In article ,
"Ted Mittelstaedt" wrote:

"Isabella Woodhouse" wrote in message
...
In article ,
"Ted Mittelstaedt" wrote:

"Isabella Woodhouse" wrote in message
...
In article ,
"Ted Mittelstaedt" wrote:
[...]
Then what exactly did you mean when you said, "You don't actually have
to remediate the land and water, you know."

Billy's statement was:

No, I wanted to know what *you* meant--- whether you were advocating not
remediating ruined lands and waterways (which is what it sounded like),
whether you stating that as a legal position, or whatever.

snip long rant about Billy

...So the real question is, are we going to apply current
laws retroactively?

No, I don't think that is the real question at all.
Environmental laws have been on the books for decades.
Nowadays? The Clean Water Act goes back to at least the 1960s,
no? That's nearly 50 years FCOL. Since when has it been legal
to pollute and contaminate your neighbor's property with a
stinking mountain of pig or cow shit (pardon my French) like
those created by factory "farms"?

You should ask Billy.

No, I am responding to what *you* said, not Billy.

He is the one that is asserting that such behavior is legal.

You appear to be making a ridiculous inference but it's up to Billy to
counter that, not me.

He will not because his goal is to make an illogical, emotional argument
and he doesen't want it dissected.

No reasonable person would draw such a ridiculous conclusion. What you
have fashioned here is another strawman of convenience in an attempt to
give your own position credibility. Pardon me for pointing this out but
this is really a very bad habit you would benefit from breaking.

Here is Billy's argument in a nutshell:

I have eyes and have read what Billy has written, Ted. I certainly
don't need you to interpret for me.

snip additional immaterial rant about Billy, Michael Moore, etc

This is the same logic...

No. Not logic.

I think you are wrong about that. I do not think that applying current
laws retroactively is the real issue here. Factory farms are relatively
new. They came way after most of the environmental laws.

OK, then if your insistence is that factory farming came after the
environmental laws,...

It has nothing to do with "insistence", as you call it. It's a fact.
If you can disprove it, then do so. Otherwise, I stand by my position
that applying laws retroactively is not the issue here. You've yet to
show, even remotely, that the application of laws retroactively with
regard to factory farm environmental issues is even a fact, let alone a
problem.

...then how does that square with your claim that
it's illegal to pollute with big mountains of cow shit like those
created by the factory farms?

Once again, I need to point out that you really have a problem with
misquoting other people, Ted. I never really stated that explicitly.
Had *I* done so, I'd have been far more specific and discrete. I did,
however, mention mountains of cow and pig shit in a pejorative sense.

Now as to your question (such that it is), let me see if I can shed some
light on at least part of it. First of all, given US laws, the word
"pollute" does have some legal meaning. Recognize that while it is
possible to have a mountain of pig shit that doesn't pollute, use of the
word "pollute" in your question does imply illegality. Furthermore, I'd
point out that this illegality is not conferred strictly by your general
description but, rather, by statutory prohibitions against the act as
under laws and their codified regulations. This is an important
distinction.

What I mean is that either it is legal to pollute or illegal depending
on the findings facts in a given case, such findings determined by a
qualified court of law. In light of the fact that (1) you have yet to
prove that retroactive legal determinations are even an issue and, (2)
you have not given a single factual (or even hypthetical) example, your
question makes no sense whatsoever.

So I don't understand how retroactivity came into the picture or
even how that relates to the main thrust of the quoted article
which is that bigger is not necessarily best in terms of farm size.

Retroactivity is central to this. Not necessairly legal retroactivity,
although that is some of it - despite your assertion that the factory
farming came after laws like the clean water act (which I doubt
but it doesen't matter) - but retroactivity in terms of changing societal
values

Then prove it. Any of your claims. You talk a lot but prove nothing.
Where are your facts?

Despite the passage of the Clean Water Act in 1977, the fact of
the matter is that the -majority- of people in US society haven't
been that interested in the environment until around the last 10
years.

Maybe a fact.... maybe not. You play fast and loose with your claims of
fact when you've given not the slightest bit of data to support your
claims.
[...]
What is different now is that people are beginning to see THEMSELVES
as polluters.

People have seen themselves as polluters before now--- like when they
stopped emptying their chamber pots in rivers and streams. So I do not
agree that this is as much a difference as you assert. But I agree that
there is a building awareness. Off the top of my head, I suspect one
major difference is a new awareness of far more substances that pollute
and actually how that affects us directly.

...Thus we have laws now (or will
real soon) making it illegal to throw lead in the trash (tv sets carry about
5 pounds of lead in their picture tubes) and people are told not to flush
meds down the toilet, etc. And people are starting to spend MORE
MONEY on products like organic foods that don't use pesticides, etc.

And so now, people are starting to realize that THEIR OWN CHOICES
are creating factory farming and those proverbial mountains of shit you
were talking about.

