The failures of the USDA in making a safe and humane food system

I don't think the government should be stepping in on food safety. The free market will take care of it on their own.

Egads! Big Government!

I think government should implement some sort of regulation. If it's left to free market which is cost driven, manufactures are more likely to cut cost of production to be competitive, and we'll end up with cheap but low quality or not ethically made products. In general, consumers care much more about cost than how it's made, and it is very difficult to raise enough consumer awareness to have any pressure to manufactures to change their mentality. I'd rather pay extra tax for gov to have a watch dog organization even if it's minimum shit like FDA than hoping manufactures to do the right thing.

Two words for those of you who think the Government should have a bigger hand in the food industry: Soylent Green.

In all seriousness, people who make a living by killing wholesale or eat steak every day aren't generally losing sleep at night thinking about ASPCA commercials. There needs to be a system of accountability, granted, but who gets to say what the law should be? Do we go with the Veganazi or the ax murderer? In my opinion, we should allow the government to step in where public health is concerned and the free market will cull the heard (pardon the pun) were ethical behavior is concerned.

I could be completely wrong, though.

Brad

Three words for you, Bradley: Mad Cow Disease. Here's another three: Bovine Growth Hormone. The FDA knew about both and let them happen. Sometimes what's not good for the animal isn't good for us either, even without the fear of the Vegan boogeyman. You want a world without food safety, try reading "The Jungle" by Upton Sinclair. How are things in sunny Baghdad, by the way?

Mad Cow Disease is a media fear-party. The real detriment it made was in the impact of the beef market in the western US and in Canada. Millions of dollars were lost because a bunch of people saw a scary disease with a scary name on CNN and wouldn't buy hamburgers for a few weeks. It can only be transmitted by consumption of brain matter, which the cows get from eating the ground-up bodies of other dead cows which are put into their feed for protein. Cull the infected cows, and the problem is solved.

As for bovine growth hormones, it was not clear until a few years ago that those had a detrimental effect on the health of children. When you say the FDA "knew" about it, what do you mean? That they knew it existed? Of course they knew. Do you really think cattle producers are just jamming random syringes of subtances into their cattle? But much like controlled substances that humans occasionally take, like creotin or ephedrine, they had to be processed through bodies for a few years before it became evident that they were having unintended side-effects. Meanwhile the production of milk and beef from a single animal would double. DOUBLE. I personally choose to eat hormone-free dairy products and meat, but I have that luxury.

It's not like everything in the food industry is so black and white. The FDA, and the people who make, package, and ship your food, have a LOT of issues to weigh. A substance that arguably (and don't kid yourself, it is still arguable) has a detrimental, though non-life-threatening effect on human beings, vs. increased food production, which means more profits and fewer hungry human beings? It's a difficult issue, to say the least.

Anyway, and I'm just giving myself a headache thinking about this, the whole food-growth industry in this country is so broken, mainly because of ignorance and profiteering.

There's just no money in farming anymore, especially since the 80's, so producers do things like start using rBGH and genetically modified crops to step up their production: increased weight per bushel, say, or more lbs per animal.

Meanwhile, a tide comes along and a bunch of people who've never seen a farm animal in real life before suddenly become concerned with things like improper feeding, chickens having quality of life and not getting to see the sunshine and feel the rain on their faces. So suddenly, people won't eat your genetically modified food, and the market falls out more.

So, you say, become an organic farmer! Okay, fine. But 1) most farmers are doing the same things their forefathers were doing. Yeah, my uncle took a short ag program at the university (basically meaning he has an AS in agriculture), but he got most of his experience from his father, who got it from his father, going back to the time humans starting cultivating plants in the old country. He, and men like him, are not exactly aquiescent to change. 2) Organic farming is expensive to start; it requires a completely different set of skills, equipment, etc.

Given 2), guess who has more money, more resources, more manpower, to undertake such a venture? Corporate farms, multinational companies who also own packing plants and a fleet of trucks. So THEY all go organic, because that's the way the tide is turning, and when the trend ends, they can just as easily revert back to the old system.

Meanwhile, the family farmers who have made the change are suddenly seeing their production fall, mostly because they're getting a lot fewer crops, and without benefits of pesticides and herbicides, the crops they do get are the victims of insect, animal, and climate effects.

