Responding my "Frontiersmen vs. Wusses,"

Craig Nelsen wrote this most interesting comment at Unz Review:





As a kid growing up in farm country I noticed the differences among the farmers on how they treated their animals. There were those farmers who gave a thought to the physical suffering an animal can and does endure. They were the ones who would build a windbreak for their cattle, or dress down a hired hand who was taking out a frustration on a stubborn steer. Then there were those–the majority now–for whom the animals were nothing but money. They weren’t cruel for the sake of cruelty, they were just indifferent. They were the ones who would cram as many cattle as possible into a semi for the trip to the slaughterhouse, making liberal use of the cattle prod on the terrified creatures. Then there were the few who were just flat out cruel–the ones who took pleasure in inflicting pain on a defenseless creature.

I can look at a farm from a distance and tell you with fair accuracy which of the three types owns that farm. If I meet the family, I can tell with near certainty.

The farmer who takes a thought for the suffering of the animals in his care is going to have a farm that has been in the family longer, and more thought will have gone into how it looks. They will have a junk pile, but it will be out of sight. Their working hours will be more regular, they will go on more interesting vacations, they will have higher social standing in the community, and their kids will be more popular in school.

The farmer who thinks of the animals as money will have a bigger, more expensive pick-up truck and big, but ugly, buildings. The junk pile might be anywhere and you’ll see things like huge neon-colored fiberglass tanks sitting in the direct line of sight as you drive in to the place. The place will smell like a feed lot, if there is livestock. They will never go on vacation or visit anywhere relatives don’t live and it shows. They’ll be respected for their “success” but have little social standing. Their kid will drive a nice car, but tend to be kind of a dick. Divorce is generally in the mix.

The cruel farmer is the alcoholic wife beater whose kids are always late getting to the bus and who sometimes smell like urine when they board. Buildings are falling down. Trash is everywhere and the junk isn’t even in a pile. He sometimes sleeps in the daytime. The kids are bullied and the only vacations are court ordered and behind bars. He has nothing but bad luck, and, as an example, one day his starving pigs break out of the patchwork fence he built and, waking from the commotion, he looks out sees them rooting in his wife’s pathetic garden, and, grabbing an axe on his way out the door, now he’s gonna make that motherfucker pay for what it did to him.





.