We all know what moral vegetarians are, right? They're the ones who don't eat meat because they think it's immoral to eat animals. The (possible) health benefits are, I suppose, merely a plus to them, if they matter at all. They also pretend to fight for "animal rights" (news flash: they're animals, not people) and generally give the impression that animals are more important than people. They present themselves as compassionate intellectuals, and the more active among them try very hard to cram their values down everyone else's throats, to the point that recently they and PETA tried to force the Oklahoma town of Slaughterville to change its name to "Veggieville." No, I'm not making that up. PETA had offered Slaughterville $20,000 worth of veggie burgers if it would change its name. Slaughterville residents said thanks but no thanks, noting that if PETA really wanted to help the town and animals, they could use the $20,000 to help solve Slaughterville's stray animal problem instead of buying veggie burgers. Of course, PETA declined. Hypocrites.

Vegetarianism for any reason other than health is, in my opinion, pretty stupid. I mean, they're animals, for heaven's sake. They're not people. They don't really have "rights" (not that I'm advocating animal cruelty or anything), and besides, the animals we eat (pigs, chickens, turkeys, and cows, mostly) have been domesticated for so long that the ones born and raised for slaughter are so stupid they can't even know they're going to be killed and eaten. And even if they did know, they wouldn't be able to survive in the wild anyway for the same reason.

Moral vegetarians don't eat meat, so what do they eat instead? Fruits and vegetables, obviously, grains, and that crap meat imitator tofu. (Granted, that was a large blanket statement, but I believe that it largely holds true.) Great, but that doesn't reduce animal suffering anyway: the machines used to plant, tend, and harvest all those crops out there kill millions of animals every year. (I'm not making that up either.) (No really. I'm not.) Just because you're not eatin' 'em doesn't mean they're not dyin'. If they really wanted to limit suffering, they'd not only stop eating animals, they'd plant and harvest all their own crops without machines. And without pesticide. Now that would limit animal suffering (well, not really, because for every vegetarian who would do that there's still like a thousand other people who continue to eat meat, so it really makes no real difference. But hey, as long as they feel good about themselves, right?).

Many moral vegetarians don't eat eggs, for obvious reasons (though I'd wager that ironically most of them also support abortion). But what about other dairy products? Since moral vegetarians aren't vegetarians for health reasons, they probably have no qualm with drinking milk and eating cheese. Well, guess where that stuff comes from? Animals who are also kept in captivity. Their lives are little different from animals raised for slaughter except that instead of being killed in the prime of their life, they're forced to give milk every day. And when they stop producing milk, they're killed anyway. So what's the difference?

Also, I wonder if the many moral vegetarians out there have ever thought of this: If everyone—EVERYONE—stopped eating animals, millions, probably billions, of animals would never be born every year. So sure, I guess they're limiting animal "suffering" (I'm pretty sure the animals don't suffer much in slaughterhouses—they're too dumb to know if there's anything better), but they're also greatly reducing the species, not to mention probably setting them up for extinction because we've made them so stupid that predators higher up on the food chain would kill them off pretty quickly.

We can also look at this from a Biblical perspective: Genesis 1:28—"God blessed them [Adam and Eve] and said to them, 'Be fruitful and increase in number, fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground.'" The animals are ours to rule. If we want to eat them, we can, and we shouldn't have to feel guilty about it. I know I don't.

If Christianity isn't your thing, this can be done from an evolutionary perspective, too. Consider the concepts of survival of the fittest and the food chain. We humans are the fittest. We have survived. We are the masters of the earth. In fact, if it weren't for us, cows, pigs, chickens, and many other animals would all be extinct now—they're not "fit" enough to survive in a world of much stronger and smarter predators, but we protect them by raising them for slaughter or for dairy production. Not only that, but humans are the top of the food chain. The animals we eat are all pretty low comparatively. Evolutionarily (is that a word?), we rule, and we deserve the right to eat animals.

You know what else would "limit the suffering of animals"? Less people to eat them. Since "moral" vegetarians seem to think that the suffering of animals is more important than the suffering of humans, maybe they think we should all die off. I mean, if there weren't any humans, no one would be eating animals (except, of course, predators), right? If moral vegetarians really believe their bullshit rhetoric, they shouldn't have kids. They should do their part to contribute to the devolution of our species.

In short, I think moral vegetarianism is a stupid concept. Animals don't have souls. They're not intelligent. And they're damn tasty.

P.S. I used to have a friend who was a moral vegetarian (something about animals having a "life force aura," I think) and yet she still ate fish. Last time I checked, fish were still animals.

Got anything to say about it?