The Unvegan

It began with a simple Twitter @ reply. You know the kind that happens every day. But soon it spiraled into something no one could have ever seen coming.

While perusing Twitter one evening, I found that a tweeter called @DrEthan725 had written “unVegan??! Oh no…. :-(” and I playfully replied, “You mean oh yes, right?” Hours later, that playful message sent me into the unvegan trenches as I found myself facing an onslaught of vile vegan vitriol. DrEthan725 had taken up arms against my way of life, and I needed to defend unvegans everywhere.

DrEthan725 began with the old schoolyard trick of name-calling, saying “Corspe-munching [sic] is for vampires, not ethical humans with morals.” I, being an ethical human with morals, took the higher road and simply defended myself by stating, “Damn, my morality keeps my from eating defenseless plants. I guess it’s cool with you to kill them.” He then tried to defend his claim by once again calling my beloved meat “corpses,” and managed to spell it correctly this time. He also sent me a Huffington Post article to defend his point of view. We all know about the unbiased blog known as the Huffington Post, yet I was able to counter with another Huffington Post article, which defended my point of view (and in a much better-written article, if I do say so myself).

Sadly, his militant veganism had resulted in a little something called small-mindedness. This came as no surprise to me, since research has shown that meat enabled our brains to evolve to their current sizes. Therefore, it would stand to reason that removing meat from a diet would cause a little shrinkage. He summarily dismissed the well-written article and claimed his way of life was about “JUSTICE.”

It seemed we had reached a stalemate, so I sent off what I expected to be my final tweet, “I disagree with everything you’ve said, but I respect your right to say it. Hope your veggies don’t come from clear-cut forests.” But as I was sending it off, I noticed a little something about DrEthan725’s profile. It was something that screamed out to me like a head of lettuce when you cut into it. In describing himself, DrEthan725 wrote, “I am…[an]…Animal Rights Abolitionist…” Now I’m no doctor, but I do know that that simple line means “someone who wants to abolish animal rights.” I called him out on this and he was quick to correct me, saying the full description is “Animal Rights Abolitionist Vegan.” Again, I’m no doctor, but I do know that adding a noun like “vegan” to the end of a description such as that does not change the meaning, it only tacks on an additional meaning. He could have put “robot” on the end of that description and it still wouldn’t have changed anything, except to make him about 17 times cooler (man, robots are awesome). As it is, he is simply “someone who wants to abolish animal rights and chooses not to eat any animal products.” Yes, it is somewhat oxymoronic, but who am I to judge? I dare anyone with a marginal command of the English language to tell me I’m wrong.

Finally, although his description had convinced me he was a very confused vegan and English-speaker, he took the war of words to another level by tweeting, “…My veggies come from my garden & don’t scream in terror for their lives when being ‘killed.'” This wasn’t the bad part, in fact I was glad to hear of his gardening skills and acute ability to perceive the supposed lack of pain his vegetables experience when being slaughtered. No, what did it was his hashtag, which read “#YouPayPeopleToMurder.”

This was over the line and I could not stand for it anymore. Questioning my way of life is one thing (and is highly encouraged), but saying I pay people to murder is another thing entirely. I realized that explaining the logic of life and death to a fanatic rarely has positive results, so I sent off what was truly my final tweet to DrEthan725 and decided to spend the rest of my afternoon experiencing life. It read, “Hmm, you took it to a new level. Bored now. Enjoy your garden of malnourishment and denial.” Sure, it was a little trite, but the guy had basically called me a murderer. DrEthan725 continued to tweet, but the war was clearly over and his North Korean army still maintained power north of the 38th parallel.

No matter how much logic you put into a conversation, sometimes you just have to realize crazy just doesn’t adhere to logic. Yet, I do feel like I achieved victory. If nothing else, DrEthan725 learned that unvegans do not simply roll over when faced with fanaticism. We do not sit back and listen quietly as they spew propaganda, and ultimately we live much better and healthier lives. Plus, as long as the vegans have DrEthan725 on their side, subconsciously plotting the abolition of animal rights, I can sleep soundly.