I also notice that, with a few exceptions, the most intelligent animals are all predators. This makes sense.

Not really. Even pack hunting is setting a really low bar for intelligence. Meat sharing and pack behavior begin to develop higher cognitive functions for effective social interaction, but the top tier of intelligent traits are social/empathetic in nature.

Slow child development and nurturing learned skills, complex morality and empathy for group dynamics, inventing/using/teaching tool use and cultural traits etc.

Studies show the great apes have complex and highly empathetic social skills with an emotional range that is approximate to human.

Unfortunately, most people know almost nothing about our ape relatives, so the examples people take from nature tend to be unintelligent.

Several ideologies such as ruthless Social Darwinian and it's close relative Fascism are greatly inspired by predatory pack behavior, and consume themselves quickly. For example, many of the brightest scientists tend to be humanitarians, Universities are humanitarian by nature. The Fascist brain-drain of WWII tipped the balance with brain work such as code breaking, physics, engineering, etc.

Predatory practices like Enron's, Big Tobacco, many rent based segements, colonialism, etc; all have moments of great success but see diminishing returns over the long haul as society develops greater moral intelligence. Predatory behavior is ultimately a dead end in human evolution.

The predatory line doesn't ring true--animals are raised, not hunted. You may even consider the difference antithetical. I realize people hunt, but that's not where I get my steak. So, the whole connection of the rip and destroy nature of predators, big oil and Enron and facism with the chicken breast on my plate is ridiculous--but does speak to the silly reasoning of political vegetarians. The agriculture industry is as corrupt as cattle raising. If all we ate were vegetables, we still feel inspired to complain about the underhanded practices of the big industries that farm them. Think about genetically altered corn or engineering seeds grow into plants that are sterile so you have to keep buying seeds. This is the fault of uninformed oversight in our society, not because hot dogs taste so good.

The earlier vegetarian post that assumes most adults have lost control of their rage and have been physically rough with a child--well, clearly the letter writer has, but I doubt most adults lack that sort of self-control. That post does prop up the theme that vegetarians are typically a dark and brooding lot, so desperate to convince themselves they are right that they'll say dumb shit like eating an animal is the same as eating someone's baby.

The vast majority of the great thinkers, writers, artists, engineers, et al, in history ate meat.

I was a vegetarian for nine years and vegan for two. I now eat fish that has been caught in the wild without the use of environmentally hazardous methods, though I still choose to abstain from eating dairy, eggs, and other meats. I do not believe that killing animals for food is immoral, nor do I think that being vegetarian does not automatically make you a more peace-loving, compassionate person. I have met vegetarians who support unjust wars and vegetarians who wear fur coats. Suffice it to say, people make dietary choices for their own reasons. Nevertheless, we as a society need to take a long, hard look at the cruelty towards sentient creatures that is part and parcel of the factory farming industry – i.e., animals crippled and deformed under their weight after receiving the requisite hormone treatments, often beaten and otherwise tormented by factory workers, maimed so as to make them more easily confined to cages no bigger than their own bodies, etc., etc. These are the conditions that bring cheap meat to the fast food eatery and the family dinner table; and we need to think critically about what it says about our culture that we allow defenseless animals to be treated in such a way as long as we do not have to do the dirty work. This sort of apathy pervades our society, having a pernicious effect on domestic politics, foreign policy, education, and the general well-being of the American people. I am not advocating vegetarianism for all, but I think we would do well to make informed choices regarding the meat we eat and take care that our decisions serve to reduce the amount of needless suffering in this world. Free-range animal products are available for our consumption and as the demand for them increases, perhaps humane farming methods will become more widespread.

You know, I've always heard how you can feed 10 times the people on land used for plant foods as you can on land used to raise livestock. If that's the case, how come your Boca Burgers and Quorn cost just as much, if not more, per pound, than my no-antibiotics, no-protein-feed chicken?

Food as lifestyle appliance.

Why does vegetarianism seem to arise amongst people who do not farm and kill animals themselves? Subsistence farmers, hunters, and those that live on more modern farms and actually kill animals don't seem to have the same issues as someone who seems to be petrified that there is fecal matter in their burger.

Additional points:

Elephants also recognize themselves

Omnivores seem to be the most intelligent species to me

Hitler was a health-based vegetarian, not an ethical vegetarian, but apparently an annoying one

We once helped butcher chickens at our friends' house. Unfortunately, the machete was from China and the damned thing dulled so quickly, as if it were made of plastic or lead. We whacked and whacked and whacked in the cold rain, blood, and mud. Horrible!

Now I'm a fruitarian. I only want to eat what Nature gives without anything having to die. I don't care about what others do, though. I'm against abortion, against killing for food, I "escort" bug out instead of squashing them -- but I do not expect any of this from others. Inevitably, killing is something to be decided at the personal level.

Sure, I know the argument that the "agriculture revolution" has destroyed nearly all wild habitat, and that, therefore, subsistence aboriginal meat-eating is far less cruelty to animals. But what can I do in this massively over-populated modern hive-matrix? There was a time when I ate road-kill, though. ;-)

I like what Buddha said, that all living creatures shrink from pain and avoid death. I like what Albert Schweizer said about all living beings having a "will to live." But I also heard that Schweizer once poisoned a leopard and enjoyed watching the thing writhe in agony. And of course, how many critters have been displaced by the rice farmers? And what's this Buddha said about killing by accident (e.g. stepping on a bug) isn't bad? That can be manipulated any which way you want.

Veggie-contradictions probably don't get any better than vegetarian Hitler, one of whose first acts as chancellor was to halt all experiments using animals. In his "Tischreden," he praises the camel for its endurance and vegetarianism, and condemns the lion, a meat-eater, who can't run but a hundred yards or so without being pooped.

Alas, I fall back on Terry Pratchett. In his "Wee Free Men," Granny Aching says you have to be the voice for those who haven't a voice. Am i (I) a flaky, conflicted, New Age ninnie? Not really. But I will stay the course as much as possible, simply to lessen, even symbolically, the horrific destruction we humans have visited on this planet.