COLUMN: Jona Weinhofen (IKTPQ)

Killyourstereo.com presents another entry in our column series where we give musicians freedom to offer a unique, personal and individual voice.

Today, I Killed the Prom Queen guitarist Jona Weinhofen delivers the June entry in his monthly column.

The musician shares insights and offers an impassioned piece on the topic of veganism and how it has impacted his lifestyle.

I want to give you an analogy.

Imagine you're in a country, which condones and allows violence against women and children (and yes, there are some). It is normal to hit and abuse your wife if she does something wrong, hell, even if she does nothing wrong. You own that person and it is completely normal to treat them like a slave - Now what if a select minority thought that this was completely vile and disgusting and were totally against that behaviour such as this was allowed to occur, and chose to speak out against it despite being put under fire, even though history says its ok, the law says its ok, the majority of the people say it's ok, and it is normal and common practice within this place.

Now imagine that the 'violence against women' is eating meat and animal products, and that the 'slavery of women and children' is the slavery of animals. Imagine that the people fighting out against the violence against women, despite it being completely historically and socially acceptable and legal, were vegans. That they were speaking out against unnecessary cruelty, violence, torture and death of animals. Yes vegans get mouthy, annoying, upset, self-righteous...can you not understand why? Just because history, the law, and the majority of humanity thinks that this slavery, abuse and killing is totally fine, we as vegans do not believe that it is ok.

Humans can live a long, healthy and happy life without eating steak, without wearing leather, without using perfume tested on animals, so why don't we? Because we're too lazy, ignorant, careless, set in our ways, because it's socially acceptable?

To anyone reading this, I personally don't care if you tell me 'but bacon...', I don't care if you call me preachy, I don't care if you liken me to an annoying religious person, because all I am doing is promoting a lifestyle which has given me nothing but positivity for 14+ years, and I want to share it with the world.

Not a single day has gone by in 14 years where I have missed meat, or chocolate, or anything I used to eat or wear, because I can still get all of that stuff as a vegan (or products close enough), and because my choice to change the way I lived has made me happy and fulfilled.

You live in a world where the things vegans think are bad, are totally fine because history, society, law, your parents say it is fine. Does that really make it fine?

To quote Thomas Paine:

“A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defense of custom. But the tumult soon subsides. Time makes more converts than reason.”

The aforementioned analogy, along with this entire post is rhetorical. It is simply an insight to the way we 'annoying preachy vegans' think, in an attempt to help you understand where we're coming from.

Do you agree, disagree or have thoughts on Jona’s column? Let us know below.