Meanwhile, everyone's bitching about the cost of food, which also rises because of things like inflation and the gas it takes to fill up the trucks that drive the food around. And organic food is more expensive, because there's less of it. And like all other food trends, it too will eventually die, and the family farmers who banked their lives on it will go down too.

The point? I don't know. The whole thing makes me frustrated and angry. Buy local, buy fresh. Organics are an unsustainable system and of arguably efficacy to your health. Know where your food comes from, and don't jump on health or demonization bandwagons.

I have an interesting/radical theory...

...let's stop...

...producing so much fucking food....

...producing so many fucking humans....

...ok, let's start...

....thrashing out on me.

Jane. What can I say, but "wow".

I don't think organics or food safety are fads. Douglas mentioned 'The Jungle' by Sinclair, and that book galvanized the public into demanding protection from tainted meat (though the book was really meant to expose worker conditions). And 100 years later we're still dealing with the same thing.

Safe, clean food is so basic, and the U.S. is way behind other countries in protecting the consumer. I do want some oversight by the government in this department. I do NOT trust corporations to protect my health and interests when it comes to food which I can't choose not to consume. here's an article about Russia' decision to restrict US chicken imports: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/20/world/europe/20russia.html

I could find tons of links to similar boycotts and restrictions of US produced food from vegetables to meat.

Mad cow is blown out of proportion, but E. coli is not, nor are other food related illnesses: http://www.examiner.com/x-15966-Norfolk-Health-Care-Examiner~y2010m3d3-V...

I don't think hormone-free meat and dairy should be a luxury, but the norm and I support legislation that effects that. I also have the luxury to choose and buy the cleaner product, but I don't like that people have to choose to go with cheap, dirty milk or eggs etc. because it's there, and cheaper!

Meat should be more expensive. There is something horribly wrong with cheap meat and eggs, I'm sorry. Maybe meat should be a luxury, and not something eaten every day.

I'm starting to rant..

I'm going on a tangent, but I'm not a huge proponent of the 'buy local' contingent. That's really nice if you happen to live in California like me where we grow and produce pretty much anything within a 100 miles, but what about our friends in Arizona or Michigan? Should they only eat potatoes and cabbage during the winter?

Are 100 farmers driving trucks to local farmer's markets really better for the environment than one truck driving produce to a supermarket?

Food production, sustainability, are complex issues, and I get really annoyed with people that think buying local is going to save the environment. It's not that simple.

Right, it's not that simple. But take a step back for a second, isn't living in the middle of the desert and irrational concept? Unless you're near a major water source that produces fertile land. These cities that are not near some sort of produce farm are only there because of the capability of shipping goods. Shipping goods needs to have a way to package, maintain, and keep "fresh" for the distance. That's where the problem comes in, what's the most profitable way to do this? Then it gets tangled into a mess since food companies aren't in the business to feed people, they are in the business to make money from feeding people.

Agrarian societies can live fine without the urban, but the urban and/or secluded(non agrarian) wouldn't stand a chance on it's own.

Taking a step back would mean growing growing our own food and keeping chickens. I don't look forward to returning to an Agrarian society. That's not even feasible at this point.

I'm not really sure what your point is, really. People have been shipping food and trading food for 1000's of years. Yes, it would be ideal if we didn't have to ship food using fossil fuels, but what alternative are you suggesting? That we all become farmers and abandon desert living? Or if we do choose to live in the desert we should live off yak cheese and never eat oranges?

I'm simply saying when you live outside of your means then problems arise. And no I don't think it's an unfeasible idea at any point. It may seem unthinkable, but not unfeasible. I'm too physically and mentally drained to debate something right now so I'm just ending it right now. Sorry if that sounded rude, I didn't mean it to be. [insert gay smiley face].

I think part of his point was that some degree of preservation/additive is necessary to foods for long transportation.

I think it would be awesome if people started getting back to Victory Gardens and that kind of thing, just to become even a bit more self-sufficient.

I hope he washed his hands first.

Yeah, I was mostly talking about produce and whether farmer markets are environmentally superior to supermarkets. I'm not a fan of processed foods and foods that are packaged too much. The only canned stuff in my house usually are tomatoes and fishy things. Most staples I buy out of bins re-using plastic bags. I had a friend come over the other day that laughed his head off because I had two ziploc bags I had washed hanging out to dry on my balcony.

