Should We Eat Meat?

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What you choose to eat (or not to eat) is up to you. Adults should be free to decide how they live their lives, what they eat and drink, and how they enjoy themselves. Statistics show, however, that the vast majority of Americans do wish to eat meat.

According to the most recent Vegetarian Resource Group poll (2006), only 2.3 percent of adults surveyed said they never eat meat, poultry, or seafood. Being a vegetarian is a fine choice. So is being a Libertarian or a Unitarian. The rest of us don’t interfere with their choices. Why should this small minority interfere with ours?

History’s most revered intellectual minds, from the Ancient Greeks to the Founding Fathers, held individual liberty to be of utmost importance in a democratic society. Allowing people to be free to make their own lifestyle choices is an essential part of preserving that ideal. No matter what you prefer to call it—individual freedom, consumers’ rights, or just plain common decency—this is a simple concept. We respect your personal choices, and we expect the same in return.

The only freedom which deserves the name is that of pursuing our own good in our own way, so long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs, or impede their efforts to obtain it. Each is the proper guardian of his own health, whether bodily, or mental or spiritual. Mankind are greater gainers by suffering each other to live as seems good to themselves, than by compelling each to live as seems good to the rest.
— John Stuart Mill, On Liberty, 1859

1776 July 4. "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness."
— U.S. Declaration of Independence