American culture wars through the decades have often reflected deeper schisms and power struggles within government agencies themselves—departmental infighting with factions vying for dominance. Since intelligence communities are not monolithic, and shouldn’t be treated as such, their collective behavior frequently requires a second and third scholarly look. Exactly how to do this is in question, but retired agents and officers are sometimes willing to oblige.

Part of the reason seems to be to test the power of their managing mass public opinions and narratives. If they can herd enough people in a given direction through hoaxes, fear, and identity politics; if they can switch and rotate official narratives five times or more, while followers parrot and echo the new narratives, to the point that nearly everything the public believes is false, they can succeed in full narrative management.

How to make a time machine:

Exploring less- and more-developed communities than your own is a straightforward way to time-travel, because you’re basically traveling into the past and the future. What we might normally consider as traveling to another place in space can actually be more like traveling to a different era in time. I experienced this most strikingly when I sneaked into Cuba in 2008 and roamed all over Havana. To an extent I felt like a time-traveler as well when I got a scholarship for a journalistic survey of Israel as a student. Then again, I loved the mind-altering process, the evolution, really, of coming to live full-time in Southeast Asia for what has now been over a decade.

Perhaps you land in a utopic golden era, or perhaps in a dark age—or somewhere in-between. What may seem like a backwater to you may feel like a charming and picturesque little village full of ambience and spirit to another. And it has always been this way. While one area of the world experiences an eclipse and dark night of the soul, others undergo forms of consciousness expansion and cultural renaissance. You may or may not be able to tell which is which, either, merely by outward appearances and development.

Moving backwards and forwards through the background and foreground of the mind is another, perhaps more fundamental and profound, way to time-travel. Meditation and reflection are beyond time-travel, lending perspective with grand views and wholistic encounters, leading to insights into detailed causes and effects. Going back to specific months in our lives, and moments of personal development, and revisiting exactly how we reacted or responded to events, and in the mind taking an alternate path or two from that point, expands conscious awareness of both those legacy turning points and potential new ones tomorrow.

You have to wonder whatever happened to the West (and East) in the last generation such that supporting a family of five or seven on a normal dad’s income became so much more difficult? Obviously it wasn’t one single thing, but an accumulation of many little things. Hidden inflation and increasing taxes on hundreds of standard-usage items that families need to function in daily life. Real estate speculation in cities, and rising administrative costs in schools. Insurance price gouging of many kinds.

Perhaps more influential in the deterioration of the family than all these other factors, however, have been a few ideologies that came into vogue since the 1970s. These ideologies have, on the one hand, equated freedom and happiness to a lack of commitment to anything meaningful, and on the other convinced millions of young people that overpopulation and anthropogenic climate change are two of the planet’s biggest problems. Thus, millions have felt morally justified in avoiding family commitments, or having a child then quickly finding reasons to dissolve their marriage, to return to the single, non-committal life that they are familiar and comfortable with.  

To play devil’s advocate for a moment, it does make sense to trust and invest in yourself first and foremost, to diversify your contributions to this world. Marriage is great, but as we’ve all seen it can also go to hell in a handbasket in a matter of minutes. People can change over the years as well. And then how much are all the heated struggles and lovely sentimental moments worth? Thinking beyond, to your ultimate contributions on earth, is common sense and wisdom. Still, anything worthwhile involves a minimum amount of trust, risk, love, and commitment.

There is also a group that actually believes half of the population is gay. I’ve heard various people, including some friends and acquaintances, suggest this for decades. They imagine half of the world is still in the closet, and this 50% becomes a kind of default goal for social activism and crusades, a weird goal of “equality” of numbers, seeking converts to a lifestyle and proselytizing like a religion. This has impacted the perception of what is normal and healthy family life on multiple levels.

“To attain knowledge, add things everyday. To attain wisdom, remove things every day.”

— Lao Tzu

I recommend a mini version of everything for less cost. Things that are efficient but small and don’t require maintenance, things that don’t take up much time or space but still work well.

Creating a system to declutter your life is as easy and simple as this:

1. Identify the exact tasks you need to do every week to remove blockages and get closer to the life design and living environment you want.

2. Once these weekly tasks are identified, you prioritize these tasks and ensure they get done every day.

3. However, don’t think of progress as day-to-day things. Instead, buy into your system and focus on following it in every detail.

4. As time goes by, tweak and adjust your system to ensure you are making incremental progress. Create gauges and metrics to measure your progress better, while focusing on the main aspect of momentum.

