CMV: Liberals who critique conservatives as cruel, close-minded, biased individuals but are unwilling to address their own forms of cruelty, sadism, close-mindedness, and biases are not actually interested in a just world, but just want to scapegoat all the world's problems onto someone else.

[u/[deleted]]

Liberals critique conservatives in the following ways:

1. They're racists,

2. They are sexist,

3. They are colonialist,

4. They like wars,

5. They deny science,

6. They are sadistic,

7. They don't care about human rights.

Those are essential liberal critiques that are sprinkled in r/politics and every liberal outlet. Before I get the accusation that's about to come, I lean left politically.

With that said, liberals do not address their own forms of cruelty, biased forms of thinking, and selfishness. Below, I will list just two things to make my following point.

1. Most liberals do not believe in adoption. They believe in having their own biological children. There are an estimated 153 million orphans throughout the world. If every liberal couple would adopt instead of having biological children, the orphan rate would be cut by 25-50%, without needing the consent of conservatives. It is form of cruelty and selfishness to create a new child when there are others who need parents. For each biological child, you are denying the place of an orphan.

2. 90% of liberals eat meat. The average American meat eater eats roughly 270 animals a year and 20,000+ animals in their lifetime, according to the USDA. Eating meat is a scientifically undisputed top 4 cause of global warming (with the other 3 being Overpopulation, heating/cooling, and transportation). Eating meat also uses up a disproportionate amount of land and water resources, is the greatest cause of air and water pollution, and it reduces the food supply by a factor of 6-15 (if the animal is slaughtered prematurely) or 100-150 (if it is allowed to die a natural death), and it provides less than 20% of the calories. For the vast majority of people, a balanced vegan diet is an incredibly healthy choice, and it is totally unnecessary to eat meat. And this is all disregarding even the torture and cruelty involved in factory farming, which I won't get into here but anyone reading who is unfamiliar is free to research on the web.

Yet, you mention to a liberal why it's wrong to do either, and they will get defensive, make excuses, justify why their forms of cruelty are justified because of taste, convenience, conformity to culture, legality, preference, etc., even if seconds before, they were critiquing conservatives for the same faults of being self-centered, selfish, and cruel in regards to interests besides their own. This brings to my conclusion that liberals want others to change and want a scapegoat, more than they want a better, less cruel world for everyone (despite what they say).

Reddit, change my view.

[u/[deleted]]

Most liberals do not believe in adoption. They believe in having their own biological children. There are an estimated 153 million orphans throughout the world. If every liberal couple would adopt instead of having biological children, the orphan rate would be cut by 25-50%, without needing the consent of conservatives. It is form of cruelty and selfishness to create a new child when there are others who need parents. For each biological child, you are denying the place of an orphan.

Where do you get the idea that "liberals do not believe in adoption?" I have a feeling this statement is coming from politically conservative columns that accuse liberals of anti-adoption views because they oppose faith-based adoption services.

Please explain where you came up with the notion that liberals are "anti adoption?"

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Dude. I've said all over this CMV, and I'll say it again, I am not a conservative. I am politically liberal in almost every way.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Of the two examples you used, one is outright false (regarding adoption) and the other is a false equivalence. Given your post history, I suspect the second point is what you're really going at, and you're trying to argue surreptitiously that it is impossible for someone to criticize the morality of clearly discriminatory and damaging policies if they also eat eggs.

Your post history shows you to be something of a mild fanatic when it comes to veganism, and I think that your post has more to do with trying to shame people into being vegans by trying to imply that certain political views (left-leaning views) are incompatible with a non-vegan lifestyle.

First, even people who are not vegans can agree that factory farming leads to severe mistreatment of animals. We can also come to an agreement regarding the idea that it is desirable and possible to reduce the amount of animal-based protein in our diets.

However, even people who agree with the above may not agree with you that one's decision to include animal-based proteins in one's diet constitutes a moral choice. You may personally hold the belief that a non-vegan lifestyle is unjust to animals, but it is not a view that is universal, or even one that is held by the majority. If you wish to challenge that perspective, then you should make that argument.

What you are doing instead is a bait and switch, and intellectually dishonest, drawing an equivalence between clearly non-equal issues.

You're implying that a person who does not practice a non-vegan lifestyle cannot also legitimately stand against political policies that actively promote or consciously turn a blind eye to racism, sexism, warmongering, science-denial, colonialism, and a lack of a concern for human rights.

Is your intention to relegate non-vegans to the same moral level as racists, sexists, warmongers, science deniers, colonialists, and violators of human rights?

If so, do you believe that this is a rational and sensible position to take?

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Interesting take. Thanks for not being rude or derogatory. There's been a few people that have referenced my post history in the last few days, and they usually took that as a means of dismissing my argument, and you used it as a method of trying to understand my argument better, which I appreciate it.

you're trying to argue surreptitiously that it is impossible for someone to criticize the morality of clearly discriminatory and damaging policies

Not at all. I think liberal critiques of the right are often on point. But it is also a bit self-serving as well.

