The gummint screwed up again

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I am very familiar with government inspections and government regulations. Government regulators do not charge a penny for the inspection. The only bill payable to the FDA would be the fines assessed for regulatory violations. That is why your processors are so picky, because you are a liability.

In order to slaughter animals on site, an FDA inspector must by physically present. Is it really reasonable to believe that the FDA will supply a full-time inspector to a facility that might only slaughter one or two animals a week?

As far as people like me being a "liability", people like me produce everything that goes into your mouth that you don't raise yourself. If you really believe that, you might want to consider not eating.

Thelibrarian wrote:
Quote:

As for eating raw hamburger, the change between then and now is risk awareness, not the actual safety of the beef.


How do you know this? Do you really believe that years ago people got just as sick from meat as they do today, but were just too stupid to figure out what was going on? If so, this is par for liberalism.


Here are some references you can look up if you really want an answer to that one (I just copied and pasted from my final paper for Research Methodology):

Bennion, M. (1980) Science of Food. New York, Macmillan.
Charley, H. (1970) Food Science. New York, Wiley and Sons.
Crutchfield, S. R. and T. Roberts (2000) "Food safety efforts accelerated in the 1990's."
Food Review 23(3): 44-49.
Durant, D. (2004) "Tools for multi-taskers." The Food Safety Educator 9(1): 1.
Freeland-Graves, J. H. and G. C. Peckham (1987) Foundations of Food Preparation. New
York, Macmillan.
Griswold, R. M. (1962) The Experimental Study of Foods. Boston, Houghton Miffllin
Company.
Klontz, K. C., B. Timbo, et al. (1995) "Prevalence of selected food consumption and
prevalence behaviors associated with increased risks of food-borne disease." Journal of
Food Protection 58: 927-930.
Moriarty, P. (1991) "What consumers want to know about red meat." Food News for
Consumers 8(2): 7.
Opinion Research (1990) Trends 1990, consumer attitudes and the supermarket. Trends.
Washington, DC, Food Marketing Institute.
Ralston, K., Y. Starke, et al. (2000) "Awareness of risks changing how hamburgers are
cooked." Food Review 23(2): 44-49.
Redmond, E. C. and C. Griffith, J. (2003) "Consumer food handling in the home: A
review of food safety studies." J. Food Protection 66(1): 130-161.
United States Department of Agriculture (1990) Is Someone You Know At Risk for
Foodborne Illness?
United States Department of Agriculture (1990) Preventing Foodborne Illness.
United States Department of Agriculture (1990) A Quick Consumer Guide to Safe Food
Handling.
United States Department of Agriculture (1996) Making the Connection USDA's Meat
and Poultry Hotline, 1996: 12.
Yang, S., F. J. Angulo, et al. (2000) "Evaluation of safe food-handling instructions on
raw meat and poultry products." Journal of Food Protection 63(10): 1321-1325.

You will have to be more specific than this. What is it specifically in this bibliography that disputes what I say?

Thelibrarian wrote:
Postmodernist, PC liberalism implicitly believes that intelligent life prior to the cultural revolution of the sixties was limited to a handful of luminaries such as Lincoln and FDR; all else was darkness and evil since most people believed in pre-sixties values, which are anathema to PC.


Where exactly did you get this assumption from? I'm guessing from conservatives, who aren't exactly qualified to define the beliefs of liberalism.

Sounds like more flawed liberal logic to me. First, here is the definition of an assumption:

b : a fact or statement (as a proposition, axiom, postulate, or notion) taken for granted

My statement is an empirically verifiable, and therefore fact. You failure to be able to distinguish between the two is just one more example of the postmodernist denial of facts and truth.

I will provide you with just two examples: Prior to the 1960's, Jared Taylor's positions on race were the rule; almost everybody held them. Today, those same positions are held to be anathema, are they not? Don't liberals consider such attitudes on race to be wrong?

Liberalism defines itself in opposition to the values held in the 1950's and before not only on race, but on homosexuality, women's rights, sex outside of marriage, etc. etc. etc. These attitudes are embodied in liberals' favored current self-description: Progressivism. Am I supposed to believe that progressive actually favor looking backward toward the past? Or do they shun the past in favor of some kind of imagined glorious future? Do you really believe that liberals love pre-sixties attitudes on these social issues, or am I supposed to believe this?

Why am I not entitled to study liberalism? What kind of weird PC moral taboo am I in violation of? Do anti-fascists have the right to study fascism?

