The vegan agenda.

[Big Jim P]

Vegans are evil. That is a given, but who has actually thought about just how evil they are? Not only are they out to destroy our omnivorous way of life but the vegans are actually out to totally destroy the environment as well, and I can prove it.

Let’s look at the vegan agenda and what would happen should their goals be achieved:
Vegans want us to stop eating and exploiting animals in favor of a totally vegetarian diet. Should we all stop eating meat what would the results be? There would be an immediate glut of herbivores, both the 6 billion newly vegan humans, and the huge population of animals that we a no longer eating. And what do herbivores do? They fart, thus increasing the amount of greenhouse gas emissions, leading to an increase in global warming. Normally, that would be good for the plant life on earth, but even worse than just increasing greenhouse emissions, the vegans and the other herbivores consume the one thing the environment needs to alleviate global warming: The very plants that absorb carbon dioxide and release oxygen.

Thus the vegans, with a one-two punch destroy humanity and the environment, all in the name of ending animal exploitation.

Ladies and gentlemen, we must wake up to the vegan threat before it's too late! Say no to veganism. Eat an animal and save the environment.

[Cabra West]

Vegans are evil. That is a given, but who has actually thought about just how evil they are? Not only are they out to destroy our omnivorous way of life but the vegans are actually out to totally destroy the environment as well, and I can prove it.

Let’s look at the vegan agenda and what would happen should their goals be achieved:
Vegans want us to stop eating and exploiting animals in favor of a totally vegetarian diet. Should we all stop eating meat what would the results be? There would be an immediate glut of herbivores, both the 6 billion newly vegan humans, and the huge population of animals that we a no longer eating. And what do herbivores do? They fart, thus increasing the amount of greenhouse gas emissions, leading to an increase in global warming. Normally, that would be good for the plant life on earth, but even worse than just increasing greenhouse emissions, the vegans and the other herbivores consume the one thing the environment needs to alleviate global warming: The very plants that absorb carbon dioxide and release oxygen.

Thus the vegans, with a one-two punch destroy humanity and the environment, all in the name of ending animal exploitation.

Ladies and gentlemen, we must wake up to the vegan threat before it's too late! Say no to veganism. Eat an animal and save the environment.

Are you talking about vegans, or vegetarians in general here?

Also, if we stop breeding animals the way we do now, their numbers would decline, not increase. Keep in mind that a lot of the animals we eat don't live somewhere out there in the wild. They live in very controled farm environments, so unless it's initiated by humans breeding doesn't usually take place.

[Big Jim P]

Inside every beady-eyed vegetarian is a vegan terrorist just waiting for the opportunity to replace our steaks with tofu.

[Barringtonia]

That's not where the danger lies,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQMbXvn2RNI

The Romanov's would tell you of the danger of oppressing the masses, that is if they weren't shot and buried in a forest,

[RightWingChristians]

Agreed. They want to destroy us all.

[Pope Joan]

Arrgh, I so want bacon now!

*looks at protein bar with disgust*

And bacon is even good for your heart!

[Lucky Bicycle Works]

If eating animals helps to keep the global ecosystem in balance, then the most ethical choice of meat is long pig. Humans have a blatant lack of predators, and in consequence are breeding up in an unsustainable way.

Eating "meat" is a puny compromise, particularly in developed economies where non-human animals are fed on grain. Given the lack of viable predators, it is our human duty to eat each other!

[Balans]

I'm not sure whether to agree with you on the things you are right about, or to get in your face and point out all the things wrong with what you've just said.

[FreeSatania]

WTF?

[Pope Joan]

If eating animals helps to keep the global ecosystem in balance, then the most ethical choice of meat is long pig. Humans have a blatant lack of predators, and in consequence are breeding up in an unsustainable way.

Eating "meat" is a puny compromise, particularly in developed economies where non-human animals are fed on grain. Given the lack of viable predators, it is our human duty to eat each other!

The Picture in the House

Searchers after horror haunt strange, far places. For them are the catacombs of Ptolemais, and the carven mausolea of the nightmare countries. They climb to the moonlit towers of ruined Rhine castles, and falter down black cobwebbed steps beneath the scattered stones of forgotten cities in Asia. The haunted wood and the desolate mountain are their shrines, and they linger around the sinister monoliths on uninhabited islands. But the true epicure in the terrible, to whom a new thrill of unutterable ghastliness is the chief end and justification of existence, esteems most of all the ancient, lonely farmhouses of backwoods New England; for there the dark elements of strength, solitude, grotesqueness and ignorance combine to form the perfection of the hideous.

