Horse slaughter

[Scott_IN_WVa]

You can pray any where any time....

[egon]

Cowboydoc:
You have made some very salient points.
Keep going.
Egon

[EJB]

>>We can't pray in school I'm sorry to switch topics, but this comment drives me nuts. Kids can pray in school.

No they really can't. Sure they can as long as they don't utter any words outloud and only think the prayer...kind of like saying that freedom of speech is OK as long as you only *think* the speech and don't actually "speak" it.

Why shouldn't freedom of speech logically include praying out loud in school? Why should students be able to say just about anything, promote just about any culture or lifestyle and have that speech protected, but if a student wants to say anything about religion during a speech to the school, have the administration prevent him or her from doing it?....I am not a particularly religous person, but I find it outrageuos when this stuff happens.

If you want to read some recent cases look here:

http://aclj.org/cases_index.asp

THere is all kinds of cases where the schools and the government has attempted to restrict free speech of individuals and/or groups when the speech was religion related...luckily most of these cases where won once they went to court, but the fact that these people even HAD to go to court just to be able to exercise their free speech rights is terrible injustice imo.

No you can't pray anywhere, anytime in school or in public govt. places. You can't say a prayer out loud to start the day in school. A judge can't say a prayer to start a court proceeding. A coach can't even say a prayer anymore in a public school before a game. You can bow your head and say what you want in your head, but you can't say it out loud.

With that said can we please stay on topic here. I really don't want this thread digressing to prayer. If it means that much to you to debate this please start another thread. We're supposed to stay away from religious topics anyway. Sorry I mentioned it in my post.

[AndyF]

I reviewed your link and am unable to find any cases where a student was prohibited from saying a blessing before a meal or say a short prayer in school. What I see are many cases of religious groups suing to gain access to a public facility to press their message.

Remember, what's good for the goose is good for the gander. If you want your Christian group to have unfettered access to the public schools and other public facilities, don't complain when the same access is provided to a competing Christian or alternate faith group. Let's recognize that one of this country's founding principles is the separation of church and state and that to commingle the two often diminishes both.

[Scott_IN_WVa]

Richard,
You can too pray.....a silent prayer........I know what you mean as a group and praying out loud,it is a shame that it has come to this in public schools,but an individual can always pray silently,but I understand what you were meaning/or getting at.
Have a good afternoon [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

[RichZ]

Richard, I'd like to disagree with you. First, I'd like to say, that you have been a very good friend to me over the past couple of years, and I've learned a lot from you, about horses, so I mean absolutely no disrespect to someone I consider a very good friend!

It really is not true that good horses don't end up in meat markets. The two horses that I just adopted came from a meat market. They are quarter horses, that were abused and starved. One is a registered quarter horse. A rescue group bought them, and started their rehabilatation, which I am continuing. In the short time I have had them, I have discovered that they are extremely well trained, very intelligent and friendly. I am sure that they will be good trail riders again soon.

When I was at the center that the rescue group runs, I saw many other horses that they rescued. They were all well trained, and ended up in the meat market for a variety of reasons. They all were once valuable riding horses, and will be again.

I don't think that people who are against horse slaughter should be categorized as "wackos". Although it pains me to know any animal is slaughtered for food, I know it is a fact of life. I am not a vegatarian, and I know the beef I just ate was once a cow. But there are some cultural considerations. Most Americans would be revolted by the thought of dogs or cats being consumed (I sure would). Horses fall into a similar category. I know many people consider them working animals, but many (myself included) consider them pets. Both ways of thinking are correct, there is no need to argue that.

I agree that many horses needlessly suffer, but I don't think that the meat market is the answer to the problem. I don't have an answer, but I for one am against horses being slaughtered for the meat market.

To other CBN members, feel free to disagree, there are two sides to every story, but let's avoid name calling. I'm sure many of you agree with me, and many don't. Maybe we can come up with some kind of solution!

[pbenven]

Rich, I think you and Doc define what a good horse is differently.

I can see both of your sides very well from where I'm standing, and I have to side with him on this one. I look at it this way: say there's 100 animals going to slaughter today and 100 going to future riders. It would make more sense to me to send the ones with problems to slaughter. Save the money you would have spent on vet bills and donate it to the charity of your choice in the name of the lame horses you didn't buy.

Ok here's the answer Rich. You paid what nothing for those horses? Would you pay $1200 for each one of them? If that is the case then why not go to a sale or a private individual and buy a horse that is well bred, is healthy, is something that people would want. Would you have still taken those horses if you knew you were going to have to put thousands of dollars in future vet bills into them and still not have them be able to be ridden or anything? Now say I am the avg. Joe that owns a horse. The horse gets sick or gets lame and I don't have the money to take care of him. I take him to the sale. Now say you aren't at the sale. Nobody buys the horse because he's lame. Now what? Are you going to take every horse in the country and buy them for $1200? No of course not. Now you will probably say you would have bought those two horses anyway but what about the thousands of other horses? What about the owner that has nowhere to go with a horse that has no value to anyone and noone else will even take him? Then the horse goes back home and the owner won't put money into him and sits out back and dies a terrible death. What about that? Where is the place for a sick or crippled horse?

Now let's turn this around even more. Let's say the two horses that you bought were crippled. What then? You did get a few of the horses that go through that are ok. Not great but ok. Now go try and sell those horses. Most places even if they were fit you wouldn't get $500 for them. If you can sell them for more let me know because I can buy them all day at sales that I go to.

You are taking one isolated incident and making that the makeup of the entire problem and that isn't so. In my post I said the MAJORITY of the hroses that go to slaughter are horses that nobody wants or are crippled or sick. That is most certainly the case. Last year 56,000 horses were slaughtered. The rough estimate is that of these maybe 500 were rescued. So we're talking about 1% of those that go to slaughter actually have any value at all.

This is the problem is that someone like yourself steps and says well look what happened with me. Well that's great and you are a great guy and great for what you did. But that does nothing to solve the problem of taking a horse that is sick, crippled, not wanted, etc. There are very few "dog pounds" for horses.

I'm not trying to put you down in any way. Just that what you relate is not the true picture in any sense. At every sale I go to you know who the slaughter buyers are and very rarely do they get the good horses. They don't even want the good horses because they bring too much money. They won't pay very much either.

Feel free to say more please. This is what I wanted to hear is why people think this isn't a good idea. If you can give me an answer as to where the unwanted, crippled, sick, deformed, mean, etc. horses should go then I'm all for it. If you can tell me that it would be better for these horses to be transported thousands of miles to another country for slaughter because we don't want to deal with it then I am all for it.

Now lastly I would like you to be aware of the fact that these horses came from a meat market. I suspect that is not the case here. First of all the only slaughter houses left are in TX. It seems rather strange that someone would buy these horses in TX in the shape you say they were in and send them all the way to the East Coast. I suppose it is possible they were purchased in Canada but again I'm not sure there either. Most of this is being done to advance these people's agenda. They will take horses like this and say they came from this and that but usually it isn't the case.

Thank you pbeven I couldn't have said that better!!! You are absolutely right.