This was a great piece written by my friend, Benny Malone. I hope you find it as amusing as I did. 🙂
Cheers!
Andrea Kladar

‘How To Argue Against Vegans‘
– By Benny Malone, UK

1. Make equivalences – This means to equate various things with exploiting and killing animals. Say killing plants and animals is the same or that as everything must die or dies through accidents so intentionally breeding, exploiting and slaughtering animals is no different. This is basic stuff I don’t need to say more.

2. Concentrate on grey areas. ”Of all the non human animals exploited by humans, Animal Charity Navigators estimates that 99.7% are animals used as resources by animal agriculture. The remaining .3% consists of all of the others, such as those hunted, tested on, abandoned to shelters, and used for fashion and entertainment. – See more at:http://freefromharm.org/animalagriculture/…” Avoid these ‘black and white’ areas! These are the areas that can be avoided. You’ll want to talk about animal by-products and things that are harder to avoid like medicines etc. Similarly when arguing you want to avoid the animals that are clearly sentient and are clearly exploited. Concentrate on where the line is drawn so the focus isn’t on farmed animals that are exploited. So while you are eating lambs and pigs you want to be talking about whether certain types of worms are sentient etc.

3. Basically you want to distract from veganism as a step that can be taken. Though you may not make any positive moves in the direction of veganism yourself you should say the vegans should be doing more. This will annoy them greatly! Say that if they were really serious about reducing harm that they would live in a hut in the woods. Never mind that they have taken the first step of being vegan and have other interests in life like anyone else. Berate them for not doing more.

4. Demand perfection and absolute standards of proof – much higher standards than you demand for anything else in life or other areas.

PRO TIP – remember – you do not have to provide your own position for analysis. In fact it is better if you provide the least amount of information or criteria. If you provide your position this can be criticised too. It is much better to snipe from as many angles as possible. Leave yourself options! You might want to argue for plants being sentient one minute then that animals don’t have subjective experiences the next. Don’t get pinned down by questions about your own criteria for moral consideration to animals or about what qualities animals possess which qualify them for moral consideration.

5. Adopt a habit of arguing the opposite of what they say. If they are arguing from an emotions say they should be logical and vice versa. This also works for if they are activists. Say they are extreme for not wanting to participate in animal exploitation and killing. Then if they are not active in the movement say that if they really believed in the cause they would be throwing themselves in front of slaughter trucks. Then you should call them extremists for doing that.

6. If all else fails you can always attack the vegan for hypocrisy or tone. They probably haven’t always been vegan so dig up something from their past or something they can’t change. This isn’t an argument against veganism but the vegan themselves. Make it personal! Say they are being shrill or superior. If they aren’t this may succeed in provoking their ire anyway, so result!

7. If they say animal use is unnecessary say that bananas are unnecessary too.

8. The vegan may say you are using fallacious arguments. Don’t concern yourself with this. The principle is to sow seeds of doubt and confusion and generally obfuscate matters. If you make ten stupid comments but one sticks in an observer’s mind then the observer is probably grateful for any argument even if it is weak. You don’t even need an argument! Animal exploitation is supported by most people so even weak arguments from taste, tradition and convenience can be proffered and eagerly seized upon by the audience to quiet their conscience.

9. The vegans will want to talk about the animal victims. Avoid this! Make it about yourself and how you can’t be vegan. Don’t concentrate on animals as individuals with interests, this can lead down a dangerous path of morally relevant criteria being shared by animals.

PRO TIP – Avoid talking about yourself and what you can do if they start arguing in that area. Talk about how *other people can’t be vegan – such as remote tribes. You want to distract from any steps you yourself could take. Talk about how other people can’t be vegan (snake bite victims etc) and how the vegans should be *more vegan. Combine these arguments for added effect.

10. Lions tho.