Dear friends, family, peers, acquaintances and strangers,

This is my open letter to you about something very important to me.

Today I finally took The Liberation Pledge.

I had been on the fence about it for quite some time - overthinking the practical implications of such a massive step that goes far beyond simply living vegan.

However, veganism is the moral baseline and, by taking this pledge, I have agreed to do whatever is within my power to:

one | Publicly refuse to eat animals - live vegan (NON-NEGOTIABLE personal commitment to the animals);
two | Publicly refuse to sit anywhere animals are being eaten (where practically possible); and
three | Encourage others to take the pledge.

There was no way for me to download the pledge I took, but thankfully I was able to copy what I had written before submitting and have included it below for your perusal and consideration:

“I, Bradley Jay Dorfan, can no longer entertain the notion that people funding the exploitation, abuse and murder of sentient life is acceptable behaviour. Carnism (and speciesism) may be the status quo, but those around me will never take veganism seriously if they think that I condone their conduct or that it is in any way tolerable. This pledge is my message to them; that I refuse to break bread with those whose actions indicate that they believe their mere sensory pleasure - their fleeting delights - take precedence over the life and autonomy of non-human animals. This pledge also stands as my statement to these individuals - that we should have higher expectations of an evolved (supposedly morally superior) species and that we ought to suffer consequences for our moral weakness. Essentially, then, this pledge is my ultimatum to my friends, family and peers - either stop being a selfish piece of shit and live vegan OR this is the end of the road for us. It is not a personal choice when there is a victim involved!”

You may think that this is ‘extreme’… but I also know that you think that my refusal to participate in the enslavement, exploitation, rape, torture and murder of animals is extreme, so… 🤷‍♂️

The fact of the matter is that I find your lifestyle to be abhorrent!

In order to be ‘civil’, I am forced to keep quiet while you feast on the tortured flesh of someone whose life was taken far too soon, against their will and after (let’s be honest now) having lived a truly horrific life.

I am forced to bite my tongue while you continue to purchase products of cruelty without a second thought (and not just regarding what you eat either, by the way).

I have spent a great many years thinking that there is honour in remaining silent against the needs, wants, wishes, whims, desires, preferences and interests of those around me - believing that it is ‘wrong’ or ‘disrespectful’ to speak out or stand up for oneself - afraid of the conflict, confrontation or humiliation I would invite by having the audacity to express an opinion.

I realise now (much later than I would’ve preferred) that many of the major relationships I have entered into and invested in over the years have been built upon the shoddy foundations of my insecurities, guilt and fear of rejection… culminating in being gaslighted, often left emotionally/psychologically traumatised and sometimes even physically abused.

I don’t desire your pity, nor do I find the above particularly relevant outside of providing background and context. This has been my fault - my burden to bear - as I have allowed others to treat me as their personal doormat, while my needs, interests, preferences and desires got tossed aside as trivial and ‘stupid’.

Therefore, this pledge goes way further than my stance on animal rights.

This is me standing up for myself for once in my goddamn life and letting you all know that I am over living life on other people’s terms. I will no longer cower in the corner before the perceived best interests of those around me at my personal expense. I am done dealing with the toxic bullshit that attempts to make me feel like crap for not walking on eggshells around people in the exact manner they’d prefer.

[Please click here for an elaboration on my way forward re: existing relationships].

If you wish to meet this post with further excuses and emotional outrage - “who do you think you are? Choosing animals over our relationship! This is why people hate vegans” etc. - save your breath. I’m well aware that non-vegan’s fragile sensibilities get shaken to their very core whenever a vegan points out the cognitive dissonance and moral depravity inherent in their lifestyle.

I’ve written extensively on veganism, so please read the post attached hereunder (together with the links therein) before responding to me on this:

I’m not ‘choosing animals over our relationship’. It’s actually more simple than that. I’m expressing my values and ethics (which you agree with, by the way, as I will illustrate further below) and am giving you the opportunity to align your actions more consistently with the morals you already possess.

If you cannot do that, then we are clearly incompatible; so, why should we force ourselves to endure company where the elephant in the room is just going to breed further resentment and animosity between us?

You have to realise that you get to live your life while paying for another’s to be ripped apart. If you didn't know that, well now you do, so you can either adjust accordingly or consciously and deliberately engage in egregious animal abuse. The choice is yours.

I am not going to beg for your presence in my life, nor do I expect you to beg for mine in yours.

