Posted as part of VeganMoFo (The Vegan Month of Food) 2014

When vegans are involved, things get a little tricky – for all of us. For non-vegans, that often looks like defensiveness or hostility due to the perception that vegans are telling them their food choices are unethical or wrong. For vegans, it often looks like self-righteousness and snobbery.

So, I’m using the Vegan Month of Food – a month during which vegan blogs are celebrated and aggregated in one place – to teach non-vegans and vegans how to be nice to each other. As the old saying goes, “If you can’t say anything vegan, don’t say anything at all.”

“PEOPLE WHO ABUSE ANIMALS SHOULD BE ABUSED/KILLED.”
Vegans and animal advocates, please stop saying this.

Why?
Well, because it’s cruel. And you stand for peace. Why don’t you eat animals? Because you think it’s wrong to unnecessarily hurt a sentient being, right? Well… Really? Do I need to explain this more? Okay. Humans are sentient. We have feelings, wishes and a desire to live just like pigs, cows and dogs. The scientific research on this is pretty conclusive. I mean it, they’ve done a lot of studies that show:

• Humans (even really young ones) flinch and yelp when they’re pinched on the arm.
• Humans have the ability to express emotions – through non-verbal means and through language.
• Almost all humans surveyed indicate they are interested in living free from harm.

So, you see, hurting humans is non-vegan, if veganism means trying not to cause harm and death to other animals. When you use “eye for an eye,” “two wrongs make a right” kind of language, you make yourself sound mean, and you make the rest of us sound mean by association. So quit it.

What are some alternatives?

• “People who abuse animals should receive humane education.”
• “People who abuse animals are more likely to abuse children, so they should be regarded as dangerous.”
• “There are a lot of problems with a system that focuses so much on punishing crimes that it does a really crappy job of preventing them, and I’m going to speak up about this to my legislators.”
• Don’t say anything at all.