While I hope it's not another indication of a coming showdown over What We Eat, Pajamas Media features a humorous piece by Nancy Rommelmann -- a mother trying to cope with her daughter's boyfriend's veganism:

My daughter insists he's a vegan for political reasons; that Aidan--a tall, rangy high school senior who thrashes guitar in a band called Wolfgang Williams and the Punk Rock Faggots--doesn't believe in cruelty to animals, and wants to "support the environment." Mm, okay. And aside from the dietary constrictions, I truly like the kid; he's polite and funny and genuinely cares about my daughter. Because he's constantly riding his (non-polluting) bike or skateboard and thus burning what must be 5,000 calories a day, I also have a mother's concern that he eats.

"Is there any dairy in it?" my daughter asked, eyeing a dish of freshly mashed potatoes, as Aidan lingered in the doorframe, looking leaner than the last time I saw him. And I really wrestled; I thought, is he even going to know there's milk and butter in there? I sighed, and said, yes, there was, and watched them trudge upstairs, unfed.

To go with the piece, there's this very funny video:

I have no problem with "nice vegans" like the writer's boyfriend. What bothers me are the vegans who want to make me be a vegan, and I worry that the "Global Warming" scare is going to make them ever louder, and ever more insistent that Only They Are Saving The Planet.

There's something annoying about messianic people who want to convert others, and I don't care what the cause is. Gay activists can be extremely annoying, but despite the complaints I have heard about attempts to convert other people to homosexuality, they are nowhere near as annoying in that regard as are some of the vegans. (The radical vegan activists don't simply want to be left alone to eat their tofurkey; they are abolitionists who ultimately would throw me in prison for eating meat.)

Commenter John Blake has an interesting take on veganism as a passive virtue:

In his Autobiography (c. 1750?), Ben Franklin states that, yes, he flirted with vegetarianism in his twenties. Self-immolation of this nature goes back aways... two factors sobered him.

First, humans have three kinds of teeth: Canines, incisors, and molars. Nature designed us to rip, tear, bite off great chunks and masticate them into pulp. It is literally unnatural to pretend otherwise. And since Nature knows no dietary constraints, preferring omnivorous nourishment, who are we to disagree?

Second, on his first transatlantic voyage back to Blighty, the one on which he noted the Gulf Stream, Franklin observed schools of flying fish hunted by "shoals" of predators. Well, said Ben, if they can eat each other, then I can eat them.

So much for vegetarians' practical premises-- as for moral ones, there aren't any. As Churchill later wrote, "There are no passive virtues." The fact that one is not a serial child molester does not render you thereby more "moral" than otherwise.

In fact, if you consider mere absence of anything a virtue, then lack of virtue becomes virtuous. Contradictory propositions such as "zero equals one" (nothing is something) can assert anything: Zero virtue equals Thomas Aquinas. Given that so-called Vegans assert contradicory propositions, they profess mere attitudes rather than informed opinions.

But if veganism constitutes refraining, and it is not a virtue to refrain from doing something, then would it be more virtuous to refrain from refraining?

I'd hate to think that double passivity would be a virtue, so maybe it's eating meat that is a virtue.

After all, if virtue requires doing something, and if eating meat is good for you, maybe carnivores are more virtuous.

This whole thing reminds me of refraining from golf, which I once analyzed thusly:

Well after my adolescent crisis had passed (but before my midlife crisis had been fully developed), a well-meaning relative honestly believed that I should play golf even though I hated it. He thought that it was socially the right thing to do, that it would advance one's career, and all that morally righteous stuff. But the bottom line for him was that he loved golf! So, he could carry on all he wanted about how golf was good and even virtuous, but the fact remained that it was fun for him, and torture for me. The odd thing is, when I was a kid I noticed that many of the harder working men used to criticize men who enjoyed playing golf as shirkers of their responsibilities. (Like the doctor out whacking a golfball while his patient dies from complications.)

Where does that leave someone like me who, if I played golf, would absolutely hate it? Shouldn't I get some moral "credit" if I force myself to do something that I hate? Is it fair that others would have a good time doing it? How do we know that many of the people who lecture us about what we "should" do aren't secretly enjoying themselves while doing what they want and scolding the rest of us for not wanting what they want?

But if virtue is being active, then wouldn't people who hated smoking but who forced themselves to smoke anyway be more virtuous than non-smokers?

If this "logic" is correct, I must conclude that the only way for vegans to be virtuous would be for them to eat meat while hating it.

If virtue requires more than being passive, perhaps I should go shopping for a hair shirt.

On second thought, I think I'll refrain.

But shouldn't I say that I'm refraining from something that would give me pleasure? I mean, otherwise, what's the fun in refraining?