Posted on 03/10/2017 5:30:09 AM PST by markomalley
Maybe it’s just nostalgia talking, but the slaughtering, processing, packaging, and distribution of animals used to be so much simpler.
For hundreds of years, the meat-packing industry bore the responsibility for transforming Bessie the Cow into carnivores’ favorite source of protein, and more recently the Food Safety and Inspection Service inspectors of the U.S. Department of Agriculture ensured that the finished product was “safe, wholesome, and correctly labeled and packaged.”
Not so anymore. Due to agency rules issued during the Obama era, FSIS inspectors enjoy expanded duties, including monitoring facilities for any “disrespectful” or “insult[ing]” communication (no, not among the animals). Should they uncover any such communication, inspectors are empowered to take “corrective action,” even if that involves slicing and dicing fundamental freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment.
Predictably, unleashing meat inspectors to police the exercise of free speech—with guidelines that provide only vague directional prodding—is the equivalent of releasing a bull in a china shop. At least, it was for Don and Ellen Vander Boon, the owners of West Michigan Beef Company. (To be fair, Mythbusters found that bulls can be surprisingly respectful of grandma’s china. The same cannot be said for the USDA and the First Amendment.)
The USDA threatened to shut down this family-owned company, not because of health concerns, or because short ribs were incorrectly labeled as plate ribs (incidentally, you would not believe the labeling requirements), or because People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals infiltrated their ranks in some sort of hostile takeover bid. Rather, the so-called offense consisted of an article Don placed in the breakroom.
The breakroom at West Michigan Beef includes tables that essentially serve as a repository for newspapers, magazines, articles, and other forms of literature that employees or the owners wish to share with those who care to read them. Think of it as a pre-technological Facebook. Importantly, no one is required to read the materials, any more than I am required to flip through a two-year old copy of People while sitting in my dentist’s lobby, or to read my friend’s Facebook post about replacing smoke detector batteries (true story).
In 2015, following the Supreme Court decision in Obergefell v. Hodges that purported to redefine marriage for the entire country, various employees shared articles and information related to the decision. Don participated by sharing an article that expressed the traditional Christian view that God designed marriage as a union between a man and a woman and set forth reasons for that position.
When a USDA public health veterinarian, the on-site inspector, saw the article in the breakroom, well, he had a cow. He removed the article and reported it to his USDA supervisor. The pair stampeded into Don’s office and threatened to remove USDA inspectors—effectively shutting down the facility—if Don returned the article to the breakroom, stating the article was offensive and harassing under expanded agency rules.
This ban on Don’s speech appears to have been grounded on the USDA’s “Anti-Harassment Policy Statement” issued in July 2015, which prohibits written or oral communications that USDA officials consider “disrespectful” or “insult[ing]” on the basis of sexual orientation.
Notably, the feelings about which the USDA is concerned are not those of Don and Ellen’s 45 employees, but rather those of the handful of USDA inspectors working in the Vander Boon’s federally regulated plant. So much so that the company’s breakroom for company employees must be intellectually sterilized, lest an inspector catch a glimpse of an “insulting” article while walking through the breakroom.
So much could be said here, but to take at least a stab at brevity, I’ll rein in my responses to two choice beefs with the policy.
First, and most fundamentally, even assuming that the USDA should be in the business of inspecting expression in addition to animal products, its inspectors are constitutionally prohibited from labeling some viewpoints as prime while chucking others entirely. As recently as 2015, the Supreme Court said as much, explaining in Reed v. Town of Gilbert that the government “has no power to restrict expression because of its message, its ideas, its subject matter, or its content.” Notably, the USDA inspectors took no action against materials in the breakroom that expressed favorable messages regarding same-sex marriage. The topic was not objectionable to the USDA; the viewpoint was.
Second, by forcing Don and Ellen to choose between (1) abandoning their right to express their religious views and (2) being shut down, the USDA imposed an impermissible burden on their free exercise of religion. The Supreme Court prohibited such a forced choice in Sherbert v. Verner, saying that “[g]overnmental imposition of such a choice puts the same kind of burden upon the free exercise of religion as would a fine imposed against appellant for her Saturday worship.”
My employer, Alliance Defending Freedom, sent a letter to President Trump asking him to direct the USDA to rescind its unlawful harassment policy and lift the unconstitutional restriction on Don’s speech—in other words, to take the policy out back and swiftly and humanely kill it. The letter also asks the president to follow through with his promise to make religious freedom a top administration priority by signing an executive order directing federal agencies to respect the free exercise of religion, thereby providing necessary protections for small business owners like Don, as well as nonprofit and social-service organizations.
Until then, the next time you’re grilling a nice, juicy steak, take a moment of silence—not for the animal that provided that delectable dish, but for the First Amendment freedoms that were sacrificed on the chopping block to bring you what’s for dinner.
Who do these pricks think they are?! Fire everyone of them.
How in the world, even in an ultra-liberal court, could this have passed a first review?
Guillotine, guillotine!!!
Congress’ Fault.
This is a blessing in disguise:
Trump is going to have to cut like crazy and sounds like USDA has twice as much money as they need.
I wonder what, precisely, are the ‘expanded agency rules’ that allowed them to do this - or made them think that they could.
If I were Don Vander Boon, I would place this article in the break room.
The queer inspector should be forced back in his closet
Pro-homo has saturated our governments - gov workers want uber power over civies, and pro-homo makes 98% of civies subject to this new age power trip.
USDA inspectors - inhabiting a ‘no peek in’ office with a big TV, internet PC, magazine rack, coffee maker, mini fridge, very comfy chair, doing maybe two hours of actual inspection a day.
Sue them out of business, close them down, disband them.
It’s what they would do to a citizen.
How would any court have seen it without a suit being filed? USDA ‘rules’ wouldn’t have any court review without one.
Funny, the USDA ‘protecting’ consumers; as if that were what *any* govt agency\dept\etc. goes two-hoots about. Not as if they’ve stopped the recent recalls w/ their policy book anyway.
As if any biz would be able to weather any ‘outbreak’ of their own creation.
I would bet that a majority of the legislation passed in the last decade contain some sort of Second Amendment limiting verbiage like this. If an abuse like in this article is never reported, there is no basis for legal action despite the unconstitutionality of such a reg.
I agree that the inspectors mentioned in the article should have been taken out behind a barn and knee-capped with an axe-handle. Then the Congressmen who sponsored the legislation or the bureaucrat who wrote the rule should get the same treatment.
Because these bastards consider the people nothing more than blood bags—for the parasites to feed on.
USFDA busybodies are also an excellent source of protoen, but watch out for sodium content
Bfl
Perhaps specific penalties need to be spelled out in the law for anyone (including government officials) who impose censorship on political expression.
Specific fines and prison terms.
They are government bureaucrats. They probably couldn't make a living in the private sector but in their little world, they are the king, and you are a serf.
Just remember, the purpose of a bureaucracy is to expand its power base and budget.
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