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Post by maisiepaisie on Aug 31, 2007 20:07:29 GMT
Why, did someone's cat get offended by the comparison? LOL! OMG I almost fell off my chair laughing at that. I think this thread does need to go back on topic as its just too funny now ;D
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Post by tabitha on Aug 31, 2007 20:23:56 GMT
Not really sure theres much else to say on this. Most of us are agreed that we love our vegan partners or non vegan partners and if you love each other tis ok. We cant force our beliefs on other people, we can only do our best. At the end of the day, if they are gonna do it they are gonna do it. My ex husband tried to be vegan for a month, but he only did it for me and didnt really care about the animals. To quote him "I know I should be bothered, but Im just not". What can you do??!! I spent last night eating dinner in a restaurant with people who kept asking me "if you were the last person on earth and you were starving and there were rats, would you eat them".... As Pob said "why would there just be rats?? Why would there not be apples on trees etc??". Im sure Fez loved Mr. Fez with all her heart before he was vegetarian and the same goes for other people on the forum. I dont love Pob because he is vegan. I love him cos he is Pob! I would love the world to be vegan and cruelty free. I would love us all to find our ideal partners and for all our wayward teens to stop smoking ciggies and growing weed and drinking so much vodka they vomit on next doors garden. Unfortunately I am only Tabitha and do not possess such powers. I cant even make Pob wash up. The b*gger
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Post by lilachamster on Aug 31, 2007 20:45:46 GMT
I had a boyfriend like that who tried to go veggie but had no willpower, like your ex husband he knew he should have cared more but he just didn't. I don't know why some people are just made that way, it seems to me there is something lacking in most people's capacity for compassion and empathy for them to not care enough to be at least veggie.
I thought it was weird the way the article was written as if it was a new thing for people to choose to be with people of the same outlook on humane living, I would say it's definitely not new, people who feel that way have been around for years, it just took the writer a while to find out.
I don't think I would want to be around people who asked such silly inane questions! You are very tolerant putting up with that. Maybe they would eat you if they were stuck with you and no apples or rats so I would turn their silly questions around back at them and ask them if they would become cannibals!
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Post by tabitha on Aug 31, 2007 20:51:25 GMT
Well it was my brother actually and the whole point of this Lilachamster is that I love my family. None of them are vegan but I still love them. I have a few meat eating friends too and I love them too! Im actually not a tolerant person at all. Im a f*cking moody b*tch at times. I have just realised in my 45 years on this planet that the way to convert people is not to ram things down their throats and rant on. People come to our house and Pob cooks lovely meals and I cook nice cakes and hopefully they get something from that. Hopefully they look at our vegan cruelty free cleaning stuff for the kitchen and bathroom and my makeup and realise "hey she can still be vegan and eat cake! chocolate! clean her toilet! put makeup on! maybe we will try it. I tell them what demos I am going on. I tell them things they perhaps dont know! but I dont sermonise! Im hopeful one day they will realise it is the right way. Indeed the only way.
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Post by tabitha on Aug 31, 2007 20:52:58 GMT
Do I need to say I am an incredibly horny vegan to get the thread back on topic?
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Post by maisiepaisie on Aug 31, 2007 22:23:40 GMT
Well it was my brother actually and the whole point of this Lilachamster is that I love my family. None of them are vegan but I still love them. I have a few meat eating friends too and I love them too! Thats actually a lot more tolerant than I am. I wish I could love my family but I don't. Apart from my 2 sons and my animals I don't love anyone else. I'm reading a book right now about the power of love. I want to be loving and understanding. Stubborn meateaters are unevolved souls who need guidance. I feel that one of my lifes lessons is to stop hating people who don't agree with me and to be more tolerant. I should love my family. Most people on here don't seem to have a problem doing so but for some reason giving love is very difficult for me, unless its love for animals which I've always given selflessly.
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Post by astrocat on Sept 1, 2007 15:10:16 GMT
It seems possible that this might be simply because you would define "love" differently from how others would, with yourself defining it in a less all-inclusive sort of manner.
For example, a person who would assert "I love all human beings" clearly defines love very differently from how I would, because I most certainly do not love all human beings, and do not think that loving all humans is a logically appropriate thing to do unless people also love others behaving abusively , selfishly and cruelly.
Surely to love them as a person is to , to some extent, love what they choose to do and how they choose to develop themselves (cultivating their negative traits further, in many cases) , to love how they develop their personality (what makes them a person)
For example, people who view it as a good thing to exploit and abuse animals (because they are selfish) will possibly view that as a virtue in others, and won;t find that such traits make those people 'unloveable' accordingly..... and vice-versa.
