Letters to the Editor
Xanthro
Published Letters: 522 Editor's Choice: 47
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So the solution is to ban guns?
[Read the article: How to keep schools safe]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Almost reflexively, anytime there is a shooting that makes the news, the solution trotted out is ban firearms, followed by the inevitable comparison to Japan and Europe, while the posters have zero background knowledge of the topic at hand.
Could a crime like the tragic Amish school shootings happen in Japan? Yes, they could and do, only instead of being shot, the children are stabbed. http://edition.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/asiapcf/east/06/09/japan.stabbing/
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/02/14/world/main673984.shtml
Would these attacks have been worse with firearms? Unlikely, because those without firearm knowledge overestimate the power of firearms and thus seek to ban or control those least powerful and pass laws that make any firearm related attacks more deadly, not less deadly.
Examine, magazine size. States like California have placed bans on the number of rounds a magazine could hold. Some magazines hold up to 40 rounds, but now the limit is 10. To the uninformed, this might seem to be a good thing. The problem is magazine size is greatly affected by the caliber of the round. Obviously, a 9mm round is smaller than a 10mm round. The simple fact is that smaller capacity magazines means more powerful rounds, and sadly, when some crazy person uses a firearm to kill, more deaths because each round is more deadly and the shooters tend to be more selective in firing. More people get hit once, rather than a few getting hit numerous times.
Now, be honest and ask yourself, if this attacked had bordered up the school house and burned everyone to death with a gallon of gasoline, would you be calling for the ban on the sale of gasoline? If you answer is no, then if you call for a ban on guns, you are being disingenuous.
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Force feeding.
[Read the article: I want my foie gras!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]You say "Ducks naturally eat excessive amounts to fatten up"
That may well be true, but if that were enough then force feeding wouldn't be necessary, would it? All your statement means is that the farms find it necessary to shove more in than they would necessarily consume, which makes your observation irrelevant. The point is that they are being forced to eat more than they would normally, and however much they would eat normally is beside the point.
You don’t need to force feed the ducks, it’s just safer and more efficient to do so. Many domesticated livestock will engorge themselves to the point of death if given an unlimited amount of food. Even many wild animals will do the same.
Ducks do not process food in the same manner that mammals do, and it seems that some poster here do not understand that ducks aren’t human, much less not mammals.
Posters like to setup straw man arguments such as ducks being nailed to the ground, or kept in cages unable to move. There are two major suppliers of foie gras in the United States, one in California and one in New Jersey. Neither practices this. Since the ban we are talking about only affects these two supplies, what others may do is not relevant.
The fact is the ducks at these two farms are treated much better than 99% of livestock and people want to ban production because they don’t like duck.
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More horribly inhumane.
[Read the article: I want my foie gras!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]“Foie gras is produced in the most horribly inhumane way ever.”
You seriously underestimate the power of inhumanity if you think that overfeeding ducks is the most horrible inhumane thing ever.
“Ducks and geese are FORCE fed until their livers are so painfully fat and large that they are dying.”
My goodness, they are FORCE fed, making it in capitals letters makes the argument so much more logical.
“THEN they're killed for your dining pleasure.”
I prefer my meat after the animal is dead. Eating live animals is best left to vampires. Seriously, all meat that I eat is killed for my dining pleasure.
“It has been banned because it is inhumane and cruel. CRUEL, do you understand that?”
No, it’s banned because people who live way too sheltered of lives get all bent out of shape when they “discover” where their food comes from. Then sad sheltered people want to force everyone else to suffer their dietary restrictions.
Are the ducks strung up and their feathers burned off with a blow torch? No, they are overfed.
Are the ducks dunked in tar and slowly roasted over a pit alive? No, they are overfed.
Are the ducks eaten alive by alligators? (A fate in the natural World) No, they are overfed.
Are the ducks eaten alive by snakes? (Again, an actual fate of wild ducks). No, they are overfed.
It’s as if the anti-meat people have never actually seen a wild animal and have no idea how nature works. Sadly, your goals have done nothing but lead to the extinction and near extinction of numerous breeds of animals.
Many small farms specialize in rarer animals, different types of ducks, chickens, and cows. You may know that chicken eggs come in white or brown, but did you know they can be pink, blue, yellow, green and almost any color, and that the color of the egg is determine by the color of the chicken’s ear? These are chickens that are not suitable for large scale production, but small specialty farms raise them, yet these are the farms most targeted by the anti-meat crowd. Why, because such farms lack the money and means to fight as effectively as large agri-business. But the consequences are both the extinction of smaller farmers and many species of animals.