The Ball is in Your Court

In an effort to show you where I am coming from, I have decided to lay out one or two thought experiments that should also serve to show you that we hold very similar moral beliefs… unless you think that enslaving, exploiting, subjugating, torturing and murdering living, feeling and sentient beings (where there is no good reason to do so) is ethical conduct?

I am also well aware that this post is going to come off a little insensitive, controversial or otherwise offensive to those of you who haven’t given this topic (veganism) the serious attention it deserves.

There is no ‘nice’ way of saying what I’m about to tell you. I am also not going to hold back regarding what I say, nor do I really give a fuck about who I might piss off as a result.

If you are easily offended, perhaps don’t read further than the next two or three paragraphs.

Be WARNED… ‘harsh’ words ahead!

For those of you who want the TL;DR version of this post, here you go:

• Veganism is the moral baseline - the absolute bare minimum required from all of us - and by your refusal to cease funding the animal holocaust and, by continuing to consume animal products, you are complicit in something truly evil and demonic; something which a supposedly civilised society has deemed ‘normal’ and legally permissible. Keeping animals in captivity, mutilating their bodies, experimenting on them, wearing their skin, forcing them to entertain us, using them for labour, consuming their flesh & bodily excretions or otherwise exploiting them in any way we can is part of the status quo. Like hiring a hitman to torture and kill on your behalf, you have contracted out your animal abuse to farms & slaughterhouses so that you can benefit at an animal’s expense without any associated guilt. You like to think of yourself as a predator, as though that’s something to be proud of anyway, yet your behaviour is more characteristic of a scavenger. So, if you're going to compare yourself to any wild animal, it should be a vulture, not a lion. But you’re not a goddam wild animal, for fuck sakes! Even if you kill animals yourself, you still view them (and their bodies) as yours, to do with as you please. Exploiting animals for food, clothing, entertainment, labour, cosmetics, pharmaceuticals or for any other purpose is immoral! We ought not to think about animals in terms of their value to us, but rather that they have inherent value (i.e., their lives have value to them). I address all the excuses for not being vegan further down, but if you cannot appreciate that using animals for your benefit and to their detriment is indefensible - when same is no longer reasonable, rational, justifiable or necessary - and insist that breeding animals for human consumption is perfectly acceptable, then I’m afraid to inform you that I would prefer we don’t see each other anymore (if this is at all possible). I’m sorry, but you’re not the type of person I want to be around. I consider your actions harmful & destructive and your cognitive dissonance toxic. I am not in a place in my life right now where I can simply compartmentalise you being a generally decent human being (to humans and certain animals you regard as ‘pets’) while, at the same time, ignore your callous disregard for the plight of the vast majority of animals on this planet; an evil which you have decided to continue to support and pay for despite being fully aware of the cruelty and depravity same entails.

Let me be abundantly clear - I don’t necessarily have any issues with NON-vegans (granted they are unaware of the truly horrific consequences of their purchasing behaviour and are willing to do whatever it takes to transition into veganism as quickly as possible) BUT I DO regard ANTI-vegans as ‘the scum of the earth’ (since they know what they do, yet don’t care enough to change and will go out of their way to try justify the perpetuation of the worst moral atrocity of our time).

Anti-vegans subscribe to ‘the Cult of Carnism’, by actively defending the status quo they were born into. Anti-veganism is the religion, not veganism!

If you wish to preserve the grotesque establishment that is animal agriculture and finance a holocaust by lining the pockets of immoral people who are profiting from the most evil (legal) industry still alive in the twenty-first century, be my guest… but then I’m going to have to kindly request that you fuck right off out of my life. You are an immoral piece of shit in my eyes, and any sane person would agree with me if they would just remove their head from their ass long enough to pay attention!

If you are ANTI-vegan, then please hear me when I say, in no uncertain terms… FUCK! YOU!

…

Moving right along.

