So does that mean that vegans hate all trees and plants, then, if they don't leave them living peacefully instead of tearing them up and eating them? Logically, either both or neither must be true, no?
I can only presume this is a joke. 😬 No one can be this stupid.
No need to resort to childish insults. Explain to me why it is not logical, if you can.
I know some vegans roll their eyes pitifully and patronisingly when people mention plants, but they invariably respond with insults rather than honest, rational discussion.
I realise that, as far as we know, plants cannot feel pain, but they often do demonstrate a chemotactic response and resistance to humans (and animals) killing and 'injuring' them (e.g. banging nails into a tree or pushing coins into the
cracks in the bark can weaken them and shorten their lives) in ways that
strongly suggest some form of 'distress' (whatever the plant version of that
is).
That isn't necessarily the issue here, though. Essentially, we cannot survive as
humans without killing living organisms which have not given us their consent
to kill them - and I think it isn't unreasonable to assume that, given the
choice, if they could choose, they would want to go on living instead.
Every one of us has to choose what level of killing other living organisms we are
willing to accept in order to keep ourselves alive. At the absolute extremes -
both extremely tiny in number - we have cannibals (or would-be cannibals) and
those who will only eat plant/fruit/maybe even animals that have already died
by natural/external and non-intentional causes, figuring that no living
organism is more important than they are.
The vast majority of people will happily kill plants for food, although many of
those who restrict themselves to plants will not object to/consider the animals who are killed during their harvesting and/or pesticides (excluding devout Jains, of course). Many people will also eat products from animals (but not the animals themselves). Many will eat a range of animals, their products and plant-based foods as well.
I don't personally judge anybody for their choices (except the cannibals), but
essentially, from an ethical standpoint, for us to stay alive means taking life
- it's just where each of us draws our own personal line.
I realise that people will read this (if they bother; they probably won't) and just call me stupid again, as there is no absolute moral perfection in this, except for those who only eat already-dead organisms - which must be nigh on impossible to do and properly survive/thrive; neither would the limited amount of this food available be in any way sustainable for all of us to do this.
TL;DR: What I'm saying is: make your own choices, do your best, even if you wish you could do 'better'. To the minority of sanctimonious, judgey people - whether vegans smugly going on about people eating ‘corpses’ or self-superior meat eaters who criticise and ridicule vegans - just realise that you aren't ethically perfect either and almost certainly never could be: all of us are somewhere on the same spectrum of those who kill in order to survive.