So how did he go on his 365 days? Well I saw his spot on Sunrise and noticed a lot of questions they should have asked weren't. It was treat as a positive puff piece and whilst he probably was really happy with the exposure, with no decent journalistic rigour applied it kind of stands up as high as the cutesy animal in the lame human interest slot at the end of the news just after the weather.
It turns out, he didn't go the full 365 days. No need to take my word for it either. He's put up his own youtube spot on it, it was a radio interview where he came clean. Not sure if he intentionally set out to make an on air confession or whether he's a poor sod who got caught out on air and revealed himself as a bit of a goose.
You decide for yourself, listen to it while its still on youtube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3UP4lOAHDw
Now couple of things to note, there's not so much vision as there is audio in this youtube piece however of note, the first image you see is a caricature of a guy with his arm around a pig with the slogan Vegan Extremist. This straight away sets him up for everything he is and some of it is not good. His is a world view where choice has to be limited to what he has decided is just, fair and moral and its not mainstream. His foundation for the moral decision is founded in...well he doesn't go that far and it should have been just a small part of the interview to not just understand what he believes, but what the basis for it is and what is the origin of judgement call he makes in what are "truth claims" without any foundation at all.
OK some folk are going to read this and there'll be the usual "Haters gunna hate" spiel...I'll be a hater, and/or intolerant, unfair, immoral and maybe accused of self righteous pontificating. That'll be pretty funny...if I agree totally with James I'll be tolerant, fair, moral level headed yada yada yada.
But if I have a different view, oops a hater. Of course telling people they're unjust, immoral, murderers, unethical etc for eating a chop, sausage, steak or drinking milk, THAT is not intolerance or "hating". Ooooooh nooooo, course not.
Ok his interview was interesting, very distracting is the devolved Australian version of a Woodstock accent which some folk call neo-hippy. "A tiger snake umm like kinda crawled over me or whatever..." But that and the other bro, man, dude language I'll try and put aside.
Apparently he woke up and saw friends and said "What's up bro..." and that happened 5 or 6 times.
Plus the time he whispered the name of his newly acquired girlfriend's name in her ear.
So sadly on Sunrise he wasn't so forthcoming. He wasn't the "Voiceless 365 except for 6 or 7 times guy", nope on Sunrise he hadn't spoken for 365 days and Sunrise was the place of his first words for a year...except that's a lie.
The guy who says he kept a vow of silence for 365 days, actually didn't. Was he fair dinkum? I think he was serious about the cause, think he was serious about the attention, very serious about the media interest, the cultivation of the persona he was developing but if he was fair dinkum, then if you blow it, you have to start again or you didn't actually stay silent for 365 days. How long was his longest stretch without speaking, we don't know. Might have been 10 months could have been 50 days we really don't know. Fact is we can only go by his word and his word only and going by what he told Sunrise he wasn't truthful comparing it to what he (more truthfully) told Steve & Basil & 6PR 882 News Talk.
Now if we're talking about a moral and ethical issue as I think he may suggest, he's kinda on thin ice at best when it comes to morals and ethics. My honest assessment at first glance...EPIC FAIL.
In response to humanely slaughtered comments he states "In my head I'm going, humanely slaughtered? Dude there's no such thing" and he goes on you cannot compassionately kill something inferring that all slaughter is by default cruel, malicious and vile. Who said its a job to aspire to, to enjoy immensely? It is for many of us a job, a thing we do and it neither incites joy or hate nor any emotion as any job does. Its not a hobby, sport, joyful pursuit, its just a thing we do, part of life. Now if you want to be vegan, go for it. Whatever floats your boat, fuel your body how ever you see fit for whatever valid or mad reasons you wish to choose. If I ever qualified as intolerant I guess I'd be forcing people to give up veganism and pushing for it to be outlawed and make milk/egg/meat eating compulsory. That would be intolerant. They want us to stop animal products in the food chain. If they're telling meat eaters they must stop, and their basis cannot be challenged closely because that's hate and intolerance. What the???
Now apparently the real foundations for the vegan position isn't quite made so well. He has made facebook comments about we don't "need" to eat animal based food products.
Let's address it as a "needs" issue. We don't need power windows in cars, but they exist so should we ban them?
We don't need tattoos, do we ensure people don't have them? I mean there may be health issues or objectionable material themed into tattoos that we don't "need" at all. Do we stop them altogether, ban them? No of course not. If we took his don't need to angle all art would cease and maybe Sunrise and all the other shallow mind numbing media vehicles would be gone too. I'm reminded he's stated "
Sometimes you just need to go to Bali and not come back until you have 2 sleeves!" - pointing two his very tattooed arms. So we don't "need" to eat animal based food products, but sometimes we do "need" to get go to a 3rd world Asian country and get both arms fully inked. Ahhh how's that "need" angle even float in a real world? Want tattoos? Go for it, its your skin, your money and in some cases your health and definitely YOUR choice. Want to eat meat? Go for it, or not. No force feeding here at all and animals have always been a food source. EPIC FAIL.
I enjoyed his FaceBook comment/question - "Eating meat is manly??? You're joking, right?"
If I said that, yes I would be joking, so too would Sam Kegovich or Richie Benaud. Eating meat is not a question of manliness or manhood...otherwise women would not eat animal food products. Nice try, not a very good try but effort is noticed to be outweighing cogent thought. Lets slow it right down...its not about manly, its just, well its just food. Honest.
