I think if you're against cruelty and you look at what happens to animals in slaughterhouses and on factory farms, you have to be completely against eating meat.
Interpretation
The quote advocates for a vegan lifestyle by highlighting the cruelty animals endure in the meat industry.
Ingrid Newkirk emphasizes the moral responsibility of individuals who oppose cruelty to extend their beliefs to their dietary choices. By examining the harsh realities faced by animals in slaughterhouses and factory farms, she argues that one cannot claim to be against cruelty while still consuming meat, thereby calling for a reassessment of ethical eating practices.
In practice
In a speech about animal rights, one might quote this to emphasize the need for dietary change.
[I believe] that animals have a worth in and of themselves, and that they are not inferior to human beings but rather just different from us, and that they really don't exist for us nor do they belong to us...it should not be a question of how they should be treated within the context of their usefulness, or perceived usefulness, to us, but rather whether we have a right to use them at all.
It is only human supremacy, which is as unacceptable as racism and sexism, that makes us afraid of being more inclusive.
Bigotry is an incapacity to conceive seriously the alternative to a proposition.
We live in a culture that discourages empathy. A culture that too often tells us our principle goal in life is to be rich, thin, young, famous, safe, and entertained.
Nothing is miserable unless you think it so; and on the other hand, nothing brings happiness unless you are content with it.
The mind can go in a thousand directions, but on this beautiful path, I walk in peace. With each step, the wind blows. With each step, a flower blooms.
On my recent trip to Israel, I had the opportunity to visit Yad Vashem, Israel's national Holocaust memorial, and reaffirm our collective responsibility to confront anti-Semitism, prejudice, and intolerance across the world. On this Yom Hashoah, we must accept the full responsibility of remembrance, as nations and as individuals-not simply to pledge "never again," but to commit ourselves to the understanding, empathy and compassion that is the foundation of peace and human dignity.
I came to realize clearly that the mind is no other than the Mountain and the Rivers and the great wide Earth, the Sun and the Moon and the Skyβ.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.