i think he does an amusing job of setting veganism and animal rights in opposition to each other based on a false characterization of both. it’s noteworthy that by rejecting veganism he doesn’t mean “go and have a burger and milkshake”, but rather “reject speciesism and brutality, get in people’s face about it, but don’t focus on dietary choices as the crucial point.”

personally of course, i think we should promote animal rights in all that they entail and require, including the boycott of products whose existence relies on disregard to animals’ basic interests; the rejection of speciesist customs, norms and attitudes; the promotion of an ethical discourse that includes animals as members of the moral community; and so on.

obviously, the consumer choices of veganism in themselves are not the ideological basis for the vegan animal rights movement (as the writer seems to insist) rather it is the guiding moral principle behind them, which should be stated clearly. but the principle of equal consideration is emptied of meaningful content if we downplay the importance of consistently applying it in our daily lives, and this consistent application requires that we be vegan, whether we like the term or not.

i will leave the rebuttal of particular points for later, but i hope that any informed abolitionist can spot the glaring misunderstanding of what animal rights actually mean in his second point, as well as in this excerpt from the fifth:

“Second and more importantly, refusing to condone animal exploitation in ONLY our diets, leaves plenty of room for acquiescence in our other social behaviors. For example, the statement we make by happily eating where animals lie mutilated and dead all around us is far more problematic, from an animal rights perspective, than consuming dairy or eggs in the privacy of our homes. Few will be convinced that each of the poor individuals lying on a dinner plate is a murder victim, when nominal animal rights advocates blithely laugh and dine while the victims’ tortured bodies are being ripped to pieces. Consuming dairy privately at home, in contrast, has virtually no social effect; indeed, even if others are present, most people do not even connect dairy with the death of an animal. Yet veganism perversely condemns the latter act, and says nothing about the former.”