Don't get me wrong, I choose produce that's local as much as possible, and I feel very lucky in that regard because I have that choice. But I want to share the bounty with my less fortunate friends in places that don't have the same luxuries. I pretty much eat seasonally because it's cheaper and more sustainable. There's no reason for me to be paying $5 a basket for blueberries in February that were flown in from Chile.

If I had a yard, I'd definitely have an edible garden. All I can grow on my balcony are herbs and a couple of pots of lettuce.

They definitely are not fads, but what people consider healthy, natural, and safe definitely go in and out of style. Margarine, for example.

I'll talk more about this when I have the time. I do love a good ag rant...

I see what you did there.

A Madshouse. You can haz it.

Yeah, I know what you mean. I have an old cookbook from the 20's that has charts in the back of balanced meals which include dairy at each meal. Ice cream is listed as a good source of dairy, so is butter! Ice cream!

I look forward to it. You are very good at them agra rants, indeed. :0

This might come as a mild shock to you, but I'm actually a huge proponent for butter.

I became a vegan and gave up butter. But I still question if it's a good idea to have processed vegetable oil made to resemble butter. I use frozen olive oil as butter substitute mostly and prefer tofu over fake meat although I do eat fake butter and fake meat time to time.

Not in the least surprised, actually. I've read your food blog, you don't sound like someone that wouldn't eat butter. You definitely sound like someone that wouldn't touch margarine.

Who's the dude that was yelling "protein is protein" when you posted about your lovely roasted ORGANIC chicken?

He's my former boss/literary mentor/friend who is always out there to make sure I don't say something "Stupid".

The truth about the effects of recombinant bovine growth hormone has been known for more than 10 years (it came to light only 3 years after the product was put on the market). There was a huge cover-up scandal involving Fox News, of course it was not reported in proportion to its importance. A team of investigative journalists where looking into BGH and found some shocking things. They were told to stop investigating and that their story would not be aired. The journalists were told to falsify their reports, upon refusing, they were fired. In a lawsuit filed by the journalists against Fox, Fox was orded to award a sum of money to the plaintif, it being found that they acted illegally. The verdict was later repealed and the jury found in favor of Fox. I believe this was a big part of the issues leading up to the media being given clearence to report whatever they want without being held accountable. You can read Jane Akre's story here:
http://www.organicconsumers.org/rbgh/moreakrestuff.cfm

The story was never widely reported. Fox News is still a trusted news source and rBGH is still on the market today.

