Andy's Angle

Hoard's is one of my favorite magazines, and they have a good blog, as well. I noted they moved the address of their RSS feed this morning, and in so doing, caused me to review the last month or so of their posts. One in particular caught my eye: " How to lose the argument on animal welfare." The author shares a "Top 12" list of sorts on ways to lose the debate on animal rights vs. animal welfare. Some highlights:

1. Assuming science will give us all the answers; it only gives us some of the answers. I believe strongly in science, but science doesn’t solve ethical questions.

3. Assuming that you have to defend all agricultural practices, regardless of what they are. I believe you defend those that are defensible. Period.

7. Assuming that the lunatic fringe is the general public. We spend way to much time focusing on lunatics and not working with the public.

9. Assuming that because someone disagrees with you they are stupid, evil, or both.

Okay, I'm big enough to admit I struggle with #9...

Farmers care about animals. Consumers care about animals. There are many values we share on both ends of the food production chain, but the big picture is that all of us have a vested interest in knowing that our food animals are treated with the utmost standard of care. Now, thanks to the proactive thinking of Ohio's agricultural leaders and the voting public, consumers and farmers can agree that the proper care of food animals is a matter of public record.

The Ohio Livestock Care Standards Board, seated and sworn in earlier this week, held its first official hearing and kicked off the process of establishing its infrastructure and procedures.

The board, mandated by the overwhelming will of Ohio voters last November, holds the Constitutional authority for setting the standards by which food animal care in Ohio will be regulated. This board is extremely diverse in terms of farm background, gender and racial makeup, and public interests represented. Featuring four veterinarians, the dean of agriculture at The Ohio State University, the director of the Ohio Department of Agriculture, the executive director of the Ohio Association of Second Harvest Food Banks, and the top executive at one of Ohio's largest metropolitan animal shelters, the board represents all valid interests relative to food animal well-being.

Such a broad cross-section of agriculture, consumer, and animal interests insures that the best interests of farm families, food animals, and the consuming public will be well represented.

The work of the board in its first year will be swift and complex. As the first board of its type in the country, there is potential for the organization to set national precedent in the area of food animal regulation. Other states are already in the process of passing legislation to implement similar bodies in their own governments.

Likewise, because of the political ambitions of one radical animal rights activist lobbying organization, this board is already being challenged before it has the chance to implement even its first standards.

Threatening to spend upwards of $10 million in political advertising in Ohio alone, the Humane Society of the United States, well known for raising prodigious amounts of money in the name of neglected animals and instead spending those funds to advance a radical vegan agenda and lifestyle in America, is circulating petitions to run a ballot initiative in the Buckeye State this fall. The language of that initiative would force the newly seated board to do HSUS' bidding, rather than doing what Ohio voters established the board to do: fairly investigate and arbitrate the best standards for food animal care in Ohio.

For most experts and opinion leaders, the HSUS efforts are counterintuitive and counterproductive. For what purpose would a group allegedly dedicated to animal care preemptively force a constitutionally appointed regulatory body to adopt a given set of rules before that board has even the opportunity to examine the practices in question and determine the best standards? If you follow the antics and business practices of HSUS, my question is rhetorical only.

If you are not yet acquainted with Wayne Pacelle's activist ATM, I recommend you visit HumaneWatch.org and the Center for Consumer Freedom. HSUS is, quite simply, dedicated to ending your consumption or use of animal proteins and products. They firmly believe that animals should have the same rights as humans, and that humans should, in many cases, be disallowed from using or interacting with animals entirely.

The governor, Legislature and voters of Ohio are to be commended in establishing the Ohio Livestock Care Standards Board.

This distinguished panel of expert representatives should be allowed to do the job to which they were appointed without the interference of Washington- and Hollywood-based radicals.

The Weekly Standard shared this great interview Ivanka Trump gave Tucker Carlson. She is spot on with her observations, and it's refreshing to hear a young business leader accurately and objectively highlight the many unforced errors the Obama Administration has recorded in its first 16 months.

As if I wasn't a huge fan of Ivanka's already...

Sun-Tsu, the legendary military strategist so often co-opted into '80s business reading material, built his strategy around the basic premise that you must know your enemy to truly defeat him. For that reason, and to keep my blood pressure from ever dipping into the "normal" range, I read Wayne Pacelle's blog. Wayne is the CEO/Chief Lobbyist/Spokesmodel for the Humane Society (in name only) of the United States. This $200 million activist lobbying group works to raise funds by working the long con that they are some how engaged in helping animals. In so doing, they raise hundreds of millions of dollars annually that they in turn spend on lobbying and political activities to force Americans into a radicalized vegan lifestyle devoid of any animal-derived proteins or products. While they typically deny this fanatical end-goal, if you read Wayne's blog regularly, he frequently slips up and says what he actually means.

