No country for old men

And what might Harris's "cows being led to slaughter" be trying to escape from if they saw an opportunity?

Virtually all cows come to the same end: the final trip to the kill floor....
    One way or another, they are herded onto trucks or trains...A number of animals will die from the conditions or arrive at the slaughterhouse too sick to be considered fit for human consumption....
    At a typical slaughter facility, cattle are led through a chute into a knocking box—usually a large cylindrical hold through which the head pokes. The stun operator, or "knocker," presses a large pneumatic gun between the cow's eyes [like the Javier Bardem character did to his human victims in Ethan & Joel Coen's 2007 film]. A steel bolt shoots into the cow's skull and then retracts back into the gun, usually rendering the animal unconscious or causing death. Sometimes the bolt only grazes the animal, which either remains conscious or later wakes up as it is being "processed." The effectiveness of the knocking gun depends on its manufacture and maintenance [Anton Chigurh kept his in tip-top condition], and the skill of its application—a small hose leak or firing the gun before pressure sufficiently builds up again can reduce the force with which the bolt is released and leave animals grotesquely punctured but painfully conscious.
    The effectiveness of knocking is also reduced because some plant managers believe that animals can become "too dead" and therefore, because their hearts are not pumping, bleed out too slowly or insufficiently. (It's "important" for plants to have a quick bleed-out time for basic efficiency and because blood left in the meat promotes bacterial growth and reduces shelf life.)....
    No jokes here, and no turning away. Let's say what we mean: animals are bled, skinned, and dismembered while conscious. It happens all the time, and the industry and the government know it....
    In twelve seconds or less, the knocked cow—unconscious, semiconscious, fully conscious, or dead—moves down the line to arrive at the "shackler," who attaches a chain around one of the hind legs and hoists the animal into the air.
    From the shackler, the animal, now dangling from a leg, is mechanically moved to a "sticker," who cuts the carotid arteries and a jugular vein in the neck. The animal is again mechanically moved to a "bleed rail" and drained of blood for several minutes...If the animal is partially conscious or improperly cut, this can restrict the flow of blood, prolonging consciousness further. "They'd be blinking and stretching their necks from side to side, looking around, really frantic," explained one line worker.
    The cow should now be a carcass, which will move along the line to a "head skinner," which is exactly what it sounds like—a stop where the skin is peeled off the head of the animal. The percentage of cattle still conscious at this stage is low but not zero...Explains a worker familiar with such practices, "A lot of times the skinner finds out an animal is still conscious when he slices the side of its head and it starts kicking wildly. If that happens, or if a cow is already kicking when it arrives at their station, the skinners shove a knife into the back of its head to cut the spinal cord."
    This practice, it turns out, immobilizes the animal but does not render it insensible....[Eating Animals, Jonathan Safran Foer, pp. 226-227, 229-230, 232-233]

I suspect that a vegetarian presidential candidate would have a harder time being elected than a homosexual. A gay president would positively remind many people of what they're relieved they are not. But a vegetarian would by counter-example remind almost all of us that we are not vegetarians, but participate by proxy in the cruel treatment of the animals we eat.
    I might not have been able to sleep last night if I'd realized when I turned out the light that this would be the post I'd write today. I awoke before four with the topic firmly in place and the unsettling sense that further sleep would be impossible.¹
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1. I'm reminded of one English translation of Jean Paul Sartre's novel, La mort dans l'âme: Troubled Sleep. The literal translation of the French title is "death in the heart."