What do you take for granted?

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Hmmmmm.......Hmmmmm......... As entrancing as is the picture of Leanne's pastoral idyll, it seems that even in the wide open spaces, it is not always so.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDo5c-ksmRs

Oh, yeah. Right. Allow me to explain that part.

Welcome to America, we're all bloody assholes.

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Now, that's a bit sarcastic, but it kinda is the truth. We put a lot more emphasis on business and the well-being of American citizens than we do on animals or people in other countries. It's a form of the isolationism America is so famous for.

I mean, while America has many people who want to do things, we just have different ways of thinking. In America, the general public loves capitalism, and while it's great that the majority supports the nation's economic system... Capitalism definitely promotes self-interest, which leads to those dairy farms.


But, we're also very paranoid about our health, for the same self-interested reasons. So we have numerous laws that prevent infectious disease from spreading through livestock. We'd all be pretty damn dead otherwise, really.

So, in first-world countries, at least, we don't have to worry about disease. There's more disease in third-world countries that don't have as much access to milk, or keep their livestock under close surveillance.



I will remind you, though, we have those idyllic farms here in America too. I live on the same road as a few. I can hear the cows lowing on lazy summer afternoons. It's a nice sound.