Ask Yourself…

When it comes to your beliefs, values, attitudes, opinions, choices, actions and/or purchasing behaviour in a particular context:

1. Are the interests of another individual being adversely affected in any way? (i.e., Would someone be directly and intentionally victimised, subjugated, oppressed, exploited, tortured, harmed and/or killed as a result of your beliefs, values, attitudes, opinions, choices, actions and/or purchasing behaviour in a particular context?); or
2. Would someone holding this position or acting in this way somehow diminish YOUR (personal) wellbeing or compound YOUR (personal) suffering if you were at the receiving end of these same beliefs, values, attitudes, opinions, choices, actions and/or purchasing behaviour in a particular context?; or
3. If you replaced the individual, whose interests are being adversely affected by your particular behaviour/attitude, with an individual who you directly care about, can immediately empathise with and/or would never wish to see suffer, experience diminished wellbeing or have their interests violated… would you still hold this position or take a particular course of action?; or
4. In the event that the individual, whose interests are being adversely affected by your particular behaviour/attitude, is a non-human animal, would your beliefs, values, attitudes, opinions, choices, actions and/or purchasing behaviour in a particular context be at all acceptable reframed in a human context? (i.e., Would replacing the non-human animal with a random human being, in said context, make said behaviour/attitude indefensibly immoral?); or
5. If you replaced said non-human person, whose interests are being adversely affected by your particular behaviour/attitude, with an individual who you directly care about, can immediately empathise with and/or would never wish to see suffer, experience diminished wellbeing or have their interests violated… would your excuses for maintaining said behaviour/attitude still hold water or justify your behaviour OR would this simple replacement render the held belief, value, attitude, opinion, choice, action and/or purchasing behaviour unacceptable, indefensible or obviously immoral?

All the above considered, would you be persuaded or immediately convinced that your beliefs, values, attitudes, opinions, choices, actions and/or purchasing behaviour in a particular context are, in fact, immoral and that new/alternative beliefs, values, attitudes, opinions, choices, actions and/or purchasing behaviour ought to be adopted?

Think About It!

• When you buy dairy products, you must believe and accept that all the necessary and unalterable processes, practices and procedures to extract said dairy are perfectly justifiable;
• That, whatever is absolutely required to obtain the critical ingredient (dairy) and deliver that product to you, is acceptable within the context of your needs, wants and preferences;
• You must, at the very least, realise that dairy involves keeping and breeding cows for the express purpose of collecting, distributing and profiting from their bodily excretions (i.e., breast milk);
• Even under the best conditions, you would need to understand that a dairy cow would necessarily be considered a conduit of a valuable commodity and that she will be seen (first and foremost) as a product. She exists for the sole purpose of producing milk for human consumption.
• Even if she is cared for dearly, we have to recognise that the only reason she exists at all is because of the value humans have placed on the liquid that comes out of her body. She is, then, merely a means to an end and not an end in and of herself and, therefore, her wellbeing will always be a secondary concern (after her commercial viability to the farmer/dairy industry) - listen to this podcast testimonial of an ex-animal farmer to understand this point more clearly;
• Unlike pets/companion animals, dairy cows are not protected in the same way. In many homes, one’s canine companion receives love, affection, care and attention as though they are that person’s flesh and blood. Dairy cows, on the other hand, are valuable only insofar as they are useful in the production of milk;
• The fact of the matter is this:
• Best case scenario (i.e., local, organic, grass-fed etc.), in order to be profitable:
• dairy cows are continuously bred (we can say raped, because there is no consent involved) in order for the mammal to start producing milk;
• her calves are continuously taken away from her (so that the milk, reserved for human consumption, isn’t wasted on the child it was meant for). The males are useless to dairy farmers and are sent to the slaughterhouse to be killed for veal. Females are either kept to suffer the same fate as their mother or will be sent off to the slaughterhouse with their brothers;
• being perpetually pregnant takes a toll on the cow’s body and she becomes ‘spent’ (no longer able to get pregnant or produce milk) at around 6 years of age, meaning that, someone with the potential to live to around 20 years of age, achieves frailty at the ripe old age of six;
• no longer useful/profitable, dairy farmers sell these ‘spent’ dairy cows to slaughterhouses to be killed for (lower grade) beef.
• Most likely scenario (i.e. ~99% - the vast majority - of the meat (incl. fish, pork & poultry etc.), dairy and eggs we buy are raised/produced/processed/packaged/slaughtered (you name it) on grotesque factory farms). Everything discussed under ‘the best case scenario’ above also takes place on factory farms, and the below might also apply to some local farms, but generally the conditions on factory farms are far worse (and this is an understatement):
• Dairy cows are often beaten, abused, neglected and mutilated;
• They live in appalling conditions, often left to sleep in their own excrement;
• They are sometimes hauled cross-country, left without food and water for hours or days;
• They are hooked up to mechanical milking-machines most of the time, causing painful infections around their teats, often leading to mastitis;
• They are specially bred for maximum milk production, which means that their udders can become unnaturally large, putting strain on their bodies & legs and resulting in them eventually not being able to even stand up and walk;
• They are seen and treated as nothing more than property, which is exactly what they are (in the eyes of the dairy industry);
• I could go on and on, but why not just take a look for yourself (the video below is not excessively graphic, just pretty gross and fucked up):

Just know that you demand and pay for everything that happens to these animals.

