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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: DuckTapeSunroof who wrote (515628)	12/24/2003 4:59:21 PM
From: Johannes Pilch	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 769670

Certainly, the costs to their farmers from the inspection procedures are NOTHING like what they bore when the BSE outbreak was confirmed. You certainly have a point there. Unless you can grow your own food (hardly a choice for urban dwellers... unless they like Tilapia), then the government has to be relied upon to 'promote the general welfare' of it's citizens and defend our economic security from such forseeable threats. Otherwise, what use is a government? The problem is in the phrase "promote the general welfare." It does not mean that individuals are not firstly responsible for their own welfare. I agree that government has a role to play in commerce. If a merchant claims to sell A and is in fact selling B disguised as A, he breaks an implied contract and government has a responsibility in making sure justice is served in this case. But if government decides that selling B disguised as A is okay, so long as B "closely approximates" A, then we have no recourse but to change government. The problem is, before such a change takes effect, we may die as a result of the circumstance we aim to correct. In some cases the government actually disallows full disclosure of the nature of our food even when we demand such disclosure. I therefore think that for me, the most prudent solution is to take matters into my own hands as rapidly and as fully as I possibly can. Many of us tend unfortunately to set the priority improperly-- first relying upon the government and THEN upon ourselves. I think it most prudent to fashion the thing in exactly the opposite direction. I consider it a cop-out to claim 'we must rely upon government for food quality, since we cannot produce our own food.' That is no argument. It is a mere opinion, and my own life proves it is false. I live in the biggest metropolis in America - or just North of it. But I simply would not allow that to interfere with the pressing priority, which to me was getting the purest food and water I can get without having to trust those who do not warrant such trust. THAT was the goal and I had to fashion ways to achieve it, despite my constraints. In circumstances like these it is foolish to allow the constraints to force you into eating what you do not wish to eat. You instead do everything you can to eat properly, even if it requires you to make sacrifices. I think the real issue here is that most Americans know there is a problem, but are unwilling to make the sacrifices requisite to correct it. Yet should they find themselves diseased and dying from toxins, they wish to complain bitterly against the government - as if the government is at fault. It is not. When you know all along that there is a problem or that at least there was a significant likelihood of a problem, and yet you do not wish to be inconvenienced enough to do anything about it, you are at fault for your own suffering. They've been working on that for a long time: problem is the sub-virus-sized misshapen proteins called "prions" tend to concentrate in nerve tissue... not too many people willing to have their brains sampled to see if they've contracted vCD ;) Hah. I was wondering if it might be possible to somehow test the food itself, to see if it contains the prions (or any pathogen that might cause problems). But I would imagine that if a bug is sub-virus sized, that will be very difficult to do. And, as we can see from the recent news items, even when a 'downer cow' is dragged into the slaughter house --- surely a prime candidate for testing --- the brains & spinal cord are sent for testing... while the MEAT is processed for sale anyway. Well, this just shows how little we ought to trust "society" with the food that keeps us alive. I don't really much disagree with anything you've said. Even your perspective on government's role has some merit. But I think ultimately we are charged, as individuals, with doing all we can to stay alive - and that where food is concerned, there is still quite a lot we can do as individuals. There really is no excuse for accepting the words of nameless others in this area - unless there is in place a clearly delineated moral framework that society as a whole embraces and that it wishes to embrace, not merely in letter, but also in spirit. That sort of framework no longer exists, and unlike in the past it is no longer even a social goal. This is tragic and we have not yet begun to really experience its ramifications. Well...I guess I ought not preach too much here. The fact is, your (collective) lives are thankfully your own, and I need not have much, if anything, to do with them. As for me, the thing is crystal clear. It is quite ridiculous to think that a society that advocates so much of what is contrary to my nature, will have the decency to be consistent with my nature regarding something so trivial as the products I aim to consume.