Livestock Rights Petition for Ohio Ballot

(Columbus, Ohio) The Humane Society of the United States and other animal rights groups are collecting signatures to put a measure on the November ballot which would impose more regulations on farmers. Specifically, the animal rights agenda is to dictate minimum housing requirements for chickens and hogs.

I'd suggest that rational people will decline to support the initiative, knowing that imposing comfort requirements for farm animals shouldn't be applied before imposing similar regulations for people. To my knowledge, there currently exist no minimum housing requirements for people.

In any event, the government should avoid adding to the cost of farming through burdensome mandates and the public should realize that voting for new farm regulations simply pushes up the prices of animal products.

From my perspective, the only farm animal comfort I entertain is the desire for seasoned parts to rest cozily next to the mashed potatoes. Animal living conditions prior to slaughter I'll trust to experts in animal husbandry, a field of human endeavor pursued efficiently for thousands of years.

Furthermore, I contend that the animal rights do-gooders possess an extreme level of liberal arrogance. Their self-assessed, superior intelligence and unmatched wisdom allow them to profess greater knowledge on the correct method of farming livestock than the successes of actual farmers over thousands of years.

Think about it. For five thousand years, livestock farmers have been putting chicken and pork on dinner tables and now, all of a sudden, activists say that chickens and hogs are not treated properly and we need a law to correct the situation. I don't think so.