Whatchoo talkin' about?
Posted on 01/31/2008 2:23:17 PM PST by mdittmar
Whatchoo talkin' about?
p.s.: I completely agree. As God's appointed stewards of created nature, man cannot shift responsibility away from himself for the care of the animals entrusted to him.
To "socialize" this personal responsibility via the cheval packing house is a derilection of human duty -- and responsibility.
Or so it seems to me. My two cents worth.
Of a truth, I understand the animal husbandry business. My husband and his family before him owned a livestock auction for about a 100 years - and he, of course, raised livestock.
But there is a huge difference between livestock and companion animals.
I have owned dogs, cats, fish, birds and horses as companion animals. None of them were food.
And had I ever raised a pig or sheep or goat as a companion, I wouldn't slaughter it for food either.
I was born and raised in San Antonio, Texas. Some of the letters in the museum annex at the Alamo underscore the very point you were making, dearest sister in Christ. The men of Texas back in those frontier days considered their horses and dogs as dear and very necessary friends.
I am just so tired of people jumping on a cause- without thinking of the consequences. If a solution would have been found for what to do with all the unwanted horses, I would not have an issue with those that fought so hard to close the slaughter houses. It just saddens me that so many were happy to sign petitions and contact officials to get slaughter banned and then most of those people went on to another cause without a thought about what would happen to all the unwanted horses when there was no place to take them.
Owners that were willing to sell their horses to slaughter are not going to suddenly become great horse owners- that is just common sense. Irresponsible horse owners are simply going to starve and neglect their horses even more now that they are not of value to them.
I don’t know what the solution is for all the unwanted horses, but they are worse off now, and few seem to worry about that. I wish all the people who fought against slaughter would now raise money and work just as hard to find a solution as they worked to end slaughter in the U.S. I just don’t see it happening.
I remember when people fought so hard to save the wild horses years ago; once it was not a fad any more, and most of the champions of the wild horses went home there was still the issue of what to do with the horses. Only a few are actually adopted to good homes, many are kept in feedlots at taxpayer expense. That to me is like a equine prison and not a solution for the horses. The wild horse issue has never been solved, and now another set of problems has been created with the ban on slaughter- so now there are even more horses that are unwanted.
It sounds good to think you have saved horses, but what future have you saved them for? If it is a life of neglect then did you really do a good thing?
I agree with you that the bad owner is to blame- but there is not enough man-power or places to keep the horses for the laws to really be enforced. Sometimes you have to see the reality of the situation. Reality now is the bad owner has no where to take their unwanted horses- most rescues are past the limit they can care for- meaning the horse is paying the price, not the bad owner. Most of these horses will never be rescued.
I feel very strongly that those who fought to end slaughter need to now fund rescue, and care for the unwanted horses. To say it is the owner’s responsibility is like letting children be neglected and abused and instead of helping the children you simply say “it is the parent’s responsibility.” If all parents and pet owners were responsible, it would be nice, but it is a pipe dream.
All grains (and feed) rose in price due to the ethanol fraud. A dairy farmer told me tonight his feed corn went from $2 to $5 (Bu.) mostly from the ethanol fraud.
Dry C.O.B (Corn, Oats & Barley) is a reccomended basic horse feed. Wet COB has molasses added. You can buy all kinds of prepared fancy horse grains but the basic is COB.
Corn is not a major component in the regular diet of most horses. Sweet feed contains little corn and is fed sparingly. Oats and barley have risen in price due to farmers planting other crops ... and the price increase will encourage others to plant oats and barley. That is the way it works.
But there are those who will use any opportunity to bash alternative fuel. If you don't like it, dont' buy it. Horses aren't starving because of ethanol production.
Tradition does not equal conservative - I don’t know where you ever got that notion. Attitudes like yours are what brings us closer to that socialistic society no conservative wants to inhabit.
With a view like yours I sure hope to hell that you contribute all of your discretionary income to maintaining horse and dog rescues, because it’s misguided, interfering busy-bodies like you who cause needless suffering to these animals when their owners can no longer afford them and they can’t be given away for free.
