Strawman Has A Point / Vegan Artbook

Sometimes, in The War on Straw, the Strawman Has a Point, and it's not the Designated Hero Straw Vegan.

• In one three-part comic about the shooting of two bulls (erroneously labeled as calves) that got free, Shawn points out that they could have hurt a child if they weren't put down. However, the narrative quickly dismisses him by saying that it wouldn't have happened if people didn't eat meat in the first place. Of course, this doesn't refute the fact that, as it is, the bulls would indeed have been a serious threat to anyone they met while free. Bulls are naturally territorial animals, even more so when angry, and whether people eat meat or not, this would be the case regardless.
  • Something similar happens in this strip, where Chanel points out that it isn't feasible for poor people to go vegan, when the only vegan options available to them are "dirt cookies". Plausibell tries to rebut that by saying that if only everyone stopped eating beef, then all the grain could be fed to poor people instead of cows. This doesn't change the fact that, as it is, poor people have limited options.
• In another comic with Shawn, he points out how an unsolicited postcard depicting a naked mother and her babies posed like a sow in a gestation crate was exploitative and objectifying to women. But due to the strip's message that it's wrong to exploit mothers of any species, he's again treated as wrong.
• Even though a lot of her reasoning was faulty due to the biased narrative, Cuntons/Maura was right about the fact that it's racially insensitive to compare the tragedy of the Holocaust to animals killed for meat. She is then shot down as building a strawman argument.
• The narrative insists that a vegan being shitty to you is no reason to hate veganism. However, the vegans in the comic are completely intolerant of anyone who's not in line with their absolutist position, including non-extreme fellow vegans. While their willingness to demean, mock, and even violently assault the omnivore characters doesn't make their arguments incorrect, it absolutely is a valid point that behaving this way is going to push people away from veganism, especially if it's someone's first impression of vegans or it happens frequently enough to otherwise influence their opinion of vegans.
• In response to Legua's statement that people should go vegan to respect animals, Shawn brings up the notion that going with their line of reasoning that they should also respect bacteria and asks "Where do you draw the line?" This being Shawn, the narrative paints him as an annoying troll who is espousing stupid comments. However, he brings up a good point about how far the logic espoused by vegans could also justify the idea of it being bad to kill bacteria as well, and his asking where to draw the line raises a good question of what makes an organism worthy of respect and protection. Legua fails to make a real answer and resorts to insults.
  • The "where do you draw the line?" attitude is mocked again with a two-panel comic that shows vegetables and "how carnists see vegetables apparently," with the latter having smiling faces. While this is intended to mock the idea of anthropomorphizing vegetables, it raises a good point about anthropomorphizing animals to make them more sympathetic, something the comic regularly does. In a weird way, the comic accidentally satirizes itself.
• Diva states that Dolly has become more of a jerk after she converted to veganism, and Dolly smugly claims that she is better now than when she was an "omnivore", when she only cared about her palate. It's almost inarguably true that Dolly has become more self-righteous, obnoxious, anger prone, and rude ever since she turned vegan.
• Another time Shawn makes a valid point against veganism is when he brings a case of a vegan getting hospitalized for iron deficiency (actually a common concern about vegan diets, usually due to leafy vegetables being unavailable or difficulty absorbing nonheme iron). The narrative and Lillith treat this as an example of him having double standards by counterarguing that standard Western diets cause more health problems...which not only doesn't really prove his point wrong but is a false equivalence in the bargain (equating, as it does, omnivorous diets as a whole with the most unbalanced and unhealthy of the lot).
• Shawn's counterarguments during the barn fire arc about how farmers try to do as much as they can to prevent fire tragedies from happening, with money issues being a reason why they can't always get the best security for their animals. It happened due to poor structure and not meat consumption, and the fact they do deserve sympathy for how their livelihood is threatened because of these accidents may ring true for a lot of readers. However, the comic treats these arguments as lame excuses and sides with the vegan protagonists' views that these farmers don't deserve any sympathy due to their profession and that they only care about money.
• Shawn loudly proclaims that vegans believe they are better than everybody, then tries to portray him as a hypocrite for saying humans are better than animals◊. Considering that the basic theme of the entire comic is that vegans are, in fact, morally superior, his first statement has merit.
• In one particular strip about Brie/Plausibell giving out vegan food without telling people what it is◊, Shawn points out how deceptive it was of his sister, and Legua defends this, saying you can't trick someone into eating something they already eat. Yes, you can. If you take an orange, disguise it as an apple, and then give it to people while telling that it's an apple, it doesn't matter if the people you sell it to already eat oranges, you're still tricking them.
  • While not brought up, it's also a really great way to potentially kill someone if they have nut or soy allergies and you didn't tell them it contained those products.
• Shawn justifies killing animals for food because they lack the same intellectual capability as humans. Dolly's response is purely an Ad Hominem, pointing out that Shawn has not personally done the things that he says animals cannot do. He says then no to all of them, and the comic ends as if that should have won the argument. However, what Shawn has done personally has nothing to do with the argument, and (while it may or may not be a convincing argument that eating animals is okay), Dolly's argument does not refute the fact that animals are not on the same level of sapience as us.
• Shawn makes a statement about how vegans should stop complaining about other people's diet choices and that everyone should get along with one another. The narrative and Brie/Plausibell treat his position as being morally myopic when he does make a good point about showing tolerance towards others who don't share their views.
• Shawn tries to make a point about how vegans try to force people to stop eating meat by comparing it to trying to force people to stop being gay. The strip tries to portray him as being a Politically Incorrect Villain who is comparing being gay to allowing suffering in the world. However, he makes a good case for the idea that forcing people to conform to your stances is intolerant and narrow-minded.