Yes, I am very familiar with Lewis. Are you aware that Lewis was a communist agitator railing against the same predatory liberalism that I rail against--that is, the state, which includes big business, against its own citizens?

In all fairness to the meat packing industry of the time, the germ theory of disease, along with the attendant need to hygienic standards, was a recent discovery. Lewis was hardly the only person bringing attention to the problems that the germ theory of disease brought to light; academics favor him over more reasonable critics because of his bring-it-all-down radicalism.

Bill, I agree with your last point on what is being done to our foods. Despite Ghandi's claim that I am a "risk", one of the reasons I raise beef is because doing so in no way violates by personal ethics. My cattle are left out in the pasture the way nature intended; there are no cages, antibiotics, or other bad stuff. They live naturally, subsisting on only grasses and forbes, and a bit of protein to carry them over through drougth and the winter. The problems arise in the feed lots. So, buying grass-fed beef eliminates many of the objectionable practices.

Last edited by Thelibrarian on 02 Nov 2013, 11:24 am, edited 1 time in total.

Last edited by Thelibrarian on 02 Nov 2013, 12:55 pm, edited 5 times in total.

"The overall incidence of Salmonella was unchanged, but the incidence of some types of Salmonella have increased while others have decreased."

I would even suspect this, but in the absence of contrary evidence, I will accept it. Since this hardly indicates a decline, it sounds to me like more postmodernism.

Lewis certainly wasn't the only agitator to change food safety, but he was most certainly the most effective. His book, The Jungle, is what had instigated positive change from the very top.

Fair enough. His is the work that is remembered. I have read a number of his novels; he is an engaging, talented writer.

You missed the part where overall the incidence of the 6 major food borne pathogen cases dropped by 22%.

I know 21CFR fairly well and this is not federally regulation. Perhaps it is a state regulatory agency that requires this.

Thelibrarian wrote:

It wasn't a refutation of statement so much as answering your question as to where I got the idea that public awareness was the major factor in why people don't go around eating raw hamburger anymore. The change in the public's awareness of risk from contaminated foods has (over the years) been an extremely effective method for the reduction of food poisoning. Specifically, awareness of the risks of raw/undercooked meat, eggs, and seafood, as well as hand washing during food preparations and handling. It is a subject that I find very interesting, which is why I chose it as the topic for my research paper.



I have trouble with you labeling your opinion that all liberals believe that prior to the 60s intelligent life was limited to a few luminaries as fact based on empirical evidence. I have seen this claim before, but mostly by some very conservative commentators and one very extreme over-the top liberal.



Most liberals do look at the past. They look at past problems and look for ways to solve them. You continue to state that liberals are against the values held in the 50s and prior, which is a faulty assumption. Yes, they oppose the discrimination that ran rampant, as do most conservatives. Just because a person disagrees with some attitudes of the past does not mean that they oppose all of them.



I never said that you could not study liberalism, ever. You do tend to make an awful lot of assumptions about my beliefs, in large part because you seem to assume I oppose all of your viewpoints. In reality, most of my replies to your posts are advocating tolerance of the opinions and views of others, and not necessarily views I hold strongly. I understand your side of things, but I also can see where your opposition comes from. I guess all I am really trying to argue is that your positions are not the only ones with valid points.

Your view of liberalism is accurate, but only as far as the most extreme far left liberals are concerned. Most people who consider themselves liberals do not take things nearly as far as you paint them.

For example, I am in favor of making and keeping ties with the rest of the world, but that doesn't mean that I believe we should put a priority on the needs of other nations above our own (because I definitely do not). While I personally agree with a lot of the cultural and social values of earlier times, I still believe that we can't refuse people the right to disagree with them as loudly and vocally as they want. I don't believe that a continuously growing government is sustainable long term, but I don't think our country is in a position where it can realistically reduce size or spending without major economic consequences.

You do complain about a (far left) liberal view of the world will be a wonderful dreamscape in the future, but you seem (to me, anyway), to be trapped in a glorification of the past mindset. I personally feel that we should be looking for all possible future improvements by looking to the past to see what worked and what didn't to use as a guide.

Actually, I didn't. I am looking at when people do get food poisoning, not at when they don't. Salmonella, which has not decreased, is a big problem, and one not getting better.

