Aidi wan n'Eezel: the loyal azawakh

Over the weekend, I read an article on the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) and California’s Proposition 2 november ballot initiative in the NY Times Magazine. The gist is that duing the November 4 presidential elections in California people will be voting on whether to limit the confinement of farm animals.

The official summary of the law is this:

• Requires that calves raised for veal, egg-laying hens and pregnant pigs be confined only in ways that allow these animals to lie down, stand up, fully extend their limbs and turn around freely.
• Exceptions made for transportation, rodeos, fairs, 4-H programs, lawful slaughter, research and veterinary purposes.
• Provides misdemeanor penalties, including a fine not to exceed $1,000 and/or imprisonment in jail for up to 180 days.

It sounds reasonable, right? Everyone can agree that animals should not be treated cruelly, but let’s remember that it is already illegal to keep animals in a cruel manner. The law is redundant and it is also potentially dangerous. It is no accident that they are targeting California rather than Iowa with this measure. Iowans would be more likely to realize that the purpose of farrowing pens is to protect piglets from being crushed under the sow, for example.

The real purpose of this law – which was drafted by the HSUS and the Farm Sanctuary and is endorsed by PETA among other Animal Rights groups – is to to take a step toward changing the legal status of animals from property to sentient entities embued with natural rights and from there to equate animal husbandry with slavery and eliminate domestic animals. Does that sound paranoid?

Here are some eye opening quotes.

“We have no ethical obligation to preserve the different breeds of livestock produced through selective breeding …One generation and out. We have no problems with the extinction of domestic animals. They are creations of human selective breeding.”
Wayne Pacelle, President of the HSUS

The HSUS president wants to give domesticated animals so many rights that it is impossible to keep them. Free to be extinct. Others Animal Rights leaders are apparently self-loathing and would just as soon see humans extinct for the good of the animals.

“The life of an ant and the life of my child should be accorded equal respect.”
Michael W. Fox, Sr. Scholar at HSUS

“I am not a morose person, but I would rather not be here. I don’t have any reverence for life, only for the entities themselves. I would rather see a blank space where I am. This will sound like fruitcake stuff again but at least I wouldn’t be harming anything.”
Ingrid Newkirk, PETA

A little know provision of this law is that it grants vigilante authority to any group of greater than 20 citizens that form a non-profit anti-cruelty corporation.

Under California Corporations Code Sections 10400 – 10406: “Corporations for the prevention of cruelty to… animals… may be formed under the Nonprofit Public Benefit Corporation Law… by 20 or more persons, who shall be citizens and residents of this state.”

Be very skeptical of Proposition 2.

Rather than enacting punitive new laws that create a vigilante poultry police, we should be looking at the insanity of our Farm Bill which has destroyed the family farmer in favor of a corporate-owned mass production system that basically converts petroleum into food. It is because of our bizarre farm subsidies that we live in an insane world where a Big Mac with fries and a Coke costs less than a head of broccoli.