Wise up. We are no longer an agrarian society where everybody has a few acres or so upon which you can turn out your old or lame horses for next to no cost. It costs hundreds of dollars a month to keep even one; just ask the rescue farms.
You said no one you knew fed horses corn. I pointed out that corn is fed to horses, although in small amounts. Some people even top their feed with corn oil to build weight on horses that need it.
All grains have risen in price due to diversion of corn, wheat, other grains, beets and other feeds to ethanol fuel production. Horses were turned out into the wild the last couple of years in Oregon because people could not afford to feed them. Some of the horses were rescued, some weren’t.
Oregon required 10% ethanol in gasoline in certain counties during the winter for air pollution control. A recent Canadian study claims no advantage for pollution, just a switch of pollutants.
One of our vehicles has a fuel computer. After driving 10 miles the computer shows 4 mpg less on the ethanol mix.
Hand computation for fuel consumption on my truck show 16% less milage with the ethanol mix.
The newer vehicle has stalled out trying to accelerate into traffic on the ethanol mix.
Proponents of the ethanol mix say you will only need to increase maintenance a “little” to prevent damage to your engine. My vehicles have oil change computers to maximize lube oil efficiency and thus reduce oil changes and save oil. The computers do not take into account ethanol. Now I have to go back to guessing and over compensate on oil changes.
Fuels filters will need to be changed more often, they don’t tell you how often. Annually? Fuel filter change by mechanics run $80 to $200 on gasoline engines. A recent fill up by one man ended up with $800 fuel pump repair.
The ethanol picks up water & bio scum. Some non metal fuel lines swell & fail, some metal lines & tanks rust.
A dairy farmer friend recently found out Oregon is also mandating bio-diesel be added to all regular diesel. He found that out from his mechanic when he repaired his freightliner from damage caused by bio-diesel contamaination.
My outboards have a reccomendation against using ethanol mix. Just what I want is engine trouble when I’m ten miles offshore.
Oregon is mandating year round 10% ethanol in all counties.
I’m calling the ethanol mandate FRAUD.
You were the one applauding the ban on slaughter - how about you and your fellow busy-bodies come up with a solution ?
I loved your post - provided “you could afford it” you’d adopt one. One, of thousands ! Wow, how generous ! Thousands of horses are in that position now, costing at least a few hundred dollars a month in food and care, and all you can say is your concern is provisional. Got any friends just as “concerned as you” ?
Just like a liberal - act first by getting the government involved to do your dirty work, appear dumbfounded at the negative consequences.
Horses are not pets, like dogs or cats - they are work animals. And that's where the do-gooders on this thread go wrong.
Neglect is abuse; slaughterhouses are not.
I believe you are mistaken in this, cinives. Here is one of the best descriptions of political conservatism that I've ever seen, from Stephen J. Tonsor:
Conservatism has its roots in a much older tradition. Its world view is Roman or Anglo-Catholic; its political philosophy Aristotelian and Thomist; its concerns, moral and ethical; its culture, that of Christian humanism. Most old-fashioned conservatives are free of metaphysical anxiety and are happy as clams in a world that bears the unmistakeable imprint of God's ordering hand. They are free of alienation, and they have absolutely no hopes of a utopian political order. They live with sin and tragedy not as the consequence of inadequate social engineering but as a consequence of man's sin and disorder. They believe that human institutions and human culture are subject to the judgment of God, and they hold that the most effective political instrument is prayer and a commitment to try to understand and do the will of God.According to Russell Kirk, American conservative political philosophy has roots in four historical cities, Jerusalem, Athens, Rome, and London. To focus on the contribution of just the last of these, classical liberalism (not the bastardized so-called liberalism of the Democrat party, which is essentially socialism): We find a major intellectual influence on the creation of our own founding documents in John Locke, a British Whig and father of the Glorious Revolution of 1688, which deposed James II. To get a good sense of the philosophical underpinnings that informed classical liberalism/conservatism, consider these lines from Trenchard & Gordon, from the enormously influential (on our own revolution) Cato's Letters:
All men are born free; Liberty is a Gift which they receive from God; nor can they alienate the same by consent, though possibly they may forfeit it by crimes....In all the above senses, I am a conservative, and you are (probably) a Libertarian. The huge difference between conservatives and libertarians is the former center their world in inherited tradition and ultimately in God, and the latter are agnostic about God (if not outright atheist), and evidently think the world came into existence on the day they were born -- so little respect for culture and history do they evidence.Liberty is the power which every man has over his own Actions, and the Right to enjoy the Fruit of his Labor, Art, and Industry, as far as by it he hurts not the Society, or any Member of it, by taking from any Member, or by hindering him from enjoying what he himself enjoys.
