Hate Speech And Vegan Activism

James McWilliams wrote a piece on hate speech where he says the following.

But if anything here is clear it’s that language is all too easily used to forge sick cultures of hatred under the guise of normal. People who speak this way about sentient beings who, for all their power, lack the ability to fight narratives with counter-narratives (and thus have no truck in our big verbal mud sling), should have their right to use their words severely curtailed. Their hatred and insensitivity is that blatant. It has no place in civilized society.

Whilst he was referring to hunters and their use language to describe the violent acts they are committing on other animals, it could just as easily be used to describe the language some vegans use when talking about those who are not.

There seems to be an increasing number of people who resort to all sorts of obscenities when leaving comments on facebooks posts.

Somewhere along the path of our ‘awakening’ we seem to have conveniently forgotten that once upon a  time, we were exactly the same as the person who is now copping the brunt of our verbal assault.

I totally get it, the relative anonymity of the internet allows people to behave in a manner that they wouldn’t normally if they saw the person face to face.

I get it that these outbursts are way for the individual to improve their social worth, by sticking it to the hunter/meat eater/corpse muncher/etc.

I also understand that despite what some may say, their viscous outbursts have little to do with defending the animals and more to do with atoning for past sins.

Though is it really the best way to promote the supposed more compassionate lifestyle?

There can be no room in this social justice movement for those individuals who are happy to denigrate another human being with all sorts of derogatory terms, just because they have a different view.

Sure your blood may be boiling because someone has posted a photo somewhere of themselves with the latest animal that they have killed somewhere. Trust me, images like that infuriate me too.

[GARD]Though isn’t getting all worked up over that image, and ignoring the hundreds of thousands of other animals that are killed daily exactly what speciesism is?

If we want veganism to become the mainstream, which I believe we all do, then ALL of our actions must be above reproach.

What are your thoughts?