NZ Vegan Podcast Episode 5

Listen HERE

In this episode I talk about my first email (cool!) and I talk about activism relating to people who try argue the fact that because we are able to use animals then that therefore justifies using them. I dispute that entirely. Being able to do something is not a moral justification for doing it when there exists a valid alternative (i.e., Veganism). People are able to do all kinds of horrible things, but the fact that they can do them should never be accepted as justification for doing them.  The thing we must emphasize is that we can be vegan, and be healthy and live comfortable lives. That is what is important, so whether meat is healthy or not is irrelevant. What is relevant is that it is healthy to be vegan, so we have an alternative to animal exploitation and are therefore are morally obligated to do that. That is a strong argument in favour of abolition. The fact that slave owners were perfectly capable of having slaves and keeping slaves is not an acceptable justification by any means for the existence of the institution of human slavery. The fact is they didn't need to, so almost everyone recognized the immorality of it. It's simple.  Don't waste your time trying to convince people that we can't eat meat, because that is not true, obviously we can. Spend your time showing them that we can be vegan, which is the ethical alternative: we can have a healthy diet free of animals, we can have clothing free of animal products, make-up free of animal products, cleaning products, medicine etc etc. We can have lives free of animal products, and every single Vegan is living proof of that. That is the moral issue, and that is what we should focus on, especially now in the year 2009. Forget the past! We only have today, so let's use it.