ForumGarden

If people get sick because someone put toxic lemonade in dirty bottles - which if you're in Mumbai, for instance, is more than likely - then the crime of recklessly making someone ill has been committed. Why you also need to make putting toxic lemonade in dirty bottles a crime I don't know.


(my bold)

:yh_rotfl Been there (well, New Delhi and a few other bits but not Mumbai) done that, spouted at both ends for 24 hrs to prove it. After a posh party, too! We knew that the fruit punch would be ok, we knew not to have ice, we didn't know the ice had melted before we got the punch...

More generally, it seems you think the line should be drawn after making people sick (causing death is sort of hovering around here somewhere) and that the law should not aim at prevention at all on the grounds that law that is not enforced is bad law and we should cut down out any law that is not about direct harm to concentrate on the important stuff.

Seems to me that the environmental health laws here are actually one of the areas that work pretty well. It may only be because a workforce prone to mass vomiting isn't as productive, but you can buy and eat food here without the sort of risk you face in India if you are not used to Indian conditions. I quite like that. And since it does work pretty well, why junk it?

Why junk it? You think what is happening with our food supply is better than getting the shits for a few days?

Whistleblower Shiv Chopra and two other doctors got fired from Health Canada for trying to protect our food sources.

Firing from Health Canada

In June 2004, Chopra, Haydon and Lambert were fired from Health Canada. Health Canada denied that the trio was fired for speaking publicly about the pressure employed by their supervisors to approve the usage of a number of animal drugs, but did not reveal the exact reason, mentioning that the reasons were confidential and included in the letters of termination the three scientists received. Chopra's letter revealed that the stated reason for his dimissal was his "total lack of progress" in a current project.

Three weeks later, Chopra received a congratulatory letter and a gold watch from Deputy Health Minister Ian Green, declaring that his "years of service have not gone unnoticed" and that he had "earned praise and respect."
From wikipedia

Our food slowly breaks down our immune systems and causes disorders of unknown origin which, thankfully, the pharmaceutical companies who sold the crap for the animals will gladly sell us the crap to "fix" and then more crap to fix what they fixed.

koan;1402437 wrote: Why junk it? You think what is happening with our food supply is better than getting the shits for a few days?

Whistleblower Shiv Chopra and two other doctors got fired from Health Canada for trying to protect our food sources.

From wikipedia

Our food slowly breaks down our immune systems and causes disorders of unknown origin which, thankfully, the pharmaceutical companies who sold the crap for the animals will gladly sell us the crap to "fix" and then more crap to fix what they fixed.


I'm talking about a level lower down in the system - food has to be stored, transported and prepared in ways that preferably aren't going to kill us. I see the issue of what that food actually IS as connected but not the same. Legislative rather than executive.

I think I'd also add that I'm fairly happy with legislation regarding the treatment of livestock and pets. And I certainly admit that a danger of preventive legislation is that it becomes dictatorial. But humanity has all sorts of negative aspects ranging from sadism to thoughtlessness and I think with freedom has to go responsibility.

In a sense, we can never be free, we can only choose the morals and ethics that guide us.

I think the sense of freedom missing in the world is connected to a worker's ability to control the product of their labour. The ability to employ oneself and share in the profits of the result. The means of production are controlled and inaccessible to many. It's not as if the current magnitude of laws protects us from charlatans. There are more charlatans than ever.

Harper just presented a new law that claims to protect seniors from crime. In essence, it will increase punishment where the victim is vulnerable, like seniors. That already happens. It's already part of the legal system. The money spent creating that law could have been spent capturing the assholes, usually based in Montreal, who are using Moneygram to defraud seniors of thousands. It's a system in which people can be caught, but no one has done anything. I stopped a woman from sending her life savings to a guy claiming to be her grandson. We had phone numbers and information that could have been used but nobody wanted them.