Wait...What Lives Matter?

What camp are you in?
Black lives matter?
Blue lives matter?
Furry lives matter?
Unborn lives matter?
Orc lives matter? (I'm sure it's a thing...)
There was a "Veg Fest" at the SLC library, and I went to it, thinking it sounded interesting. It said that it was "family friendly", so I figured they wouldn't be showing pictures of animals being killed or whatever. Not things that I want to see, and I hate the fact that people think that if you don't eat meat, or you like to rescue animals, that you want to see photos and videos of animals being abused and killed.
I was looking at the t-shirts for sale when I realized that, for all their talk about how life matters, lots of vegans don't actually care that much about life. Only the lives that they deem important enough. A lot of their shirts and whatnot refer to the lives of animals being more important than the lives of humans.

Now, I am very much into the idea of animals being treated better than they are currently. Small farms and the like are supposed to be the humane way to raise animals for meat, but I have seen plenty of people who are just nasty to meat animals because they don't want to admit that the animals are intelligent, sentient beings. Not even necessarily abuse or neglect, but things like pulling the ears of a pig until it squeals so that they can laugh about the stupid reaction of the pig. Which really only shows their own stupidity and inhumanity.
But how can you claim that we need to respect the lives of all of the creatures with whom we share the earth, but then cheer the death of those that disagree with you?
People claim that black lives matter, so cops should be killed.
Animals matter, so hunters and farmers should be killed.
Baby lives matter, so abortion doctors should die.
Now, I'll be honest. This is something that is a big struggle for me. I read about people abusing animals, and I wish they would die. I worked with girls who had been trafficked, and heard the stories about pimps and johns beating and raping them, and I wanted them to die. I found traps in the creek, and had visions of the trappers getting caught in their traps and dying like they intended the animals to die.
It is something that I struggle with, but it also makes me feel like a total hypocrite. Because I know that I can't choose who is worthy of living, and who is not. Each person or creature who is alive has been given life for a reason. I may not understand the reason, but that doesn't mean that they deserve to die.

The "(Insert favourite colour here) lives matter" thing pretty much does nothing but divide us further. Most of the issues that this world has right now stem from too much division. Race, religion, sexual preference, politics. Why can't we understand that we have a lot in common if we simply focus on finding those things instead of looking only at the differences?
I'm a straight white female. I'm a Christian, though I don't really identify with any specific denomination. I'm vegetarian, and have been since I was in my teens or so, though most people don't know that because I don't make a huge deal of it. I don't believe in pre-marital sex. I'm probably closest to Libertarian if I have to choose a political view. I'm too conservative for a lot of people, and too liberal for most of the rest. I love to travel, I'm wildly introverted. I prefer sitting in bed, watching a movie or reading a book while snuggling with my cats to going out and partying (though I do like hanging out with people under the right circumstances.

Most of the people that I met while traveling in Europe this spring were atheist or agnostic. Some were bi or gay, some were into sleeping around. Our political views were quite different, and our backgrounds and reasons for traveling were nothing alike. But I really enjoyed talking to a lot of them despite all of the differences. We found the things that we did have in common. We talked about books and movies. We talked about the places we've traveled. With one girl, I watched kittens from the balcony of the hostel. With all of these people, we talked about the things we had in common, then we talked about the things we didn't agree on. And we didn't argue. We discussed. We each explained our views, and we talked about both sides. Opinions may have been changed in some conversations, and stayed the same in others.
Respect is something that has been lost in the world. Respect of other people's views, and their right to life. We have these checklists of what we stand for, and if someone else doesn't stand for at least a certain percentage of those things, then we have no interest in them.
There will be plenty of people that you simply do not get along with for whatever reason. Sometimes you can agree on everything and your personalities simply clash. But whether you get along with them or not, you can treat them like humans, be respectful, and basically just be kind. I gripe about people, but even I can see that things would be so much nicer if we were all just a little bit kinder.