"I believed veg*nism included a loving, accepting attitude towards others---"
I don't think there is such a think as veganism or vegetarianism. There are dozens of (differnet) reasons not to eat meat. Somewhere on the net there is a list of 100 reasons.... therefore veggies comes in all... flavors :-]
"For example, I never knew so many people disliked America/Americans."
I live in an European country with a Christian, conservative government - which says something about the population here. When Bush starting to attack Iraq, 90% here was against what he did, including our christian, conservative prime minister. The biggest demonstrations here have been the anti-American ones. Take a look back at see what USA have done over the last decades. To me it makes sense that being "loving/accepting" also means being against aggresive behaviour from ANY nation. Let's not get into counting dead bodies in the Vietnam war etc, but try to be.... loving/accepting towards the fact the througout most of the world, there have for a loooong time been strong critizism against USAs attempt to become "world police". In a lot of countries all over the world, polls show that a majority of people even find Bush a bigger threat to world peace than Saddam Hussein - even in the western world. Give it a thought, at least? Maybe there is something to it. I'm not really sure how possibly wanting starting to eat animals again on your side relates to that...
"It just seems like everything I've believed in so strongly for the last two and half years, I'm now questioning." Congratulations! I feel sorry for anyone who doesn't go through this process once in a while. :-]
"Seriously, I'm interested in what others have to say. " About *what*, exactly...? I hear you are confused, but wonder what the real confusion is... :-]
"At this point, I'm not consuming animal products." I don't get this, sorry :-] If *you* have your reason(s) not to eat animals, how could those change by encountering others veggies that have other reasons/other political opinions? Should I start eating non-veggie food because Hitler was veggie? I don't think you think so
I feel that your current confusion is the best that could happen to you - or anyone :-]
If you are looking for a thing that at least many veggies have in common, it is beng against killing. Even our enemies. Even killers. Violence leads to more violence, terrorism leads to war and war leads to terrorism. Someone have to be strong enough to break this chain of violence.
Killing enemies and murderes actually states an example for the coming generations: "killing someone is OK if the reasons are good enough". Now see what that leads to...
Looking at the TV stations that are feeding US citizens with news, it really surprises me that they so rarely focus on WHY there is so much anti-Americanism around - in every country but America. They don't seem to bother. They even seem to want to hide the fact that there is so much critisizm against US' role in the world (Bush:"Americans are the best people"...). I think the US patriotism has grown totally out of proportions, and that is because - yes: exactly because I don't think USA is "loving and accepting". Not only is Bush selected by a minority of those who voted, but he has got Russia, China, the most of the Catholics including the Pope, the Muslims and maybe even the majority of the European population against his way of running your country. Even UN was not on his side when he wanted to attack Iraq. If you didn't already know this, of course you will be confused when encountering these facts...
In Europe we are not much better. We think we are the center of the world, but both politically, economically and geographically we are a minority. Like USA.
You live in a part of the world with only two major parties, and where even the political party that got the least votes got the President. That in itself is worth questioning, isn't it? :-]