Don’t confuse them with facts

A couple of decades ago, I worked on a Texas newspaper with a young man of much common sense. John was a Texas A&M graduate. Between his junior and senior years, he completed a phase of USMC officer training. During his senior year, though, he was struck in an intersection while riding his bicycle. John had right-of-way, but that only counts if the other party is paying attention. Because of head injuries, John developed problems that took away any chance of a military career.

One Monday, John said he, his fiancé and a friend from A&M were in Austin over the weekend. They heard about a statewide vegetarian conference. He said, “We decided to go, just to find out what kind of propaganda they would put out.” He also said, “We were the only straight people there.”

John brought back pamphlets and booklets from the conference. One was especially interesting. Written by a Native American Indian woman, the booklet had the usual radical vegetarian screed, but the most interesting part was the author’s reply to a woman who said she was raising her children vegetarian and respectful of Native peoples. However, the woman said, she had difficulty explaining to her children why it was Natives ate meat.

The author had a ready explanation, of course.

It was the fault of European White Men.

Before invasion by EWM, Natives were almost exclusively vegetarian, said the author. But then the EWM showed up with their horses, and Natives began hunting for meat.

Anyone with knowledge of history and sociology could counter that argument, but facts would not matter to the radical veg. Opposing facts seldom matter to a radical of any kind.