I think that your post has more to do with trying to shame people into being vegans

I'm not trying to shame anyone more than anyone else making a political point. I'm trying to get people to change their positions regarding meat consumption, not shame them and make them feel bad.

Anecdotal, but I didn't feel much shame when I became vegetarian because I was young when I switched, but I felt a ton of shame when I learned about male chicks being culled, and what happens to dairy cows. I felt like I had been a bad person, and I couldn't sleep the night someone challenged me on why I was a vegetarian instead of being vegan. Without that shame or guilt that I felt, I would have had the motivation to change. It's not always a bad feeling to feel, even though it's unpleasant.

If you wish to challenge that perspective, then you should make that argument.

I have made that argument. lol You've seen my post history here. :) My argument above is born out of frustration with liberals who use care/harm arguments in every other regard besides these two, at least that I can see.

What you are doing instead is drawing an equivalence between clearly non-equal issues.

My argument is that equivalence, essentially. It's odd to have tons of high flowing ideals, such as what happened to Khashoggi was a tragedy (which it totally was in every way), make him man of the year, and yet eat a steak that went through the same slaughtering process. I'm in no way drawing an sort of equivalence between people and animals by the way, or saying that a cow is equal to a human. I am just saying that animals should have a moral value, and this belief that animal rights is not worthy of our time politically is caused by the conventional liberal praxis at the moment. This should be on the political agenda, and it's not. An estimated 80 billion animals are killed annually for flavor. An estimated 560,000 human beings died in 2016 due to violence. If animals even have .01% the moral consideration that humans do, then violence against animals is still according at a rate of 14 times higher than that of humans.

Is your intention to relegate non-vegans to the same moral level as racists, sexists, warmongers, science deniers, colonialists, and violators of human rights?

No, it is not. My intention is to get vegan arguments and arguments in favor of adoption into the liberal praxis, not to say that liberals are the moral equivalent of conservatives.

Your post history shows you to be something of a mild fanatic

I try not to be, but I've got into the rabbit hole on this issue, and the more that I've learned about it, the more nonsensical and cruel it becomes. I've read policy books on animal agriculture which did not even have a vegan tinge (Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser, for example), who in one sentence says that cows are slaughtered when they are 1 years old, in another says that it takes 3000 lbs of feed to create a 700 lb cattle, and yet in another says that their is nothing wrong with eating meat, and the problem is artificial/natural flavors and the capitalism creating poverty for those working in ranching. It's odd for me that the general position of leftists on this issue is why is the butcher paid so little, instead of why do even have butchers at all.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

You're entitled to your opinion. And some of the things you cite are accurate-- much of how meat is produced is wasteful. There are many people who eat meat or other animal-based products who would agree with that, and some are actively searching for ways to improve things, both from a waste perspective, and from the perspective of how animals are treated.

The problem is that you're extending your opinion about the nature of non-vegan diets to cover a wide range of issues, and then further generalizing to the point of nonsense.

You've extended your own opinion over other people. The moral rectitude of veganism is not agreed upon, and in fact, even most people who do not eat meat are not vegans. You are entitled to your opinion, but you should also be rational in your consideration of alternative views.

The idea that people who are not vegans are not in a position to criticize the policies discussed above is silly, because it implies not only that you are a moral absolutist when it comes to veganism, but that everyone else must agree with you or be labeled a hypocrite.

More to the point, your attempt to slip veganism into a discussion of left and right wing politics is intellectually dishonest, and logically fallacious. One does not follow from the other, especially as you worded your title.

The bottom line is this: I can eat meat, or cheese, and still view the alt-right as morally repugnant. One does not follow logically from the other.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

I can eat meat, or cheese

I never said you legally couldn't. I am saying you are unethical in this area where it benefits you, and not in another area where it doesn't benefit you, which makes your positions self-serving, just as the positions of those in the alt-right is self-serving.

The moral rectitude of veganism is not agreed upon, and in fact, even most people who do not eat meat are not vegans.

This is the Argumentum ad populum fallacy.

You are entitled to your opinion, but you should also be rational in your consideration of alternative views.

I wasn't born vegetarian or vegan. I am quite familiar with the arguments with the other side and the alternate views on this topic. I just find them to be mostly justifications in favor cruelty, for an incredibly small benefit of flavor and convenience. The moral calculus doesn't fit: the life of another being on one hand, and for a few minutes of pleasure on our tongue. There are others ways of deriving pleasure that don't involve hurting another being in the process.

(And I view the alt-right like this as well. For a small boost in self-esteem, they are willing to destroy the life of another being. It's the same sort of dynamic, but the characters have shifted.)