We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
|
Arnie’s the Girlie Man! So who’s the Girlie Man now?
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has signed into law a bill that will ban foie gras in California by 2012, unless a “girlie man” alternative to forcefeeding can be found to produce the delicacy.
I shall open my pot of inhumanely produced goose foie gras this weekend and savour it twice as much with a fine Sauternes. Next time I go to France I shall make a point of stocking up.
|
Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
|
This is surely devastating news for the people of California, but I’m a little more annoyed by the Governator signing a bill to strengthen existing ‘hate crime’ laws.
Just another example of what passes as ‘republican’ in this day and age. Some have even tried to portray him as more libertarian. Hardly. This is what we get when a person espouses ‘conservative’ ideas but merely mouths them and his little foundation for their beliefs. They cave after the first onslaught from opposing forces.
I think you’re all overreacting. Arnie is keeping his powder dry for issues that really matter — like downsizing state government and managing water rights negotiations. If the wilting lefties are can be satisfied by throwing them a few free-range geese while instituting real small-government reforms, what’s wrong with that?
Mike,
this about the survival of civilisation against the barbaric forces of political correctness.
Foie gras is capitalist food.
Any attempt to make it cuddly strikes at the very heart of what seperates men from ‘girlie men’.
Arnie’s gone wuz.
Although I haven’t got the slightest idea what a foie gras is I am sure that such a great person as Mr Governor must know better. I am sure that those nasty French sounding foie gras were harming the environment, poisoning little children and abetting the terrorists or something.
If the wilting lefties are can be satisfied by throwing them a few free-range geese while instituting real small-government reforms, what’s wrong with that?
That’s a mighty big if you’ve got there, Mike. One can’t help but wonder where one acquires such strange ideas.
“Foie gras is capitalist food.”
Heh. While I understand the point you’re trying to make I also get a chuckle out of the notion of “capitalist food”. I take comfort in that since I’m a capitalist, I can now refer to sloppy joes, Little Debbie oatmeal pies, twice baked potatoes, chili dogs, sauerkraut, club sandwiches, and sweet & sour pork as “capitalist food”. I’m sure if we all listed some our favorite dishes we could have a pretty esoteric menu of capitalist food to choose from.
seriously.
no, seriously.
Hmmm… Unless a way can be found to make Geese naturally overfeed.
Well now, if I remember my LeftWingNuttery 101, that should be easy. The way you make a goose fat is simple.
(1) Show the goose some McDonald’s ads, he’ll be forced to eat the Big Macs.
(2) Ensure gasoline is cheap and the goose farms are spread out in a suburban sprawl, so that the geese start driving everywhere rather than walking.
(3) Elect nasty bastidge retrogressive Republicans to the legislature, where they will repeatedly block funding for new goose fitness programs, free goose gymnasiums, and goose school lunches.
This complete absence of state action, combined with goose exposure to free market advertising, will result in extremely obese geese in no time.
And then when that happens, Professor Banzhaf can sue on behalf of the obese geese, who were made fat by no fault of their own…
See? Perfect.
Of course geese can get fat of their own accord given free choice, but it is slow and inefficient. If you think being fat is good for the goose, or you think that fat among geese is desirable in some mysterious way not perceptible to the goose during its own lifetime, you have to force it to get fat whether it likes it or not.
So whether foie gras is capitalist or socialist food rather depends whether you are the goose or not.
Antoine, you dont live in California, you live in London. What Californians do with their robotic governator is not your affair. Eat all the delicacies you like, and dont even waste your pity on those idiots, who much prefer Fatburger, Johnny Rockets and bless them, McDonalds to any real, honest food.
America is not the centre of the universe. Here, hunting has just been provisionally outlawed. Better that we withour posts, humiliate the idiots who enact our own bad food/animal law whilst voraciously gobbling chicken nuggets produced from factory farmed chickens, rather than this tiresome attention to that God forsaken land of hicks, oui?
I won’t eat that crap.
🙂 My first thought was “they’ll have to develop some kind of pill which will make the geese permanently hungry”, which i guess might be kinder to the geese than force-feeding them thru’ a tube but is unlikely to placate most people who support this ban.
Wonder what he got out of em’ for singing this load of bull into law?
Andrew — I’m not sure of the details of the complicated political transaction taking place, but it appears that a pretty substantial reduction (by attrition, mostly) of the state government payroll is the main quid for which foie gras, tighter emissions controls, etc. are the quo.
A_t — there’s a pretty obvious answer here: GM geese. They’d already exist if the market for foie gras was big enough.
Hm.
I think you got this all wrong. Foir Gras is hardly capitalist food.
In fact, Foie Gras would be better described as a “Girlie Man” type of food.
Real men eat burgers, steaks, etc. , NOT Foie Gras.
Not to mention, Foie Gras is french, the synomonym for “Girlie Men”. And hardly a capitalist icon, with the most arcane subsidized farmers in the world.
I think Arnie is being consistant here.
Hmmm.
According to the article “The bill’s author, Senate President Pro Tem John Burton, D-San Francisco, said several countries have already banned the force-feeding practice and the European Union is phasing it out.”. So I’d suggest enjoying it while you can. At least before it’s changed by EU regulations.
Ugh. I don’t even want to think about this stuff must taste like.
It seems only yesterday that various commentators on this blog were lauding Arnie as the great hope for libertarians in U.S. politics.
Oh well. At least Samizdata’s resident gloom merchant got it about right:
(Link)
Cruelty to animals is cool!
I admire America for a lot of things, but not its food.
I’m hoping the reduced demand for Foie Gras from California may reduce the prices over here.
Club Gascon in London serves nine types of foie gras – I recommend it highly.
Why do Europeans tend to be such insufferably nasty snobs?
Because they’ve got so little going for them and hate themselves so much, they overcompensate by trying to feel superior. Never mind that this feeling of superiority has little or no justification in reality – it is its own justification.
Irony…don’t ever expect Americans to get it…..
And as for Europeans feeling inadequate next to Americans….Well, we don’t have so many shiny weapons, and we have half the number of TV channels.
We are not worthy, truely…
Actually, that was Sarcasm, in case you didn’t realise….
(Can’t be too obvious here, it seems)
Actually, “force-feeding” is modern, mechanical, and not all that uncomfortable for the goose. Basically, they tube-feed the corn directly into the goose’s stomach.
It’s not just to make the goose fat. Giving them that much corn forces the goose’s bloodstream to be overloaded with fat, which is picked up by the liver, which grows to enormous proportions. The liver becomes white, creamy, and sweet, and when perfect, is… utterly perfect.
Now go away. You’re making me wish I wasn’t a vegetarian.