Vegan Bikers Who Smoke Are Stupid

First, a letter witten to the Portland Mercury by a member of the vegan-bicyclists-who-smoke community, a group of people "Not Invited Back in '08" by the free periodical...

DEAR MERCURY—I hate to point out the obvious, but I've read your scathing words toward "vegan cyclists who smoke" enough times to feel the need to do so ["Things Not Invited Back to 2008," Feature, Dec 27]. I'm VEGAN because it depresses the shit out of me to eat flesh and otherwise cause suffering to living things. I BIKE as an alternative to the glaring destruction caused by both absurdly inappropriate methods of transport and oil dependency. And I SMOKE, on the street and in backyards, and the harm I cause is reserved to my own lungs—because when it comes down to it, the only thing I'm okay with hurting is myself.- Mandee

My response...

Dear letter-writing, sh*t-for-brains, vegan cyclist who smokes—if pretense were a steak, you’d be the whole f'ing cow. You’re vegan because you don’t like to cause living things suffering? Wtf do you think plants are? Ah, but they’re okay to eat because they lack a nervous system you can relate to, right? Perhaps your double-standard is reasonable given the IQ of broccoli, but as long as we’re all pointing out the obvious, who do you think gets taken advantage of, working the fields where your produce is grown? In even more obvious news, your bike is made of composite materials made possible only through the miracle of industrialization. You think industrialization doesn’t hurt people besides yourself? And then there’s the matter of your cigarettes, which I can smell within a half-mile of wherever you’re smoking them. It harms more than your health; it also endangers mine. Now, judging by the scorecards, we see that it’s Suffering-3, You-0. I think it’s time you drank a nice big cup of shut-the-f*ck-up.

My work here is done.