Most horrible of all sights are the little unpainted wooden houses remote from travelled ways, usually squatted upon some damp grassy slope or leaning against some gigantic outcropping of rock. Two hundred years and more they have leaned or squatted there, while the vines have crawled and the trees have swelled and spread. They are almost hidden now in lawless luxuriances of green and guardian shrouds of shadow; but the small-paned windows still stare shockingly, as if blinking through a lethal stupor which wards off madness by dulling the memory of unutterable things.

In such houses have dwelt generations of strange people, whose like the world has never seen. Seized with a gloomy and fanatical belief which exiled them from their kind, their ancestors sought the wilderness for freedom. There the scions of a conquering race indeed flourished free from the restrictions of their fellows, but cowered in an appalling slavery to the dismal phantasms of their own minds. Divorced from the enlightenment of civilization, the strength of these Puritans turned into singular channels; and in their isolation, morbid self-repression, and struggle for life with relentless Nature, there came to them dark furtive traits from the prehistoric depths of their cold Northern heritage. By necessity practical and by philosophy stern, these folks were not beautiful in their sins. Erring as all mortals must, they were forced by their rigid code to seek concealment above all else; so that they came to use less and less taste in what they concealed. Only the silent, sleepy, staring houses in the backwoods can tell all that has lain hidden since the early days, and they are not communicative, being loath to shake off the drowsiness which helps them forget. Sometimes one feels that it would be merciful to tear down these houses, for they must often dream.

It was to a time-battered edifice of this description that I was driven one afternoon in November, 1896, by a rain of such chilling copiousness that any shelter was preferable to exposure. I had been travelling for some time amongst the people of the Miskatonic Valley in quest of certain genealogical data; and from the remote, devious, and problematical nature of my course, had deemed it convenient to employ a bicycle despite the lateness of the season. Now I found myself upon an apparently abandoned road which I had chosen as the shortest cut to Arkham, overtaken by the storm at a point far from any town, and confronted with no refuge save the antique and repellent wooden building which blinked with bleared windows from between two huge leafless elms near the foot of a rocky hill. Distant though it is from the remnant of a road, this house none the less impressed me unfavorably the very moment I espied it. Honest, wholesome structures do not stare at travellers so slyly and hauntingly, and in my genealogical researches I had encountered legends of a century before which biased me against places of this kind. Yet the force of the elements was such as to overcome my scruples, and I did not hesitate to wheel my machine up the weedy rise to the closed door which seemed at once so suggestive and secretive.

I had somehow taken it for granted that the house was abandoned, yet as I approached it I was not so sure, for though the walks were indeed overgrown with weeds, they seemed to retain their nature a little too well to argue complete desertion. Therefore instead of trying the door I knocked, feeling as I did so a trepidation I could scarcely explain. As I waited on the rough, mossy rock which served as a door-step, I glanced at the neighboring windows and the panes of the transom above me, and noticed that although old, rattling, and almost opaque with dirt, they were not broken. The building, then, must still be inhabited, despite its isolation and general neglect. However, my rapping evoked no response, so after repeating the summons I tried the rusty latch and found the door unfastened. Inside was a little vestibule with walls from which the plaster was falling, and through the doorway came a faint but peculiarly hateful odor. I entered, carrying my bicycle, and closed the door behind me. Ahead rose a narrow staircase, flanked by a small door probably leading to the cellar, while to the left and right were closed doors leading to rooms on the ground floor.

Leaning my cycle against the wall I opened the door at the left, and crossed into a small low-ceiled chamber but dimly lighted by its two dusty windows and furnished in the barest and most primitive possible way. It appeared to be a kind of sitting-room, for it had a table and several chairs, and an immense fireplace above which ticked an antique clock on a mantel. Books and papers were very few, and in the prevailing gloom I could not readily discern the titles. What interested me was the uniform air of archaism as displayed in every visible detail. Most of the houses in this region I had found rich in relics of the past, but here the antiquity was curiously complete; for in all the room I could not discover a single article of definitely post-revolutionary date. Had the furnishings been less humble, the place would have been a collector's paradise.

