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The barn door is certainly openWithout question, the most common thing I am asked when traveling the country these days is, "What is the latest on horse slaughter, Trent?" Well, there hadn't been much happening until this past week. On the national level, the bill has passed through the House to ban the harvesting and the transportation of horses to harvest. For those of you that might not be familiar with the legal lingo, if the bill comes out of committee and passes as it is written, it would be illegal to sell a horse to someone who hauls it out of the country for slaughter. On Sept. 21, the 7th Circuit Court of the United States ruled on the appeal of Cavel International, a horse slaughtering company in Illinois. In June, the Illinois lawmakers passed and the governor signed into law legislation effectively eliminating horse slaughter as a viable option for unwanted horses in Illinois. The court upheld the law, shutting down the one lone plant in Dekalb, Ill., that was harvesting about 1,000 horses each week. Are you confused yet? If so, you have good reason to be but the bottom line is that we now have zero horse slaughter plants operating inside the boundaries of the United States. We are also two votes away from a federal law banning American horses leaving the country to be slaughtered. Now, as you might imagine, I do not see one good thing about the entire process that has led us to this point, but let me illustrate what is possibly an even greater danger--the ignorance of those in the judicial system. On Jan. 19, the 5th Circuit Court issued a ruling that shut down the two Texas horse slaughter plants. In his comments, the judge stated: "The lone cowboy riding his horse on a Texas trail is a cinematic icon. Not once in memory did the cowboy eat his horse, but film is an imperfect mirror." In rejecting the appeal from the Illinois horse slaughter plant last week, comments from the judges included the following: "States have a legitimate interest in prolonging the lives of animals that their population happens to like," a three-judge panel of the U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals wrote. "They can ban bullfights and cockfights and the abuse and neglect of animals. "Even if no horses live longer as a result of the new law," the court wrote, "a state is permitted, within reason, to express disgust at what people do with the dead, whether dead human beings or dead human animals." The founding fathers of our nation clearly stated the purpose of government and laws were simply to protect the citizens of our nation and I can't understand why judges use laws to issue rulings to protect horses. Furthermore, if you think our younger generations are the only American citizens disconnected from the cyle of life, read again what judges from both Circuit Courts stated. If, in fact, a few people squeak loud enough about the harvesting of pigs, chickens or cows, these judges may interpret it as the will of the people and make it the rule of law. Even worse, what about the public sentiment towards Bambi? Can a ban on deer hunting be far behind? The respectful harvest of unwanted horses desperately needs to continue. Millions of kids around the world die of starvation every year and upity American citizens, attorneys and judges snub their noses at that by endorsing the wasteful disposal of an otherwise valuable resource. Once again I contend that only an overfed and ungrateful nation would enact a law removing potentially the greatest value a horse has to offer at the end of a useful life. I propose that, before we completely let the horse out of the barn, we go into one of the most poverty stricken areas of our nation and have a horse barbeque. I doubt that the hungry kids or the homeless veterans will tell us that it is against their morals to eat horse meat. I have the horse and if you have the grill, we have a date. Editor's note: Trent Loos is a sixth generation United States farmer, host of the daily radio show, Loos Tales, and founder of Faces of Agriculture, a non-profit organization putting the human element back into the production of food. Get more information at www.FacesOfAg.com, or e-mail Trent at trent@loostales.com. 10/1/07
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