The modern factory farm hasn't improved much since the days of Upton Sinclair. In fact, with world-wide proliferation, dirty, overcrowded feed lots and sub-medieval conditions for the animals are probably worsening health risks for people. Many people, even steak-eaters like myself, see an obvious moral problem with the way that much of our meat is raised and the unscrupulous companies who manage it.

It's a big issue, but the reason I raise it here is to cross a bridge. The factory farms issue does not have to be politicized in terms of right vs. left. There is a surprisingly loud conservative voice speaking out against it - in the form of former Bush speechwriter Matthew Scully's cover story in the latest American Conservative magazine. Read it and you may be surprised at some of the things this arch-conservative mag has to say.

There are certainly politics involved and of course many conservatives would rather make jokes about animal-activists being lefty weirdos that do anything about the problem, but it's another example of the "common ground" that can be found among thinking people regardless of the somewhat superficial lines of politics.

Found via Treehugger.

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