Remember: Most stuff was once money, and most money was once someone’s time and energy. Before buying something, ask yourself exactly how the product will be used to enhance your life and the lives of people around you. Will it ever sit around collecting dust? If so, don’t be afraid to put it back on the shelf!

Making ten promises and only keeping one, while using the people’s money to pay for even that, could certainly be considered a “bad” form of populism. Empty promises in general, or just too many big hopes, should generally set off alarm bells. Carl Sagan’s axiom, “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence,” applies especially well to campaign promises and freebies. Doubt and skepticism become your best friends in such wishful and misleading environments.

Effective movements always train a thousand local leaders instead of building up a cult of personality. Part of the danger of investing hopes and dreams in the leadership of one person and their inner circle is the risk of cults of personality in general: abuse of power and misuse of resources. Even in a best-case scenario, investment in one leader means one easily-broken link the the chain, one single point of failure.

The country is a patchwork quilt of many different voting systems and regulations, many regions of which are dominated by one party or another. Neither mainstream Democrats nor Republicans--nor the courts, for that matter--want to delve into an extremely murky and complicated voting trail can of worms once the results are out. They know that, on several levels, some amount cheating and getting away with it has always been a part of the national process.

When I worked as an election machine tech and judge trainer for four years, voting machines would sometimes shut down, or even catch fire, and people in line would understandably get upset and suspicious. Imagine me showing up as your election repairman: “Relax, everyone! We didn’t lose your vote—even though the tally machine is toast!” Which was generally true, because of triple-redundancies in vote storage. But literally having to put out fires in front of anxious crowds never put anyone’s mind at ease with regard to their vote.

When I worked inside a county elections office for 4 years as a judge trainer and elections machine tech, I took my solemn oath seriously and paid attention. I saw how complicated it was to make a determination on mismarked or damaged ballots. Three department officials have to examine each confusing ballot and make determinations on them with notes or video recording. Can’t imagine millions of votes being processed this way, an elections office nightmare with lawsuits across every state. Even electronically it can be a logical nightmare. Election departments have to prepare at least 6 months in advance for a normal presidential election even with known rules. You can’t try to switch to a whole other system with two months until elections, or, among other things, officials would be hand-counting ballots until the next summer.

Things like vote verification and chain-of-custody transparency are relative concepts, and I don’t blame anyone for questioning the rather complex process. The reality of big national elections with a patchwork quilt of longstanding and entrenched political rival regions is they develop their own methods of working loopholes and bending the rules. The beauty of a one- or two-month time limit on election audits and investigations, combined with courts’ refusals to get involved with or even look at  cases, is that rival parties just have to keep up appearances long enough to run out the clock and be certified. The public should probably just accept this as a legitimate and unavoidable part of the process. 

Central Texas has been an election model for much of the rest of the US. We have used central tally machines that would sit on a table at each election location and be attached to a daisy chain of about 10-20 electronic voting booths. There was usually triple redundancy in terms of storing votes on cards in the counter machine, as well as electronic tally cards installed in each the voting booths, along with real-time transmission to the head office. If numbers on counter machines, booths, and at the head office didn’t match at the end of the night, they’d research and resolve discrepancies. Because of four years of similar direct experience, I tend to trust the security of the process at a local mechanical level. As far as software interference, it’s hard to say.

Have recent national elections been free and fair? I general accept their outcome, and I don’t believe there is usually enough fraud to change the net results. But to call national elections ‘free and fair’ is misleading. Too often one-sided rule changes, veiled censorship, media bias, stacked debates, and certain social pressures and threats skew the results of national elections. Overall, I don’t believe that many national elections of recent times have ever been truly clean-cut, free or fair, and to accomplish that might be a logistically-impossible task.

In national elections, there’s only a criterion of ‘good enough.’ Various forms of subtle and not-so-subtle cheating are simply acknowledged as inseparable from the system itself. When questionable rule changes and irregularities happen well before a national poll, versus during or afterwards, they are generally impossible to pin down in terms of net influence and outcomes after the fact. Thus, once an election is complete, courts are hesitant to even open the books or look at individual cases because of too many unknowns and unknowables.

I’m always curious to hear people’s logic for voting or not voting, and also the thinking behind various voting tactics and strategies. Some who don’t vote say it can bias them generally, or that voting gives the illusion of the consent of the governed. Some who do vote see it as their sacred honor, paid for with the blood of the most brave and valiant men of our country. My take is somewhere in the middle.

