"Years ago I recognized my kinship with all living beings, and I made up my mind then that I was not one bit better than the meanest on Earth." - Eugene V. Debs

The carnist wants to believe that they are inherently superior to any non-human animal and that this superiority gives them the right to torture and hack up their fellow creatures for their own pleasure. One reason among many that veganism tends to offend them so much is that it strikes at their ego, their belief that by virtue of their birth they are the apex of creation, and thus entitled to consume and discard those with whom they share this Earth as they please.