'Myths' about US farming: UK-US trade deal

I don't understand what this subject has to do with Brexit. Are there not poultry farms in the UK? Why would Brexit necessitate a reliance on meat that's produced 4,700 miles away, when there are much closer sources available?

Manc Skipper said:

It may have been horrendous but it didn't need bathing in bleach before it was edible.

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Well not to knock a Brit off his high horse but BSE didn't come from a bleach bath nor any US practice. IIRC 'mad cow' came from the Brits feeding cows back to cows. So if I had to say, a bleach bath is better than BSE any day.

The nasty fact in world wide food production is cost over rides most considerations in supply. Stopping US food imports would cause a very painful life for many so-called first world nations. But I doubt it gets too far, even tRump threats to ramp up some trade war... eace

truthatallcost said:

I don't understand what this subject has to do with Brexit. Are there not poultry farms in the UK? Why would Brexit necessitate a reliance on meat that's produced 4,700 miles away, when there are much closer sources available?

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I've read your other posts on US-China meat trades (they are by far net IMPORTERS of US AG products) Poultry farms don't 'plant' eggs to make chickens, they plant grain to raise chickens. The reliance is on the grain to feed poultry. the grain is grown 4,700 miles away and like it or not the practices to make affordable food depends on corporate profit, climate and local laws on animal care. The massive poultry raising centers would simply not exist in the UK, the grain never produced on the scale needed, and processing plants overwhelmed attempting the 'nicer' methods to produce safe food.

But do go on.... eace

notquiteright said:

I've read your other posts on US-China meat trades (they are by far net IMPORTERS of US AG products)

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My argument said nothing about trade deficits. So you're using that as a distraction. The issue for most Americans is quality, and China with it's 1.4 billion people, is a prime example of what happens to quality control in an overpopulated country; it ceases to exist.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...ou-sick/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.31d1e06684d8

Poultry farms don't 'plant' eggs to make chickens, they plant grain to raise chickens. The reliance is on the grain to feed poultry. the grain is grown 4,700 miles away and like it or not the practices to make affordable food depends on corporate profit, climate and local laws on animal care. The massive poultry raising centers would simply not exist in the UK, the grain never produced on the scale needed, and processing plants overwhelmed attempting the 'nicer' methods to produce safe food.

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The OP is talking about meat imports from the USA to the UK, and referencing an article written by our Ambassador to the UK, which talked about meat imports, not grain imports, to the UK from USA. The Ambassador is an heir to the Johnson & Johnson fortune, which owns 250 international subsidiaries. Gee, who wants to bet that Robert Wood Johnson probably has a vested interest in promoting globalization?

But do go on.... eace

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You use the peace sign in nearly every post you make, hoping it confuses people into thinking you've made an air-tight argument. Tell me, has that ever worked for you?

truthatallcost said:

My argument said nothing about trade deficits. So you're using that as a distraction. The issue for most Americans is quality, and China with it's 1.4 billion people, is a prime example of what happens to quality control in an overpopulated country; it ceases to exist. The OP is talking about meat imports from the USA to the UK, and referencing an article written by our Ambassador to the UK, which talked about meat imports, not grain imports, to the UK from USA. The Ambassador is an heir to the Johnson & Johnson fortune, which owns 250 international subsidiaries. Gee, who wants to bet that Robert Wood Johnson probably has a vested interest in promoting globalization? You use the peace sign in nearly every post you make, hoping it confuses people into thinking you've made an air-tight argument. Tell me, has that ever worked for you?

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You can't remember what you post??? Deflection, does that ever work for you?

You didn't cite China's population but OUR population when babbling about quality control.... :roll:

I'm not talking balance of trade but correcting you on who imports ag products not us from China but they import ours.... :doh

You asked about the UK's ability to produce chicken rather than import it from thousands of miles away. I simply informed you why the UK can't and we do...