My whole life, I’ve tended to vote for independent 3rd parties whenever possible, avoiding partisanship. For me, it’s always been about voting for realistic values and injecting the most important issues into the public debate, rather than winning a horserace. In fact, my candidates have rarely won. But my candidates have invariably been the ones to move the public needle, to nudge the needed dialogue on policies, and to act as kingmakers, monkey wrenches, and spoilers. Whichever will be the most positively disruptive of establishment candidates. I’m proud of the constructive aspects of the uncertainty independents can unleash.

_____

Votes abroad account for a very small percentage of total votes, and often many of them aren’t actually counted until after an election, unless statistically significant to outcomes. something I learned while working as an election tech and trainer for four years back in Austin. Since I worked in elections for 4 years as a technician and trainer, I learned that mail-ins are almost never counted by election day winner time. They know statistically whether they are worth counting or not, or if they are within margin of error will extend the results timeline to count and recount. They always are counted, but usually after elections because they don't statistically matter. Election officials will generally follow procedures and know whether the pile of mail-ins will or will not be statistically significant to hold up election results or not. Eg if you have 10 million votes counted from early voting and election day already, and 100,000 mail-ins uncounted, but the margin of win is already too large to make the mail-ins matter on average. then just declare winner and spend the next month slowly winding down at the election office and hand-counting the mail-in votes for the record. Our election office always did it that way. I don't know the percentage of early counted mail-in votes, versus early and election day in-person electronic votes, vs. uncounted mail-in votes remaining in any of these swing states, though. Could be some shady stuff on both sides if too many uncounted mail-ins. Just no idea how many there are for covid year. With this covid time how their normal procedures have probably changed. But there's normally no time to count all the mail in votes in a normal year with the average staff office. They probably had to up election staff times 10 just to do mail in counting this year. Our Austin office only had about 10 people counting mail in votes for about 1-2 million person area. It would take about a month after the elections were over to catch up with normal mail ins. Big problem is gray area mail in ballots that have to be personally examined by at least three staff for determination of intent or just invalidated. has to be digitized and on legal record also. I've been in the room for case by case ballot determinations by heads of election departments, very tedious. They typically have to scan the ballot digitally and put it on the big screen to look at markings and damage to paper, etc. to make determinations. And that could be like one ballot in 50.

Crushing their beer can and throwing it at the goddang TV helps some. 

I'm happy to hear people waking up to the fake polls and hoaxes. I guess they needed good polls for fundraising and possible contested wins later. 

More evidence that Americans are mostly united and have no interest in something like a civil war.

One thing people have to understand is that beautiful words and acting skills are only one genre of leader--image, diplomat. That's only one kind of a dozen. Technocrats are only one or two kinds also, so-called 'experts' that are possibly good or great at a few things they know well but who don't understand much of the greater picture and who should never be leading nations. Those are two issues for many well-meaning, well-educated and rational people. that somehow leadership is supposed to be beautiful words and Hollywood acting, diplomatic, or expert and technocratic. Those are only a few of a dozen genres, and not necessarily the best leaders. Military rule is another genre. Probably several businessman style genres for leadership as well, which are needed at times. Not all the time, but many times.

Cultural backlash happens when groups don’t feel they have been properly listened to. Then the pendulum swings.

Could be, though most of the news people are seeing is as misleading and fake as last week. Votes are still being counted, recounted, and contested for at least another few weeks before anything official.

Too many voting issues in swing states for it to be clean at this point. Hopefully no election do-over in January, because the same issues would probably happen again. Kind of a win for auditing our messy election methods in general.

Not sure that parliamentary systems have been working out better anywhere in the world than the US congressional one (though Brits may be better at public debates). Our electoral and party processes seem to have some awkward and corruptible choke points, namely:

First past the post system https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-past-the-post_voting

Superdelegates https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superdelegate

No one suddenly undermined the major institutions of American society these last few years. They just pulled back the curtain and gave you a good hard glimpse. If you thought the major institutions of society were ever legit and fair, much less stable, now you’ve learned otherwise. And that’s a good thing.

You might want to buckle your seatbelt for these three truths: 

1) Rigging national elections is an official part of the system at several steps along the way, and both major parties do it every time,

2) Most national elections in history have been rigged, but there’s no way to know exactly how much,

3) We wouldn’t know what a ‘fair’ national election looked like even if we had one. 

Whether rigging was enough to change the outcome or not, this is how it has always worked. 

Now go take a cold shower and let that all sink in for a while.

It’s easy to tell everyone else to pipe down and just turn the page when one’s political football team happens to have possession of the ball, though. Truth is usually secondary compared with the pendulum of team sports.

