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The Economist magazine, November 17th 2007, page 63, the Charlemagne column, A dissertation on Romanian pork says that traditional Romanian pig butchering methods do not comply with European Union regulations.

Many people think that traditional farming methods are better than big business factory farming methods. Thus there is a lot of popular support for regulations against big business factory farming. Yet the regulations often have the opposite effect, because only big business factory farms can afford to hire enough lawyers to defend themselves from accusations of violating the regulations. Thus the European Union regulations against the cruelty of industrial slaughterhouses actually prohibit traditional butchering, thus reducing the competition to industrial slaughterhouses, thus allowing the big businesses which own industrial slaughterhouses to charge higher prices and earn bigger profits.

The problem is that urban and suburban people who are enamored of traditional farming methods do not know much about traditional farming methods. Thus there are people who move to the countryside and are horrified to discover that real farms smell like manure. Other people complain that it is unnatural for farmers to clear hedgerows, without understanding that hedgerows were constructed by people, that hedgerows are unnatural. When urban and suburban people prefer traditional farming methods, they are not favoring real traditional farming methods, they are favoring their fantasy of traditional farming methods. So when people support regulations against big business factory farming, they are trying to impose their fantasies on other people.

The problem with fantasies is that fantasies usually don't work in the real world. And many people do not want to admit that their fantasy was unrealistic or that it is their fault that their fantasy did not work, so they go looking for someone to blame. This is why attempts to create a utopian society often turn into witch hunts. This is why peaceful movements often become violent. For example, most socialist governments have failed to create prosperity, and most socialists would rather blame sabotage and treason than admit that socialism does not work; this is why communist governments torture and murder so many people.

People who think the government should require electric utilities to produce only so-called renewable energy, people who think the government should require car manufacturers to improve the mileage of cars, people who think the government should ban fossil fuels, people who think the government should ban carbon emissions, people who think that the government should require that all food be produced according to so-called organic standards are all trying to impose their fantasies on other people. When their fantasies fail, they will look for someone to blame. They will probably blame you and me. They will want revenge. These are dangerous people.

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