Posted on 03/08/2014 11:22:49 AM PST by SeekAndFind
In 2008, California voters endorsed Proposition 2 which banned the confinement of animals. California egg producers had to ensure that chickens had enough room to move around which negated so-called “factory farming” and would end up raising the price of eggs by 20%.
Obviously this was a problem for California agriculture which would have trouble competing on price with free agriculture. And there’s only so much of a market for fair-trade free-range organic chickens lovingly raised in a Quaker school by social justice experts on a strict diet of granola and NPR broadcasts.
And so California’s reds decided to instead raise the price of eggs across America. Sounds fair, right?
Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster (D) said Tuesday morning he has filed a federal lawsuit against the state of California over the Golden State’s new regulations on enclosures that house egg-laying hens. The regulations, Koster alleges, violate the constitution’s Commerce Clause.
California voters in 2008 passed a ballot initiative that require larger enclosures for egg-laying hens. Farmers in California worried the new rules, which would increase their costs, would put them at a competitive disadvantage with egg farms in other states, so the state legislature passed a measure in 2010 to require out-of-state producers to comply with California rules.
That, Koster says, is unfair to his state’s egg producers.
“If California legislators are permitted to mandate the size of chicken coops on Missouri farms, they may just as easily demand that Missouri soybeans be harvested by hand or that Missouri corn be transported by solar-powered trucks,” Koster said in a statement.
California farmers must begin complying with the cage law beginning in 2015, under the terms of Proposition 2. The legislature requires out-of-state farmers to begin complying with the same rules by the end of that year.
Koster’s office estimated that Missouri egg producers would have to pay $120 million to expand the size of their coops, and that production costs would rise 20 percent.”
That’s the whole point. The left can’t compete on product or price, but it can kneecap everyone else as long as it has control over populous states. Businesses and individuals can flee California, but they can’t escape its regulatory creep.
The country is awash in ballot initiatives and legislative efforts to increase regulation of agriculture. Maine and Connecticut have passed GMO labeling laws, although they won’t go into effect until other states in the Northeast have passed labeling laws as well. Florida has laws outlawing the most common method of pork production. Several states have outlawed small chicken coops, and states have also banned the sale of foie gras and shark fins. Only California has had the chutzpah to impose the preferences of that state’s voters on the rest of the country.
Make no mistake about it, if egg prices increase by 20 percent, people who face tight budgets at the grocery store will suffer.
But the people who make these laws won’t and California voters have become mindless stooges of the left. And if you buy your eggs with EBT cards, you don’t tend to care how much they cost because you aren’t paying for them anyway.
At which point you and I will agree that THEY are really, really stupid.
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Can we then assume that both of you think that abusing animals to produce substandard food is “free market?”
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Can't say as I care much whether the chicken's leading a full life.
What you can assume is that right now I am eating chicken wings, slightly hot, with a bit of ranch dressing. They taste OK...not great by any means. Probably means they were raised in New York City instead of Arkansas. Being blue state chickens, they were probably happier. But red state chickens taste better.
Almost all chicken is raised, and processed in a manner that I will not comment on while you are eating!
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Can we then assume that both of you think that abusing animals to produce substandard food is “free market?”
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Can we assume that your support for animals to be used for food means you are advocating canabalism?
Since I am not of any of the species of animal we use for food, no.
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Yes, they think they are real tough guys.
Governments do have a role in some things, like protecting those who can’t protect themselves.
Where did I say I wasn’t a conservative?
And I answered you.
I did read it, so what’s your point?
Why are they still sixty cents a dozen at my local Aldi store?
And since that is exactly the opposite of what I actually said I am going to explain it to you in very simple words.
I am glad (that means happy) you have enough disposable income (that means extra money) to be able to buy top of the line stuff (like fancy eggs)but the rest of the world (people who are not you) does not (not everyone has extra cash).
The argument (That because you buy expensive eggs I should buy expensive eggs) is the same liberals make about having a Wal-mart (Place where you can buy things a bit cheaper) move into an area (But people should not be able to buy stuff where I don't want them too).
Did that help?
Let me give you the time line. Post 2
Yes the cost of eggs has gone up, but it never affected me because I always bought cage free eggs. And guess what, the price of cage free eggs has gone down!
So this poster has no problem with the price of eggs going up because it does not affect him.
Post 5
I agree with you there. Why do we allow the liberals to take the high road in matters such as this? No conservative that I know would go for animals being abused in any way and the idea of chickens being cooped up in a cage their entire lives just so that they can produce eggs more efficiently sickens me.
This person is also happy to pay more and also wants all chickens raised to whatever standards he dreams up and if it means more expensive eggs what the hay.
Post 22 Agreed. I have no problem paying $5 a dozen for local farm raised eggs.
You agree with poster that more expensive eggs are the bomb and if more expensive eggs are the price of keeping little chickens happy that is fine.
So yes, you did make the argument. I am glad that you have decided that was not a good thing to believe.
My poor chicken wings, the subject of scorn, and all I wanted was dinner.
But think with me. If nice yards make for happy chickens, and wings, no matter the source, come from dead chickens, is not the world a far better place if we eat the wings of unhappy chickens and leave the happy chickens to frolicking, clucking, plucking bugs from the ground?
And, if we object that happy chickens must also be eaten, then isn’t that actually justification for raising only unhappy chickens, for we do them a service by ending their misery.
You see, the happy chicken crossed the road. That’s why. He wanted to get to the other side.
The unhappy chicken got to the center and waited for traffic. What a waste!
Unhappy Wings I Say! It is mercy!
I’ll not be arguing with animal rights wackos who claim to read but prove they don’t comprehend. Life’s too short for this kind of fencing match. Bye.
I like cage free eggs...on veal. Yum!
When I was a kid in the ‘50s double yolkers were much more common, before the fertility drugs and antibiotics. They mostly go to restaurants. I buy eggs from a farmer in Staunton IL green eggs, brown, some white, Jumbo size and many double yolkers. His chickens scratch in the yard.
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