National Guard being called in to help count at some locations. It’s certainly a culture and class war, a media info war, and deep state factions war. To have real physical civil war there would probably need to be a physical line between opponent states again, like California vs. Nevada or something, and all sides would want to participate. Something like 50-100 million gun owners in America and almost no one running out to shoot in the streets because of political reasons.

Whether an election has been compromised is up to claimants to prove in courts of law. This applies equally to most elections, and it’s part of what I mean by the system as a whole decides the ultimate outcome, every time.

If you want a mature nuanced adult answer: Burden of proof is on claimants, though lack of standing doesn’t necessarily mean a lack of evidence—only that a court will not hear a case for their own reasons. Election and appeal systems are both broken, they are never perfectly fair, but the system as a whole decides where the power will go, there is a peaceful transition, and life goes on.

Obviously scale of irregularities and margin of victory/ margin of error are primary concerns. However, non-amateur and coordinated election scams, whether digital or on paper, tend to work best in small batches spread around with multiple methods so as to avoid detection and allow for some plausible deniability when audited. That’s part of why it can be a nightmare for forensics to track down, stringing together ballot drops and tallies to recreate a crime. Big batches of ballot fraud, for example, would tend to only be perpetuated by silly amateurs or by sophisticated fraudsters in desperate last-minute situations. So by its nature, sophisticated election fraud should and will tend to look like a patchwork quilt of ballot and tally irregularities stitched together, otherwise too much risk and not worth it.

I think there’s now enough known to throw out the election. Actually, even though it’s been acceptable before, it may be as simple an argument as officials not being able to examine the black box proprietary Dominion (and other company) source code. 

I have quite a bit of trust in the election process generally, and I hope it doesn’t come down to completely throwing out the vote. Backdoor access to proprietary software like the Dominion suite and ElectionGuard may eventually lead to a revote—if not this time, then in the future. The extent of ‘martial law’ would mostly be in securing the voting locations, materials, and process. Wouldn’t necessarily be more credible in the eyes of half the public than the first election, though. Ideally, officials just need to throw out illegal and unverified ballots district by district, no need for nationwide revote.

Obviously scale of irregularities and margin of victory/ margin of error are primary concerns. However, non-amateur and coordinated election scams, whether digital or on paper, tend to work best in small batches spread around with multiple methods so as to avoid detection and allow for some plausible deniability when audited. That’s part of why it can be a nightmare for forensics to track down, stringing together ballot drops and tallies to recreate a crime. Big batches of ballot fraud, for example, would tend to only be perpetuated by  silly amateurs or by sophisticated fraudsters in desperate last-minute situations. So by its nature, sophisticated election fraud should and will tend to look like a patchwork quilt of ballot and tally irregularities stitched together, otherwise too much risk and not worth it.

My feeling since childhood has been that too many teens and 20-somethings go nuts with exercise, but then settle into unhealthy sedentary habits and lifestyles by their early 30s. Think of Al Bundy recalling his football glory days in the sitcom ‘Married with Children’ as he farts and eats potato chips on the couch.

It was clear to me even from age 5 that health consciousness and exercise need to ramp up over time, a kind of living in reverse. Thus, my cycling for over a decade in my 20s and 30s, and more jogging and upper-body workouts now, which feels great! As usual, consistency is key. Just to maintain, you need to look for energizing activities every day, and practice intentional workouts at least 3 days a week for an hour or more at a time.

Of course, I realize that if I really want to start building muscle mass and get ripped, 3 days a week won’t cut it. I'll have to start doing intensive workouts for more than an hour 5 or 6 days a week. At this point, I'm not into it yet. But that could change!

How to become a more balanced human? Impulse management plays a central role in growing up, whatever your age, along with some self-aware moderation.

Adulting? Just do what you say. Don’t cancel! Words have power. Be a person of your word. And don’t get mad on a whim.

Impulse management is the lion’s share of what it means to grow up into a fully healthy adult. Deeds, not words. Follow through 100% with what you say you are going to do, or just shut up about it—don’t be a moody baby who’s controlled by your lazy feelings.

Nobody trusts fickle and flakey people, much less what they say, because they’ve proven to be totally unreliable. Nobody takes these people seriously. They may accidentally inherit some money, but they will also never be rich on purpose based on their own merits.

So follow through with what you say 100% of the time, or at least 95%, unless external forces compel you otherwise. Don’t commit to anything you’re not sure you will follow through and do. If you’re not sure whether you’re going to do something, don’t talk about it.

Communicate openly about the basics of what you’re doing in your life. Say what you do as well as do what you say. This is the way to trust, and thus to wealth.