As I surveyed this quaint apartment, I felt an increase in that aversion first excited by the bleak exterior of the house. Just what it was that I feared or loathed, I could by no means define; but something in the whole atmosphere seemed redolent of unhallowed age, of unpleasant crudeness, and of secrets which should be forgotten. I felt disinclined to sit down, and wandered about examining the various articles which I had noticed. The first object of my curiosity was a book of medium size lying upon the table and presenting such an antediluvian aspect that I marvelled at beholding it outside a museum or library. It was bound in leather with metal fittings, and was in an excellent state of preservation; being altogether an unusual sort of volume to encounter in an abode so lowly. When I opened it to the title page my wonder grew even greater, for it proved to be nothing less rare than Pigafetta's account of the Congo region, written in Latin from the notes of the sailor Lopex and printed at Frankfurt in 1598. I had often heard of this work, with its curious illustrations by the brothers De Bry, hence for a moment forgot my uneasiness in my desire to turn the pages before me. The engravings were indeed interesting, drawn wholly from imagination and careless descriptions, and represented negroes with white skins and Caucasian features; nor would I soon have closed the book had not an exceedingly trivial circumstance upset my tired nerves and revived my sensation of disquiet. What annoyed me was merely the persistent way in which the volume tended to fall open of itself at Plate XII, which represented in gruesome detail a butcher's shop of the cannibal Anziques. I experienced some shame at my susceptibility to so slight a thing, but the drawing nevertheless disturbed me, especially in connection with some adjacent passages descriptive of Anzique gastronomy.

I had turned to a neighboring shelf and was examining its meagre literary contents - an eighteenth century Bible, a "Pilgrim's Progress" of like period, illustrated with grotesque woodcuts and printed by the almanack-maker Isaiah Thomas, the rotting bulk of Cotton Mather's "Magnalia Christi Americana," and a few other books of evidently equal age - when my attention was aroused by the unmistakable sound of walking in the room overhead. At first astonished and startled, considering the lack of response to my recent knocking at the door, I immediately afterward concluded that the walker had just awakened from a sound sleep, and listened with less surprise as the footsteps sounded on the creaking stairs. The tread was heavy, yet seemed to contain a curious quality of cautiousness; a quality which I disliked the more because the tread was heavy. When I had entered the room I had shut the door behind me. Now, after a moment of silence during which the walker may have been inspecting my bicycle in the hall, I heard a fumbling at the latch and saw the paneled portal swing open again.

In the doorway stood a person of such singular appearance that I should have exclaimed aloud but for the restraints of good breeding. Old, white-bearded, and ragged, my host possessed a countenance and physique which inspired equal wonder and respect. His height could not have been less than six feet, and despite a general air of age and poverty he was stout and powerful in proportion. His face, almost hidden by a long beard which grew high on the cheeks, seemed abnormally ruddy and less wrinkled than one might expect; while over a high forehead fell a shock of white hair little thinned by the years. His blue eyes, though a trifle bloodshot, seemed inexplicably keen and burning. But for his horrible unkemptness the man would have been as distinguished-looking as he was impressive. This unkemptness, however, made him offensive despite his face and figure. Of what his clothing consisted I could hardly tell, for it seemed to me no more than a mass of tatters surmounting a pair of high, heavy boots; and his lack of cleanliness surpassed description.

The appearance of this man, and the instinctive fear he inspired, prepared me for something like enmity; so that I almost shuddered through surprise and a sense of uncanny incongruity when he motioned me to a chair and addressed me in a thin, weak voice full of fawning respect and ingratiating hospitality. His speech was very curious, an extreme form of Yankee dialect I had thought long extinct; and I studied it closely as he sat down opposite me for conversation.

"Ketched in the rain, be ye?" he greeted. "Glad ye was nigh the haouse en' hed the sense ta come right in. I calc'late I was alseep, else I'd a heerd ye-I ain't as young as I uster be, an' I need a paowerful sight o' naps naowadays. Trav'lin fur? I hain't seed many folks 'long this rud sence they tuk off the Arkham stage."

I replied that I was going to Arkham, and apologized for my rude entry into his domicile, whereupon he continued.

