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usual suspect
 
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Default Facts we should *not* consider.

frlcnt wrote:
> The Big Four meat-packers, (ConAgra, IBP, Excel, National Beef),
> slaughter 84% of American cattle. Their plants are concentrated in the
> non-union _farm_ states of Nebraska, Kansas, Texas, Colorado and Iowa.


Most of their processing plants are near urban areas. Makes for ease of
transport.

> Conservation minded farmers use low-till or no-till systems. Anyone
> concerned about wildlife and the environment should be careful to
> purchase products from farmers using sound conservation practices.


The OP (Gary, apparently no relation to the late "Chargin' Charlie"
Beckwith) is oblivious to conservation-minded practices. It wouldn't
surprise me if his ignorance were manifest in indiscriminate purchasing
habits, resulting in the deaths of many small animals.

> Even
> the USDA recognizes the all-around benefits of conservation farming and
> offers economic incentives to farmers who go easy on the land and the
> animals living on it.


That doesn't extend to hand-planting and hand-harvesting every food
item. Machinery is used even in hand-harvesting operations -- tractors
haul produce and workers out of fields. Squish!

>>and when the crops are harvested,
>>heavy machinery again drives through the fields,

>
> Don't you ever get off the freeway, Ball? A good portion of
> California's fruits and vegetables are hand-harvested. You've heard of
> farm-workers, haven't you? This means the total ground surface damage
> (and alleged squashing of field animals) from heavy machinery in the
> fields can be measured in tire tracks of the trucks hauling the produce
> out of the field.


What about grains? I haven't heard of migrant farmworkers picking wheat
or rice by hand.

> I can see field mice scampering from my footsteps as I climb the slopes
> of San Bruno Mountain.


If you're the Mary in the picture on page six of the following
newsletter, no wonder they scamper. Any of those witches would scare the
shit out of a cougar.

http://www.sfspca.org/volunteers/pdf/CC_feb02.pdf

> I step lightly on a 112 lb. frame. Do you think
> field animals are going to sit still and wait for a loud, smoking,
> vibrating machine to rumble over them?


Yes. Some of them burrow deeper.

> You hate animals and know nothing about them.


He knows they taste good, at least if properly prepared.

> (snip)
>
>>If "vegans" believe they are making a legitimate
>>ethical choice by not eating meat and other animal
>>products in order not to cause animal suffering, their
>>lifestyle IS wrong and bogus and based on a logical
>>fallacy.

>
> Strawman. Vegans believe by not eating meat and purchasing other animal
> products they are not contributing to the suffering of _farmed animals_
> and they're not.


So *farm* animal welfare is separate from animal welfare in toto? That
reeks of hypocrisy.

<snip>