Delayed gratification? When you stick to your principles and do a great job, reward yourself. Don’t reward yourself when you don’t.

Lack of reward is usually punishment enough, along with other natural consequences. But sometimes you have to punish yourself by doing harder make-up activities, or even fine yourself and give the money away. How else are you going to learn?

Do what you say. Don’t cancel! Be a person of your word. Work on personal impulse management and grow up into a competent adult.

Fresh mulberries from the author’s balcony garden

I’m not a vegetarian these days, but I did live as one for over four years and I still respect the lifestyle as healthy and even a lifesaver for many people. When I first started my meatless journey, I did a study of ethical veggie diets among wisdom traditions and some of history’s greatest minds, and was shocked to find that it included perhaps 80% of the Western world’s most renown household names. In a sense, it almost appeared to be a kind of secret brotherhood and conspiracy.

Sources and translations may vary, but follow up for yourself and judge the depth and sincerity of conviction:

"Although I have been prevented by outward circumstances from observing a strictly vegetarian diet, I have long been an adherent to the cause in principle. Besides agreeing with the aims of vegetarianism for aesthetic and moral reasons, it is my view that a vegetarian manner of living by its purely physical effect on the human temperament would most beneficially influence the lot of mankind." - Albert Einstein

"So I am living without fats, without meat, without fish, but am feeling quite well this way. It always seems to me that man was not born to be a carnivore." - Albert Einstein

"If man wants freedom why keep birds and animals in cages? Truly man is the king of beasts, for his brutality exceeds them. We live by the death of others. We are burial places! I have from an early age abjured the use of meat, and the time will come when men such as I look upon the murder of animals as they now look upon the murder of men." - Leonardo da Vinci

"Would not these facts prevent us from achieving happiness, and therefore the conditions necessary to the building of a just society, if we pursue a desire to eat animals?" - Socrates

"The gods created certain kinds of beings to replenish our bodies... they are the trees and the plants and the seeds." - Plato

"And God said, behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat." - Genesis 1:29

"To become vegetarian is to step into the stream which leads to nirvana." - The Buddha

"The eating of meat extinguishes the seed of great compassion." - The Buddha

"Oh, my fellow men, do not defile your bodies with sinful foods. We have corn, we have apples bending down the branches with their weight, and grapes swelling on the vines. There are sweet-flavored herbs, and vegetables which can be cooked and softened over the fire, nor are you denied milk or thyme-scented honey. The earth affords a lavish supply of riches, of innocent foods, and offers you banquets that involve no bloodshed or slaughter; only beasts satisfy their hunger with flesh, and not even all of those, because horses, cattle, and sheep live on grass. As long as men massacre animals, they will kill each other. Indeed, he who sows the seeds of murder and pain cannot reap joy and love." - Pythagoras

"Can you really ask what reason Pythagoras had for abstaining from flesh? For my part I rather wonder both by what accident and in what state of soul or mind the first man did so, touched his mouth to gore and brought his lips to the flesh of a dead creature, he who set forth tables of dead, stale bodies and ventured to call food and nourishment the parts that had a little before bellowed and cried, moved and lived. How could his eyes endure the slaughter when throats were slit and hides flayed and limbs torn from limb? How could his nose endure the stench? How was it that the pollution did not turn away his taste, which made contact with the sores of others and sucked juices and serums from mortal wounds?... No, for the sake of a little flesh we deprive them of sun, of light, of the duration of life to which they are entitled by birth and being." - Plutarch

"In the simpler times there was no need of so large a supernumerary force of medical men, nor of so many surgical instruments or of so many boxes of drugs. Health was simple for a simple reason. Many dishes have induced many diseases. Note how vast a quantity of lives one stomach absorbs... Insatiable, unfathomable, gluttony searches every land and every sea. Some animals it persecutes with snares and traps, with hunting nets, with hooks, sparing no sort of toil to obtain them... There is no peace allowed to any species of being... No wonder that with so discordant diet disease is ever varying... Count the cooks you will no longer wonder at the innumerable number of human maladies... If these maxims are true, the Pythagorean principles as to abstaining from flesh foster innocence; if ill-founded they at least teach us frugality, and what loss have you in losing your cruelty?" - Seneca

"If you have men who will exclude any of God's creatures from the shelter of compassion and pity, you will have men who will deal likewise with their fellow men." - Francis of Assisi

"To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me? saith the LORD: I am full of the burnt offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts; and I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of he goats." - Isaiah 1:11

"The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and a little child shall lead them... They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain; for the Earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea." - Isaiah 11:6-9

"One is dearest to God who has no enemies among the living beings, who is nonviolent to all creatures." - Bhagavad Gita

"A good deed done to an animal is as meritorious as a good deed done to a human being, while an act of cruelty to an animal is a bad as an act of cruelty to a human being."

