Can you not see where the OP is coming from? Do you have any sympathy towards them? They seriously believe that meat eating is wrong, and yet when the mention that on the internet in a thread about antibiotic overuse, they got bombarded by pro-meat commenters.
I seriously believe that meat eating is right. They can voice their beliefs, and I can voice mine. I don't really see the issue.
Are you saying vegetarians are tired of people telling them that what they believe is wrong? :)
I am man enough to admit that, and I own up to the fact that my meat consumption is the less ethical choice. But a lot of posters on this thread seem to have fragile egos and instead of owning it, make up a bunch of half baked excuses why eating meat is the better choice.
So, you hold a belief, you consider it "the right belief" (ethically speaking) and then you even pat yourself on the back for being "man enough" to hold your belief, implying that anyone who doesn't agree with you couldn't possibly have any other reason to, but is simply "not enough of a man" to agree with you, and has a small peni... ahem, I meam, fragile ego?
I'm sorry man, but that only makes me think of you as a narcissistic virtue signaller. I don't care if you think I'm "not man enough", "ethically evil", or whatever evaluation of me as a person you come up with, I like meat and no amount of shaming will make me pretend I don't. If you wonder why people hate vegetarians, this holier-than-thou attitude might be one of the reasons.
If you want to convince people of ethical superiority of your beliefs, it might help to just stick to the cold facts. E.g. what framework of ethics you're starting from, and how does it make vegetarianism more ethical.
> But the fact that people feel defensive whenever the thought of vegetarianism comes up to me points to the fact that deep down people on an individual level know that it is, to some degree, wrong.
Maybe. Or maybe people just feel discomfort because of all the people who are trying to dictate to them what they can and cannot eat.