If your family are good people with l;oveable characteristics then i agree, that it is appropriate to love them. If they are not, there is no reason to think that you ought to love them.
It is of course, possible to feel ambivalence towards those close to you - loving them in one definition of the word, and not loving them by another definition..... or loving some aspects of their character while despising others (ie, both loving and despising them simultaneously)
Simply loving other people is not a virtue in itself..... it is more meaningful how relevant that love is, I reckon.
For comparison, many women will start relationships with men who are convicted serial rapists and mass murderers. These men will appear to be charming, loving, sweet, sensitive, kind people, and perhaps some of them are. Sometimes, they are released and go on to reoffend. Newspapers are full of women with skewed notions of what constitutes 'love', defending rapists or murderers by saying stuff like "he is such a sweet person and i love him so i do not believe that he did horrible crime X" (they view siding with him regardless of the evidence against him, as evidence of their love) , "even if he did those things, i still love him" (they view love as being quite a self-orientated pursuit, involving how the man treats them personally but not how they treat others) , or "people who criticise him just dont see his lovely side, he is so loveable when you really know him" (these people buy into the superficial veneer of personality (how people appear to others on the surface) rather than looking at their actual character (how they consistently behave, for example repeatedly killing people)
In all of these instances, i would in no way condemn those who would be incapable - or even unwilling - to try and extent their love to these men.
The reason that you don't have more feelings of love and understanding towards flesh-eaters is no doubt because love is the opposite of despising, and to knowingly and needlessly abuse and exploit the defenceless is utterly despicable..... and moreover, is difficult if not impossible for someone of virtue to understand. If they were not being so abusive and selfish, you would find them easier to love - right ? And if they had any good reason whatsoever for doing it, you would find it easier to understand their decision and actions, assumedly ?
To conclude, I feel that love and understanding are not something which should be viewed as peoples' right to have, or something which you *should* be doling out to everyone...... for such things to be meaningful they have to be used in a meaningful way, and given out to those who behave and choose to think in a way which warrants affection, or which has a logical and reasonable basis (thus is understandable)
Anyone who smokes, who doesn't want to have their face compared to the bottom of an old bin, or who feels uncomfortable with people commenting about the well-known 'cat arse face syndrome' because they know deep down that they want to keep smoking and so will continue to do so until their mouths too resemble feline posteriors, would be well advised to reconsider why they wish to keep on smoking and thus having a bin-mouth and developing cat-arse facial features. Trying to get others to cease commenting on these things won't make those problems go away, or cause others to think any better about them.
Unlike non-smokers who have to put up with the negative effects of others' smoking whether they want to or not, these two aspects of smoking (bin-facedness and cat-arse mouth in old age) are things which the smokers can opt out of having by choosing not to continue smoking f*gs, thus which they effectively choose to have by continuing to do so.
What i said is applicable irrellevant of whether or not i myself smoke, since commenting that smokers typically stink like an old bin is simply a fact, not a matter of opinion, and similarly this is the case when people note that smokers develop 'cat arse mouths' as their bodies age and their muscles become accustomed to being pushed into an arse-esque shape.
I disclaimer this by saying that I'm not having a go at anyone personally (I don't even know who smokes f*gs here and who doesn't, although I would assume from the way that Fez wants bin-mouths and cat-arse cafes to be taboo, that Fez is opting to be smoker)
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Post by fezzarooooo on Sept 1, 2007 15:58:35 GMT
Actually I'm not a smoker and I believe vegans shouldn't smoke. I just don't like being in the company of anyone who chooses to be bitter and judgmental towards people they don't even know. It creates a bad atmosphere on the forum and puts people off.
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Post by astrocat on Sept 1, 2007 16:51:51 GMT
If f*gs don't contain bits of animals or their bodily fluids (as the vast majority of brands do, many containing gelatine, honey etc) and if the company making them doesn;t test on animals, or if the smoker grows the tobacco themself or gets it from someone else who grew it similarly at home, then i can;t see that it would be unveganly to smoke, other than perhaps when you consider the highly controvertial 'is smoking around kids and other people tantamount to child abuse or harassment of others ?' topic. (ie, humans are animals and vegans are opppsed to animal abuse...)
It is a selfish activity to smoke anywhere where smoke will reach others who would rather enjoy breathing air than smokers' pollution, or for smokers to bother others due to stinking because of smoking.