- The Prophet Muhammad

". . . slaughtering our fellow creatures gradually destroys the sense of compassion, which is the finest sentiment of which our human nature is capable." - Thomas Moore

"After they had accustomed themselves at Rome to the spectacles of the slaughter of animals, they proceeded to those of the slaughter of men, to the gladiators." - Montaigne

"Men fed upon carnage, and drinking strong drinks, have all an empoisoned and arid blood which drives them mad in a hundred different ways." - Voltaire

"For all we know that English people are

Fed upon beef -- I won't say much of beer

Because 'tis liquor only, and being far

From this my subject, has no business here;

We know too, they are very fond of war,

A pleasure--like all pleasures rather dear;

So were the Cretans--from which I infer

That beef and battle both were owing her."

- Lord Byron

"Let the advocate of animal food force himself to a decisive experiment on its fitness, and as Plutarch recommends, tear a living lamb with his teeth and, plunging his head into its vitals, slake his thirst with the steaming blood... then, and then only, would he be consistent."

- Percy Bysshe Shelley

"It is only by softening and disguising dead flesh by culinary preparation, that it is rendered susceptible of mastication or digestion; and that the sight of its bloody juices and raw horror does not excite intolerable loathing and disgust." - Percy Bysshe Shelley

"How do we know that we have a right to kill creatures that we are so little above, as dogs, for our curiosity or even for some use to us?" - Alexander Pope

"If [man] is not to stifle his human feelings, he must practice kindness towards animals, for he who is cruel to animals becomes hard also in his dealings with men. We can judge the heart of a man by his treatment of animals." - Immanuel Kant

"Children should from the beginning be brought up in abhorrence of killing and tormenting living beings... And indeed, I think people from their cradles should be tender to all sensible creatures... All the entertainment and talk of History is of nothing but fighting and killing; and the honour and renown that is bestowed upon conquerors, who, for the most part, are but the great butchers of mankind, further mislead youth." - John Locke

"It is a cruel folly to offer up to ostentation so many lives of creatures, as to make up the state of our treats." - William Penn

"It may indeed be doubted whether butchers' meat is anywhere a necessary of life. Grain and other vegetables, with the help of milk, cheese, and butter, or oil, where butter is not to be had, afford the most plentiful, the most wholesome, the most nourishing, and the most invigorating diet. Decency nowhere requires that any man should eat butchers' meat." - Adam Smith

"When about 16 Years of Age, I happen'd to meet with a Book written by one Tryon, recommending a Vegetable Diet. I determined to go into it... My refusing to eat flesh occasioned an inconveniency, and I was frequently chided for my singularity, but, with this lighter repast, I made the greater progress, for greater clearness of head and quicker comprehension." - Ben Franklin

"Like my friend the Doctor, I have lived temperately, eating little animal food, and that not as an aliment, so much as a condiment for the vegetables, which constitute my principle diet."

- Thomas Jefferson

"Until we stop harming all other living beings, we are still savages." - Thomas Jefferson

"I am in favor of animal rights as well as human rights. That is the way of a whole human being." - Abraham Lincoln

"... and we have so far improved upon the custom of Adam and Eve, that we generally furnish forth our feasts with a portion of some delicate calf or lamb, whose unspotted innocence entitles them to the happiness of becoming our sustenance." - Nathaniel Hawthorne

"The food of the future will be fruit and grains. The time will come when meat will no longer be eaten; our natural food is that which comes out of the ground. The people will gradually develop up to the condition of this natural food." - The Bahai Writings

"If he be really and seriously seeking to live a good life, the first thing from which he will abstain will always be the use of animal food, because... its use is simply immoral, as it involves the performance of an act which is contrary to the moral feeling -- killing."

- Leo Tolstoy

"Vegetarianism serves as the criterion by which we know that the pursuit of moral perfection on the part of humanity is genuine and sincere." - Leo Tolstoy

"Plant life instead of animal food is the keystone of regeneration." - Richard Wagner

"Human dignity begins to assert itself only at a point where man is distinguishable from the beast by pity for it." - Richard Wagner

"It is just like man's vanity and impertinence to call an animal dumb because it is dumb to his dull perceptions." - Mark Twain

"Since visiting the abattoirs [slaughterhouses] of South France, I have stopped eating meat."