Campylobacter and listeria are the two very common pathogens involved in food poisoning at restaurants. Salmonella is not the only cause by a long shot. Even so, salmonella cases have remained relatively steady, not increased. If you want to go further back in history, we can. Food poisoning and food borne illness occurance rates are only a tiny fraction of what they were 40-50 years ago.

I know 21CFR fairly well and this is not federally regulation. Perhaps it is a state regulatory agency that requires this.

I don't know the details of the law any more than you know Texas. What I do know is that every slaughterhouse or processing facility goes by these regulations. You also prove that you know nothing about Americans, particularly Texas. We are not about to add regulations in addition to federal regulations that burden businesses. The fact that places like Cleveland do add on stultifying, paralyzing regulations is why they are dying economically.

It wasn't a refutation of statement so much as answering your question as to where I got the idea that public awareness was the major factor in why people don't go around eating raw hamburger anymore. The change in the public's awareness of risk from contaminated foods has (over the years) been an extremely effective method for the reduction of food poisoning. Specifically, awareness of the risks of raw/undercooked meat, eggs, and seafood, as well as hand washing during food preparations and handling. It is a subject that I find very interesting, which is why I chose it as the topic for my research paper.

It sounds to me like self-justification for the liberal nanny state. If the bureaucrats can't show they are doing something, they can't justify their existence. The classic case is the FDR alphabet soup agency, the REA (Rural Electrification Administration), which was set up to wire rural areas with electricity. This bureaucracy still exists today, many decades after the last rural areas had power. In the liberal cosmology, bureaucracies represent eternal life.


I have trouble with you labeling your opinion that all liberals believe that prior to the 60s intelligent life was limited to a few luminaries as fact based on empirical evidence. I have seen this claim before, but mostly by some very conservative commentators and one very extreme over-the top liberal.

It is the essence not only of modernism and postmodernism, but of progressivism. Am I really supposed to believe that any of these movement which are the essence of liberalism look backwards? The fact is that modern liberals look at anything prior to the war on the American people known as civil rights as a dark age of racism, sexism, homophobia, etc. It took therapeutic liberalism to show us the error of our ways. When was the last time a liberal had anything nice to say about the fifties? Bringing up the fifties will invoke fits of rage and scorn in liberals.

Thelibrarian wrote:
Liberalism defines itself in opposition to the values held in the 1950's and before not only on race, but on homosexuality, women's rights, sex outside of marriage, etc. etc. etc. These attitudes are embodied in liberals' favored current self-description: Progressivism. Am I supposed to believe that progressive actually favor looking backward toward the past? Or do they shun the past in favor of some kind of imagined glorious future? Do you really believe that liberals love pre-sixties attitudes on these social issues, or am I supposed to believe this?


Most liberals do look at the past. They look at past problems and look for ways to solve them. You continue to state that liberals are against the values held in the 50s and prior, which is a faulty assumption. Yes, they oppose the discrimination that ran rampant, as do most conservatives. Just because a person disagrees with some attitudes of the past does not mean that they oppose all of them.

For liberals, the past IS the problem. As far as discrimination goes, finding it to be categorically abhorrent is strictly a liberal pathology. Since discrimination is necessary to exist, it is another example of how liberalism counsels ignorance and stupidity to the people it is supposed to be edifying and uplifting. For example, liberals discriminate against conservatives and right liberals--or am I supposed to believe Rush Limbaugh has a shot at becoming president of the National Organization for Women?

Again, the only way liberals can say anything nice about pre-sixties values is to say nice things about everything liberalism abhors--e.g., racism, sexism, homophobia, etc.

I never said that you could not study liberalism, ever. You do tend to make an awful lot of assumptions about my beliefs, in large part because you seem to assume I oppose all of your viewpoints. In reality, most of my replies to your posts are advocating tolerance of the opinions and views of others, and not necessarily views I hold strongly. I understand your side of things, but I also can see where your opposition comes from. I guess all I am really trying to argue is that your positions are not the only ones with valid points.

Sir, everything I say is tentative, meaning I will only believe and say the things I do until proved wrong. Insofar as I am a skilled debater, it is because I only argue for the most defensible positions I have encountered. So, show me the error in my thinking.

Your view of liberalism is accurate, but only as far as the most extreme far left liberals are concerned. Most people who consider themselves liberals do not take things nearly as far as you paint them.