Scribbling Pants is absolutely on target about rBGH. I remember this story from a few years ago. In fact, I think "The Nation" runs this feature called "Top Ten Banned Stories" or something along those lines, of which the rBGH story made the list for that year. Vermont, as I recall, was adding it to their milk, without telling anyone, before it had received FDA approval. It did afterwards receive said approval, despite its known detrimental effects to both human and bovine health. Inconceivable? The FDA did the same thing with Olestra. I watched those Congressional hearings when they happened in 1998; people compaining of 12 hours of anal leakage from a 10 oz. bag of chips, and that product passed the FDA process, no problem. My point here is that often the FDA is on the side of increased profits, even if it puts the public at risk.
I recently watched an "American Masters" special on Rachael Carson and the sh*tstorm her book, "Silent Spring", caused to the pesticide industry in this country. Much like "The Jungle" before it, Carson proved that one book can indeed change the world and DDT was banned for use in this country, but not before its producers engaged in an all-out effort to assassinate her character. But things being the way they are in this country, (we always err on the side of the well-funded corporate lobbyist), the circle of poison still continues to this day, to the best of my knowledge. While we don't use DDT in this country anymore, we still continue to manufacture it and export it to Third World countries, such as Latin American banana republics, who use it on their crops and import it back to us on their produce.
Jane, I can certainly understand how close you are to these issues and I respect that. You might also perceive negative publicity as a slight to your family of farmers, but the fact remains that mad cow disease or downer cow syndrome are not media hoaxs and should not be dismissed offhandedly. Nor should avain bird flu or swine flu, for that matter. I think, and correct me if I'm wrong, you are reacting in the macrocosic sense, to the loss of the traditional family farms in favor of corporate factory farming methods and the realities of NAFTA and GATT agreements as they become apparent to American producers who are seeing, along with other industries, a net loss to countries who can produce at a substantially cheaper cost, mostly because they don't possess the same health and safety standards we do.
There are also any number of issues that cannot be ignored as well, including the fact that red meat consumption, with or without the pesticides or hormones, is not particularly conducive to human digestive health. My uncle was a steak and potatoes man his whole life, and died with a colostomy bag strapped to his side after his second triple bypass surgery. Consider also the impact to the environment. We continue to ignore the clearing of thousands of acres of rainforests for Brazilian gouchoes to raise cheap imports for American markets to our own and our planet's detriment. Nor do we have to go all the way to South America for this type of wholesale loss of biodiversity in favor of a cheap hamburgers on the 99 cent value menu. All we have to do is look to cattle ranching on our own public lands, lands that have been turned into a slush fund for any number of industries from ranching to logging to mining, again at the public's expense. As always, all things take a backseat to profits in this country. Likewise, consider the wholesale contamination to ground water supplies caused by large scale factory farm operations. Or how about the huge amounts of water consumed by these operations. Again, Jane, you brought up what I consider to be a fictious agruement concerning increased production = more people fed. The amount of grain and water needed to fed one cow, could, if such was our goal, feed 12 people instead. There are many good documentaries on these subject, though many of you may shudder to hear them mentioned, including the recent film "Food, Inc." and Jerry Robbin's book, "Diet for a New America." But the fact of the matter is, and Space Monkey's point here is valid, that at 9 billion people and rising fast, we are at the tipping point of how many people we can continue to feed. Again, I don't think looking towards ever increasing technocratic solutions is the answer, but a gradual lessoning of birth rates to bring the human population back in line with the planet's carrying capacity. Look at Haiti, for example. Here is a country that before the earthquake only produced 30% of its own food supply. Landscapes were denuded and per capita incomes were among some of the world's lowest, despite its extremely high birthrates and high population densities in substandard housing. All these factors contributed to the disaster that is Haiti right now.
I'm not sure we will see eye to eye on this, Jane, but, believe me, my goal in bringing these issues up is not to "demonize" American ranchers or farmers. I feel they have been locked into an unsustainable and unhealthy system, as have we all, by decisions made by Fortune 500 companies. I also understand to that to go with the flow is easier than fighting against. But what I don't understand, or at least appreciate, is an unwillingness to change in favor of a better way. I know the odds are against that in so many ways. Modern farming techniques of pesticides and hormones only date back fifty years or so, so to say that organic or bio-dynamic methods are a "fad" and their health effects "questionable" belies the simple fact is we have co-evolved with these methods through the millieau.
Myself, I still hold dear to a Utopian vision of America in general, and an American mid-west in particular, be it unreasonable or not. A vision of multinational agribusiness soy and feed corn exports instead turned into bio-diesel fuel... a vision of cattle fields and oil derricks replaced by solar and wind farms... and of a Buffalo Commons, our mid-western plains once again roamed by herds of 60 million bison feeding the nation a much healthier product than the one we are consuming now... where we can all live in harmony with our planet and one another.

As an aside, a couple small local dairies 'round here began labeling their milk a few years back with "Contains no BGH" or something similar and were forced to stop by -- I don't remember, the big dairies, the state, some group of dicks. I think it was state law that they weren't allowed to use the labeling because it implied that other milk was dangerous. Anyway, they sued for, and won, the right to label their milk as hormone-free. Some sensible genius of a judge said in his ruling, in effect, that they could label their product as "Driveway Gravel-Free" if they wanted, just so long as it contained no driveway gravel.

Small victories.

Kendrick, have you seen 'The Corporation'?

I'm glad there are still sensible people out there making some of the decisions.

Yes, Scribbling Des, I have seen "The Corporation" and highly recommend it. Along similar lines, I recommend the disturbing "Orwell Rolls in his Grave", concerning the corporate take-over of the free press, "Crude" about indigenous Ecuadorian's brave stance against Texaco's abuse of their lands, and "The Cove", easily one of the most heartbreaking of all recent documentaries.

Very heartbreaking, but also very engaging on a dramatic level. The documentary is more like a thriller. It's not like the documentary Earthlings, which is just wall to wall people doing bad stuff to animals--not that there's anything bad with that (it's informative to see what's going on out there), just that I think a lot of people want to be entertained, and the Cove succeeds on that level. Very happy it took home the Oscar for best documentary.