- Vincent Van Gogh

"The most energetic workers I have encountered in my world travels are the vegetarian miners of Chile." - Charles Darwin

"Even in the worm that crawls in the Earth there glows a divine spark. When you slaughter a creature, you slaughter God." - Charles Darwin

"We must fight against the spirit of unconscious cruelty with which we treat the animals. Animals suffer as much as we do. True humanity does not allow us to impose such sufferings on them. It is our duty to make the whole world recognize it. Until we extend our circle of compassion to all living things, humanity will not find peace." - Albert Schweitzer

"A man is truly ethical when he obeys the compulsion to help all life he is able to assist and shrinks from injuring anything that lives." - Albert Schweitzer

"We need a boundless ethics which will include animals also." - Albert Schweitzer

"At the moment our human world is based on the suffering and destruction of millions of non-humans. To perceive this and to do something to change it in personal and public ways is to undergo a change of perception akin to a religious conversion. Nothing can ever be seen in quite the same way again because once you have admitted the terror and pain of other species you will, unless you resist conversion, be always aware of the endless permutations of suffering that support our society." - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

"I do feel that spiritual progress does demand at some stage that we should cease to kill our fellow creatures for the satisfaction of our bodily wants" - Mohandas Gandhi

"I do not regard flesh-food as necessary for us at any stage and under any clime in which it is possible for human beings ordinarily to live. I hold flesh-food to be unsuited to our species. We err in copying the lower animal world--if we are superior to it." - Mohandas Gandhi

"We manage to swallow flesh only because we do not think of the cruel and sinful thing that we do. Cruelty... is a fundamental sin, and admits of no arguments or nice distinctions. If only we do not allow our heart to grow callous, it protests against cruelty, is always clearly heard; and yet we go on perpetrating cruelties easily, merrily, all of us --in fact, anyone who does not join in is dubbed a crank." - Rabindranath Tagore

"I am proud of the fact that I never invented weapons to kill." - Thomas Edison

"I am vegetarian and I don't drink in order to make better use of my brain." - Thomas Edison

"The doctor of the future will give no medicine, but will interest his patients in the care of the human body, in diet, and in the cause and prevention of disease." - Thomas Edison

"Non-violence leads to the highest ethics, which is the goal of all evolution. Until we stop harming all other living beings, we are still savages." - Thomas Edison

"On general principles the raising of cattle as a means of providing food is objectionable. It is certainly preferable to raise vegetables, and I think, therefore, that vegetarianism is a commendable departure from the established barbarian habit. That we can subsist on plant food and perform our work even to advantage is not a theory but a well-demonstrated fact. Many races living almost exclusively on vegetables are of superior physique and strength. There is no doubt that some plant food, such as oatmeal, is more economical than meat, and superior to it in regard to both mechanical and mental performance. Such food, moreover, taxes our digestive organs decidedly less, and in making us more contented and sociable, produces an amount of good difficult to estimate. In view of these facts every effort should be made to stop the wanton, cruel slaughter of animals, which must be destructive to our morals." - Nikola Tesla

"People ask me how I look so young, I tell them I look my age. It is other people who look older, what do expect from people who eat corpses?" - George Bernard Shaw

"The average age (longevity) of a meat eater is 63. I am on the verge of 85 and still work as hard as ever. I have lived quite long enough and am trying to die; but I simply cannot do it. A single beef-steak would finish me; but I cannot bring myself to swallow it. I am oppressed with a dread of living forever. That is the only disadvantage of vegetarianism."

- George Bernard Shaw

"We are the living graves of murdered beasts, slaughtered to satisfy our appetites. How can we hope in this world to attain the peace we say we are so anxious for?" - George Bernard Shaw

“Is that really a very great problem, whether we should have an egg or not? Perhaps most of you are concerned with non-killing. That is really the crux of the matter, is it not? Perhaps most of you eat meat or fish. You avoid killing by going to a butcher, or you put the blame on the killer, the butcher - that is only dodging the problem. If you like to eat eggs, you may get infertile eggs to avoid killing. But this is a very superficial question - the problem is much deeper. You don’t want to kill animals for your stomach, but you do not mind supporting governments that are organized to kill.” - Krishnamurti

“Meditation means attention, care. That’s part of it, care for my children, for my neighbour, for my country, for the earth, for the earth, for the trees, for the animals. Don’t kill animals. You follow? Don’t kill them to eat. It’s so unnecessary. It’s part of the tradition which says, you must eat meat. Therefore, sir, all this comes to a sense of deep, inward seriousness, and that seriousness itself brings about attention, caring and responsibility and all that we have discussed.” - Krishnamurti