For example, I am in favor of making and keeping ties with the rest of the world, but that doesn't mean that I believe we should put a priority on the needs of other nations above our own (because I definitely do not). While I personally agree with a lot of the cultural and social values of earlier times, I still believe that we can't refuse people the right to disagree with them as loudly and vocally as they want. I don't believe that a continuously growing government is sustainable long term, but I don't think our country is in a position where it can realistically reduce size or spending without major economic consequences.

Need I remind that you the freedom to speak one's mind originated as an Anglo-Celtic value; speech codes, such as described here, are the work of liberalism:

https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?ui=2& ... 3c2afc0dfe

I could add that FIRE, or Foundation for Individual Rights in Education is an organization set up to combat liberal thought control in higher education.

As far as US citizens not being liberal, I will remind you that they voted for that post-American abomination that occupies the White House not once, but twice.

You do complain about a (far left) liberal view of the world will be a wonderful dreamscape in the future, but you seem (to me, anyway), to be trapped in a glorification of the past mindset. I personally feel that we should be looking for all possible future improvements by looking to the past to see what worked and what didn't to use as a guide.

Where are the conservatives in mainstream social institutions, such as the media and education? Pat Buchanan was the last one I know of, and he has been run out (although I will say Anne Coulter is moving in that direction). It's part of the cultural revolution and "long march through the institutions" of the left in the sixties. What we have is a liberal monoculture now, and a radical one. Take the radicalism out of liberalism and it is no longer liberalism. By definition, radicalism means abrupt and substantial alteration of the status quo--or what Obama calls "Change" or moving "Forward".

I seem to recall a group of radicals who called for abrupt change. Now who were those guys? Oh wait, they were the FOUNDING FATHERS!
And America isn't just Texas. Real America is found in every state and every region, even if the variety of Americanism varies from place to place. To say otherwise is to divide Americans against Americans. You don't have to like how things are conducted in my home in the Pacific Northwest - Lord knows I don't like everything coming out of Texas - but as I still accept Texans as Americans, I expect the same courtesy in return. The real America is even in Cleveland.

Bill, had you read what I post here carefully, you would know I don't disagree that the founding fathers harbored a certain amount of radicalism--again, what is called double consciousness. But it is also the case that they had a much bigger streak of conservatism and respect for their Anglo-Celtic-Protestant culture. It is also the case that many of the founding fathers, particularly Jefferson, became more conservative as they got older, particularly after witnessing the horrors caused by radicalism in the French Revolution

Words had meaning yesterday, they have meaning today, and they will have meaning tomorrow. So, American either means something or it means nothing. Since I refuse to subscribe to your postmodern liberalism in which the truth is whatever one wishes it to be, I maintain that American has meaning. That meaning includes those who subscribe to America's Anglo-Celtic-Protestant cultural core, no matter where they may be found, the same as Jews don't cease being Jews depending on where they live. Our cultural identity is something that resides in our hearts and mind.

As far as liberalism goes, the same applies to them. They are liberals no matter where they go or live; it is something that lies in their hearts and minds, despite its profound irrationality. As far as liberals being American go, you are typical in that you resent not being called an American at the same time you deny the very existence of such a thing. A parallel phenomenon is the liberal attitude on race: Liberals claim there is no such thing as race while they are obsessed with race.

I will say that my ideas on post-Americans are something I have never seen before. If not original, it is at least something I developed independently. Therefore, I claim it as my own. But since I make tens of thousands of posts all over the Internet, the term is catching on. I caught a few minutes of Michael Savage Thursday night. He was interviewing Mark Krikorian, head of one of the most influential immigration-restrictionist groups. While I'm willing to admit the possibility of synchronicity, He recited my micro-narrative on the difference between Americans and post-Americans on the air verbatim for literally millions of people to hear. It is something you had best get used to, and I am ecstatic over it. The truth shall prevail.

Just because some guy on Michael Savage - who in fact denied the existence of Asperger's and other forms of autism, mind you - says something hardly makes it true.
As far as I'm concerned, you and Savage and his guests are expressing opinion, not fact.

I never said I agree with everything Savage says; he is far more liberal than conservative. Listening to radio is simply something I do before I go to sleep, and listening choices way out here are very limited. As far as my "opinions" go, they stand until you offer compelling evidence to the contrary. And I crave correction--correction I have not received.

Again, I don't know for a fact that I developed the concept of post-Americanism as I use it. But it will become part of the political dialog, and I am thrilled--at least until you can show me how it is wrong.