Reflections on a stone block and on gruesome factory farming and more

I

Wall of John Médaille

a posting by another guy, named KH

KH's post

Upper piece of picture:

three men in the style of Egyptian Pyramid builders dragging a stone block with a desk and a boss on top of it.

Lower piece of same:

no more boss on top of stone block, but a leader at same time showing the way and adding a fourth piece of muscle strength to the dragging.

HGL

putting it like that verges on idiocy.

KH

I see it as contrasting Pharao's approach with Christ's. (Instead if merely dictating one leads by example.)

HGL

There is a problem here.

Christ indeed set an example, but he is NOT requiring everyone to get onto Calvary with loads of wood on the back and get nailed hands and feet until suffocating slower than a halal slaughtered sheep dies.

That was the theological one. On the Economic level, a heavy stone is a heavy stone, and too gavey for three men to carry with a boss sitting on it, but still too heavy for four men, including the boss acting as leader instead, to carry as well.

On the level of twenty men, it is hardly harder to drag it with one man on top than with a twentyfirst man dragging.

And the distributist thing for the four men would be not to drag the block at all, but to part it in four pieces and start sculpting each in his piece.

And each of the four men would in that Distributist picture have the designation neither of boss nor of leader, but of craftsman.

II

Wall of friend

crying, showing a picture with text: Disgraceful! The egg industry grinds baby male chicks alive because they're "useless." Who agrees that this is terrible?

LKG

It's terrible, but what are they supposed to do with them?

friend

Well, not grind them up alive! That is just barbaric. When there is a very problematic situation, it usually it due to a larger, foundational problem, and one must fix it, and the root of this problem is…factory farming. It is just unnatural. What did they use to do? Well, before factory farming, they would have never had this massive amount of male chicks to dispose of, and I suppose they did used to serve a purpose - as alarm clocks!

WH

Excess roosters were eaten at a young age. These are probably a scrawny breed adapted for the highest egg production, so not so good for eating but could be stewed and provide mineral-rich bone broth if raised on pasture. Most people in the past who were raising chickens for home use chose a multi-purpose breed that was good for eating and egg production.

friend

Yes, there is no answer to this solution, except for getting rid of factory farming.

LKG

That's true, but it's not likely to happen. Factory farming is providing food that is cheaper, and that is what most people will buy, which is why factory farming first began. Think about this for a moment. The chicks used to be thrown alive into garbage bags, where they would most likely suffocate, and the rest would die of starvation. They are so small that I'm sure they die quickly when they are ground up, and the remains are then useful as pet food or fertilizer. We raised chickens when I was growing up. There is no way to tell what gender the chick will be before it hatches, and only some Orientals can tell the gender immediately after hatching. We could tell, in time, and then all but one rooster had to be separated from the hens, or they would kill each other. We butchered all but one of the roosters as soon as they got big enough to eat, and we did eat them, but rooster meat is not as tender or tasty as hen meat, which is why there is no market for the male chicks.

RC

This cannot be true. Except that it can.

HGL

LKG, unfortunately it has happened that ground up chickens have been used to feed chickens.

"Factory farming is providing food that is cheaper, and that is what most people will buy, which is why factory farming first began."

Factory farming is providing food that is cheaper. Nike is providing shoes that are cheaper. Coca and Pepsi are providing drinks that are cheaper. People live in houses of concrete module over concrete module that are cheaper. Everyone is living a cheaper life.

Could it be that the craze for producing cheaper is impoverishing people employed in these cheaper productions, so that more people are nowadays FORCED to buy cheaper? Hmm?

Factory farming makes life less expensive except for farmers. Nike makes life less expensive except for Nike factory employees. Coca and Pepsi make life cheaper except for Coca and Pepsi employees. Hold on, who is NOT loosing at some one end? Perhaps the out-of-work, the unemployed? Well, there are more of those these days!

LKG

Very true, Hans-Georg Lu[n]dahl. So few people see this, which is part of why it is so difficult to reverse it.

HGL

This is part of why I am writing. And also a reason why I offer conditions favourable to small printers.

HGL's F.B. writings : Be my Unwin or Hooper if you like.
http://hglsfbwritings.blogspot.com/2011/09/be-my-unwin-or-hooper-if-you-like.html

Unfortunately, favourable conditions for printing my essays on small scale locally are not quite enough to keep an organic farm going.