What ever I was going to say in this thread you have already said here. Again you and I pretty much agree on food ( Have you gone to Thirsty Bear yet????)
I feel fortunate that I can eat locally almost completely. Where I live in California I could pretty much source all my food within a 10 mile radius if I tried.
Sadly for 99% of the population that isn't feasable (sp?).
I dont trust the FDA only because corpratism has crept in and they seem to be dictated by large agribusiness dollars more than anything. That doesn't bode well for the American public and its only getting worse. Real farmers in this country are a dying breed and I fear the corporate farm is going to make us all sick in the end.

With luck, he'll be able to be complimented on doing something right sorta with medical cannabis (calling off raids on state clinics, sorta) and stopping the torture of some cows and pigs.

Killing pigs though is some serious shit. Pigs are very intelligent animals, there are some questions as to whether it's cool to off something that's aware of its fate. I hate the idea of people torturing animals like sadistic prison guards. I don't mean to compare killing hens to the holocaust at all...but there is something to be said for the mindset of someone who tortures animals who are under their control in a prisonesque setting. They are entertaining the same dark side, albeit on a exponentially different level.

Kirk, I'm glad to hear you speaking the truth my man.

Let us examine, "competition" for a moment. Absent competition, one organization holds the monopoly on a good or service. Monopolies are systematically inefficient, as there are no internal mechanisms incentivizing that services be made more efficient or fail to competition. Thus, competition is the source of much of the self-regulating function of the marketplace. I honestly know very little about how the FDA works, but knowing economics, whatever it is that they do is either something that 1) would not be done by the market, in which case it is a waste, or 2) would be done differently and more efficiently in the marketplace, in such case, it is still wasteful despite the successful completion of the service.

It sounds as though the service — which there is clearly demand for just based on the opinions of the people posting here — is not being done efficiently by the government. Imagine, it was likely as simple as the question being ignored by some bureaucrat on the committee asking, "Can your agency enforce this law even if x-amount of cases are discovered?", etc. To look at this as a failure of the market is to deny the fact that the assumption everyone was living under in the United States was that these laws were being enforced. They had faith that since these enforcement services were being taken care of by the government, paid for by the people after taken by the government, that they were getting their money's worth. This is a failure of government bureaucracy to stop sickos from harming animals.

Given this, I think it's important to point out that the safety of the food does not seemed to be seriously threatened. The absolute last thing any company, and even corporations sometimes, would want to be associated with is food related illness. This is more a humane animal treatment issue, which has safety concerns but is not a serious threat.

I totally respect your decision to spend a little extra money and purchase food that you are safe and comfortable with, however, my question is, would you be willing to have me shot because I don't want to pay any more money for the extra-protected beef? If your answer is no, (and I surely hope it is, because I am an occasional consumer of unregulated beef) then I please request that you not advocate a tax to solve the beef issue, because it forces me to agree with your opinion through my financial actions in a way in which it would be mean for me to impose my beliefs in what you should pay more for.

Also, think of distributors - Publix, Wal-Mart, whereever knows the value in advertising their store as safe to shop in, food that won't kill you, etc. The food safety issue is really null and void, the marketplace is currently producing vast quantities of food that is safe and preserves well (with only mild chemical adjustments and such) and a significant enough number of safeguards exist currently so that the individual does not have to worry about dying from food born illness 99.9%* of the time that food is sold in the United States.

*Assumed figure.

No worries, you're only partially wrong. The government isn't necessary at all in food production because the same demand that makes food valuable, there exists for food that is actually safe to eat. Since people don't want moldy, diseased food is a crime. Doing such can be handled as criminal activity if intentional or negligence if un. Anyways, there's never a need to solve most any problem among civilized people with the guns of government.

I love how the most referenced 20th century work in defense of government dicking-in is a work of fiction.

Wanna see what the world is like without government? Haven't you read Lord of the Flies? Yeah, well so what if Lord of the Flies was written better than Alongside Night or The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress? It doesn't make it more practically valid.

Hmm...as a lifelong consumer of food in the United States, I'd have to disagree. I've gotten ill from food twice, and neither issue was incredibly significant, just an extreme upset stomach in each case. It seems such a statement should be backed by statistical fact before an objective thinker could accept it at face value. The one article talks about how much it costs in Virginia, but I don't see any numbers comparing countries and linking problems. Are there significantly more food illness issues in the United States compared to other countries? How does the United States compare to third world countries? I really don't see anything going on here as needing to involve coercive intervention. All you need is a youtube vid that shows the cow being tortured and the emblem of the company where it occurred at. You'll have a press release from the company within 24 hours.

