Esoteric allegory is too esoteric. Unless you're postulating that everyone in this thread except you is a "liberal."
I would argue that WWII represents the last military conflict that was literally and directly fending off threats to the nation, and what those boys were fighting for doesn't much resemble the indolent, hedonistic collective of useless fucks that make up "the country" these days.
I remember thinking the same thing when I was walking out after seeing Saving Private Ryan and looking at the rest of the theater-goers.
I ate meat before, but have been a vegetarian now for 20-some years. One really doesn't need to eat meat (and certainly not in the quantities that many people do), for nutritional purposes. It's also much easier now to be a vegetarian, than it was when I became one years ago. Still, it's true that certain amino acids are more difficult for the body to produce without meats. Methionine, for instance. I have been thinking of going to a controlled intake diet where I measure by gram how many fats, proteins etc I eat per meal. I may start eating meat again at that point, but limit myself to only certain number of grams of, for instance, chicken; in order to help make it easier for my body to have the right amount of proteins. ------- The one that really gets me is FATS. They just taste so good, and they're a great energy store!! In fact, I've often wondered if that's part of the appeal......maybe we crave fats because our bodies want to store as much energy for later as possible??....
I've always been around 200lbs, give or take 10 pounds, and I'm over 6ft tall so body weight I think is ok. What's making me consider changing my diet though is weight training and the effect diet has on lifting, your body etc. I've been lifting weights heavy for a while now and happy with it, it works for what I want, but I keep hearing that if you really want to bulk and gain size, you have to eat lots of protein. For a vegetarian, it's doable, but not exactly the easiest of things, if you want lots of protein in your diet.
It's just the traditionalist in me, but... For cryin' out loud, man, just live like a natural man. Yes, get your veggies; but don't shut out part of your natural omnivorous diet out of some desire to not hurt animals. Trust me, by the time they end up on your plate, they're already dead, and you didn't do it. And you not eating them isn't going to make any fewer of them die for food -- it just means you won't get any. Stop depriving yourself on account of some ridiculous sense of guilt you don't owe to an animal, in which you had no part, and which you can't stop anyway. Join the rest of the human race. The food is great.