Not to worry, I don't need a peace sign to show my argument beats yours every time…

Now spin/deflect/rant that one away while attempting to wail away about 'globalization'.... eace

notquiteright said:

You can't remember what you post??? Deflection, does that ever work for you?

You didn't cite China's population but OUR population when babbling about quality control.... :roll:

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Which isn't the post you responded to. :roll:

Any country which expands it's population past the amount needed to sustain itself is likely to experience higher prices for goods, at the same time the quality of those goods plummets. Cheap imports are unavoidable at that point.

I'm not talking balance of trade but correcting you on who imports ag products not us from China but they import ours.... :doh

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You're clueless. We import seafood from China, with 78% of some fish being imported. 90% of our vitamin C supplements originate from China. Furthermore, you skipped right by the WaPo article I'd posted, about preprocessed chicken nuggets being imported from China. Appetizing, isn't it? Read the writing on the wall.

You asked about the UK's ability to produce chicken rather than import it from thousands of miles away. I simply informed you why the UK can't and we do...

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That's bull****. The UK raised and slaughtered 77 million birds last year for consumption. There's a fried chicken shop on every street corner in Bradford. But the UK is at 66 million people, and growing. They're going to need American imports soon just to keep up with demand. Say goodbye to quality.

Not to worry, I don't need a peace sign to show my argument beats yours every time…

Now spin/deflect/rant that one away while attempting to wail away about 'globalization'.... eace

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Not only are you not quite right, you appear to be never right.

Infinite Chaos said:

I buy from a local butcher but is this really the kind of benefit that faces UK meat buyers in the future as we leave the EU? Is there anyone here (Europe or USA) that looks forward to a chicken that's been washed in chlorine solution?
(n.b. - Vegetables and salad washed in Chlorine is something I don't have a problem with - it's not the chlorine that bothers me, it's the state of the chicken that requires a chlorine wash)

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I know this may be an alien concept to many, but in a free country one would expect you to make your own choice; the UK government isn't going to mandate you eat American chickens are they? They are not banning the sale of non-chlorinated chickens by UK producers are they? So then, if true, exactly what are you bitching about?

maxparrish said:

I know this may be an alien concept to many, but in a free country one would expect you to make your own choice; the UK government isn't going to mandate you eat American chickens are they? They are not banning the sale of non-chlorinated chickens by UK producers are they? So then, if true, exactly what are you bitching about?

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But that is not how protecting the consumer works, in a free country the government has a task to protect it's population from possible harm/deception/crooked practices.

This is about protecting the health of a population by banning products that are likely not to the standards your country has for food production and sale. To protect your public, you ban all imports of what you consider bad food/unwanted food. This is also I think an economic decision because you do not want "honest" farmers get shafted by cheap imports with dodgy animal health practices. This is protecting both the animal welfare people, the scared farmers and the fearful public from products from countries who do not have the same standards as you have.

Peter King said:

But that is not how protecting the consumer works, in a free country the government has a task to protect it's population from possible harm/deception/crooked practices.

This is about protecting the health of a population by banning products that are likely not to the standards your country has for food production and sale. To protect your public, you ban all imports of what you consider bad food/unwanted food. This is also I think an economic decision because you do not want "honest" farmers get shafted by cheap imports with dodgy animal health practices. This is protecting both the animal welfare people, the scared farmers and the fearful public from products from countries who do not have the same standards as you have.

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I'm sorry, the hallmark of a "free country" is NOT making people unfree. If you think "freedom" is removing the right to choose who someone associates, trades, or speaks with then Orwell's "Freedom is slavery" brainwashing is no longer a phrase of fiction but a reality.

Lots of countries, including unfree ones, ban products or product sources, all in the name of protecting someone or something (e.g. "protecting" their population, their workers, or their producers and special interests). This also includes (or has included) unfree countries such as the Soviet Union, Russia, China, Cuba, North Korea, etc.