You can choose from various suppliers, likely dozens to hundreds in your area. You are not alone, more people agree with you and will be supplied by one of these many businesses in search of your dollar.

And I don't trust corporations or government, which is why I don't believe either of them should exist. I wanna buy tasty food from someone who wants to supply it to me. If there's a question as to how the big company who kills the cows does things, then only give your money to the company that lets the third party (who the government is supposed to be right now, and is failing at) into their slaughterhouse and film their activities. They can have a little seal of approval from the company to put on their label.

How about we do away with the laws that incentivize the production of mass-produced hormony milk first?

Also, if by 'luxury', you mean it's too expensive now, well, how do you expect a law to bring the price down? By banning the other forms of milk? Keep in mind, then you are making it more expensive to produce milk overall, which means prices go up across the board just a tad, let's say .02%, well that's .02% of the population wiped out who was that close to being able to afford food for themselves, and with the price controls instituted by government bureaucrats, people are only hurt, and not helped.

Well, sometimes reality sucks, but you can't do much about that. If you want cheaper milk of the quality you want, number1, buy it, that is directly supporting it, and number2, spread the idea of buying it, show people why its a better voluntary alternative. Maybe I'd rather pay less and drink hormones, and spend that saved money elsewhere. Why should you make that decision for me? I would never do that to you.

The fact is, it costs less to give cows hormones that make them produce more milk. Without the hormone, they make less. Logic forces us to resign ourselves to the fact that unless we want to pay more, hormones will save us money. Usually, hormone free milk is not that much more, though I'm not sure which chems you're referencing in particular. I know my local store brand has "No Something Few Letters!" on all of its milk, which is the cheapest milk in the store.

I enjoy cheap meat. Please don't try to take it away from me.

¿Because you knew it would queue my arrival?

The individuals of those states should eat what they want to eat.

Maybe, depends.

Who says the environment needs saving? Perhaps all it needs is not-killing.

Myth. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vertical_farming

It can totally be done and work...but good luck zoning in major cities.

You're not living outside of your means if the company you're buying from is itself sustainable. I don't see why people believe there's something 'inherently wrong' with buying more of a product than the entire world can. Well, we can't all buy it then. That's no argument for everyone missing out.

The DDT ban caused the deaths of millions of people. DDT was recognized as one of the most important disease-preventing agents known to man. It is important that DDT continue to be produced and available to third world countries. Granted, DDT is a poison, but it is a poison that is sometimes practical to utilize. To learn more about this and see disturbing statistics, check out Mary Ruwart's Healing Our World In An Age Of Aggression, pg. 215-217.

In a free market, no such asinine laws could be enforced on unconsenting parties.

A good for seriose point. Does anyone honestly trust the same people who wrote the laws giving these companies their positions in the market to adequately 'regulate' their business? There's more money to be invested from the top (business end) of the exchange than the bottom (consumer end). Thus, it is always in the consumers interest to not be subject to a government under the control of business. Or not subject to a government. The company I don't have to buy my meat from is the one I wanna buy my meat from. Fugg da lobbyists.

I think people who are killing animals on a daily basis get desensitized and then start with the cruelty (not to mention that doing something like slitting chicken throats all day doesn't exactly lead one into a happy mental space).

I am almost offended that giggan did not respond to anything I said. But I'm assuming it means that he agreed with everything I said. That would be a first.

As screwed up as the world is as it is now, I'm not so sure I want to live in Giggan's either. What I could understand of it, anyways.

Oh yeah, and corporate news sucks (this includes Fox and their BGH whathaveyous).

Kendrick, might I ask what concerns you about the functionings of a voluntary society?