The fruits of a Man's honest Industry are the just rewards of it, ascertained to him by natural and eternal Equity, as is his Title to use them in the Manner which he thinks fit: And thus, with the above Limitations, every Man is sole Lord and Arbiter of his own private Actions and Property....
Another major difference is conservatism places the individual in the context of the wider society, while libertarianism sees the individual as an absolute end-in-himself. That is a HUGE difference in point of view.
Jeepers, cinives, who are you to judge me as someone who wants to bring us closer to a socialistic society? Nothing could be further from my idea of a well-ordered society than socialism.
All of which seems to be quite a digression from our issue at hand, what to do about abused and neglected horses.
You seem to think I'm not prepared to offer any help here, totally dissing what I said in an earlier post to the point of acusing me of hypocrisy. So, what exactly is your proposed solution to this problem?
A p.s., this regarding your attribution of hypocrisy to me.
I am presently unhorsed, but have had many horses in the past. My experience breaks down into two general situations: boarded away, or housed on my own property. The latter is by far the preferable situation, both for the horse in question and for me. The place where I'm now living is too small to accommodate a horse; but this will likely change in the next few years, as my husband and I plan to retire and move to a rural setting. Part of our motive in doing this is to be "horsed" again. We would then have the means and wherewithal to help with this problem.
Meanwhile, financial support of rescue efforts and shelters, and speaking out on this issue, are things I can do at present. Presumably such efforts are not totally worthless.
Har....there is a manufactured economic problem and the leftie doogooder is whining because the money flow to her cause is not increasing at the rate she demands.
You forgot the sarcasm tag.
That’s something one needs to take into consideration before buying an expense pet.
Better to put an ad in the paper for a free horse to good home, cannot afford to take care of him. I know people who would take someone up on that rather than see a horse abused and neglected.
I didn’t say they were. There needs to be some facilities for taking properly taking care of sick, injured, or too old horses. Like any animal, sometimes putting them down is a necessity. You have to be able to do something with the carcass. You can’t just let it rot.
It’s blaming the abuse and neglect of animals on lack of slaughter houses that’s wrong. That’s solely the responsibility of the owner.
Well you typed a lot, but not sure what it all has to do with the topic. Also if you were hinting that I am an athiest- not guilty. I am also not guilty of ignoring history or not being familiar with history. As to whether or not you are a socialist, I have no idea- but many that fought to stop slaughter expect the government (taxpayers of course) to solve the issue of the unwanted horses once again just as they had to do when the “wild horses were saved” so many years ago. It does seem socialist to me for people to expect the taxpayers to pay to support unwanted horses. I freely choose to rescue horses when I can, and have taken in old horses when their owners did not want to go to the trouble to care for them- but that is my choice- I want to decide which horses and how many I can afford to care for. I don’t want the government or well intended people to decide that for me. When the unwanted horses grow to a number that cannot be dealt with, and people are dumping them- I am sure the “government” will be forced to solve the issue, just as they had to take over the care of the wild horses.
How many horses have you personally saved while you were fighting to stop slaughter, and how many have you saved since? I’m not sure where you live, but in most places there are abused and neglected horses that need help so you can put your money where your mouth is and help them; instead of patting yourself on the back about fighting for the horses.
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