"Glad ta see ye, young Sir - new faces is scurce arount here, an' I hain't got much ta cheer me up these days. Guess yew hail from Bosting, don't ye? I never ben thar, but I kin tell a taown man when I see 'im - we hed one fer deestrick schoolmaster in 'eighty-four, but he quit suddent an' no one never heerd on 'im sence - " here the old man lapsed into a kind of chuckle, and made no explanation when I questioned him. He seemed to be in an aboundingly good humor, yet to possess those eccentricities which one might guess from his grooming. For some time he rambled on with an almost feverish geniality, when it struck me to ask him how he came by so rare a book as Pigafetta's "Regnum Congo." The effect of this volume had not left me, and I felt a certain hesitancy in speaking of it, but curiosity overmastered all the vague fears which had steadily accumulated since my first glimpse of the house. To my relief, the question did not seem an awkward one, for the old man answered freely and volubly.

"Oh, that Afriky book? Cap'n Ebenezer Holt traded me thet in 'sixty-eight - him as was kilt in the war." Something about the name of Ebenezer Holt caused me to look up sharply. I had encountered it in my genealogical work, but not in any record since the Revolution. I wondered if my host could help me in the task at which I was laboring, and resolved to ask him about it later on. He continued.

"Ebenezer was on a Salem merchantman for years, an' picked up a sight o' queer stuff in every port. He got this in London, I guess - he uster like ter buy things at the shops. I was up ta his haouse onct, on the hill, tradin' hosses, when I see this book. I relished the picters, so he give it in on a swap. 'Tis a queer book - here, leave me git on my spectacles-" The old man fumbled among his rags, producing a pair of dirty and amazingly antique glasses with small octagonal lenses and steel bows. Donning these, he reached for the volume on the table and turned the pages lovingly.

"Ebenezer cud read a leetle o' this-'tis Latin - but I can't. I had two er three schoolmasters read me a bit, and Passon Clark, him they say got draownded in the pond - kin yew make anything outen it?" I told him that I could, and translated for his benefit a paragraph near the beginning. If I erred, he was not scholar enough to correct me; for he seemed childishly pleased at my English version. His proximity was becoming rather obnoxious, yet I saw no way to escape without offending him. I was amused at the childish fondness of this ignorant old man for the pictures in a book he could not read, and wondered how much better he could read the few books in English which adorned the room. This revelation of simplicity removed much of the ill-defined apprehension I had felt, and I smiled as my host rambled on:

"Queer haow picters kin set a body thinkin'. Take this un here near the front. Hey yew ever seed trees like thet, with big leaves a floppin' over an' daown? And them men - them can't be niggers - they dew beat all. Kinder like Injuns, I guess, even ef they be in Afriky. Some o' these here critters looks like monkeys, or half monkeys an' half men, but I never heerd o' nothin' like this un." Here he pointed to a fabulous creature of the artist, which one might describe as a sort of dragon with the head of an alligator.

"But naow I'll show ye the best un - over here nigh the middle - "The old man's speech grew a trifle thicker and his eyes assumed a brighter glow; but his fumbling hands, though seemingly clumsier than before, were entirely adequate to their mission. The book fell open, almost of its own accord and as if from frequent consultation at this place, to the repellent twelfth plate showing a butcher's shop amongst the Anzique cannibals. My sense of restlessness returned, though I did not exhibit it. The especially bizarre thing was that the artist had made his Africans look like white men - the limbs and quarters hanging about the walls of the shop were ghastly, while the butcher with his axe was hideously incongruous. But my host seemed to relish the view as much as I disliked it.

"What d'ye think o' this - ain't never see the like hereabouts, eh? When I see this I telled Eb Holt, 'That's suthin' ta stir ye up an' make yer blood tickle.' When I read in Scripter about slayin' - like them Midianites was slew - I kinder think things, but I ain't got no picter of it. Here a body kin see all they is to it - I s'pose 'tis sinful, but ain't we all born an' livin' in sin? - Thet feller bein' chopped up gives me a tickle every time I look at 'im - I hey ta keep lookin' at 'im - see whar the butcher cut off his feet? Thar's his head on thet bench, with one arm side of it, an' t'other arm's on the other side o' the meat block."

