Copy of AFF Sentinel V21 #37-They Will Decide for You
- Steve Dittmer
- Jul 22
- 5 min read
Danger From Overzealous
Fellow Citizens
Steve Dittmer | AFF Sentinel
Colorado Springs, CO
Originally sent to subscribers 09/30/24
One of the most prevalent and concerning trends in America today is some group or overbearing philosophy telling a person what he or she should, or should not, be allowed to do in life.
A seemingly inexhaustible list of holier-than-thou groups, government agencies at every level and arrogant individuals is determined to change the world by changing our personal behavior, our exercise of individual rights.
And what these elements can’t get by persuasion, they attempt to force on American citizens with government mandates. The latest attempt to force citizens on how to deal with supply chain issues, higher food prices and production problems for farmers and ranchers is Colorado’s Initiative 309, a ballot initiative designed to outlaw not only Denver’s only lamb processing plant but the only major one in the region.
In other words, in a time where even the Democrat candidate for president talks constantly about the increases in food prices and shocked many with talk of food price controls, a small but noisy fringe of society from outside and within Colorado is plotting to drive up the price and reduce the availability of lamb in grocery stores and restaurants. It would also prohibit any future livestock processing facility of any kind.
Ironically, the same slices of society that voted to import wolves into Colorado, inevitably to attack livestock, are now trying to stop lamb processing and meat eating in Colorado.
Evidently, by their thinking, it is okay for wolves to eat lamb but not for humans.
Wolves kill lambs and calves indiscriminately but farmers raise animals carefully, harvest them selectively under humane conditions, to feed the public and provide a livelihood for their families. The intent behind this proposed ban is difficult for families in the sheep business and for the 160 workers at the lamb processing facility to understand.
For thousands of years, there have been dozens of reasons for human beings to care for animals and use their meat, milk, eggs, hides and wool for their improved nutrition, utility and protection. But those opposed to animal production or eating meat are trying to stop that ancestral symbiotic relationship because they claim to know better how everyone else should live.
The vegetarians and animal activists claim production food animals are just like us. But anyone who has stood out in a blizzard shivering in insulated boots, coveralls and hoods while ewes or cows calmly chewed their cud and nursed their young know better. Animals need proper care and shelter from wind, cold or heat but their sensitivity to weather, temperatures, feed types or boredom is nothing like that of human beings. All this while they are growing, producing and reproducing.
Animals deserve proper treatment appropriate to their purpose in life but they are not human.
It seems obvious to most people that animals have none of the methods of intelligence, learning, communicating, planning or lifespans to produce schools, libraries, hospitals, housing or governmental organization that humans have done for centuries.
But this ballot initiative is a part of a long-term, overall effort to force food prices up, increase food production prices for farmers and ranchers, cut supplies of animal products -- all to make meat and other animal products expensive and more scarce for consumers, so as to discourage consumption. The ultimate goal is the elimination of animal products for human use.
As often happens, people trying to engineer society for one goal end up at cross purposes with goals of other groups. The recent cultural trend has put more emphasis on eating local food. The purpose is to support local farmers and ranchers, reduce shipping and eat more fresh food. Banning a local, and regional, processing plant destroys the opportunity for eating meat from the local area, ruins local farmers and ranchers and forces retailers and restaurateurs to source lamb from suppliers farther away or even from foreign countries.
Banning a plant in Colorado also increases prices and reduces supply for cultures and religions that encourage, depend on or prefer lamb dishes.
The processing plant Initiative 309 would eliminate provides a market for over 1,000 farms, many families that have been relying on the plant for 50 years. When a market for a product disappears, either animals must then be hauled a hundred miles or more farther away for processing or farmers just quit raising sheep. Hauling lambs to California is not a preferable option. The next large plants are thousands of miles away.
Of course, the other families involved are the workers’ families that depend on the plant for a livelihood -- they actually own the plant -- and the local community families who depend on the economic activity generated by related businesses and suppliers. It also provides the tax support for local schools and government services.
Regionally, the total number of jobs affected ripples out to over 2,700 people in the supply chain that brings lamb to consumers in at least 23 retail grocery chains and many more restaurants. Superior Farms accounts for 15-20 percent of the nation’s lamb processing.
A study by economists and professors at Colorado State University estimated that if the Superior plant closes down and all that business leaves the state, the economic impact could amount to $861 million of lost activity. If some of the business leaves the state, the economic impact losses could range from to $430 million and 1,394 jobs to $215 million and 697 jobs.
Pro-Animal Future, and their local subsidiary Pro-Animal Denver, is the group behind the initiative. Check their website and their emotional viewpoint reveals them to be quite naïve, at the most charitable view, about the effect of the ban. They want to eliminate the only major sheep processing plant in Denver, leaving only a much smaller one nearly 100 miles away, yet claim it “won’t affect sale” of animal products or “cause any drastic changes.” They want to “accelerate” a “transition” to plant-based diets and “flexitarianism.” “Denver citizens won’t be giving up meat just yet.”
This group understands the food production chain so poorly and myopically that they think removing the only place to process lambs will not affect the eating public; not affect farmers who raise sheep and lamb;, not affect the dozens of businesses who do business and supply the processing plant; not affect the farmers, feed companies and veterinary clinics, etc. and won’t affect the Globeville neighborhood in Denver by removing its major business. As for the employees who work at, and own, the plant and their families, this group has decided that their jobs don’t count, aren’t appropriate for them and should disappear because they have arrogantly decided it should be so.
What busybodies can’t get by persuasion, they try to force on their fellow citizens. Vegetarians under our American system are allowed to live by their dietary beliefs. But it is un-American to attempt to force everyone else to live by their, obviously minority, opinions. To do so while destroying the livelihoods of farmers, ranchers and harvesting operations and raising the cost and reducing the availability of meat is what Initiative 309 is really about. Citizens should have the choices they want, not be coerced by self-important, arrogant activists into someone else’s choice.
If anyone wants to volunteer to campaign against the measure (get a yard sign, make campaign calls, send postcards to voters, etc.) they can sign up here:
For letters to the editor send to:
The Denver Post
The Denver Gazette
Our address: Agribusiness Freedom Foundation, P.O. Box 88179, Colorado Springs, CO. 80908.
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