In 2018, Californians passed Proposition 12 - which would ban the sale of pork in the state if it came from breeding pigs confined in narrow metal cages. Midwestern meat packers argued in the Supreme Court yesterday the proposition is unconstitutional because its "practical effect" would be to force hog farmers to make costly changes in how they raise and confine their breeding pigs. They noted that more than 99% of the pork sold in California comes from other states.
The Supremes seemed to generally side with Industrial Agriculture because they were concerned that individual states setting conditions for the production of consumer goods could create a messy patchwork of laws as states imposed their politics on national trade.
Interestingly, the Justices' questions indicate the Court has not divided down the usual ideological pro-corporate lines. The newest Justice, Ketanji Brown Jackson, suggested the California law may have gone further than necessary. While Neil M. Gorsuch declared the Constitution empowers Congress, not judges, to set national regulations that protect interstate commerce.
The Biden Administration also sided with the pig packers
I am no lawyer. And my interest is not the law. My issue is that no one seems to be considering the matter from the pigs' point of view.
Americans have a bifurcated view of animals. The public was horrified when it emerged NFL QB Michael Vick enjoyed betting on dogs ripping each other apart. The news that hundreds of dogs died during Dr. Oz’s experiments has hurt him badly. And most Americans think that the Asian custom of eating dogs is barbaric.
But these same warm-hearted people are uninterested in the pig's journey from birth to plate.
Why? Pigs are intelligent and affectionate. They have the same range of emotions as the family dog. And they equally feel pleasure and pain. Why are we indifferent to their lives of unrelenting misery and torture?
And I say this as someone who eats meat. I get it - it tastes good. And humans have always eaten meat. It is how carnivores survive in the wild. I eat less meat than I used to - no more 24oz slabs of steak and the like. But I am still a disappointment to the vegetarian/vegan community.
However, I no longer eat supermarket meat.
I am also sensitive to people on tight budgets. However, plenty of delicious, nutritious, less expensive non-meat options exist. And they should become a more significant part of the American diet.
But I am not there to lecture. So, back to the tortured pigs.
As the LA Times reports:
While some of the largest meat packers, including Hormel and Tyson, said they could comply, the National Pork Producers Council sued, alleging the law is unconstitutional because it would require farmers in the Midwest and North Carolina to change how they raise and confine their breeding pigs.
To comply with California law, breeding pigs would have to be given larger pens that would allow them to stand and turn around, or they could be confined in an open area with other pigs. The producers said those changes would increase their costs by 9%.
Let us parse these two paragraphs. First, two meat packers said they could comply — so why are the rest squealing?
Second, the Court will decide on the constitutionality of the law. So I have nothing to say.
Third, and this is the big one, breeding pigs are in cages so tiny they cannot even stand or turn around? What kind of sick bastard can run a business that does that to sentient beings?
Fourth, complying would increase costs by 9%. For starters, that is the industry number. I am sure the actual imposition is less than half of that half. Why not conduct a poll and ask people if they would pay 4% more for humanely raised pigs?
Conservatives complain that inflation is already high. And you can hear them whining that the humane treatment of animals would put an intolerable burden on the consumer’s pocketbook. I am not buying it. The consumer has shown an almost bottomless appetite for paying more for things than they have to. How else can you explain “Uncrustables” - frozen PB&J sandwiches at $1.50 a pop? Are people unable to open jars? Have they lost the recipe?
Industrial food has a genius for marketing to this convenience-minded customer. A pound of potatoes costs $1-$2. But a pound of Bob’s Red Mill potato flakes costs $15. People willing to pay that markup so they do not have to cut up a potato and boil water should be able to see the worth of paying 20¢ a pound more for humanely raised pork.
Pork producers are already getting away with not paying for the cost of treating pig waste. On average, a sow produces 44 times more feces than a human - about 11 pounds daily. And, unlike human waste, farmers do not have to process pig effluence through a waste treatment plant.
Some hog facilities are home to 10,000 sows. This means that there are pig farms with the equivalent waste production of a city of 440,000 people — twhich stash that shit wherever. And that does not include the waste produced by the piglets destined for the dinner plate.
And Industrial Food has confessed to torturing animals. Not that they have said, “we torture animals”. They have admitted their guilt by lobbying for “ag-gag” laws. These laws — pushed by their enablers in sadism, the GOP — make it a crime for people, whistle blowers and animal activists, to video the abusive practices of slaughterhouses and factory farms and show it to the general public.
Corporate farm operators know their horrific treatment of billions of animals would revulse the public.
I realize that Americans have come to expect their food to be cheap. But as the explosive growth in dining out and ordering in has shown, they will spend far more to eat than they need to.
If meat costs a little more because it comes from an animal that could walk around and act in the way God created them, so be it. And anyone who disagrees with that should go sit in a small cage for a while and reflect on their inhumanity.