9-year-old girl wanted to save her goat from slaughter. Then came the warrant | Hacker News Reader

9-year-old girl wanted to save her goat from slaughter. Then came the warrant

sacbee.com

34 pointsfortran7738 comments

To me, this is the most important claim in the lawsuit:

> From there, the goat was delivered to unnamed individuals at the fair “for slaughter/destruction” even though the warrant required them to hold the goat for a court hearing to determine its lawful owner, the lawsuit says.

There was a property dispute, and the court issued a warrant to recover the property and hold it until a court hearing to decide ownership, but the holders disobeyed the warrant and hid or destroyed the property.

The fair seemed to be on a power trip.

They used all of their power to prevent a mutually agreed reversal of the transaction, and then stepped all over other rules that they didn't want to follow.

I generally cannot comprehend why this happen - it doesn't even benefit the fair even if this went unreported and under the radar. It's being evil for evil's sake and things that I thought made Marvel movies unwatchable because the bad guys don't make sense doing what they did.

The fact that the fair didn't wait for the hearing or sue the contestant comes across like they knew they didn't own it. But the fact that they had a "no exceptions" rule instead of structuring the auction so that they're the legal buyer of the animal and the winner buys the meat from them comes across like they're stupid.

To me, the most important thing here isn't the lawsuit, or the goat theft, or the woman's or fair's actions at all - it's how journalism can be used to manipulate smart people into thinking one thing is true, when it's not, and what that means in a post-GPT world.

I think this type of journalism has been holding us back, as a society, and we now have the tools to fix it (or make it worse).

How is this article manipulative or related to ChatGPT?

I said GPT, not ChatGPT. But you could give ChatGPT the article, and ask it how it’s manipulative. For example, ask it whether or not the article states that there was an agreement between the buyer and the woman to sell the goat back (something that several people here have said with confidence).

I suspect GPT could write a longer, more comprehensive article (given all of the same information the journalist had access to)… and it would lead to completely different conclusions.

I was being nice about saying that most other commenters probably hadn't read to the end of the article by phrasing it as an opinion.

Are you saying that the SacBee article is misrepresenting something to "manipulate" people? What does it purport to be true that's not true?

The only problem GPT is fit to solve is an empty hard drive you'd like to have filled with random, useless garbage. But I don't understand how GPT is germane to this goat escapade in the first place.

Website for the Shasta District Fair Junior Livestock Auction, for some context:

https://www.shastadistrictfairandeventcenter.com/junior-live...

It seems to be some kind of event for kids to learn about the practice of raising cattle, and the meat business.

So it is clear that the goat was never intended to become a pet. Still, I can't imagine this is the first time that there were upset kids at the fair. That place must be a tear factory.

Sounds like a good way to raise vegans.

We raise our own chickens for meat, my young kids help. They eat meat.

I don’t understand why you think lovingly care and raising your own meat would make you a vegan? We use these moments to teach respect and gratefulness even for animals we are about to slaughter, but not in a pagan pantheistic way.

Kids get it pretty quickly frankly. They have much less “baggage” and No Agenda.

You’re certainly right. More provocatively, raising children on a plantation worked by slaves doesn’t make them abolitionists either. It might even effectively indoctrinate them against it since they can say how well they treated and how much respect they had for the slaves.

Being raised within something can put you at a worse position to scrutinize it.

> I don’t understand why you think lovingly care and raising your own meat would make you a vegan?

Wow, he said that, huh? Nice straw-man!

Personally, I can see how entering a goat into a contest and then changing your mind and then the police come to your house and steal the goat because it sold to a rancher for a pittance could be traumatic and align you against the meat industry for life.

JFC some people e.g. the fair, the police in this case are so heartless and screwed up

> Cedar had been purchased in April 2022 by Long for her 9-year-old daughter

> “She loved him as a family pet,” the lawsuit says.

> The family entered Cedar into the Shasta District Fair’s junior livestock auction on June 24, 2022,

> Long wrote that she had communicated with Dahle’s office, which did not object to the goat being saved from slaughter.

> “I will pay you back for the goat and any other expenses I caused,” Long wrote. “I would like to ask for your support in finding a solution.”

The buyer was fine with the withdrawal of the sale, however the middleman got angry:

> “As a mother I am not unsympathetic regarding your daughter and her love for her animal,” Shasta District Fair Chief Executive Officer Melanie Silva emailed Long the next day. “Having said that please understand the fair industry is set up to teach our youth responsibility and for the future generations of ranchers and farmers to learn the process and effort it takes to raise quality meat.

Had the fair organisers quietly allowed the animal to be returned, one of this controversy would have happened. A bit of common sense would have saved a lot of drama. Now the fair looks terrible.

https://amp.sacbee.com/news/local/article273127820.html The fair should look terrible, along with the Sheriffs. The fair Director stated that she needed to be sure that this child learned an important life lesson. her parents also taught this child a lesson. The lesson is that you do not hide your ethics behind the law. The law is mutable, you need to have lines in the sand that are not. civil disobedience in the face of something in ethical happening is the right thing to do. Note- MLK- for starters. and saying ‘I was just following orders’- Is a poor excuse

People like Melanie Silva, business director of Shasta District Fair, from Shasta County, in Anderson, California don't understand this.

