more than double digits.

Umm...as far as I'm aware, the only way to do that would be to win 100% of the vote (that would be triple digits). I know Deeds ran an awful campaign, but I think even Hitler would pull in at least 1% of the vote in a head to head race. Even Saddam Hussein never claimed to win more than 99% of the electorate...So, I'm guessing that you meant more than 20 points?

Nevertheless, there is a likely, albeit incomplete correlation between meat-eating and greater gluttony.

The import question is which way the causation points. In this case, it seems to me that it's more like that gluttons tend towards eating meat, than that meat eaters tend to be gluttons. Meat is pretty much the most calorie & nutrient dense food available - so if you're a glutton, you're going to be attracted to it. Take away the meat and these people would still be gluttons, they'd just turn to eating whatever other calorie dense option they could find. It's interesting to me that if you think of snack foods, for the most part they're not meat products - generally they're either potato, corn, or wheat based, and fried in vegetable oil (pork rinds being the one exception). These are the empty calories that people tend to gorge on.

And lastly, only carnivorous animals kill/maim. Not plant eating ones. The plant eating animals are the nicest and the most helpful for human kind.

Ummm, no. For example:

http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1862/are-hippos-the-most-dangerous-animal

The most dangerous animals in Africa (to humans) are not crocodiles, or lions, or any other carnivore - more people are killed by the herbivorous hippo than by any other animal. Buffalo are also pretty dangerous. Even cows can be pretty dangerous if they think you're threatening their young.

for civil rights or gay rights or women's rights or even saving some historic building down the street? Have you ever joined a demonstration for a cause, or donated money to a group advocating for change that you support?

When it comes to humans rights, the debate is completely different. I believe that it's in everyone's best interest to maximize the freedoms and opportunities that all humans should have (because I would want other people to maximize the freedoms and opportunities that I have - if animals could extend this reciprocity to me, then I would to them, but they can't). When it comes to issues that don't directly affect me or another human, however, then I believe that we should all be free to make our own individual moral choices with minimal interference from other people. If you want to put your opinion out there, that's fine, but don't be obnoxious about it. I feel about the same about vegans that I do about pro-life folks - I have no problem with your beliefs, but I don't need to constantly hear about it, because you're not going to change my mind.

Thanks for filling us all in about how cow agriculture works. More meat eaters should know exactly how this all works. We've all become way too disconnected from how our food is produced.

Why do you think this would change anything? For most of human history humans had a very intimate relationship with their food, and yet relatively few human societies have been entirely vegan. I grew up on a farm. We had pet rabbits, which we then killed and ate. I've personally killed chickens, pigeons, squirrels, and rabbits. I've been directly involved in the butchering of cows, sheep, and pigs (didn't pull the trigger, but I was there when it happened). I've put my hands inside a freshly dead cow's body cavity to warm them up (on family farms, you butcher in the cold weather so you don't have to worry about refrigerating the meat...). I've seen someone shoot a cow through the head, then hop over the fence and cut its throat while it's still twitching. My father used to kill veal with a sledgehammer to the head (why waste a bullet?). Despite all these apparently horrific things that I've been exposed to, I still very much enjoy eating meat. I do agree with you that people should be more aware where their food comes from, but I'm not at all convinced that it would drive that many more people to veganism. If anything, greater exposure to farm animals might lead to fewer people anthropomorphizing them into something they're not, and to a great appreciation of humanity's own easy mortality (farming is dangerous...nothing like playing around with heavy equipment that could easily take your arm or your leg to work up an appetite...).