You are equally responsible for their enslavement, subjugation, exploitation, rape, torture and murder.

And this is just dairy. I will be writing about all the animals we treat like shit for our self-serving gratification and link them here, too.

YOU ARE THE CAUSE OF THEIR SUFFERING!

What if I used the same excuses you use (to justify consuming the tortured flesh of innocent sentient beings) to do something we can both (immediately) agree is grossly immoral (e.g., rape, murder, torture etc. of humans)?

Say it was legal to do this to certain people, would you still want to associate with me knowing I actively participated in, say, molesting severely mentally disabled children?

Would you agree that we can get all of our essential nutrients from plants and that it is completely unnecessary to continue eating animals? Because you absolutely don’t need to eat animals to be healthy! We are anatomically herbivorous. The excuse that we need the parts, pieces and excretions of non-human animals to survive has been conclusively debunked.

Would you agree that in no other social justice movement would we tolerate the same reasons given by carnists to partake in something immoral, when the only real reason is mere sensory pleasure?

Again, it is not a personal choice when there is a victim involved!

Taking you back to the ‘child molesting’ example (something that is also unnecessarily and excessively cruel, immoral, wicked, nasty and vile… to say the least), and applying similar excuses used by carnists to perpetuate their disgraceful behaviour, what if I told you:

1. I need to molest these children because I have a medical condition that is best kept in check by engaging in this particular behaviour? I need to r*pe children for some superficial, non-essential health benefit that I could easily obtain via nonviolent means?
2. It is natural, historical, cultural, traditional or part of my religion to molest these children? You are not a very tolerant person when it comes to my religious practices! You are infringing on my religious freedom by telling me not to molest these children. We evolved to molest children and we have been doing it for thousands of years.
3. It is my personal choice to molest these children. I don’t tell you how to live your life. Live and let live, man. If you don’t want to molest children, that’s your prerogative, but not everyone is like you. You sound like a religious fanatic, forcing your opinion on other people. You non-child molesters are so extreme!
4. I could satisfy my sexual cravings by engaging in consensual sexual intercourse with an adult, but it just isn’t the same. It doesn’t feel as good and completely turns me off. I could never go consensual! Maybe once they create robot children - like lab-grown insentient children - that can’t get hurt, I’ll change then, okay?
5. Consensual sex with adults causes harm too. STIs and AIDS! How do you know that the other person has really consented, or is just lying? What if they are in pain, but don’t tell you for some reason? Consensual partners feel pain too, you know!
6. Molesting children is such a trivial issue. Why aren’t you concerned about all the kids being killed in Syria or starving in Africa? What about the animals being killed by other animals in the wild? What about the victims of hate crimes? What about the racists, homophobes and sexists violating the rights of their respective targets? What about all the terror attacks around the world? What about the migrant workers being exploited under capitalism? You don’t seem to care about any of those issues… fucking hypocrite!
7. These children are bred specifically to be molested. It’s their purpose, for fuck sakes. If we didn’t molest these children, who would take care of them? They would starve to death on the street. Because nobody is going to take care of all these children if the sex-traffickers can’t make a living off of them. They should feel so lucky to have had a life in the first place. I mean, if it wasn’t for us molesting them, they wouldn’t even have had the privilege of being born to experience this wonderful world at all! Is that what you want? To take away their opportunity to enjoy life? Wow, who’s the asshole now, huh?
8. If the world stopped molesting children, do you know how many sex-traffickers would be out of a job. They have families to feed. You don’t seem to care about the people who will be out of work if we weren’t molesting these children! What are they going to do? Are you going to give these sex-traffickers a job when nobody is molesting children anymore? Ignorant, selfish prick you are!
9. These children live such good lives. Maybe some sex-traffickers treat children poorly, but not from where I source MY children - suffering is not the norm for locally-sourced sex-trafficked children. They are fed well, have so much space to run around and play and then, when it’s time to molest them, they are molested humanely. Most even enjoy it! Stop spreading your propaganda and lies that these children are being abused!
10. Not everyone can survive on consensual sex with adults. Do you know how expensive and time consuming it is to find and court a consensual sexual partner? I have a sexual disorder, you insensitive fuck! I need to molest children, otherwise I don’t have sex at all and this sends me into a deep depression. I could have a psychotic episode! My doctor says I have to molest children… for my mental and physical health.
11. Even though the big sex-trafficking corporations do treat their children poorly (where most of these children will come from, by the way) I am not responsible for this. All I do is pay for and enjoy the end result of the process. It is up to the sex-traffickers to engage in more humane and ethical practices, not for me to stop supporting the industry altogether. There are ways to traffic these children without causing them to suffer and we can also ensure that they are humanely molested.