I'm not sure that's the disagreement, Giggan. It's where your brand of anarchism meets free market policy that we part ways. Government does serve a role in our world, hence its prevalence. At its best, it is there to protect us from our excesses, to care for those of us without the power to properly defend ourselves, to promote the common good and ensure equality and domestic tranquility, that sort of thing. A society is judged by how it treats the least of its members, not by how it caters to the wants of its most affluent. Protecting health and safety, that's some of the best dickering the government does. The same president who enacted the first food safety laws after reading "The Jungle", Teddy Roosevelt, also created public lands and the National Parks, two of the best and most far-sighted ideas any society can give to the world. Where he went wrong was allowing Gifford Pinochet to run our National Forests, thereby turning them into an agricultural product managed by the USDA, not by the Department of Interior, where they belong. This allowed the serpent into paradise, so-to-speak, and for their subsequent raping by later Republican administrations. Ted was also the last good Republican, in my humble opinion; him and that other Roosevelt who gave us social protections such as social security, welfare and unemployment, protections that have been stripped in favor of profits for a few.
A system that is broken can be fixed and, as long as it still has something positive to offer the world, should not be abandoned in favor of some uncharted course. I am still an ardent believer in Democracy and higher reasoning and that someday we might be capable of both, but, to parahrase Tom Jefferson, liberty requires constant diligence in whatever society you hope to create.

I'm not certain, but I'm pretty sure Kirk didn't mean that the way you read it.

I like the idea of having a third party do the oversight. (Perhaps the Humane Society of the United States could do it.) But the idea of having it be optional for companies distresses me. I use as a guiding principle something Gandhi is quoted as having said: "I hold that the more helpless a creature, the more entitled it is to protection by man from the cruelty of man."

On the other hand, and since I'm quoting Gandhi, I probably shouldn't be recommending the government use violence to achieve its end, which is what the government does. So--yes, I'm thinking out loud here--how would Gandhi protect animals from a farm that was abusive?

If a farm was boiling chickens alive, because it was quicker and easier to get their feathers off that way instead of having to cut their throats first, what would I do? Part of me wants to say, okay, time to get the gun out, but another part wants to say, there should be a non-violent solution.

So I'm not sure.

Gandhi's alcohol prohibition campaign consisted of standing with signs in front of liquor stores, handing out info on the dangers of drinking and such to the owners and patrons, but no one was to be coerced away from purchasing alcohol if they wished to.

Here's an idea: If you care about making sure companies aren't doing that, network with like-minded people. Start a website. Contact these businesses, find out what you need to do to be a third party inspector (the biggest thing is have a following that depends on you - get some big animal rights activist behind it. Popularize your seal of approval that animals aren't being killed inhumanely. Make people wanna get that seal. Pressure stores, distributors, and the slaughterhouses.

This would be far more effective than anything governmental because it encourages voluntarily changing hearts and minds rather than forcing people to support a particular solution to the problem that you choose.

As I stated earlier, if we had a free market, there's no reason why the most efficient supervision setup would not be selected by market forces. It requires government to retard the execution of this service to the point where all it took to get around the regulations were bribing a few bureaucrats, or whatever it took to get them all to look the other way for no particular reason given.

That's peculiar...because if that's the case, the statement is rather random. If intended sarcastically, is implies that such a market exists in the United States. Currently, there's violent organization called "the federal government" who have subsidiary organizations layering on the aggression, striking at the root of freedom almost anywhere they are given the chance. Free market = teh lie.

I'm getting this weird Lyndon LaRouche vibe.

There is actually already a Certified Humane label places can get,

http://www.certifiedhumane.org/

But it's obviously not of widespread use. I guess I'd agree with you that in theory, if something like it could be of widespread use, it would be preferable than what we've got. As it currently stands it's just a niche thing. Perhaps if the government wasn't there to enforce any of the current laws protecting animals, that niche would widen. People could no longer look toward the government to protect them and would have to look at 3rd party labels. I guess it's a question of how much it would widen. Would there be less or more suffering of animals under a voluntary system than a government one? We can only speculate. But I guess I think a lot of people wouldn't care about the humane label, that it would be just a matter of price, and that more animals would end up suffering. A lot of people like cheap meat, the cheaper the better, and if that means cutting ethical corners, so be it. I guess I do trust the government over the people, in this case...though it's a tough choice! I don't like the idea of imposing my will on others, but it's a special case where animals are concerned. The people eating the animals are imposing their will on the animals, so I guess I don't feel too bad. But I see here I'm heading toward philosophy territory, not a place I find too comfy.

Don't fear expanding your thoughts with seriose philsaphie.

Anyways, there's this article too.

http://www.good.is/post/why-does-a-salad-cost-more-than-a-big-mac/?gt1=4...

Yeah, yeah, that's definitely a bad thing the government does, those subsidies, that a huge proportion goes to meat.

It's the same reason so much crap is sweetened in the US with corn syrup rather than sugar (actually, that's tariffs more than subsidies, but alas, government effing up life nonetheless).