So yes, in a truly free country, people are free to choose. If they wish to buy something, be it bad sex or a damn chicken, they can do so. And if there is not fraud (they know the Chicken was sanitized in a chlorinated water bath) or through violence then it's no one else's business but theirs.

Why is that simple principle of liberty, of leaving people alone and free, so difficult for the those who want to butt in to understand?

maxparrish said:

I'm sorry, the hallmark of a "free country" is NOT making people unfree. If you think "freedom" is removing the right to choose who someone associates, trades, or speaks with then Orwell's "Freedom is slavery" brainwashing is no longer a phrase of fiction but a reality.

Lots of countries, including unfree ones, ban products or product sources, all in the name of protecting someone or something (e.g. "protecting" their population, their workers, or their producers and special interests). This also includes (or has included) unfree countries such as the Soviet Union, Russia, China, Cuba, North Korea, etc.

So yes, in a truly free country, people are free to choose. If they wish to buy something, be it bad sex or a damn chicken, they can do so. And if there is not fraud (they know the Chicken was sanitized in a chlorinated water bath) or through violence then it's no one else's business but theirs.

Why is that simple principle of liberty, of leaving people alone and free, so difficult for the those who want to butt in to understand?

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That is your version of a free country, but that sounds more like an anarchist country. In democracies the government is tasked with protecting the public.

So no, in a truly free country the government still protects the public, that is why the US has the FDA. The UK has the same right to protect the health of it's public.

maxparrish said:

I know this may be an alien concept to many, but in a free country one would expect you to make your own choice; the UK government isn't going to mandate you eat American chickens are they? They are not banning the sale of non-chlorinated chickens by UK producers are they? So then, if true, exactly what are you bitching about?

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You really didn't follow the thread did you? You basically demonstrate that you have no clue idea of the production line of pre-packaged foods.

The question is what will stop unscrupulous dealers selling chlorine washed chicken under the guise of non-chlorinated chickens? When someone buys a prepackaged meal (I cook all my own food from scratch) how do you know the meat the producer used did not come from the cheapest, nastiest source possible?

Please read up on food standards before you reply further. This is not a freedom of speech issue and it is moronic to try and take it down that pathway.

Peter King said:

~ The UK has the same right to protect the health of it's public.

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I think you mean obligation to protect the public.

Peter King said:

That is your version of a free country, but that sounds more like an anarchist country. In democracies the government is tasked with protecting the public.

So no, in a truly free country the government still protects the public, that is why the US has the FDA. The UK has the same right to protect the health of it's public.

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You seem to be stuck in a rut of denial. The operative word in "a free country", is FREE. That is foundation of the political revolution in consciousness that started in the 18th century, that all men have unalienable rights life, liberty and their pursuit of happiness. THERE IS NOTHING that justifies the existence of any state, including a state that is obsessed with all forms of involuntary protection, unless it first and foremost respects and supports natural rights to FREEDOM as its reason for being.

The right to buy and eat any damn chicken you please is the same right to buy a joint, a beer, or (for a woman) to take a birth control pill. In a free country it is NOT the duty of the state to protect individual citizens against their will, that sort of collective "duty" is a contradiction in terms; how can free choice exist if you are not free to choose? Why even claim to have a free society if, in fact, you have no actual right to do anything without the pyramid of hierarchy granting the STATE's approval?

Any kind of state can and does consider "protecting the nation" a duty - read a little Adolph Hitler or Joseph Stalin should you doubt it.

I have nothing against the FDA, Agriculture Dept, or CPAgency or UK equivalent identifying real or potentially harmful products, this protecting an innocent public from making an UNFREE choice. I have no problem with them requiring full disclosure of ingredients or label warnings. I have no problem with them prosecuting product fraud. Free will and free choice cannot operate where any transaction is based on a fraudulent misrepresentation or the threat of violence.

I don't call that "anarchy", I call that protecting public's free choice. THAT is a free countries duty. However, by what "free country" right does the STATE have the right to tell individuals what they may or may not consume, if they know what they are buying?

