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I haven’t done a post about animal rights/animal advocacy in a loooong time.  I’m way overdue, don’t you think?!  Here’s something I wrote up a long while back and it was just sitting in a computer file…

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In my continuing quest to try to figure out why some people go vegan & some people don’t (even if it seems like they should “know better”), I think I have broken it down to 3 components…ALL 3 which must be in place in order for someone to go vegan and– more importantly– stay vegan:

1. Empathy. Complete empathy. Nothing partial about it. You must be able to put yourself fully in the position of other animals.

2. Taking personal responsibility to act. Never leaving it for someone else to deal with. Feeling an obligation to help.

3. Permanently staying in those states of “empathy” & “taking personal responsibility.”

So…if #1 isn’t there, you will be able to justify just about any form of animal use on the basis of “it’s not that bad” or “it’s okay because it’s not me.” Vegetarians could fall in this category. “Happy meat” eaters could fall in this category when they partially empathize but they don’t completely empathize so they try to eat “less” cruel but not cruelty “free.”

If #2 isn’t there, then you will always leave the “action” to others.

If #3 isn’t there, then you have the people who may feel compelled to stop eating animals one day but then they go back to old habits pretty soon after, when they allow themselves to “forget” about the horrors.