The point of "eat the bugs" is to humiliate and impoverish you

The following thread can be found in its original form here.

Don't eat the bug burger. Don't eat the soy burger. Eat beef. A thread. 1/15

When ppl say, "American cuisine is McD's," there's a grain of truth. Most people don't exactly know the truth, so they don't exactly know the lie, either, so they just take it, or sputter helplessly. Most Americans don't know the expression, "Beef and Liberty!" They should.

"Beef and Liberty!" sounds like hipster irony, but it's not. It was a fairly common expression of English patriotism in the 18th century. It was even the motto of one of London's most prestigious beef-steak clubs (back then, men belonged to steakhouses like country clubs).

But why? What makes eating beef so British that one of the (many) French epithets for Brits is les rosbifs? Because it's expensive.

Cows require so much more food and space than other animals, that domesticating them in large numbers was historically a gentleman's endeavor. A European peasant of the pre-industrial age could hardly afford beef, let alone go into the beef business.

To have a beef industry large enough that regular people afford it you need 1) a large middle class 2) private property protections 3) reasonable assurance against excessive taxes and bills of attainder Otherwise, no one would put the money necessary into these behemoths.

It just so happens that these are the economic benefits afforded by English common law and capitalism. Since England adopted these systems earlier and more eagerly than most of Europe, they have been wealthier longer. Cue the pride on one side and resentment on the other.

Both England's fans and detractors saw the widespread availability of beef in the 18th century as emblematic of their unique governance and economy.

This system, of course, carried over to their American colonies.  While Euros were telling folktales about how the loss of a single cow meant the certain death of a whole family, ridiculously wealthy Americans were creating an entire professional persona around cowboys whose only job is to move hundreds of cows from one place to another.

Side story: As a missionary in a foreign land, my friends and I wanted to make hamburgers and found ground beef so expensive that we ended up eating chicken like the rest of the 3rd world. I muttered to myself, "I'm pretty sure in my country they give this away for free."

Fast forward a few months and I'm home with my dad, just a few days after returning.. We go to Home Depot and out front I KID YOU NOT was the American Beef Council, grilling burgers and handing them out free to customers, just to remind them how ------- amazing America is.

"Yeah but they were just hamburgers." Bruh it's called a Hamburger steak because in Europe all the way up to the 20th century or more even ground chuck was a treat. You, a fish that does not know it's wet, thinks eating beef is mundane, not symbolic of your insane luxury.

And yes, McDonald's may suck, but any hamburger you eat comes from cattle whose grazing lands in America are larger than some entire countries. BLM-managed public grazing lands alone are larger than Ukraine.

So eat an organic, grass-fed tenderloin steak if it makes you feel better, but at the very least recognize that this meal fit for a king is affordable to you bc from Runnymede to Yorktown, Englishmen have defended their right to benefit from their own industry.

And for goodness' sake, don't eat the bugs.

The point of shoving bugs down your throat — hell, the point of closet tyrants like Bill Gates constantly telling you that "beef will become a luxury" — is precisely to reduce you to the status of a former feudal serf, who couldn't afford to eat beef.  You know why?  Because Bill Gates on some level understands this: he'll be having the finest Chateaubriand anytime he wants — he just doesn't think that's a luxury you should be allowed to have.