How is that anything but a wholesale rejection of the meaning of freedom?

As I told the poster there is no problem FOR HIM. If the UK wants US Chicken to have a label indicating if it is water cooled rather than air chilled, and that undergoes a bleach treatment then fine. But that the poster is carping about others who might choose to buy what he would not is the archetype of repressive thinking - it's is the busy-body totalitarian personality that dwells within many (or most).

Infinite Chaos said:

So did the US Ambassador ask us to "to embrace American farming methods to seal a transatlantic trade deal?" Do those methods include hormone injections for animals and chlorine washing meat or not?

Simple yes or no please.

"No" - means you're lying.
"Yes" means you admit this is not "Project fear" but reality.

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Ridiculous framing.


As you can see from this discussion, there is no evidence that US farming techniques are dirty or un-safe for human consumption, and it is these implications which constitute the Project Fear element.

You know ......... like no aircraft taking off from the UK, food shortages, medicine shortages ............ the list is endless and like the boy that cried wolf too often, noboby is listening.

Infinite Chaos said:

You really didn't follow the thread did you? You basically demonstrate that you have no clue idea of the production line of pre-packaged foods.

The question is what will stop unscrupulous dealers selling chlorine washed chicken under the guise of non-chlorinated chickens? When someone buys a prepackaged meal (I cook all my own food from scratch) how do you know the meat the producer used did not come from the cheapest, nastiest source possible?

Please read up on food standards before you reply further. This is not a freedom of speech issue and it is moronic to try and take it down that pathway.


I think you mean obligation to protect the public.

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I followed you quite closely, perhaps you don't follow yourself? You're complaining about a product that someone else than you will buy. And because someone else might buy it, in spite of your and others anti-American poultry views, you want to deny the importation of American poultry for anyone...apparently for THEIR own good.

My suggestion was simple - people have a right to freely choose. Just as they have a right to buy and consume a joint, a beer, a birth control pill (if a woman), or pre-packaged food, they have a right to buy any damn chicken they please. Why do you find this basic right so offensive to YOU?

Sure anything from anywhere may be defective, and may be sold fraudulently. BUT that can be said of 100 percent of all products and services, but your not demanding the sale of all goods and services be ceased, are you?

As long as the product is clearly labeled as to source and processing, and as having passed routine inspections by authorities, its really none of your business.

I mean really, all this carping about American chickens when GB imports chicken from that paragon of sanitation, THIALAND, for God's sake, when it isn't infecting cattle with MAD COW disease because of its filthy feeding practice.

Is this an LOL moment, or what?

maxparrish said:

~ As long as the product is clearly labeled as to source and processing, and as having passed routine inspections by authorities ~

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Amid all the hyperbole you finally got there. So I ask whether you know that clear labelling and processing will always be honest and customers will be able to buy. Nobody in their right mind is going to trust an American whose first thought is guns and freedom on whether their chicken had to have all sorts of nasty stuff cleaned off it before it was passed as "safe" to eat or not.

Leaving aside that chicken needing to be washed in chlorine is a huge issue of animal welfare on its own....

Westphalian said:

~ there is no evidence that US farming techniques are dirty or un-safe for human consumption, and it is these implications which constitute the Project Fear element ~

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Unable to answer so I'll take a "no" from you. Besides, what honest restaurant is going to serve chlorine washed chicken to customers and expect not to be ridiculed so - no, there is plenty of evidence that chlorine washing sanitises disgusting meat to make it fit for human consumption.

PeteEU said:

The reason the US puts chickens through a chlorine bath is that their farms a filthy. Salmonella and other diseases are rampant.

In Europe, farmers are required to fight salmonella and such, which means the chlorine bath is not needed.

Another example of this is eggs. Most countries don't keep eggs refrigerated. In Europe most countries vaccinate egg laying chickens against salmonella. This means no extra water cleaning is needed.