In her words[1], the slaughter of this girl's pet was justified because it created

> a negative experience for the fairgrounds as this has been all over Facebook and Instagram

In other words, her feelings were hurt because her shenanigans were exposed to the public, and she wanted to take revenge by killing this little girl's pet.

Horrible human beings like this cannot be reasoned with.

[1]: https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-03-30/goat-sla...

among the lessons of responsibility should be you are responsible for your own ethics and your own morals and there should be lines that if you believe in those lines that you do not cross- no matter what the law says. for example all of the abolitionists and those helping slaves escape through the underground railroad or breaking the law. having said that they are still responsible. they held that their responsibility was to a greater ethics than that which is simply legal especially as the law is changeable. this child learned a good lesson in that lesson is that sometimes you do what is right in your heart rather than what the law says to do and she learned that her parents have her back

She sold livestock at auction, and then stole the livestock back. The police took the livestock back to the auction, and it got barbecued.

She sold livestock at auction. After sale she offered to buy it back from the buyer, who agreed. The auction house decided that regardless of their amicable agreement the goat needed to be killed. The auction house then utilized their connections with the police, who used taxpayer money and resources to file criminal charges, get a warrant, took the goat, and returned it to the auction house, who then killed it and fed it to people. All to teach a 9 year old girl that meat comes from animals.

FTFY

Not objecting is not the same as agreeing to sell it back. If I email your office and ask if I can come take your car, and you don't respond, you didn't object, but you also didn't agree that I can come take your car.

From another article:

> In her June 27, 2022, letter to Silva, Long also pointed out that she had already been in contact with Dahle’s office about his bid, and that a representative told her the lawmaker was “okay with the alternative solution of the goat getting to be donated to a farm that does weed abatement.”

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-03-30/goat-sla...

Now can we talk about the abuse of power and waste of resources to teach a nine year old a lesson?

If this were true, why did she steal the goat? Can’t the owner just drop the charges? These articles all seem to only tell her side of the story, and clearly she has integrity issues.

I grew up on a farm - with goats - and I can certainly understand why you would want the police involved if someone comes onto your property and takes your goats. They’re easy to steal, and hard to get back. The alternative is to round up a posse.

Also - that quote doesn't sound like he agreed to sell it back to her.

She tried to withdraw the goat from sale and the fair wouldn’t allow them too - talk about heartless people

The heartless person here is the one who decided to take her daughter's pet goat to a livestock auction (where it was explicitly clear that the goat would be turned into food).

The buyer agreed to the reversed transaction, the middleman should just shut up.

Where is the proof that the buyer agreed to reverse the transaction? If it were true, there was no reason to commit theft, as the buyer chooses what happens to the goat (not the middleman).

And of course, if they were to just shut up, that would encourage other goat thieves.

can you read? it was in the article. Actually based on your arguments you clearly can't.

Let's acknowledge the technical theft. Because of that, the fair gets to ignore the warrant itself and slaughter the goat even when the warrant specifically called for an arbitration?

Melanie Silva, CEO of the Fair Association should have her title changed to ' "Melanie Silva, toilet scrubber at Walmart." What a pathetic excuse for a human being.

So, a parent not familiar with 4-H Club concept teaches her kid that it is okay to snatch things back after entering into a legal contract and giving it away.

Double so for the writer’s lack of understanding of rural law enforcement with regard to historical and longstanding laws on cattle rustling and posse.

I forget, this is was an ex-BuzzFeed reporter. He does do this kind of articles with glaring omissions of current law standings.

Perhaps it is because he has refined city culture and rural counties operate differently … for a good reason.

> So, a parent not familiar with 4-H Club concept teaches her kid that it is okay to snatch things back after entering into a legal contract and giving it away.

Huge oversimplification. Here let me try: "So a seller changed their mind on selling something, so they reached out to the buyer, and the buyer agreed to cancel the deal, but the middle man refused to cancel the deal and then the police drove out to their property and took the item and illegally gave it to the buyer"

We get it you're from the country. The level of projection here is amazing.

I was in a civil debate with a conservative the other day, and all they could do was point to "demonizing country people" and all i has to ask was "where did I do that?" and he would have to back off.

So where does this "city person" demonize country people? You're not that fucking far away from the city, just because you never leave the house. Turn off the fox news, the city is not out to get you. Nobody cares and most people understand the trade-off between the two.

Source: Raised in the country, moved to the city for my career.

It is still teaching kids the wrong thing: breaking a contract

You're really obsessed with punishing children. I hope you don't pass on your own parent's abuse to your own children, or even better that you don't have children yourself, or have any power over other people's children.

Maybe you should lay off the Fox News, and think about the fact that Donald Trump is one of those refined high-falutin' city slickers who you resent so much, who teaches kids the wrong things: grabbing women by the pussy, infidelity, racism, lying, treason, etc.

We are all self-taught to self-punish ourselves into improvement at personal, family, and society level after much reading. My kids all turned out awesome.

It is sad that you like to call others name. That’s an act of being a small-minded person. You should aim for bigger ideas and goals, as it would make you less angry and more happy throughout your life.

I think it is important to enable kids to think for themselves early on, notably in philosophy of Aristotle.

And I do enjoy Fox News … for entertainment. Because mockery of ill-thought-out policies should be thoroughly ridiculed and laughed at.

It says so much about your character that you find hate and lies entertaining. We're all well aware of how the Dominion lawsuit is going for Fox, whether you want to admit it or not.

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