Both cause many people to feel somewhat off-colour, or even rather ill - especially smoking, which unsurprisingly causes many people to have allergic reactions due to cigarettes containing such a potent cocktail of toxic material. I find it uncomfortable sometimes, to be in the company of those who are accepting of those who behave selfishly , or who say that others ought not to judge others based on their selfish behaviour.
If smokers inhaled all of the pollution which they choose to produce, or ensure that any which is produced is generated in a place where others won;t mind that, rather than spreading it around all over the place... then i doubt that nearly as much animosity would be felt (thus expressed) by those who feel that people ought to have a right to breathe clean air and feel well, rather than being compelled to breathe f*g-smoke or f*g-reeky air , and perhaps feeling quite unwell accordingly. Similarly, if smokers were to smoke privately and change their stinky clothes & brush their teeth after smoking, then i doubt that many people would be as bothered as they are now by them being stinky, and similarly - then less annoyance would be felt (and expressed) by those who are bothered by smokers' choice to stink about the place.
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Post by maisiepaisie on Sept 1, 2007 19:16:20 GMT
I find it uncomfortable sometimes, to be in the company of those who are accepting of those who behave selfishly , or who say that others ought not to judge others based on their selfish behaviour. I don't find it uncomfortable but I do find it strange that many non smokers on this forum and on the vegan forum get so irritated by complaints about smokers. Smoking is unvegan, damaging to the health of everyone in the vicinity of the smoker, annoying and completely antisocial. Passive smoking kills, thats a fact. Perhaps if everyone stopped defending the smokers and saw them as the selfish, antisocial people they are and to be avoided, this hopefully would give them even more incentive to stop. I don't like it when people are nasty to others but smokers annoy me so much and I'm sick of their pathetic excuses as to why they can't give up so I'm not going to defend them against anyone making comments no matter how nasty. They deserve it for the amount of misery they cause to those around them.
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Post by astrocat on Sept 2, 2007 10:33:28 GMT
I totally agree !
People need air to survive, nobody needs f*g-smoke to survive. Many people successfully do not breathe f*g-smoke for over a century, with only positive health effects resulting from that decision. However, if people do not breathe air, even just for a few minutes, they will die. If people do not breathe f*g-smoke, it does not harm their health. If people breathe f*g-smoke, it does harm their health.
This hopefully should give a good grounding for people to base their priorities on.
For comparison....
Fred and his NED pals are the sort of guys who enjoy kicking puppies for fun. Because they keep on kicking puppies, this is visible due to them having bits of blood on their shoes. For the sake of comparison, let's also say that puppy kicking is well known to cause a leg deformity if people do it repeatedly, where one leg ends up longer than the other because of the force repeatedly exerted on it during the kicking.
If somebody comments harshly about Fred and his gang, saying "People who behave like that are really selfish, walking about with blood all over their feet..... they're going to end up all peg-legged and wobbly, just like all of the other long-term puppy kickers"
Then i would not find that to be out of line......
If someone started criticising the person making such comments, saying that they are inappropriately nasty and judgemental, then i would consider the person doing the criticising to have very different priorities from the person being criticised.
I consider actually inflicting harm upon others knowingly, needlessly and uncaringly, and having a sociopathic kind of mindset, to be a great deal more 'nasty' than any form of criticism towards those who do that very frequently, or who have and cultivate such a mean mindset.
I am sure that it would be very nice and convenient for those who behave in ways which directly harm others and cause them to suffer, if everyone else would pussyfoot around not criticising their behaviour and decisions..... and this is the case both for those who smoke, and those who want to support animal abuse/exploitation by eating flesh and body fluids.
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Post by lilachamster on Sept 2, 2007 10:39:30 GMT
I know my opinions annoy people (apart from Maisie and Astrocat) so I will say only one more thing about this subject (smoking and smokers). After the demo yesterday I have decided not to attend any more of these large AR demos until smoking is banned on them. I feel ill today, my lungs are not right and I felt ill a lot on the demo, got very wheezy indeed on the way back from the lab to the park because of people's smoke which was impossible to avoid during the speeches near the lab and I was trapped in the crowd. I am not strong enough for my body to deal with it again and it's not fair to my family if I get so ill because I chose to go on a demo where I knew it might make me ill! I'm amazed that Fezza would defend it since I thought you had ME so I would have thought you had to avoid a lot of toxic stuff like smoke because it would affect you worse than most, maybe I am wrong but I have heard there was a link between ME and chemical sensitivities, so of all people I would expect you Fezza to understand my condition even if Tabs and Pob and Saucyvegan don't get it. I agree with everything Astro and Maisie said, smokers deserve what they get but I did not deserve to get so ill yesterday. If anyone wants to support a ban please pester SPEAK about it and ask why they ignored my emails! I'll carry on sometimes going to the smaller SHAC demos in the city of London, as they are smaller and not a huge crowd it's easier for me to avoid any smokers but on a big demo I am literally constantly dodging them!