As the man mumbled on in his shocking ecstasy the expression on his hairy, spectacled face became indescribable, but his voice sank rather than mounted. My own sensations can scarcely be recorded. All the terror I had dimly felt before rushed upon me actively and vividly, and I knew that I loathed the ancient and abhorrent creature so near me with an infinite intensity. His madness, or at least his partial perversion, seemed beyond dispute. He was almost whispering now, with a huskiness more terrible than a scream, and I trembled as I listened.

"As I says, 'tis queer haow picters sets ye thinkin'. D'ye know, young Sir, I'm right sot on this un here. Arter I got the book off Eb I uster look at it a lot, especial when I'd heerd Passon Clark rant o' Sundays in his big wig. Onct I tried suthin' funny - here, young Sir, don't git skeert - all I done was ter look at the picter afore I kilt the sheep for market - killin' sheep was kinder more fun arter lookin' at it - " The tone of the old man now sank very low, sometimes becoming so faint that his words were hardly audible. I listened to the rain, and to the rattling of the bleared, small-paned windows, and marked a rumbling of approaching thunder quite unusual for the season. Once a terrific flash and peal shook the frail house to its foundations, but the whisperer seemed not to notice it.

"Killin' sheep was kinder more fun - but d'ye know, 'twan't quite satisfyin'. Queer haow a cravin' gits a holt on ye - As ye love the Almighty, young man, don't tell nobody, but I swar ter Gawd thet picter begun to make me hungry fer victuals I couldn't raise nor buy - here, set still, what's ailin' ye? - I didn't do nothin', only I wondered haow 'twud be ef I did - They say meat makes blood an' flesh, an' gives ye new life, so I wondered ef 'twudn't make a man live longer an' longer ef 'twas more the same - " But the whisperer never continued. The interruption was not produced by my fright, nor by the rapidly increasing storm amidst whose fury I was presently to open my eyes on a smoky solitude of blackened ruins. It was produced by a very simple though somewhat unusual happening.

The open book lay flat between us, with the picture staring repulsively upward. As the old man whispered the words "more the same" a tiny splattering impact was heard, and something showed on the yellowed paper of the upturned volume. I thought of the rain and of a leaky roof, but rain is not red. On the butcher's shop of the Anzique cannibals a small red spattering glistened picturesquely, lending vividness to the horror of the engraving. The old man saw it, and stopped whispering even before my expression of horror made it necessary; saw it and glanced quickly toward the floor of the room he had left an hour before. I followed his glance, and beheld just above us on the loose plaster of the ancient ceiling a large irregular spot of wet crimson which seemed to spread even as I viewed it. I did not shriek or move, but merely shut my eyes. A moment later came the titanic thunderbolt of thunderbolts; blasting that accursed house of unutterable secrets and bringing the oblivion which alone saved my mind.

[The Alma Mater]

Thus the vegans, with a one-two punch destroy humanity and the environment, all in the name of ending animal exploitation.

You forgot to mention that Hitler was a vegetarian

[Kryozerkia]

Thus the vegans, with a one-two punch destroy humanity and the environment, all in the name of ending animal exploitation.

You forgot to mention that Hitler was a vegetarian

Hitler also had the first anti-smoking laws...

[The Alma Mater]

Thus the vegans, with a one-two punch destroy humanity and the environment, all in the name of ending animal exploitation.

You forgot to mention that Hitler was a vegetarian

Hitler also had the first anti-smoking laws...

And he thought that cars and rockets were pretty cool.
I also heard he was male.

[Milks Empire]

You forgot to mention that Hitler was a vegetarian

Hitler also had the first anti-smoking laws...

And he thought that cars and rockets were pretty cool.
I also heard he was male.[/quote]
Why so Godwin-ish?

[The Alma Mater]

Why so Godwin-ish?

Because it fits the seriousness of the topic ?

Although I guess we could change the subject to "how can we make sure everyone in the world is fed". In which case I suggest to start with "stop wasting so much food" - either due to not having sufficient storage space (third world countries) or it "not looking pretty enough for the supermaket" (western nations). IIRC about 50% of the gloablly produced amount of food is just.. lost.. this way.

[Kryozerkia]

Hitler also had the first anti-smoking laws...

And he thought that cars and rockets were pretty cool.
I also heard he was male.

Why so Godwin-ish?

Exactly.

