Even More Flawed Logic…..It’s Never Going To End

It would seem as long as horse slaughter is on the table, I will have endless material to write about.  Sadly, I’m beginning to feel a bit like a broken record and that always breaks my sarcasm filter even more than it already is.  In the past few days, I’ve taken some time to check in with our PSAs to try to get a handle on what they are thinking or if any of the facts that they have been presented with have actually sunk in.  No such luck, so get our your tinfoil beanies because we are going to attempt to follow the logic of the PSA crowd today.

One of the more bizarre arguments I have highlighted in the pasts was that some of the PSAs figure you can’t be Pro-choice on the abortion issue and anti-slaughter at the same time.  It absolutely confounds them that most anti-slaughter people see no relation between one and the other at all.  So, if that wasn’t bad enough, I actually saw one brainiac ask where people stood on the capital punishment issue.  While several people did answer one way or another, there seemed to be some confusion as to what it had to do with horse slaughter.  That is until he described a rogue horse he had (PSAs sure seem to have a lot these types of horses) that ended up in a kill pen and he felt that it was basically capital punishment for the horse because he was so bad.  Huh???????  Did the horse have a lawyer and a trial before you condemned him to his death?  It makes about as much sense.  I’m sure as the horse was shot in the face several times prior to being strung up and eviscerated while still alive, he considered the error of his ways and asked for forgiveness.  Maybe the taxpayers can fund a non-denominational priest to administer last rights for these horses too?

Another battle cry we keep hearing over and over again is that horses are property and people should have a right to do what they want with their property.  One of the comments on this blog spoke of `human responsibility’ and that concept seems to escape our PSA pals.  Yes, you can own a horse.  You can also own a dog, cat and any number of other living creatures.  However, that does not give you the RIGHT to abuse them.  There are laws about this very thing.  If you own a dog, you do not have the right to engage in dog fighting, nor do you have a right to abuse it any number of ways.  In fact the legal definition of animal cruelty is as follows: Cruelty to animals, also called animal abuse or animal neglect, is the infliction of suffering or harm upon non-human animals for purposes other than self-defense.  Since even Slaughterhouse Sue admits that there will be `minimal’ suffering involved with slaughtering horses, I would take the leap to think that is probably not legal unless every single horse in the kill box is somehow threatening the shooter’s life.  Since horses are not inanimate objects, there are laws governing what you are and are not allowed to do with YOUR property in this case.  How effectively they are actually enforced is another matter entirely.

You have been living under a rock if you haven’t read about or engaged in the whole Bute issue as it pertains for animals intended for human consumption.  Of course Douchebag Duquette still things that milk cows are given Bute on a regular basis and there is no problem with that (complete lie btw), other PSAs may have busted out their dictionaries and are beginning to realize what `banned’ means.  Try as we might, we just can’t seem to convince the majority of them that the banning of certain drugs and medications for animals used in human consumption has NOTHING to do with drug withdrawal times or metabolizing a drug through the system.  It has everything to do with carcinogens and what the potential effect is for knowingly consuming them.  Just like grey horses are very rarely accepted for human consumption due to most of them having malignancies.  You can’t eat that stuff and be safe.  Well, one of the PSA rocket scientists had a solution for all this and that is to ban Bute in all horses.  Excuse me?  Now you are going to tell me that my horses who will never see a slaughter-house now must go without therapeutic medications when they need them because you want to eat less than 2% of the entire horse population that ends up at slaughter?  I wonder if this person realizes that Bute is only one of many drugs that are banned.  That would mean there would be no Ivermectin, no ACE, no Furacin, no Hyaluronic Acid, or any number of drugs that performance horses and pleasure horses get all the time that keep horses healthy and comfortable (http://www.vetsforequinewelfare.org/prohibited-drugs.php).  Considering the drug companies have more money than anybody, I don’t see this happening any time soon.

Continuing on with the med bans, I have seen some PSAs liken it to prohibition.  They figure the ban won’t last forever because even prohibition was eventually lifted.  It seems we need a little history lesson.  Prohibition in the US was a movement initiated by evangelical Protestant churches.  It had more to do with morals than health and safety.  Even so, it only drove alcohol use underground and opened the doors for organized crime.  Eventually, cooler heads prevailed and it was lifted.  Since the Bute/Banned Med issue is not a moral question, I’m not exactly following the logic that connects the two things.  Perhaps we could connect the sinking of the Lusitania and somehow use that to prop up the banned med issue as well?

