I am going to meander, but stay with me... I am going somewhere...
Last year we had some hysteria in our local newspaper that someone was shooting ducks with arrows, and that somebody should do something about it... as in 100k per year law enforcement personnel with a pension that will last longer than the time they spent working should go out there and find this cruel and inhuman person... did anybody do a cost/benefit analysis on ducks?
I wrote a letter to the "journalist", in which I pointed out that we have a VERY high percentage of folks with no place to call home and HUNGER here in South Florida - could it be that somebody was trying to make a meal out these ducks? I mean, they are Muscovy Ducks, aren't they? The very type whose flesh is served in the best French (and Cuban) restaurants in Miami?
You hear a great deal of B.S.! about eating local, locavores, etc... yet it is almost impossible to consume "local" meats. That is because of rules put in place by the U.S.D.A., ostensibly to protect the public from "off" meat, PRIOR TO REFRIGERATION BEING WIDELY USED!!! In fact, livestock might well be grown in one place, trucked 500 miles to be processed, and then have the meat trucked 500 miles BACK to the town that produced the livestock in the first place... all because the U.S.D.A. has made it essentially IMPOSSIBLE for a small businessman (woman) to open a slaughter and processing plant. In fact, 4 HUGE companies (all of whom are MASSIVE contributors to the Democratic party... and why not? That political party HATES small business) process about 85% of all of the meat sold at retail in the U.S., at plants that are very far away from the ultimate consumption point of the meat. Does this sound like a very sustainable, environmentally friendly way to distribute food?
Of course, nature, and markets, abhor a vacuum. Black markets will spring up... So, today in South Florida 100 of our finest and most expensive public employees fanned out over much of west Dade county with guns and badges to put a stop to the illegal slaughter of livestock. I can just see it: "Stop cutting that chicken's head off you human being, or I'll slaughter you with my service weapon."
Our local governments are extracting extreme levels of property and sales taxes to fund the pensions of folks that are hard at work making sure people have to buy their food from the RIGHT CHANNELS, but have no money to prevent people from freezing to death in their own home. Better yet, if I kill a chicken for dinner in my back yard here in Boca Raton, FL, I could be charged with a FELONY for animal cruelty BUT... if I kill a chicken in my back yard in Lebanon, TN the local police chief will be happy to share his mama's fried chicken recipe with me... so long as he's invited to dinner.
Did it ever occur to the Jag Off's in Law Enforcement to do a cost/benefit analysis on illegal slaughtering houses and freezing old men? Did they consider that MAYBE, just MAYBE, the people patronizing these illegal slaughter houses might not be able to afford meat in the quantity they require from WalMart? NAFC. Hell, 20% of Dade County is receiving Food Stamps from the government, and our charity food kitchens are unable to keep up with demand here in South Florida.
In the aftermath of WWII in Europe there was a conspicuous absence of pets. There was no dog or cat food - dogs and cats were food.
We have crossed some strange boundary here...