After reading An Open Letter From a Farmer to Angry Vegetarians I was pondering how to respond…

I was driving home from my in-laws late at night, and one can’t help but notice the white crosses at the side of the road, or the bodies of many deer, raccoons, squirrels, etc. smeared across the roadway. And I suddenly connected the dots!

The truth is that there is no road we can drive on without killing. None. A trip to your local grocery store may not involve running over a single child or small animal, but the building of that road costs endless lives.

I know that is hard to understand. It was hard for me too.

It may seem that the best option is to drive less often, to do so more slowly and with more care to avoid such things. But like Jenna, I realized that I need to embrace it. If I drive fast enough through that school zone, if I do hit a child, it will likely be a clean kill, not to mention free-range. They had one bad day, one bad moment actually, and that moment surprised the hell out of them.

So yes, I am a killer. There is a chance I could take a life of a sentient being whenever I get behind the wheel. I fully embrace this primal and beloved part of my person.

N.B. by way of explanation, I should probably mention that I read Swift’s “Modest Proposal” around the time I wrote this. I’m sure that inspired the harsh tone. But hopefully, this shows the ridiculousness of the argument in the original article.