I have at least one friend who keeps trying to go vegetarian, but ultimately fails -- her Swedish metabolism starts devouring her own muscles if she doesn't get at least some chicken.
Except for the part about being carnivore if you're not a herbivore (even if I disagree with not being a herbivore. . .hell, I would love to not even eat plants. . .just get my energy from the sun and minerals from the ground or something), I have to agree with the idea of trying to raise animals to the level of humans.
I guess part of my view is how back awhile ago when the white man viewed Indians or the black man as simply an animal, even with their humanness. In the long run, that attitude, to me, makes the white man less human because they dehumanized. So what happens when, say. . .some other animals gains our level of consciousness and learns that we ate and enslaved its ancestors.
I guess there's something to say about forgiving historical ignorance. Nonetheless, it still seems like some parts of the white race still holds on to some vestiges of rascism and such.
All in all, though, I try not to look down on someone for eating meat, even if I may make some goofy and cynical remarks every once in awhile, because I think we all have limitations based on our limited consciousness and historical ignorance, and that's the challenge/fun of life.
The trouble is, where then do you draw your limits of life you're willing to defend, or at least not attack.
If you go down far enough you'll find we're in a constant us-vs-them struggle against parasites and other nasty creatures. You really need to know where you're drawing the line, and where, and "is alive" is probably too low.
I plead the self defense clause that will only get superceded by the heroism clause, but I have yet to figure out the heroism clause yet.
Uh, what?