Vegans and Voltaire

Late Spring – the time to fire up the grill for a new season of charbroiled cuisine. Used to be that burgers and dogs and chicken were the standard fare. If you wanted to get fancy, then you went with ribs. Other than that, there was no use for a charcoal grill. Then came gas grills and, worse yet, average Joes who suddenly wanted something “better,” something gourmet. But even this was OK with The Captain so long as it was some kind of meat; heck, I kinda like the chicken on the beer can thing. But things have gotten way out of control. In these tragic times, people actually grill things like vegetables. But the epitome of this fire-stoked folly is something called a “Veggie Burger.” It’s even worse than the mystery meat they served us for lunch in high school, for it is purportedly healthy.

I was attending my first Barbeque party of the season last weekend when the host walked past with a plate of dry brown disks I mistook for doggy chew toys. Turns out they were Veggie Burgers. I can only surmise that these “soy-based” products were the brain child of some California politician whose ill-conceived government subsidized farming program was meant as a seedy ploy to grow the weedy economy choking the state to death. I am told that these pucks are made from soybeans, which seem to lack categorization.

I learned that these burgers were for a cute little red headed vegetarian girl (would Charlie Brown approve I wondered?). With her parents present, I questioned the child about why she was a vegetarian.

Me: Why the heck would you want to be a vegetarian and eat that sh…er, garbage?

Child: I don’t think that people should get their food by killing innocent animals.

Me: First, people don’t usually kill the animals; machines are used for that. Second, who says animals are innocent? That damned Chihuahua who bit open my ankle and then peed directly on the wound, was he so innocent I ask??



Child: But people run the machines that kill the animals.

Me: (Thinking to myself “Clever child.”) Ah, you’re a clever child.

Child: You’re mean.

Me: The world is hard and cruel Polyanna, better get used to it.

Parents of the child: Next question.

Me: So, are you a garden variety vegetarian or one of those kooky vegans?

Child: I eat cheese, so I am not a vegan.

Me: (Confused – was this girl a debating genius trying to throw me off my game by throwing in a red herring?) OK, I’ll bite. What does that have to do with anything?

Child: Cheese is made from milk, which is taken from a cow without its permission. Vegans won’t eat any food made from animal products taken without permission.

Me: That’s convenient, unless you’re Dr. Doolittle, it’s kinda hard to ask, eh?

Child: It’s implied.

Me: You’re not even supposed to know what that means! But really, taking milk from a cow is doing it a favor. Bessie gets engorged and her udders get painful; by milking her, we release the pressure and eliminate the pain.

Child: (Blank expression)

Me: OK. I can sort of understand the permission angle, but that lettuce leaf you just draped over your hockey puck burger, did you ask its permission to sever it from its roots and gnaw it to death??

Child: It doesn’t have a brain, so it has no soul like a cow does.

Me: The greatest metaphysicians spawned by the highest human civilizations have failed time and again to prove the existence of a human soul, let alone the soul of a large, smelly, dumb bovine (and I don’t mean my Uncle Harry), so to posit a demarcation between animal and plants with regard to “spirit” is spurious at best. Plants are living beings and, during a drunken state, I could in a single evening invent a dozen semi-viable proofs for the existence of a soul for green leafy things. So forgive me if I don’t gingerly approach my vegetable garden and mutter something like, “Beggin’ your pardon Mr. Arugula, but would it be askin’ too much to slice you clean off your roots so I can chew you into tiny bits to be swallowed and dissolved by my stomach acids?”

Child: Mommy?

Mother of Child: (Glaring at me like a cow with swollen udders) C’mon sweetie, let’s go and get you some dessert. I saw some yummy fudge brownies.

Me: (Shouting) Oh yeah, don’t forget to ask the brownies if they got permission to pick the cocoa beans used to make the chocolate flavoring!!!

In spite of what my lawyers tell me, I still think I’d make an effective law enforcement interrogator, at least in some undisclosed location in the Middle East.

In conclusion, if any of you wondered why I alluded to Voltaire in the title, it’s because he was the only philosopher whose name began with “V.” You know how much The Captain loves Alliteration or, more precisely, Consonance. Though to my knowledge he never argued pro or con for the existence of the soul, he appears in the same philosophy anthologies as some who did, so that’s a pretty solid connection, no?

So believe The Captain when he says: Cows, unlike Chia Garcias, do NOT have souls.

Yours eating steak,

The Captain