III

Friend quoting a Distributist

"Both socialism and capitalism are products of the European Enlightenment and are thus modernizing and anti-traditional forces. In contrast, distributism seeks to subordinate economic activity to human life as a whole, to our spiritual life, our intellectual life, our family life." – Thomas Storck

HGL

[linking to this adress, while only first one was here.]

Paul D

Thank goodness for capitalism, though. Imagine how hard life would be without it.

HGL

How hard? Oh, without Ford you would not have a car to drive one hour to the job? Just that, under Middle Ages, usually European city dwellers were not taking an hour to get to their job. Usually a master craftsman would wake up and eat his breakfast upstairs and walk to the job and the business downstairs in the same house.

IV

Friend

I used to be "pro privatisation" - back when I followed mainstream "conservative" politics. Since practical solutions are needed to solve modern day problems (i.e. we just can't undo eveything, and go back to the Middle Ages), I think it is better for a government agency to be run by the local government than for it to be privatised. The latter is just as bad as federally-owned, if not worse, and is very capitalistic. Of course, the government should be non-profit.

DC

Practical Distributism : Distributism Basics: The Nature and Roles of Government http://practicaldistributism.blogspot.com/2014/01/distributism-basics-nature-and-roles-of.html

Friend

I am pro-distributism, of course, but could you please tell me your thoughts on this post? I will, of course, open the link, and read its contents.

DC

Well, as I am the author of the post, i think it's great!

I try to make the point that local issues should be handled by local authorities.

Friend

By "this post," I meant "my post."

DC

I agree with the statement. Remote government entities are too far removed from the problem to make them effective at solving local problems. That doesn't mean that they can't assist in some way (as I state in my article), but if the government is involved, it should be the local government which is more directly answerable to the people impacted by their decisions and policies. This means that the people in the community will have the greatest ability of oversee government assistance within their community.

HGL

"Since practical solutions are needed to solve modern day problems (i.e. we just can't undo eveything, and go back to the Middle Ages)"

Going back to the Middle Ages and undoing everything are two different proposals.

Some Government Agencies (I suppose you do not mean Post Offices) are intruding into people's lives.

Paul D

Yet nationalised orgs tend to be heavily unionised, inefficient and/or run for the benefit of the staff. Competition brings efficiency which benefits customers/citizens. Contrast the old east and west Germanys.

HGL

Any organisation is run either for the benefit of the staff or that of shareholders to some degree. Rather staff than shareholders.

Any organisation that needs coordination over the area of a nation state can as well be run by the state as private. There is an intermediate. The before private owner of a Spanish electricity company was made a duke or a count by Franco. So that he was a "private citizen" no more, but his company a feudal holding.

Paul D

A private organisation will only succeed if it pleases customers. State-undertakings (often monopolies) tend to escape market-pressure and consequently serve us badly. One economist has estimated that the state costs twice as much as the private sector to do anything. Worse, the money used to pay for state-services is often obtained with the threat of force and/or by expropriation. Even if the state served us well, the foundation of its finances would be unethical.

HGL

Taxes are not per se unethical. Nor are monopolies to relieve tax pressure.

"A private organisation will only succeed if it pleases customers."

Not even always true, since certain ones enjoy a kind of monopoly or joint such, i e oligopoly due to Capitalism empoverishing general population to needing the Walmart and similar.

What is true is that it will only succeed if customers will buy there. Which due to levels of doles and of wages may involve some kind of force - especially if certain cities like Pensacola go Communist selectively against bums.

"State-undertakings (often monopolies) tend to escape market-pressure and consequently serve us badly."

Capitalist oligopolies tend to override normal market pressures, remodel the market and make market pressures serve nearly everyone badly.

A state can limit its monopolies to things that need nationwide coordination, like post offices.

"Contrast the old east and west Germanys."

Post offices were run by the State both sides of Berlin Wall. East Germany had its worst elements of societal make up totally distinct from the market liberal vs monopolistic question, like school monopoly (which alas West Germany also had, herited from Hitler) and Psychiatry and Social Services having a very large role in too many peoples' lives.

"I think it is better for a government agency to be run by the local government than for it to be privatised."

The only loan agencies allowed to take any interest at all in Lateran V was precisly a local government directed pawn broker, where interest could go to paying the clerks very modestly, or ideally that could be managed by taxes (and monopolies) to half the extent and only other half by interest.

But TV and Radio, I think the sector can be private.