I note the real big one. Sorry I get the feeling he may not fully understand Speciesism as I think many people do not. His comment is/was...
"Speciesism: The core of the ENTIRE issue, in my opinion. One of the most important things I ever posted!"
Lets look at the core. The vegan contention is if a human kills and eats an animal, milks a cow, collects eggs etc for food it is unfair, transgression of Animal Rights and these violations are a direct result of the horrible actions summed up to be Speciesism.
We should point out sentient beings and also speciesism are philosophy terms, not scientific terms. So the entire debate is based on differing philosophical view points. To the vegan, acts of Speciesism are despicable acts of hate and oppression where one species (human) elevates itself over another species (non human), exploits it, enslaves it, murders it and uses it for its own purposes generally for food and other products.
Here's where it fails.
To the Vegan Activist, the Vegan Extremist, the Animal Rights Extremist, the Animal Liberation Extremist the transgressor, the one's committing "Speciesism" are all humans and only humans.
The lion takes down the antelope, kills its prey, sometimes devouring and swallowing parts of its kill before its actually dead, at times still conscious and aware. The Shark eats the fish, alive because its not humanely slaughtered and processed, its just ripped apart violently and devoured in a frenzy more often than not. No table manners in the wild. The cat catches the mouse, plays with it, eventually eats it...or not. The wattle bird raids the nest of other birds, eating the eggs or killing the live young and eating them. The snake eating insects, lizards and at times even its own young. The wild dogs, pigs, cats or other ferals killing native fauna or farmed animals like sheep or cattle, all natural animal instincts. All survival. All animals doing what animals do naturally but none of them are committing heinous acts of "Speciesism". $3 note odd.
None of those creatures are guilty of murder, violence, killing unjustly or denying another animal its animal rights. No. Only the human is actually a "species-ist". That's akin to saying only one particular race can be racist. Singling out humans and saying they enslave animals, commit violence and murder whilst all other species are ok to kill and eat one another...well if Speciesism is a valid term the Veganarchist Extremist has taken the cake. They are the supreme "speciesist" they apply Speciesism to humans and no other species. How's that work???
Here's where little old meat eater me agrees wholeheartedly with James Aspey.
I too agree with "Speciesism: The core of the ENTIRE issue"
It is the entire issue and the hidden part is these inferred rights that all animals have, presumably all animals except humans have to have an inventor. Who created these rights? Who first postulated that these rights do or should exist because before the birth of this mysteriously un-named law giver there must have been no "rights" inferred or otherwise. Lets explore that Veganarachist. Normal vegans rest easy. You're cool with me, its the cult followers that need torchlight.
You cannot have a moral law without a moral law giver. I do believe in God. I believe I'm a Gentile follower of Jesus Christ, Son of God, the God of the Jews. It seems that according to some, the close examination of perceived contradictions from non believers is not only right, its required to show the pre-decided ridicule the Bible heaps upon itself, yet the same amount of rigour (which is generally not very learned rigour anyway) is never applied to other worldviews with the same fervour. Many Jews & Christians point to this being a subtle pointer as to which is the true God as the others aren't opposed so vigorously.
With Sentient, Speciesism and Speciesists being philosophical terms, a faith or religion is afoot.
Either hidden, or not known by its followers.
But applying any such rigour to the Vegan Cult is the work of haters and we all know intolerant haters are gunna hate.
My faith (which none of you reading have to follow or adhere to) shows eating meat and animal based food is quite ok. Its given as a gift of God. Telling me I'm unjust, immoral and unethical is old news. The Bible says we're all fallen and as a result we fall short of being worthy of Heaven. Old news, I know I'm as bad as any person who's ever walked the earth, we all are. Following my faith is apparently going to be ok, long as I go Vegan which is on the side of justice. Ahhh what the???
Who's the intolerant hater now?
There's vegans who don't eat meat/milk/eggs/etc for whatever reason and its a fuel choice based on their own views. Then there's the Veganarchist Cult followers pushing an agenda which is not consistent with Christian, Jewish, Muslim doctrine. Hey I just picked the big 3. There's others.
So we see the Vegan's "moral laws" but who is their moral law giver?
If there isn't one, then someone's just making stuff up and trying to pass personal preference off as ethically perfect judgement and therefore (here's the important bit) condemning to damnation anyone not of the vegan cult. Tolerance?
If they're true atheist, then its all nature and all is fair cos we're all animals. A true full blood atheist has other dilemmas and contradictions but on face value, you cannot accuse them of being "species-ists"
James clearly feels very strongly about the Animal Liberation, Animal Rights and Species-ism.
Passion however does not make a position fact or actually correct even slightly.
Sadly Sunrise does not have the budget, time or resources to properly flesh out issues underlying the whole Vegan Cult. They also do not have the audience that has an inclination for deeper analysis.
If that were to ever happen James would be like a lame antelope to the lion. He would have been devoured savagely.
Instead he gets a good 15 minutes of fame, more regularly than maybe all of us put together.
Fine by me and I think eventually it'll be better if we see more James Aspey type stunts and gain air time.
Maybe more people will stop, take a deep breath and seriously think for a moment.
I would never ever make a Vegan eat meat, and I sure as hell I'm not going to sit back and eat the organic horse sh*t many vegans are serving up.
Test it all, don't be fooled by the fools.