In the US they do not vaccinate, so they have to wash the eggs after laying, which removes the natural layer protecting against things like salmonella. This also means the eggs need to be refrigerated afterwards.

Fundementaly it comes down to the animal welfare when talking about this.

Sent from my Honor 8X using Tapatalk

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I worked on a chicken farm for 5 years for one of the biggest chicken farm companies in the US raising 130k chickens per batch. Your claim about farms being filthy is complete and utter BS.

PeteEU said:

How is it unfounded? If American farms don't have to be as clean and safe for animals as European farms, then they won't do it. Hence American farms are more dirty...it is simple logic. It is also evident with the amount of ecoli out breaks in the US versus Europe.


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Yes...lets look at those shall we?

Outbreaks of E. coli O104:H4 infection: update 30

The link above is dated in 2011 and is the only one I could find a table in easily. It includes European countries and the US.

The following link is a more recent WHO article (2016) but has no tables, but can still be read that has some info pertaining to your claim. It's for JUST the United Kingdom...

Escherichia coli (E. coli) outbreak in United Kingdom

A significant increase in the number of cases of E. coli, specifically E. coli O157 infection, was observed in the United Kingdom in late June, and the incident was declared and managed as a national outbreak. The outbreak was reported to WHO on 1 July 2016.

As of 14 July, 158 cases had been identified: 105 were classified as confirmed and 53 as probable. Four of these patients remain in hospital. Two people have died, with E. coli infection listed as a causative factor in both cases.

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I'm sure there is more recent but my search kung fu is not all that great.

Now..here's the CDC link for the US which lists each individual E.Coli outbreak going back to 2006 and as recent as 2018.

Reports of Selected E. coli Outbreak Investigations

You may want to readjust your claim.

Infinite Chaos said:

Amid all the hyperbole you finally got there. So I ask whether you know that clear labelling and processing will always be honest and customers will be able to buy. Nobody in their right mind is going to trust an American whose first thought is guns and freedom on whether their chicken had to have all sorts of nasty stuff cleaned off it before it was passed as "safe" to eat or not.

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As I stated, the same could be said of 100 percent of all products and services; anything can be fraudulently sold, including those chickens from Thailand that Brits don't chirp a peep in protest over. While any system of checks relies on research and occasional verification, fraud happens for EVERYTHING. If the consumer knows it is source from America, or Thailand, then they can make their choice. YOU trusting Americans is not the issue, that is up to the consumer.

And if "trust" were the sole issue, exactly why should anyone trust British beef after their "trustworthy" farming practices and inspection system produced MAD COW disease. Seems to me that is a hell of a lot more relevant to eating safe foodstuffs than your fretting over the popularity of gun ownership and an affection for liberty among a minority of Americans.

Leaving aside that chicken needing to be washed in chlorine is a huge issue of animal welfare on its own....

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No, its not an issue. Everything you think about American poultry production is a product of your anti-American imagination. You haven't a clue how, for example, Tyson (one of the largest in America) manages, maintains, inspects, or sanitizes its facilities. Your completely ignorant of the results of US government testing for harmful bacteria in those facilities. Nor do you have a clue as to the chances of someone actually getting seriously ill from chicken tainted before the consumer purchased it.

What you do have is a prejudice and the vivid imagination to embellish it.

For example, the reason the strong majority of chicken produced in America gets a cold water bath after it is killed is to quickly bring down meat temperatures so as to reduce chances of spoilage. The reason a very weak chlorinated water is used is because it kills a source of spoilage (surface and cavity bacteria) and is harmless to humans.

This process is most efficient for factory production, compared to air chilled chicken which is slower. You can always buy air chilled chicken in America, and I sometimes do when I want the most intensely flavored chicken for a recipe, and when I am in the mood to pay 50 to 75 percent more.

And, by the way, there is one or more full-time USDA inspectors at the processing point, examining for fecal matter or other problems, as well as taking tests for bacterial contamination.