“All my life I have never touched meat or fish, I have never tasted it, have never smoked or drunk; it does not appeal, there is no meaning to it. Will that make you also a vegetarian? (Laughter). It won’t! You know, heroes, examples, are the worst things you can have. Find out why you eat meat, why you indulge in smoking and drinking, why you cannot lead a simple life—which does not mean one suit of clothes, or one meal a day, but a quality of mind that is simple, without all the distortions of pleasures and desires, ambitions and motives, so that you can look directly and perceive the beauty of the world.” - Krishnamurti

"We consume the carcasses of creatures of like appetites, passions and organs with our own, and fill the slaughterhouses daily with screams of pain and fear." - Robert Louis Stevenson

"You have just dined, and however scrupulously the slaughterhouse is concealed in the graceful distance of miles, there is complicity." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

"The assumption that animals are without rights and the illusion that our treatment of them has no moral significance is a positively outrageous example of Western crudity and barbarity. Universal compassion is the only guarantee of morality." - Arthur Schopenhauer

"Now I can look at you in peace; I don't eat you anymore."

- Franz Kafka, looking into a fishbowl

"You can't eat your friends and have them too." - Franz Kafka

"Every man who has ever been earnest to preserve his higher or poetic faculties in the best condition has been particularly inclined to abstain from animal food, and from much food of any kind." - Henry David Thoreau

"Is it not a reproach that man is a carnivorous animal? True, he can and does live, in a great measure, by preying on other animals; but this is a miserable way--as any one who will go to snaring rabbits, or slaughtering lambs, may learn--and he will be regarded as a benefactor of his race who shall teach man to confine himself to a more innocent and wholesome diet. What my own practice may be, I have no doubt that it is a part of the destiny of the human race, in its gradual improvement, to leave off eating animals, as surely as the savage tribes have left off eating each other when they came in contact with the more civilized." - Henry David Thoreau

"The animals you eat are not those who devour others; you do not eat the carnivorous beasts, you take them as your pattern. You only hunger after sweet and gentle creatures who harm no one, which follow you, serve you, and are devoured by you as the reward of their service."

- John Jacques Rousseau

"[My vegetarianism] doesn't exclude animal products, for example, milk, but only animal products that become available only at the death (execution of the animal)." - John Nash

"Every act of irreverence for life, every act which neglects life, which is indifferent to and wastes life, is a step towards the love of death. This choice man must make at every minute. Never were the consequences of the wrong choice as total and as irreversible as they are today. Never was the warning of the Bible so urgent: I have put before you life and death, blessing and curse. Choose life, that you and your children may live. (Deuteronomy 30:19)"

- Erich Fromm

"To be a vegetarian is to disagree--to disagree with the course of things today. Starvation, world hunger, cruelty, waste, wars--we must make a statement against these things. Vegetarianism is my statement. And I think it's a strong one." - Isaac Bashevis Singer

"In their behavior toward creatures, all men are Nazis. Human beings see oppression vividly when they're the victims. Otherwise they victimize blindly and without a thought."

- Isaac Bashevis Singer

"They stink, they ruin communities, they poison the air and they hurt family farms... (Many) government policies are encouraging factory farms, which are a huge mistake."

- Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., on factory farming

"I admit to having worn suede and leather pants myself for a while, but you just never feel clean, and it's degenerate, anyway, to wear animal skins." - Andy Warhol

''We now know that there are harmful effects of a meaty diet. Children can get plenty of protein and iron from vegetables, beans and other plant foods that avoid the fat and cholesterol that are in animal products. As for dairy foods, I no longer recommend dairy products after the age of 2 years. Other calcium sources offer many advantages that dairy products do not have.'' - Dr. Benjamin Spock, M.D.

"I know, in my soul, that to eat a creature who is raised to be eaten, and who never has a chance to be a real being, is unhealthy. It's like... you're just eating misery. You're eating a bitter life." - Alice Walker

"The animals of the world exist for their own reasons. They were not made for humans any more than blacks were made for white or women made for men." - Alice Walker

"Thousands of people who say they love' animals sit down once or twice a day to enjoy the flesh of creatures who have been utterly deprived of everything that could make their lives worth living and who endured the awful suffering and the terror of the abattoirs."

- Jane Goodall

"My wife actually got worried about my drinking so much regular milk, you know, so she got me into rice milk and now soy milk, which I greatly enjoy. A soy mocha's a fine thing."

- Willie Nelson

"If a lobster didn't look like a sci-fi monster, people would be less able to drop him alive into boiling water."

- George Carlin

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