E. Coli Conservatism

by dday

By now you’ve heard about the 134 million pound recall of beef, after a Humane Society video showed employees at a slaughterhouse abusing downer cows and forcing them into the food supply.

The recall applies to beef slaughtered at the Hallmark/Westland Meat Packing Co. since Feb. 1, 2006. The company has produced no meat since Feb. 4 of this year, when operations were suspended.

The action came nearly three weeks after the Humane Society of the United States released a video showing workers at the plant using forklifts and water hoses, among other methods, to rouse cattle too weak to walk. In addition to issues of animal cruelty, the video raised questions about whether so-called downer cattle were entering the food chain in violation of federal regulations.

Although the Humane Society said at least four non-ambulatory cattle had been slaughtered for food, the USDA had repeatedly said it had no such evidence. On Sunday, federal officials said for the first time that they had evidence such cattle from Hallmark had been processed for food.

There have been enough of these videos made by PETA, the Humane Society, and other groups, that you have to figure that this kind of animal cruelty is the norm. Businesses want to maximize their profit and that means using every animal as meat, regardless of their physical health or disease. And the reason is very simple: there aren’t enough resources for the USDA to inspect all of the plants. They have too few inspectors and not enough funding. With little oversight comes many opportunities for abuse, because there won’t be any consequences. Democrats can investigate the process all they want; like the pet food recall, like the toy recall, they’ll discover that nobody’s doing any overwatch.

This is how the “drown government in the bathtub” ideology of conservatism ends up impacting everyone’s real life. Their goal is to strip as much regulation as possible for business, and you can only infer that they don’t care about the results. Just another thing at stake in this election.

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