Yes, I agree that there is increased awareness that personal choices
have consequences.

snip more ranting about Billy

If not, then how are you going to justify taking current
environmental requirements for creating a large farm and
apply it to large farms that were created years ago?

What "environmental requirements for creating a large farm" are
you talking about? How is this even relevant? What are you
talking about when you refer to "large farms" created years
ago? How many years ago? I'm just trying to understand what
you mean here. Keep in mind that the average size farm in the
1950s was around 200 acres.

It has only been in the last 10 years that ranting against
agribusinesses has become fashionable due to environmental
concerns. Now, farm subsidies, that's a different matter -
people have been complaining about farmers being propped up by
the government since the 70's. But before the advent of the
large agribusinesses, nobody was ranting against large farms
because, as you pointed out, they didn't exist.

Wait just a minute; you are sidestepping again with more
balderdash. Once more, you failed to explain yourself. Can you not
answer a direct question? To reiterate, What "environmental
requirements for creating a large farm" are you talking about? I
don't recall ever having heard of such a thing!

Your saying here that there are no
environmental requirements for creating a large farm.

NO. I said no such thing! *You* said there were such requirements and
I've asked you repeatedly what requirements you're talking about. And
you still have not explained. What in the heck are you talking about?
Since you refuse to explain, one can only assume you cannot.

Then earlier your asserting large farms are breaking the clean water
act?

Where did I say that? Pardon me, but when are you going to stop pulling
these statements out of your backside? Stop attributing to me things I
never actually said. It only makes you look foolish.

That sounds pretty strange to me. To reiterate, what
are you talking about when you refer to "large farms" created years ago?
How many years ago and, for that matter, how large?

As my assertions are in a response to Billy, your discussing Billy's
rant, whether you like it or not.

Nonsense.

Every time someone walks into the supermarket and picks up a box
of Frosted Flakes for their kids, instead of getting the bulk sugar corn
flakes from the bulk food bin which cost half of Frosted Flakes, they
are contributing to the problem.

Yes, I can agree with you here that overly processed foods are huge part
of the more general American food industry problem. When they have to
add something to a food-like product to make it "more nutritious", that
is the first really bad sign. I can honestly say that I never, ever fed
my children any cereal coated with sugar.

What did you feed them?

Real, unprocessed or minimally processed food.

My opinion is that most so-called convenience foods are a
contrivance of marketers to make more money by marketing to
children or by refining valuable nutrients out of real food. Why
sell a quart of real apple juice when you can sell a quart of only
10% apple juice and 90% water + HFCS for an even higher price and
still call it "apple juice"?

Actually, they sell both the real apple juice and the 10% stuff in the
grocery store, and the real stuff is more expensive - unless your
buying the individually packaged juice boxes, in which case your
buying convenience in packaging. I'd presume that if they put 100%
real apple juice in the individually packaged juice boxes it would
be even higher priced than the 10% stuff.

I merely used that as an example to illustrate both the folly of
processed foods as well as the ease with which companies actually
convince people that such crap is better for them than real food. Juice
is simply another processed food lacking in many nutrients, enzymes and
other substances found in the real food it attempts to emulate--- fruit.
My family eats fruit but rarely juice.

If people didn't buy all of the processed food they do, then the large
food manufacturers like General Mills wouldn't be setting up large
production runs of Frosted Flakes and demanding 100 tons of
corn at a time. (or whatever it is) There would be no need for the
agribusineses and they wouldn't exist. Billy needs to be ranting and
railing against the dumb consumers not the agribusinesses.

Let me defend the consumer. How "dumb" are consumers who buy boxes of
incredibly sugared cereals that have the American Heart Association logo
on them, Ted? How dumb are consumers who, for decades, have based their
meals on the "USDA" dictated food pyramid, therefore consuming a diet
vastly overloaded with carbohydrates and starches? How dumb are
consumers who buy a box of anything that our government allows to say "0
transfats" when it actually has significant amounts of the same? I
could go on and on.

My point is that you can't put this all on the consumer's back. Our own
government and agencies that are supposed to be working for us have
allowed industry to defraud the public at an ever-increasing rate.

If people spent the same amount of energy researching the food they
purchase as they spend researching a new car, they wouldn' t be buying
these scam foods. Dollar for dollar they spend MORE money on the
food they eat than the new car. The difference is that they pay for the
food in bits and pieces and the car in one lump sum.

I agree.

It IS the consumer.

I've already stated my position on this. You have not convinced me that
consumers are solely responsible.

...The comsumer has the money. The problem is
that too many dumb consumers out there think they are paying less
when they pay me $10 a day for a whole year than if they pay me
$3,500.00 once a year.... [...]

Isabella
--
"I will show you fear in a handful of dust"
-T.S. Eliot