Besides, if the Nazis did it, it must be evil. If Hitler was a vegetarian, a non-smoker and thought rockets and cars were cool then those things must all be evil and in order to combat evil, we must all eat meat, smoke and not drive cars or build rockets. Only then can we defeat the evil that is veganism.

[Bywhan]

I didn't fight to the top of the food chain to eat plants. Besides if God (which ever one you believe in) didn't want us to eat animals why did he/she/they/it make them so tasty?

[The Alma Mater]

I didn't fight to the top of the food chain to eat plants.

You fought to eat the cadavers others have killed for you ?

Besides if God (which ever one you believe in) didn't want us to eat animals why did he/she/they/it make them so tasty?

To test you ? I vaguely recall something about a delicious forbidden fruit...

[Bywhan]

To test you ? I vaguely recall something about a delicious forbidden fruit...

Touché Alma Mater. Touché

[Milks Empire]

...we must all eat meat

Cheaper than fresh vegetables. Got no choice.

smoke

Yeah... no.

and not drive cars

If I could get away with it, but I'm way out here in Bumfuck, Egypt - where no buses of any real consequence run.

or build rockets.

I look like a mothafuckin' rocket scientist to you?

[Dakini]

1. Most vegans don't give a shit what other people eat or don't eat.

2. There are so many cows because they are over bred for consumption. If fewer people consumed cows, fewer cows would be bred for human consumption. If people gradually either greatly reduced the amount of meat they ate or stopped eating it entirely (e.g. not everyone does it at once) then cows will gradually cease to be bred or will be bred at lower and more sustainable levels. This is better for the environment, both in that there would be fewer cows hanging around to fart and add greenhouse gases to the environment, but less rainforest will be burnt to accommodate more grazing land for cattle and more farmland can be used to produce food for people instead of cows.

[Dakini]

...we must all eat meat

Cheaper than fresh vegetables. Got no choice.

No it isn't. Unless you live in the arctic or your best friend is a butcher or farmer, veggies, grains and legumes are significantly cheaper.

[Dakini]

Thus the vegans, with a one-two punch destroy humanity and the environment, all in the name of ending animal exploitation.

You forgot to mention that Hitler was a vegetarian

Hitler's doctor ordered him to be a vegetarian. His propaganda machine presented this as a desirable quality. His chef (and chefs at hotels he visited) attested that he wasn't.

[Cabra West]

I didn't fight to the top of the food chain to eat plants. Besides if God (which ever one you believe in) didn't want us to eat animals why did he/she/they/it make them so tasty?

YOU actually FOUGHT to the top of the food chain?
I will believe that when I see the video evidence.

[Lucky Bicycle Works]

If eating animals helps to keep the global ecosystem in balance, then the most ethical choice of meat is long pig. Humans have a blatant lack of predators, and in consequence are breeding up in an unsustainable way.

Eating "meat" is a puny compromise, particularly in developed economies where non-human animals are fed on grain. Given the lack of viable predators, it is our human duty to eat each other!

The Picture in the House

Searchers after horror haunt strange, far places. For them are the catacombs of Ptolemais, and the carven mausolea of the nightmare countries. They climb to the moonlit towers of ruined Rhine castles, and falter down black cobwebbed steps beneath the scattered stones of forgotten cities in Asia. The haunted wood and the desolate mountain are their shrines, and they linger around the sinister monoliths on uninhabited islands. But the true epicure in the terrible, to whom a new thrill of unutterable ghastliness is the chief end and justification of existence, esteems most of all the ancient, lonely farmhouses of backwoods New England; for there the dark elements of strength, solitude, grotesqueness and ignorance combine to form the perfection of the hideous.

I fail to see the relevance of this wodge of Lovecraft.

Certainly, I wred it through. Very lovely writing it is, and with a certain resonance for me, purser of the pig's ear as I am, and epicure of the ghastly.

Yet, whatever point of irony or of profundity you meant to make is lost on me, in that wealth of archaic words. I am left only with an after-taste of spam.

Seriously: to be concerned with preservation of ecosystems, and to make the case that such is served by humans eating meat, does cry out for the re-integration of humans into that ecosystem. As prey, or stock animals.

"You are what you eat" is only trivially true (elements and simple molecules like vitamins or amino acids, the more complex parts of what we eat which 'become us' are mostly pathogens) and it is only with great irony that I suggest that we 'eat what we are.'