So until you are the one that familiarizes himself with modern factory production (which is how most chicken is produced in the US) and can visit a facility and see how steam cleaned, sanitized, and modern then your "imagination" isn't worth poop.

I once went on a tour of a (USDA Inspected) meat plant. The plant uses what are called Critical Control Points (CCPs) for production. The main CCP is temperature. The temperature of all product is first documented at the receiving door and constantly monitored until the finished product is delivered to a customer. Besides digital sensors which monitor rooms 24/7, they also use these nifty hand-held FLIR guns that display the temp of whatever the beam lands on. Most fresh product is maintained at 38°. All batches of product (all have a batch #) are tested for various pathogens. There is a detailed cleanup after every production shift. Afterwards all surfaces (even the floor and ceiling) are swab-tested for bacteria and pathogens and the results are available in about five minutes. Every piece of product has a bar-code identity and scan guns document every piece of product as it moves through the production plant and warehouse complex. There were computer stations in every room and any plant/product info is instantly available via the facility software. It was really amazing.

maxparrish said:

You seem to be stuck in a rut of denial. The operative word in "a free country", is FREE. That is foundation of the political revolution in consciousness that started in the 18th century, that all men have unalienable rights life, liberty and their pursuit of happiness. THERE IS NOTHING that justifies the existence of any state, including a state that is obsessed with all forms of involuntary protection, unless it first and foremost respects and supports natural rights to FREEDOM as its reason for being.

The right to buy and eat any damn chicken you please is the same right to buy a joint, a beer, or (for a woman) to take a birth control pill. In a free country it is NOT the duty of the state to protect individual citizens against their will, that sort of collective "duty" is a contradiction in terms; how can free choice exist if you are not free to choose? Why even claim to have a free society if, in fact, you have no actual right to do anything without the pyramid of hierarchy granting the STATE's approval?

Any kind of state can and does consider "protecting the nation" a duty - read a little Adolph Hitler or Joseph Stalin should you doubt it.

I have nothing against the FDA, Agriculture Dept, or CPAgency or UK equivalent identifying real or potentially harmful products, this protecting an innocent public from making an UNFREE choice. I have no problem with them requiring full disclosure of ingredients or label warnings. I have no problem with them prosecuting product fraud. Free will and free choice cannot operate where any transaction is based on a fraudulent misrepresentation or the threat of violence.

I don't call that "anarchy", I call that protecting public's free choice. THAT is a free countries duty. However, by what "free country" right does the STATE have the right to tell individuals what they may or may not consume, if they know what they are buying?

How is that anything but a wholesale rejection of the meaning of freedom?

As I told the poster there is no problem FOR HIM. If the UK wants US Chicken to have a label indicating if it is water cooled rather than air chilled, and that undergoes a bleach treatment then fine. But that the poster is carping about others who might choose to buy what he would not is the archetype of repressive thinking - it's is the busy-body totalitarian personality that dwells within many (or most).

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Except disagreeing with you is not denial, it is difference of opinion. You seem to think freedom means everything goes, but that is not how democracies work. Democracies make rules and regulations to protect the public. as said before, the US does exactly the same.

Your definition of "freedom" is not freedom it is the dictatorship of anarchy. To claim there is no justification for a "state" is ludicrous. Without strong democracies we would be at war with each other every single moment. The US would be a disaster zone if no justice and rules existed. People cannot live in complete freedom, that is not how societies work.

And yes, democracies protect their people, to invoke Hitler or Stalin is just stupid, they did not care about protecting their people, they cared about power, conquest and delusions of grandeur, where the only law that existed was their law, the only state that existed was their state. That has nothing to do with the democratic necessity of protecting the public. That is the reason businesses are held to standards of cleanliness, why drugs companies have to prove the safety before it is allowed to be sold.

