Ugh, I hate these extremist vegans. They're just not realistic at all yet still have a massive superiority complex.
And comparing eating meat to friggin' eating babies? Oh, I feel a rant coming up.
Yes I eat animals, but I do love them and hate it if they suffer needlessly, especially at the hands of some sadist human. But guess what? Eating other animals is natural. It happens in nature all the time! Even plants do it. And without it, the prey animals would breed out of control.
Be glad that we're not eating them alive, that we're giving them a quick death first. Nature isn't so kind, idiot.
And we humans are omnivores, which means meat is an essential part of our diet. Sure, a heavily modified diet could compensate for it, but it's not what our bodies are (for lack of a better term) designed for. It's not why we clawed our way to the top of the food chain.
You want me to become a vegetarian? (I refuse to become a vegan, that's where I draw the line) Fine then. Do so after sucessfully convincing every single meat eating creature on the planet to switch to a diet of plants. If you succeed in that, then we'll talk.
And your analogy fails for two reasons: For one, eating babies is uneccessary for our survival, as we can eat animals instead. So therefore it's okay to think its horrible. Secondly eating animals but not humans is okay, because animals are still, as crude as it may be, "lower lifeforms". They don't have our intelligence or sapience. If you want to give animals the same rights as humans, then those animals should be able to recognize and respect those rights towards each other and us as well!
Again, be glad that, despite that, laws still forbid cruelty to animals. We're giving them more than they're giving each other. Because animals aren't nearly so peaceful and innocent as you people seem to believe! Rape, cannibalism and genuine murder do happen in the animal world, you know.
Do you have an oh so clever rebuttal for all of that?