Are you disgusted yet?

Do any of the above excuses absolve me of my wrongdoing? Do they make me any less immoral for molesting these children?

Of course not! In fact, these rationalisations make me sound like an even bigger piece of shit, even more of a lunatic and, quite frankly, an exceptionally evil cunt.

You already believe, as you do that child molestation is despicable, that animal abuse is completely shocking.

I understand that we live in a world where we are immune from facing the realities of our purchasing behaviour, but this is the worst moral atrocity that supposedly moral people living in a civilised society in the twenty-first century still support and even go so far as to consciously defend!

We are voting with our wallet and telling these corporations that the exploitation, enslavement, rape, torture and murder of certain chosen species of animals - activities which ANAG simply could NOT survive as an industry without - is actually justifiable as far as we are concerned.

We are basically saying that our tastebuds are morally superior to the life and wellbeing of these animals.

Not only do many of you have no qualms about funding these truly evil corporations who engage in horrifying levels of animal abuse on a scope and scale we couldn’t even possibly imagine, but you are destroying your health and the environment in the process.

Animal agriculture can literally rot in the deepest depths of hell, in my opinion!

That is the way I see this issue, and I hope that we may move forward together in a manner that reduces the amount of suffering we cause to others, as much as possible.

You don’t have to watch the video above, but wouldn’t you like to know for what exactly you are paying and from where your ‘food’ is coming?

The Dominion documentary was the final straw for me before going vegan, so I highly recommend watching this (if you could only watch one thing on this topic).

Conclusion

Until you go vegan, I will no longer:

1. Sit at a table with you, or otherwise accompany you, where you will be consuming animal products;
2. Allow animal products in my house;
3. Attend functions or parties where animal products will be served;
4. Visit you if you will be serving or consuming animal products; and
5. Engage in any activity with you (vacation, eat out, party etc.) where you will be consuming, or will very likely consume, animal products.

If you are a major presence in my life at the moment, I will give you the benefit of the doubt (i.e., will do my best to remain a major presence in your life and forgive this one aspect of your lifestyle) for a period of 12 months from the date of me forwarding this post to you, after which time - if you are still not vegan - I will take this as an indication that you have no intention of changing your behaviour and I will simply move on with my life without you.

Please note that I do not hate you, but I really fucking hate what you do.

I acknowledge that we currently live in a carnist world, but this post has given you all the information you need to take the next step and live vegan.

I will help you as much I can, if you would like me to, to make the transition as seamless and easy as possible; I will send you resources etc. to assist you.

However, for those of you who only have excuses, please let me know now, so that we may part ways immediately. If you do not want to be vegan and don’t believe - after reading everything I have said above - that you are obligated to do so, then I regard you as no better than a rapist or murderer who deliberately causes pain and suffering to others.

You are either a selfish coward, wishing to live in blissful ignorance as you hire hitmen to do the dirty work for you, or you are an evil fucking cunt who ‘just can’t live without cheese’ - or ‘bacon tho’ - all the while knowing that billions of animals are living in absolute hell for your fleeting pleasures.

Don’t do anything for my sake, please, just go vegan for the animals. I couldn’t give a fuck what you think of me because of this post. I have lived my whole life indulging the desires and interests of others, while my own needs are left neglected.

Better you know now, rather than be fooled into thinking I’m someone I’m not. Life is too short to hide who we really are, how we really feel and what we really believe.

As a carnist, you abuse animals! End of story; it’s not up for discussion. If that fact upsets or angers you, then message me to let me know where I can shove my opinion; this will help me tremendously in knowing who I need to remove from my life.

I cannot express this enough… I am prepared and willing to lose everyone presently in my life right now over this.

From now on, I only wish to surround myself with those who are on the same page as me, morally speaking.

If that’s not you… well, then:

Bye Felicia 👋