Knock it off!

I don't think I'll ever run out of people to be pissed off at, the number of people who annoy me seems to be multiplying by the second. Today it's vegetarians, militant vegetarians to be specific, which is odd because I am a vegetarian and have been for a decade.
It's not something I normally advertise. I don't like to, it seems stupid to me to call attention to it without reason. If I were diabetic or lactose intolerant or allergic to paprika I wouldn't go around announcing it every 5 seconds, so why would I feel the need to inform everyone I meet that I don't eat meat (yeah, it sounded stupid to me too). And I have to admit that part of the reason I don't bring it up much is because of the reaction I normally get.
When I say to someone "oh no thanks, I don't eat meat." I inevitably get the look, well one of a few variations of look. There's the "oh, so that's what a vegetarian looks like"/"that explains the piercing" look, the "oh no! Here comes the lecture!" look, the "oh no! She saw me eat meat! She's probably all offended!" look and the ever popular "vegetarian = leper" look - all of which are lovely by the way.
These looks are annoying, not because the people who they're coming from are way off the mark and should probably know better, but because I know why they're worried. They're worried because everyone's met the Uber-vegetarian before. Hell, I'm terrified of the Uber-vegetarian.
The people I'm talking about are these aggravating, self-righteous, overbearing, in your face, save you from yourself militants who want the whole world to know that they're right and you're wrong and if you don't get in line with what they believe then they're damned well gonna make you even if they have to do it by force. I'm talking about these people who want the freedom of choice that living in a country like Canada affords them but at the same time want you to know that your choices are shit. I'm talking about these people who will go on at length about the evils of every single food item you may be thinking about eating and why you're a horrible person for eating it, but God forbid you should say boo about what they eat.
These assholes are giving everyone who decides to become meat-free a bad name and it's pissing me off. What makes you think you're so much better than everyone else? What gives you the right to prattle on and preach to people who you'd gladly rip a new one if they were to make comments about your diet?
I just want to know how fucking long it's going to take for people to figure out that the right to freedom of choice and freedom of speech isn't just there for you, it's there for everyone. That's why they're called human rights not asshole rights, if they were asshole rights it'd only be you and me talking and deciding and that'd get pretty damned boring pretty damned quick.
Stop trying to get people to agree with you by badgering the hell out of them until they give in out of exhaustion, that's no way to win a debate. With something like this you'll only end up convincing people who are already convinced and annoying the piss out of people who aren't. It doesn't work with smokers and non-smokers, it doesn't work with pro-lifers and pro-choicers, it won't work here either.
And to the serious fanatics, poisoning turkeys at Christmas* is fucking stupid. You haven't convinced anyone of anything except that vegetarians are insane. You want to save the animals so you're letting everyone know by killing people - good one, you really thought that through. (I'm not going to get started on pro-lifers who kill doctors today... I'll save that for later.)


*Sorry, I was wrong. It was Christmas. No one was ever hurt during one of the many "poisoned turkey" scares, but there sure have been a lot of them.