Antagonistic 1-

“Today’s ALEC-inspired bills take direct aim at anyone who tries to expose horrific acts of animal cruelty, dangerous animal-handling practices that might lead to food safety issues, or blatant disregard for environmental laws designed to protect waterways from animal waste runoff.”

This is explaining what exact acts the most recent bills are going to take aim at. They are obviously opposed to dangerous animal handling, which is a good thing. The contradictory thing is they punish anyone who attempts to expose animal cruelty. This doesn’t make sense because one should accept any help they can get rather than punish someone for helping.

Antagonistic 2-

“Mishandling animals, their meat and their byproducts can lead to serious health risks such as the spread of antibiotic-resistant strains of salmonella and staph, and outbreaks such as e coli and mad cow disease.”

This claim is using the domino effect in a way. The claim is that because of the laws preventing us from being able to video tape, the workers and companies will do anything to quicken their work and raise profit. This allows the farms to abuse animals and no one can prove a thing. And because they are not handling animals correctly we as customers will have serious health risks.

Supportive 2-

“As if that weren’t enough, Liebman said that with the new law, “The state ends up punishing those who expose animal cruelty more seriously than those who commit it.””

This is claiming that the real criminals who actually commit the crime get less of a punishment than those who are exposing it. It’s kind of like getting in trouble for reporting that you saw a murder. It doesn’t make sense but because of the new law, those who think they are helping the cause are being punished.

Supportive 3-

“With 98% of farms and ranches in the U.S. family owned and operated, I know that today’s food is grown by people who care about the animals, the environment and the final retail product.”

Sure this is a good thing that a vast majority of farms are most likely handling animals and meat well. But what about the other 2% (at least)? Two percent may seem like a small amount but country-wide, 2% can be hundreds of thousands of farms. Not to mention that because of the laws we may not be able to tell if a farm is doing the right thing for sure.