Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Issue 2 DESCION MADE!

I am going to break this down for you....... why people say VOTE YES and why people say VOTE NO and what I have decided.

Why Vote YES:

The reason that farmers BIG and SMALL say to vote YES is because they are scared! What are they scared of?? That is probably what is running through your mind right now. Well let me give you an example and hopefully you will understand.

Growing up on a farm and going to private school I was pretty much the ONLY one in my school who had horses (except one friend in the grade under me). My "city" friends would come over and LOVED to see the horse. Not realizing that they are "wild" animals and had been trained and worked with A LOT! One time a friend was over, mind you we weren't old enough to drive maybe like 12 or 13. I probably weighed 80 pounds (if that... i weighed 89 my first day of high school at 15 years old so....) at the time and the horse is at least 1,200 pounds. The horse would not stand still and was being bad. I slapped the horse on the shoulder and said "Stand!" My friend was so mad at me, I mean PISSED!

Ok, lets rationalize this. Do you really think an 80 pound girl slapping an animal on the shoulder (a very muscular part of the body) and the animal weighing 15 times as much as the girl was hurt by the slap? Really?

This is what farmers are afraid of....... people who don't understand animals, who don't realize what having animals is all about getting mad and making laws to protect the animals but making it impossible for farmers to do ANYTHING with the animals.

Someone I know has a horse barn where they give A LOT of lessons. On more then one occasion they have had people come to the barn and get upset that the horses are kept in stalls. Really?? Where else do you expect them to be? The people have actually said I thought they would be free to walk around inside or outside. Really?? Ok lets rationalize this.... if all the horses were #1 let to roam free inside and outside it would be IMPOSSIBLE to keep them clean. They are horses, they poop then lay in it then kick their feed on their poop and then eat it..

#2 horses are animals and if they don't like each other they bite, kick and could really injure each other. Not all animals get a long... JUST LIKE PEOPLE. The difference between people (at least most people) and animals is that if a person doesn't like someone the worse thing you do is call them a name, animals will KILL EACH OTHER! And they don't do it quickly!

#3 how would you feed them so the each one got enough to eat? Again they are animals and they don't care the horse next to them is younger, older, fat, skinny.. they want food and don't really care who is in the way!

So, anyways my point is farmers are scared that laws will be passed that sound good but really aren't practical. Example (and I know some people might get upset at this but sorry reality is a bitch). Horse slaughter houses have been outlawed in the US. Horses are STILL being taken to auctions, the horses are sometimes sick, injured or worse, they are auctioned off, put on a trailer with no food, no water and driven for hours and even days to Mexico and Canada to their slaughter houses. Sometimes when the horses arrive they are already dead. Starved to death, died of dehydration, died from being trampled by other horses on the trailer. They are pulled off the trailers and SLAUGHTERED! I have a feeling that Mexico and Canada isn't as nice to the horses as we were here in the US. If you know what I mean.

I would sure rather have slaughter houses in the US and know that the horses who are dieing are not being tortured. You know? So, in theory not having slaughter houses in the US is GREAT but the alternative is worse. Not to mention that there is a HUGE over population of horses and some people feel that if horse slaughter was still allowed in the US there wouldn't be as many horses dieing of starvation, being set free to fend for themselves, etc.

So, there maybe things we don't like or think are not good but the alternative is much much worse.

That is the fear among farmers and why they want issue 2 to pass. So, that animal groups who may not know, see or understand the big picture can't pass laws that will just hurt farmers and animals more in the long run. The board will be set up to block laws on farmers. I mean come on PETA got made at our president for killing a fly!

Why vote NO on issue 2:

Issue 2 will #1. be an amendment to Ohio's constitution #2. the 13 board member will be APPOINTED people by the Governor. They will have NO ONE to answer to. They can run a muck and there wouldn't be anyone to stop them. The only way to get them the heck off the board would be for the Governor to either get replaced OR get so pressured by the citizens that he has to remove / replace one of the members. #3. if the law does not pass everything stays the same.

There are way too many issues with issue 2. The uncertainty of what it will bring scares me more then just leaving things as they are.

There are people and groups who want us all to believe that if Issue 2 passes animals will be inhumanely treated. That is NOT TRUE! However, we as a society will have less recourse IF something inhumane is going on because the 13 member appointed board can give us (us mean society/public) the Heisman.

My only hope is that people think RATIONALLY about laws being passed about farms, farmers, treatment of dairy and poultry and live stock. Not everyone is horrible, not every farmer traps their laying hens in a small cage, not every farm treats their milking cows poorly. Most of them actually treat them pretty darn good. Happy cows produce more milk, healthy cows produce more milk... happy healthy chickens produce more eggs. So, why in the hell would someone who makes their living off producing eggs or milk treat their animals poorly?? Doesn't make much sense does it?

As much as I say I HATE THE AMISH! There are Amish out there that aren't puppy milling assholes. So, really it isn't fair to paint them all with the same brush now is it??

All blonds are stupid
All red heads are bitchy
All people that go to U of M suck (this might be true ;-) )


Just giving examples of painting everyone with the same label.. these aren't always true so we can't really say blanket statements like....... all egg farmers treat their chickens poorly and they live in small cages. This just isn't true and my sister visited egg and milk producing farms and did not see any of the horrible things she had heard. She saw totally the opposite.

So, I hope that Issue 2 doesn't pass as I think it will do more harm then good and I hope that people STOP and really take in facts and consequences before passing a law that effects others and NOT them directly.

Just to re cap. I will vote NO on issue 2

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