• When Dolly proclaims that she and the other vegans don't eat meat out of respect for animals, Shawn dismissively states she and the other vegans don't respect people as much. She refutes back by claiming that vegans respect humans by not eating them, but the vegan characters have repeatedly shown their low opinion of humanity, especially omnivores, and have openly stated their preference for animals.
• Shawn rightfully criticizes the vegans for forcing their lifestyle on others. Rohit counterargues that omnivores are actually forcing their views on animals by killing them for meat and that vegans only offer suggestions to change their diet. His counterargument to Shawn comes off as a weak deflection that doesn't refute what he said, plus his rebuttal comes off as hypocritical when we've seen in the past that the vegan characters have resorted to violence to make a point.
• Shawn has a heart-to-heart talk about veganism with his younger sister, Cherry, where he sagely says that being vegan is okay, but you shouldn't be close-minded about it. We are supposed to side with Cherry for sticking with her principles and shutting down her brother's proposal with the counterclaim that tolerating omnivorism is endorsing "slavery" and "murder". However, her brother wasn't proven wrong about the idea of being open-minded towards others, and it just makes her come off as dogmatically shutting down other viewpoints that don't agree with her.
• Elise, Mike and Tommy's mother, in Pupa Vegan Comic 250, is shown preventing Rohit's cat from eating a cheeseburger because it will become fat and unhealthy, but then proceeds to feed it to her obese son. While the point was meant to show how people often care more about their pet's health than children's, foods that are especially fattening for humans are worse for animals, and it is a good reason to keep them away from them. Also, with pets, sometimes "fattening" isn't the only concern— what can be safe for a human to eat can sometimes even be toxic for an animal (a well-known example is chocolate, which humans think is tasty but can be poisonous to dogs).
• One strip references the vegan blogger Sonia Sae, who is famous for feeding a fennec fox a vegan diet and came under fire for how thin her pet is. Several straw 'carnists' calls Sae out on feeding said fox a diet that is completely unhealthy for a fox, to which Sterk responds by stuffing them into a meat grinder and feeding them to said fennec fox to make a point about their hypocrisy. The thing is, fennec foxes are significantly more carnivorous than humans. While they are omnivores, these animals live in an environment where few plants grow, and so they get about ninety percent of the nutrients they need from meat, and are physiologically incapable of surviving on a vegan diet. While humans, as omnivores, can safely eat a proper vegan diet, many animals require nutrients found only in animal flesh or are incapable of digesting plant matter and cannot survive without meat.
• Alice comments about how victims of the Holocaust were treated like animals. Sonia Sae says the reverse about how livestock are treated like the previously mentioned victims and the nameless omnivore protests about her comparison being disrespectful. The narrative wants to present this as an example of hypocrisy towards the treatment of animals, but she had every right to be offended about the fact that Sonia trivialized past injustices in order to spread her agenda.
• When arguing with Azusa about why eating meat is justifiable, "Weeb" Alicia says it's because they are less intelligent. He then twists her argument to say that her reasoning would support killing pets and mentally disabled people. Azusa is portrayed as trying to show consistency in her logic and, as a result, the supposed winner of the debate. However, Alice is right to protest about the fact that Azusa was using flawed strawman fallacies to counter her arguments, which were mostly made of slippery slope fallacies.
• Alice, in Pupa Vegan 337, is treated as an immature hypocrite whose criticisms of the vegans are just baseless projections and insults. Despite Rohit's rebuttals, the past behaviors of vegan characters like him actually support her statement, including the habit of forcing their beliefs on others and how easily offended they are. In addition, she is right about how their way of talking about veganism is pushy and can make people turn off from it.
• In Pupa Vegan 567, Bongo remarks that vegans act judgmental and superior towards omnivores. His older self denies this and claims veganism is about treating others equally while judging all life as precious. He also states that non-vegans are the ones who act superior and judgemental since they don't believe that animals are worthy of equal rights and kill them for food. At the end of it, the younger Bongo is made to look like a hypocrite. Still, the younger Bongo is one hundred percent correct in that countless times (as documented on this page), vegans are shown as viewing themselves as morally superior. Also, they claim to view all life as precious, yet express low views on humanity and don't seem to mind as much when it's cats who die.
• Like with the comic featuring Sonia Sae, Alice takes offense when Lilith compares killing animals and the disabled in an argument about intelligence being a justification for eating meat. Alice is again treated like a hypocrite when she protests about how disrespectful the comparison is and is spun as being bigoted, or in their own words, "speciest," against animals. However, just like the Holocaust analogy, she was right to be appalled about how she demeaned disabled people in the name of her cause. In addition, given how disabled people, like many marginalized groups, have been compared to animals to justify dehumanizing them, it comes off as even more insensitive.
• In Pupa Vegan Pink 410, Bunny believes Anviliciouslly preaching to non-vegans is counterproductive and that respecting their right to eat meat helps the vegan agenda better. Even though she is treated as just doing it to gain validation and attention from non-vegans by Raziel, she is right about the fact that bashing non-vegans just turns them off, especially in-universe, where the non-vegan cast won't go vegan because of how insufferable the more intolerant vegans are.
• In another comic featuring Bunny and Lulu, the former claims she is not judgmental like the latter. Lulu counterargues that Bunny actually is because she judges racists and misogynists while not taking animal rights as thoughtfully and is thus a specietist. However, Bunny has actually shown herself not to be judgmental like the rest of her vegan peers, who have done everything from ridicule to outright murder non-vegans.