I learned a couple of days ago that a friend of mine has decided to "unbecome" (his word) a vegan.

I've never been a vegan, though I've toyed with vegetarianism in the past and I once decided to give up dairy for a while. I think my dairy thing was based on thinking about what milk is and what it's for. Eating the stuff produced by the mammary glands of other species seems unnatural at a certain level, I suppose. But I still eat dairy. I'd hate to give up cheese, especially since, as a diabetic, I've had to give up or cut back on so many favorite foods.

My friend "came out" as an ex-vegan via an essay he wrote and shared with the writing group we both belong to. I don't know when his transition from vegan to ex-vegan happened; until I read the essay two days ago, I was still under the impression that he was a militant vegan. As I learned from reading his essay, he was never militant about it in the first place.

This friend and I often have vehement political debates. They are really more about economics than politics. He has a degree in economics, and has read a lot on the subject. My own views on economics were not formed by reading a lot about the subject, so I can't ever win these debates.

I think there's a relationship between my friend's economic views and his reasons for eschewing veganism. And (I haven't told him this, but he reads this blog so I guess this is my way of telling him) it makes me uncomfortable.

In my friend's own blog (to which I have a link both on this blog and on my web site) he has recently written against raising the minimum wage and in favor of school choice and a high gasoline tax. The minimum wage post was actually one that I prompted him to write after sending him an article from the New York Times about how raising the minimum wage in Washington state did not seem to have the dire effects on the state economy that was predicted by opponents.

I can't debate my friend on these topics. I'd get too emotional. I actually have rational views on these subjects, but I can't help getting emotional about them when I talk about them, so I have decided I need to avoid getting into further debates with my friend about them.

His views worry me, though, in tandem with his decision to unbecome vegan. He recently referred to veganism as a cult. I don't doubt that there are many vegans who approach this lifestyle as a quasi-religion, but I always thought that my friend's veganism was based on his personal ethics and not on the peer-pressure he felt from within the vegan community.

I worry, not that my friend has unbecome a vegan, but that he has unbecome a liberal, or that his conservative economic ideas have started to trickle down and influence his social views. How far does one have to go from saying that if you want to earn more than $5.15 an hour you should go to med school to saying that gay rights are special rights, or that abortion equals murder, or that affirmative action is just another form of discrimination?

UPDATE:
I sent this to my friend before posting it. He said to go ahead and publish it, so I do so with his blessing.

He did defend himself on one point: he did not say that people should go to med school in order to lift themselves out of minimum-wage hell; he said that people who want to earn more than minimum wage should find ways to be more productive. I just used medicine as an example of a career that is more productive than flipping burgers.

He also posted a video about libertarianism on his blog. I watched it for a while. I have no idea if I got close to the end, but I got as far as I could bear. I didn't disagree with any of it, but as far as I know, libertarianism doesn't exist except as an idea, as a fantasy about how the world might be if coercion didn't exist. I'm all in favor of eliminating coercion from the world. I'm also in favor of world peace and unlimited chocolate for everyone without gaining weight.

To be a just world, as my friend says, neither governments nor majority votes should be able to infringe on my rights to life, liberty, and property. But would a just world be a good world? In a just world, would there be less poverty? Less pollution? Would I be happier? Would I be freer?

Of course. Or maybe not.