dismantling many of the arguments made towards Vegans and Vegetarians.

I respect Vegans, why can't they be respectful of my lifestyle choices?

I can understand why most omnivores would respect Vegans choosing not to consume animals however because Vegans are taking a more ethical stance than someone that chooses to fund the slaughter of animals, it wouldn’t make sense for the respect to be returned.

Humans wouldn't have evolved the large brains we have without eating meat

The idea that humans wouldn't have formed into the human beings we are today is not only completely irrelevant from a moral standpoint but is a theory built of air and imagination. There have been many civilisations that have thrived on a plant based diet and whereas meat consumption was common in our ancestry, there are many other theories showing that large brains require predominantly carbs and raw starched based foods as fuel.

As far as I'm concerned though and from the perspective of a moralist, the ends never justify the means. By that logic, slavery and histories genocides have brought about much innovation and technological advancement we appreciate today so these immoral practices were justified.

Australian farmers built this nation and farming livestock is an age old tradition

People of all races and creeds have built Australia, not just farmers. Just because something is part of tradition doesn't make it right. That's a logical fallacy known as an argumentum ad antiquitatem.

Vegans are just as guilty for killing animals with their food choices by clearing land and planting trees

First and foremost, harvesting crops or planting trees which potentially may lead to the destruction of small insects and rodents is an appeal to potentiality fallacy. Planting a tree or clearing out land does not NECESSARILY involve the destruction of sentient life.

To make things worse, you're actually causing far more devastation by raising livestock who in turn consume plants that have been planted for their consumption. There are actually very few small rodents that are killed through agriculture. (http://www.animalvisuals.org/projects/data/1mc/)

Eating plants does not necessarily require the killing of animals. Eating animals however always does. You are inevitably doing more harm by eating animals as you are not only consciously culpable for the death of the animal you have paid to have slaughtered and consumed, but indirectly responsible for all the plants that animal consumed during its life as most of the worlds grain is fed to livestock, which means the process of producing meat kills more mice, birds and insects. In short, the argument is flawed from a moral stand point as it is trading the potential to do harm for the certainty of doing harm.

Moral arguments should always be judged on whether the action is inherently wrong, not because of the actions potential to cause harm. There is a significant difference between raising and killing animals for food and unintentionally doing them harm in the course of planting vegetables, an activity that is itself intended to prevent the killing of sentient beings.

Just to be clear, I'm not advocating for the abolition of farming, just it's reformation.

Before the abolition of slavery, people made similar arguments about how slavery was necessary for the survival of the country. That it would ruin the economy, hurt southern plantation owners etc., however it simply lead to more innovation. I can understand peoples frustration at many of the Vegans in the way they are behaving, I’m not on-board with all their behaviour, however, whether you like the taste of meat or it's something your tradition dictates, I'd invite you to suspend your bias when considering the morality of eating animals.

Animal agriculture is the most significant source of animal suffering in the world today, and there is absolutely no need for it. It has devastating environmental effects, and a growing number of health care professionals claim that meat and animal products are detrimental to human health. We could live without killing animals and could feed more of the world’s humans–the beings we always claim to care about if we adopted a Vegan/Vegetarian diet.