“licening horses same as guns ….Next we register our children…..tattoo numbers on our arms….then we are told who we can mate with….told what jobs we are permitted to take….when and where we can travel…..it’s a slippery, slippery slope”  This was contributed by a PSA today.  Guess what Sunshine?  That’s EXACTLY what is about to happen should you bring horse slaughter back.  By July of next year, in order for any horse to be slaughtered for human consumption and exported to Europe, they will need a passport and microchip which will list any and all medications given to a horse from birth similar to the EU passport system.  That means every single horse you breed and sell will be able to be traced back to YOU.  Should you decide to lie and that meat comes up tainted, you’re going to be in big trouble. It will be far worse than having a horse on a truck destined for slaughter show up with your name on the Coggins test.  Slippery enough for you now?

Speaking of slippery slopes, Douchebag Duquette and the United Horsemen want to assure you that no stolen horse will be slaughtered nor will a horse be slaughtered that you don’t want to, regardless of whether you sold it years ago or not.  How are they going to accomplish this miraculous feat?  They want you to PAY to register your horse with their Equine Owners Assurance program and even if you do pay them for this service, you will only have 72 hrs to answer the phone once your old horse gets presented for slaughter otherwise he’s getting killed anyhow.  Since unscrupulous kill buyers have been known to cut out or alter a brand on a horse being shipped for slaughter, it’s probably not a huge leap to guess they wouldn’t have a problem cutting out a micro-chip as well.  I heard some talk about iris scans maybe being used, but you’re going to have to pay to register your horse for those and pay a yearly fee as well.  Also, we already know that shippers have admitted to gouging they eyes out of horse causing problems as well.  Kind of hard to scan an eye that is no longer intact, no?  Besides the logistical nightmare that implementing this would be, don’t forget that this is an organization that can’t even issue a simple refund of a couple hundred dollars in a timely manner due to lack of funds.  How in hell are they going to afford all this technology to protect our horses?  What about horses that have been sold prior to implementation? I don’t know about you, but this feels a bit like extortion to me.

Everybody is going to get rich if we re-open slaughter plants for horses.  That’s what Slaughterhouse Sue would like you to believe anyhow.  She rattles off impressive numbers as far as meat prices and how much horse meat is exported every year.  What she neglects to tell her bumbling followers is that the profits are headed straight overseas with the carcasses. She tends to gloss over that slaughter houses for horses will be foreign-owned and she sure doesn’t talk about how Chevideco, through a series of front companies managed to pay only $5 in federal taxes on exports in excess of $12million.  It is also documented that the majority of the workers in slaughterhouses are working for barely minimum wage.  So, other than Suey and her Belgian buddies, who is going to get rich?

Slaughter is going to address the problems of horse abandonment and neglect.  Yup, it’s probably eventually going to be the cure for the common cold too.  It probably hasn’t occurred to Slaughterhouse Sue that maybe people are abandoning their horses in government lands because they don’t want to run them through a sale where they would likely get bought for slaughter.  People have always had the option of running a horse through a sale barn.  I wouldn’t advise it myself, but we have never taken that option away from anybody.  It doesn’t register with the PSAs that not every person that has hit financial hardship wants to see their pet slaughtered.  The only thing that will lessen this issue is the economy turning around.  As for neglect, that takes a certain mentality and slaughter isn’t going to fix that either.  You either have it in you to inflict pain and suffering on another living being or you don’t.  Your economic status doesn’t change that.

The more I read from the PSA side of things, the more disgusted I get.  Even when presented with documented facts and figures, they still can’t grasp simple concepts or look at any other alternatives.  Instead they prefer to dodge and deflect.  I’m beginning to think they just enjoy fighting online because they hold so little power in their own lives.  At the very least, I wish they would present some relevant facts and figures to back up their arguments rather than copy and pasting Slaughterhouse Sue’s lies and half-truths.  Maybe once the slaughter issue is laid to rest, I can spend my time working towards bringing back mandatory sterilization for some people and do my bit for humanity….

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