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Post by Pob on Sept 2, 2007 11:18:27 GMT
I never said I didn't understand!
I don't like smoky places either (albeit that I don't get as bad a reaction).
I thought it was very smoky too. There were a lot of people there that I've not seen there before and they seemed to all be smoking a lot. I don't remember the previous large SPEAK demos being as bad as that. I do think it was far too crowded to be a suitable place for smoking on the actual march and demo.
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Post by fezzarooooo on Sept 2, 2007 11:20:30 GMT
I'm not defending smokers, I'm opposing the constant threadjacks and nasty atmosphere that is created by the juvenile jeering and name calling that's being used. Whether this is towards smokers, fat people, people with kids, drivers, drinkers, people with bo, omnivores, dog carers, size 0 models or those with no manners or grace, I still find it offensive and contrary to a positive vegan image.
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Post by tabitha on Sept 2, 2007 11:21:19 GMT
Actually I'm not a smoker and I believe vegans shouldn't smoke. I just don't like being in the company of anyone who chooses to be bitter and judgmental towards people they don't even know. It creates a bad atmosphere on the forum and puts people off. I agree with you Feral. No one is defending smoking LH and Astrocat. I think this forum is so nice and friendly its just a shame to go on about this and cause bad feeling. The title of this thread is Vegan Sexual. Weve already had one thread closed because of the arguing. We ALL know everyones views on this so lets talk about something else.
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Post by astrocat on Sept 2, 2007 12:33:03 GMT
Where i live, no AR demos are held (not enough people who give a toss about animals to start any, apart from anything else) so I don't think about AR demos much and this hadn't occured to me. That's just.... lame. Yeah, you won't be seeing me at any of those if the crowd is filled with selfish people destroying everyone else's health.
Well, it was me who started it and I haven;t even been posting in this forum for ages, until the last week or so. As you can see from my posting history, it is far from being a typical pattern in what I've been saying..... I am far from just bitching about people or jeering for the hell of it.
I think you have a good point. There are many topics here already which contain informal comments about others' selfish behaviour, etc..... and from this i had inferred that this would be okay in this forum, that the atmosphere was generally amicable and jocular.
I am sick of expectations that somehow vegans are entirely different from everyone else and ought to behave in strange, affected, repressed ways in order to convey a 'pure and elite' image of veganism. This is not necessarily what anyone else here was saying, but no doubt you;ve seen it ad nauseum in other vegan forums. I think a lot of people take cheap shots at vegans, knowing (or assuming) that vegans will tiptoe around trying not to show appropriate emotion to their selfishness, belligerence, aggression, etc..... and I think that vegans effectively alienate people a lot, by trying to appear so unconvincingly 'good' ...... ie, if someone is not 100% civil, calm & collected, they might simply assume that veganism is not for them. Vegetarianism has a problem with the general masses viewing vegetarians as 'elite, more than the normal, behaving in ways outwith the capacity of normal people' , and I assume that this is so for veganism even more.
This thread is not threadjacked - as you can see from my posts, i have been combining the topics of vegansexuality and our discussion about smokers.
Even if that is still viewed as threadjhacking, how can it truly be when - as already mentioned - most f*gs are not vegan !
To highlight the comparisons....
Smoking f*gs makes people stink of f*gs Eating flesh and body fluids makes people stink of foul BO Changing clothes and washign frequently throughout the day would ease both of these problems hugely. Most people who smoke f*gs or who eat flesh and body fluids do not bother to change clothes or wash frequently in order to counteract their stinking.
Most people who buy f*gs get them from unethical corporations with vivisection or widespread human rights abuse on record. Most people who buy flesh and body fluids get them from unethical corporations with widespread human rights abuse on record, who make their profit from animal abuse. People could grow their own tobacco or only eat flesh & body fluids with a 'freegan' status..... but most don't.
