The vegans who want animals to live in peace but threaten to murder farmers who tend them
Hardly a day goes by, it seems, without some aggressive protest group from the ‘progressive’ left demanding that society must change from top to bottom to accommodate its wishes.
and anyone who dares to question or oppose them will be met with denigration, insults, and sometimes threats of violence. These threats will usually be sent by social media — the ideal platform for today’s gutless left-liberal bullies and cowards. you don’t even need to show your face to tell someone you wish them dead.
If you think this is an exaggeration, remember Tory MP david Burrowes, whose principled opposition in 2013 to gay marriage on religious grounds led to him being called a ‘Nazi’ — always the first and laziest labelling option when leftists want to demonise somebody.
Or the radical ‘transgender activists’ last year, who beat a 60-year-old mother of two to the ground at a gathering in Hyde Park for daring to question their stance, and subsequently issued more poisonous threats on Twitter.
Punching anyone who opposed them, they explained, was ‘the same as punching Nazis’ (yes, those nasty old Germans again). ‘Fascism must be smashed with the greatest violence to ensure our collective liberation from it.’
Now another, arguably even more toxic group has sprung up in our midst to torment, threaten and attack anyone who dares disagree with them: militant vegans.
It sounds almost comical that people one associates more with lentil burgers and leather-free sandals — who generally don’t eat meat, fish, dairy, eggs or honey — should be growing into such a menace.
at least, until you recall the story about laura Goodman, a Shropshire chef, who spent all day preparing special vegan dishes for a group of visiting diners, only for one of them to order a decidedly non-vegan cheese and tomato pizza from the normal menu.
So she made a small quip on Facebook late that night that she had ‘spiked a vegan’, adding ‘pious, judgmental vegan . . . has gone to bed, still believing she’s a vegan’.
But you have to be careful with your little quips nowadays — because astonishingly, laura Goodman’s comment led to her receiving death threats from the enraged vegans (who say they oppose violence so vociferously).
They also posted dozens of cruelly negative Tripadvisor reviews for her restaurant, sending her rating plummeting and leaving her feeling ‘nearly suicidal’.
ANdthen there’s the young Northumberland sheep farmer, alison Waugh, who described on a recent BBC programme how today’s food growers and providers were facing a whole new source of stress and anxiety, along with financial difficulties, EU red tape and rocketing levels of farm thefts: more death threats, simply for doing their jobs and putting food on the nation’s dinner tables, as farmers have in this country for millennia.
Miss Waugh has received notes from animal rights activists telling her and her family to ‘go die’, while other farmers have had their premises invaded, graffiti sprayed on barns and outbuildings, and seen livestock markets subjected to angry and menacing protests.
Threats from vegans have become such a problem that the association of Independent Meat Suppliers has met counter-terror police to plan a response.
‘[It] is quite ironic from people who want peace for animals, but then tell you: “I hope you and your family go die in a hole for what you do.” ’ says Miss Waugh.
a distinct pattern begins to emerge: of militant vegans apparently being far more energised and excited at the prospect of dishing out intimidation and violence than about anything to do with the welfare of animals.
Indeed, if these activists really cared about persuading people to eat less meat, or give it up altogether, they might give some thought to the survey last year which found that one of the main reasons many people refuse to turn vegetarian is the obnoxious and hectoring tone of many existing vegetarians and vegans!
according to the Vegan Society, vegans make up less than 1 per cent of the UK’s population — though they hoped to boost that number by introducing a gimmicky ‘Veganuary’ last month to encourage others to eschew meat and dairy.
yet still they feel they have the right to lecture the rest of us on what we should eat — in some cases, in the most brutal terms.
One leading ‘ animal liberation activist’ who has just hit the news is the self- styled ‘ vegan educator’ Joey Carbstrong, who caused a fuss on radio 2’s Jeremy Vine Show on Monday by objecting angrily to the presenter’s ham and cheese sandwich.
He has come to prominence recently because of his clashes with farmers, whom he has likened to ‘slave owners’.
When Vine asked him whether he objected to the cheese in his sandwich as well, Carbstrong, who has the word ‘Vegan’ tattooed under his ear, said: ‘The cheese comes from a mother who had her children taken from her, and . . . was artificially inseminated with bull semen.
‘This is probably why vegans would say a dairy farmer is akin to a rapist.’
yet in contrast to his confrontational demeanour on the radio, Carbstrong declares online: ‘as vegans we want peace.’
‘I’ve evolved so much as a human being,’ he explains about himself. ‘all I want is peace. Peace for animals. Peace for humans. Peace for the world.’ One of his slogans is ‘peace begins on your plate’.
The website for the group he belongs to, The Save Movement, further boasts that it has ‘a lovebased community- organising approach based on non-violence, love and truth as informed by leo Tolstoy and Mahatma Gandhi’.
you could also describe the website as a monument to their own piety.
But how exactly do these peaceloving boasts square with Joey Carbstrong saying unsympathetically that people in the animal produce industries ‘ should be scared’? Sounds pretty threatening to me.
Carbstrong was born Joey armstrong in australia, and has a criminal record — he has spent time in prison for a firearms offence.
BUTnowadays, having ‘evolved so much as a human being’, he prefers to get angry about ham sandwiches, and post videos of himself and a large gang of his cronies surrounding lone farmers in their land rovers, to harass them ‘on behalf of the animals’. It makes very ugly viewing.
Or consider another activist group, animal rights UK. Their website carries adverts for T-shirts emblazoned with slogans such as ‘love the Planet — Go Vegan’, as well as T- shirts showing a police van ablaze, and the charming slogan: ‘Burn piggy burn.’
yes, they love pigs, but they appear to hate human beings, and would like to incinerate policemen. Of course, there is a whole spectrum of genuine animal lovers in this country, from old dears who volunteer in Cats Protection league charity shops, to ardent meat eaters who nevertheless abhor the idea of animal maltreatment and cruelty, and will go to great lengths to ensure the meat they eat is free range or organic, and always humanely farmed.
and it goes without saying that a great majority of vegetarians and vegans are thoroughly decent and thoughtful people.
But at the extreme, increasingly vocal end of this spectrum are militants who are by no means a woolly- headed bunch of tofu-munchers.
These self- righteous activist vegans seem to believe they have a God-given right to lecture the rest of us on how we should live — even though if the nation actually followed their demands, livestock farming would collapse and the rural economy would be destroyed.
Perhaps we should console ourselves with one thought the next time we tuck into a steak or a delicious plate of scrambled eggs: apparently 42 per cent of us who eat meat once a day have sex at least once a week . . . compared to just 16 per cent of those who stick to a meat-free diet.
No wonder vegans are so angry.