HSUS first ventured into the arena of ballot-initiative political campaigns in Florida in 2002. Their effort, to end the use of gestation stalls on hog farms, was for this "sophisticated political organization" (Wayne's self-description of HSUS) sticking their toe in the shallow end of the pool. In a multi-state, multi-year strategy, the organization has worked to step-by-step, and state-by-state drive modern agriculture and farm families out of business to drive up the cost of meat, milk, and eggs in the hopes of lowering demand for those products.

But, don't just take my word for it: "When voters approved it, it was the first restriction on a severe confinement practice in the U.S. Now, eight year later, it has achieved its principal purpose: it kept giant hog factory farms from colonizing Florida, as they did three decades ago in North Carolina."

So, in Wayne's own words, the purpose wasn't to save the pigs. HSUS' "principle purpose" was to keep hog farms out of Florida in the first place.

Some will jump to Wayne's defense and point out that he specified "giant factory farms." The problem with that faulty logic is twofold: first, that there is no plausible or meaningful definition of "giant factory farm," and second, that it assumes that factories are bad in the first place.

To understand what I mean, you have to first reject the premise of Wayne's statement: that factories are bad. After all, Wayne is telling you that "factory farms" are bad. But let's consider this: if a major manufacturer like Honda, General Motors, or Proctor & Gamble wanted to build a plant near your town, what would happen? Community leaders would roll out the red carpet, local or state development officers would work on tax abatements and incentives, and folks would jump up and down at the opportunity for more jobs! Factories produce goods and services that we as consumers need or want while generating economic activity and creating wealth for workers and shareholders. But in Wayne's invective-filled context, we are supposed to believe that if a farm is large enough to earn the "factory" smear, they no longer produce food, but instead produce evil filth and pollution.

The problem, of course, is that the United States needs all farmers to produce enough food to feed the additional 100 million Americans expected to arrive on the planet in the next forty years.

Livestock care or environmental stewardship is size-neutral. Some of the largest farmers I know are the best at both, and some of the smallest I know are among the worst. Likewise, undercover activists looking for a fight can find isolated examples of the obverse. The problem lies in the generalization needed to smear an enemy. By branding all "factory farms" as animal abusers or polluters, Wayne sets up a straw man to earn your disgust, so he can con you into giving him your donation, or your vote.

Make no mistake, however, on what Wayne actually believes: HSUS works to achieve its "principle purpose," to run livestock farmers of all stripes out of business.

Okay, so the only connection between these two disparate topics is that Dr. Althouse commented on them both in recent days/hours, and she and I are essentially on the same page, especially about carry-on's:

If I'm getting on a plane with a bag and I could either check my bag or not, why should the cheaper option be the one that slows down other passengers in 3 separate places (the security line, getting on the plane, and getting off the plane)? Right now, the checked baggage fee has cost-conscious travelers dragging more bags on board.

I've been saying this ever since the airlines started imposing checked-bag fees, and apparently they just figured out that they're costing themselves money and customers in the long run, not just by charging the fees, but because they're committing unforced errors in the form of delays and overhead space-shortage. (Read my comments on the subject here.)

Secondly, the space community is taking President Obama to task over his dismantling of the U.S. Space Program. Buzz Aldrin made some indirect references to this on Dancing with the Stars, but others are being a bit more overt in their criticism. The point I share with Althouse is simply that I'm unsure how much return on investment we've received from the program in the last 50 years, HOWEVER, I'm also reluctant to NOT be the leader in the "space race." I'm not sure why, it just seems like a bad idea.

Of course, as some of my farm friends like Carroll County's John Davis have pointed out, perhaps that's because NASA spent millions annually on educating public school students about the value of the space program. Perhaps they've been (unintentionally/intentionally?) indoctrinating us to an extent, so that we'd feel this same sort of unnameable dread about the President's "War on Space." Davis' point in our previous conversations is simply that USDA should have taken a page out of the NASA playbook decades ago and gotten in the "Ag in the Classroom" business to make sure every kid in America learned the value of farmers in feeding our needs.

Food for thought on a few disparate subjects to start your week, I suppose.