Smoking f*gs makes peoples' mouths taste like old bins. Eating flesh and body fluids makes peoples' mouths taste decidedly nasty. Both groups could brush their teeth after smoking and eating nasty substances, but typically don't bother and just blast others with their bin-breath and death-breath instead.
People who are not vegan will typically project moral and ethical responsibility onto those who they pay to do their dirty work, rather than taking responsibility for their own actions and decisions. For example, smokers who read that Phillip Morris and Camel are engaged in child-labour exploitation charges will typically say "what scum ! they are so mean ! I want to keep supporting the company by buying their stuff, so it's best to think that has nothing to do with me" , rather than "oh my god, i would be scum to support such a company - I will stop !" Equally, many non-vegans like to behave as if slaughter-workers and the animal exploitation industries generally, are evil scum and entirely different to those who pay them to do foul tasks on their behalf.
Both groups generally try to impose their expectations and priorities on others, behaving as if it unreasonable of anyone to criticise them for doing something which actively and directly causes others to suffer... As if it's not okay for others to comment negatively about their selfish behaviour, but conversely it IS somehow okay for them to comment negatively about others expressing negative feelings as a result of their selfish behaviour.
So, hopefully people can see why I think the two issues are not independent of one another..... In many cases, I imagine that people will choose to be 'vegan-sexual' for very similar reasons to why they choose to be 'non-smoker-sexual'
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Post by tabitha on Sept 2, 2007 14:31:50 GMT
Bravo
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Post by fezzarooooo on Sept 2, 2007 15:16:23 GMT
I never did read war and peace.
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Post by astrocat on Sept 3, 2007 2:47:16 GMT
thanks ! Hey, waita minute did you roll your eyes at me ? Woah - how jeuvenile man, vegans shouldn't roll their eyes and stuff. sarcastic drollness is in the realm of the non-veganly. huh ? I'm reckoning that either this is a blatant thread-jack, you've posted in thew wrong topic and meant to post in one about books, or else you're somehow obscurely taking the piss. The first one is most entertaining, so I'm going with it. For a long time a few years ago, I had a middle-aged friend heckle me for being enfeebled and aggressively asserting that i ought to fill my days with the tedium of reading bland, dry and potentially very fogeyish books, such as the Bible or the Works of Tolstoy. I asked my mum who the heck Tolstoy was and she was shocked that the dude reccommended it to me ( especially in such an arrogant sort of "i don;t know why you read the crap you do, you ought to exclusively devote yourself to reading meritable things like Tolstoy instead" fogeyish kind of patronising way) because I've had M.E for the last 8 years or so, and quite badly indeed at the time..... I was doing well to read the back of a cornflakes box, never mind flipping Tolstoy. The guy was decidedly odd though, criticising me for this or that (like, i was criticised for not getting up at 4 am and 'lazing in bed all day' ...... He was meant to be my official 'government approved' mentor for a government-compulsory training course which i did , because of me having M.E and all and needing assertive and moral support. So, for him to turn into a jerk who kept on hassling me over stuff like that was just... lame. Perhaps uncharacteristically, I had the tact not to retort about him and his "slothenly" family slacking off all night , slugging about in bed while i slave away cooking meals, writing essays, being an activist for hours, and so forth...... but I did say that he knew full well I stayed up late at night (which is true), asked when him and his 'zesty' family went to bed (about 9 or 10 pm apparently, imagine my shock ! what ? I'm usually up until 2 or 3 am, maybe later.... wow, you guys go to bed early.... why don't you stay up later ? Do you feel especially zesty in the morning or something (answer : no, we feel ghastly like anyone else would if they got up so early, but it's our 'duty' to get up that early, and it ought to be your duty to, as well ! humph ! ) So anyway, he recommended that i read stuff like War and Peace, but please feign astonishment when i say that i never did. Also, to my amusement, he also looked a bit like a garden gnome.
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Post by lilachamster on Sept 3, 2007 11:28:14 GMT
*Is lost now with all this talk of books* Some ppl are morning ppl and some are evening ppl, what a silly judgemental man he sounds. I thought Fezza's sarcasm to you was uncalled for, even with ME she has obviously never suffered from a severe and debilitating reaction to cigarette smoke! I didn't know you had ME too. I don't have ME, I'm pretty OK with my health mostly, just have this severe sensitivity to cigarette smoke which drs will not take seriously. What I think I do have in common with ME/CFS sufferers is the regular reaction of disbelief I suffer from people thinking I am faking or malingering. I know a lot of ME sufferers have had that problem too.
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