this post was submitted on 14 Dec 2023
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The US taxpayer is forced to subsidize many things they may find indefensibly immoral, but there is really no recourse for that.
On the one hand, that sucks. On the other, allowing them to pick and choose which subsidies to give their money to sets a dangerous precedent. While one person could refuse to subsidize livestock farming, another could refuse to subsidize public healthcare, education or transit.
I'm not sure there's a pathway to letting the taxpayer choose what to support that results in universally good things, especially in the modern political climate.
Edit: if it's any consolation, a truly miniscule amount of your personal tax payment goes to these subsidies. While I understand that's still reprehensible from a principled perspective, your reimbursement would likely be in the number of cents. I'd be surprised if the amount cleared even $10. These subsidies mostly work because of the scale of the collection, not the individual contribution.
Not sure I would easily say that’s a slippery slope because veganism is different. Strictly speaking, one is not truly a vegan if they pay US tax because they are in fact contributing to animal exploitation. So vegans would be demanding a right to be vegan. Whereas your other examples don’t have a similar effect of denying someone to be who they want (the right to self determination in the declaration of human rights, IIRC). If someone tried to invent being opposed to public healthcare, they would be at odds with human rights to start with and would have to start with denying themselves public healthcare. These positions would be too extreme to defend, unlike defending one’s right to be vegan. Education is also a human right and they’re not overturning that easily.
EDIT: fwiw, I dug up the self-determination right I was fuzzy on, from the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, Part I, Art.1:
That said, I’m not sure if that concretely allows a vegan to derive a right to be vegan. Perhaps it’s too abstract to be useful.
(Religious) pacifists are required to fund wars under this system already. No one would argue for higher protections for vegans than religion, which is already better protected constitutionally in the US. So unfortunately I think this is a non-starter for legal determination. Morally speaking, you could have that conversation, but it wouldn't slot in to our existing framework as it stands.
I think you might be able to argue academically that vegans have a right not to subsidize livestock industries there, but let's be honest for a second and see that this clause is entirely violated every goddamn day in the US for many many groups of marginalized people.
And I don't see that changing very soon either.
Values and principles are largely subjective. It's only through overwhelming, collective agreement that some things become so valuable as to be declared human rights, even when it's staunchly evident they are, e.g. the rights of LGBT people.
I think a lot more political debate similar to this has been voiced and argued about parentless adults being required to pay taxes to support schools. While I think one could easily argue that public schooling is a greater good all must contribute to in order to better society, (though I could easily find you people who would vehemently disagree for some cockamamie reason) there simply isn't that sort of collective thinking about veganism.
I would not imagine they would be able to counter the point that they themselves had a right to attend school and so it would be a bit rich that they attempt to defund something that they at least had the option to benefit from (and likely did go to school in most cases).
Jesum fuck, it's this kind of gatekeeping that keeps people from making better decisions because you make them think it has to be all or nothing.