Op Ed on CA's Animal Cruelty Ballot Measure

Following on My Conversation (4.00 / 2)

in yesterday's Pot Luck with JayinPortland, could you remember to post links to the relevant sections from the California Voter Guide whenever it arrives (since I doubt we'd otherwise be checking the Secretary of State's website every day)?  The Guide should include the full analysis of Proposition 2, the arguments for and against, and may give an indication of the main groups on either side (to the extent that it's not already clear from media coverage).

And keep in mind that Prop 2 affects not only egg-laying fowl, but also calves raised for veal and pigs during pregnancy (why it was limited to just these, I can't say).

While this surely isn't an ideal measure, it's probably the largest realistic step that can occur this year.  With the price for food going up so steeply anyway, any enforceable requirement that would materially benefit the animals much more than this would quite possibly result in a price increase that would put some of these products out of the reach of low-income households.  (The long-term solution for that, of course, would be to increase the amount of food assistance for which these households are eligible, but that's a budgetary issue to be addressed separately.)  A measure that could be portrayed as economically elitist would very likely be doomed to failure; it seems that some of the opponents of Prop 2 are going that route even over this very limited step (that, and fear that this would cause a public health risk because of avian influenza).

---

by: The Maven @ Tue Jul 29, 2008 at 22:06:45 PM UTC

Yeah, I can post the voter guide stuff. (4.00 / 1)

As for why it was limited to those 3 species/situations I'd imagine it's because those are the three that are the most confined.

---

by: OrangeClouds115 @ Tue Jul 29, 2008 at 22:18:15 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Thanks... (4.00 / 1)

I'd also vote yes if I lived in California - the more I read about it though, the less it impresses me; but of course as you say it's at least somewhere to begin for right now.  

Shouldn't let the perfect be the enemy of a, well, decent start...

"The essence of the independent mind lies not in what it thinks, but in how it thinks." - Christopher Hitchens

---

by: JayinPortland @ Wed Jul 30, 2008 at 08:00:58 AM UTC

Don't Know If You'll See This (0.00 / 0)

(and I may try to drop a note about it in a Pot Luck thread later), but Thursday's New York Times op-ed page has Nicholas Kristof's column on Prop 2, which he terms "the most important election this November that you've never heard of".  His parallel blog post on the same subject, in which he asks for reader feedback, has generated 209 comments as of 12:15pm EDT.  The comments seem to be coming from just about every perspective, which is what I suppose Kristof was hoping for.

---

by: The Maven @ Thu Jul 31, 2008 at 16:31:13 PM UTC