If you confess to not needing any state, ever, you want to have an anarchy. If there is no state there is no FDA or any of those agencies because they are agencies of a state/government. We the people control the state and decide how free is free. Total freedom does not exist. Not even in Alaska where people can live as free as they want, even there rules about hunting and taking wildlife from the environment exist.

People think falsely that states are there to prevent freedom, they are not, they are there to ensure our freedom.

PeteEU said:

How is it unfounded? If American farms don't have to be as clean and safe for animals as European farms, then they won't do it. Hence American farms are more dirty...it is simple logic. It is also evident with the amount of ecoli out breaks in the US versus Europe.

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Nonsense. Pejorative assertions build on prejudicial assumptions. Wow.

How do you know that American farms "don't have to be" as clean and safe as European farms?

How do you know that American farms (or European farms) wouldn't be clean and safe without or without those regulations?

How do you know if those regulations are doing anything more than formalizing rules of husbandry that farmers would do, or would exceed, anyway?

It is in the interests of modern farmers be clean and safe because it is in their economic interest. Be it in wine production, milk production, or any other commodity farmers strive to reduce spoilage. And in some cases, agriculture regulations do nothing other than cripple innovation or needlessly deny consumers products they want. The French wine industry, so tightly regulated to maintain its traditions led to their being challenged (and bested) by California and its innovations. On the other hand, Americans are so obsessed with science and modern sanitization their regulations made pasteurized milk as the ONLY option for consumers - convinced the European tradition of raw milk was somehow dangerous.

Finally, the 2011 stats provided by another poster is telling. So are these:

In 2016 the UK had 9900 (lab) confirmed cases of Salmonella from food stuffs. In the same year the US had 41,000 confirmed cases. As the population of the US is 5 time greater than the UK, the UK with its "regulations" had 20 percent MORE Salmonella food poisoning cases (population adjusted) than did the US.

In 2016 German had 13,000 confirmed cases. Germany has 1/4 the population of the US, which means on a population adjusted basis it has about 25 percent more food poisoning than the US.

Or to put it another way, here is the rate of Salmonella food poisoning per 100,000 for select countries:

Belgium 24.8
Czech Republic 110.00
Denmark 18.9
Finland 27.9
France 27.7
Germany 15.6
Austria 16.3
Sweden 22.8
UK 15.1
US 12.7

It seems to me the US should not be importing European food products - those "clean farms" being "so good" on behalf of their own populations.

https://ecdc.europa.eu/sites/portal...-report-zoonoses-foodborne-outbreaks-2016.pdf
https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/17/1/pdfs/p1-1101.pdf

maxparrish said:

I'm sorry, the hallmark of a "free country" is NOT making people unfree. If you think "freedom" is removing the right to choose who someone associates, trades, or speaks with then Orwell's "Freedom is slavery" brainwashing is no longer a phrase of fiction but a reality.

Lots of countries, including unfree ones, ban products or product sources, all in the name of protecting someone or something (e.g. "protecting" their population, their workers, or their producers and special interests). This also includes (or has included) unfree countries such as the Soviet Union, Russia, China, Cuba, North Korea, etc.

So yes, in a truly free country, people are free to choose. If they wish to buy something, be it bad sex or a damn chicken, they can do so. And if there is not fraud (they know the Chicken was sanitized in a chlorinated water bath) or through violence then it's no one else's business but theirs.

Why is that simple principle of liberty, of leaving people alone and free, so difficult for the those who want to butt in to understand?

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So, in other words, it was wrong of Trump to put tariffs on Chinese steel?

OlNate said:

So, in other words, it was wrong of Trump to put tariffs on Chinese steel?

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Yes, it was wrong.

maxparrish said:

Yes, it was wrong.

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Nice...a purist. Bravo, even if I disagree.

Kal'Stang said:

I worked on a chicken farm for 5 years for one of the biggest chicken farm companies in the US raising 130k chickens per batch. Your claim about farms being filthy is complete and utter BS.

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Then why the chemical baths?