On May 25, 2012, at 12:46 PM, Francis Drouillard wrote: > I have mixed feelings about this proposed legislation: > > <http://thehill.com/blogs/floor-action/house/229533-senators-propose-federal-standards-for-egg-laying-hens> > > On one hand, it would be good to have common standards to facilitate > interstate commerce -- that's the purpose of the Commerce Clause. One the > other, it would be good to allow states to have their own standards and sell > the eggs within their boundaries only.
We're still not the Confederate States of America. This is PRECISELY the kind of issue that cause the founders to create the Constitution, and the Commerce Clause, and the Full Faith and Credit clause (and the whole concept of a federalist government), rather than the looser confederations of states that prevailed between 1783 and 1789 when the Constitution was ratified. It would have been a much more centralized government if it weren't for the Great Compromise to pacify the slaveholders of the South. One the one hand your issue about eating locally is very pertinent, and desirable, we should all be locavores as much as possible*. On the other, you're proposing a welter of 50 sets of regulations, each slightly different, putting up significant trade barriers, the point of the proposed federal regulations. On the gripping hand, this is a law largely written for the benefit of giant corporate farms, precisely the kinds of farms that are causing the environmental, nutritional and health havok we're seeing form the modern American Way of Food. It will allow these corporate giants to force smaller producers out of business simply because they can leverage the economies of scale at the same time they're enormously subsidized because they're not paying for the environmental damage their way of production causes. (look at how pork is made in this country ...and I use 'made' very deliberately, it's much more factory than farm.) Small producers don't have that kind of clout. Back in 1783 we were a collection of 13 essentially independent countries that had banded together to kick out the Brits. We're not that, now. US citizens in Arkansas are not different than US citizens in Minnesota, California or Connecticut. The conceit that states should be able to separately regulate so many things that cross state lines: marriage, gun ownership, CCW, etc, often in completely OPPOSITE directions (and ignoring the "full faith and credit clause" in the Constitution <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_Four_of_the_United_States_Constitution>) makes it a rather schizophrenic way of doing things. Witness drivers licenses versus marriage licenses. A New York drivers license is valid in every state of the union. A New York marriage license is not. Conservatives are fighting to let the CCW laws of the most permissive state hold nationwide. (which right now is Arizona, I believe...it's completely legal, period, no testing, no permit nada. If you are legally allowed to own a gun you can carry a concealed weapon) while at the same time they've passed federal laws to explicitly violate Article IV with regard to same-sex marriages. The possession of a marriage license is the key to a vast array of *federal* benefits, yet states control who can and cannot get one, and the Federal government has unconstitutionally declared that they will not recognize same-sex marriages. That's not right. My rights as a citizen of the United States should not rely on my state of residence, but that's what's happened. (DOMA is unconstitutional on it's face because of Article IV and "Loving v. Virginia", and the surest sign that the SCOTUS has been turned into a part of the right-wing political machine in this country is if they uphold DOMA.) What we end up with is 50 little tyrannies instead of one country. The state are no more the 'laboratories of democracy' than they were in 1862. *Although I notice that the most vocal and visible proponents of this are those people who live, like Alice Waters, in one of the garden spots of the world. Its a great and wonderful idea to be a locavore in northern coastal California...are you ready for all the rest of us to move there? That said, my eggs and dairy do come from local-ish (Phoenix, 120 miles away) sources, and my meat, lately, from these folks <http://animal.cals.arizona.edu/students/clubs/ccga.html> Small herds, grass fed, no antibiotics, slaughtered and processed under ideally hygenic conditions...best damn steaks I've ever tasted in my life and the hamburger, the *grass-fed organic stuff* is $2.89 a pound. But my vegetables all come from Mexico or California because this just isn't that hospitable a place for farming. -- Bruce Johnson University of Arizona College of Pharmacy Information Technology Group Institutions do not have opinions, merely customs -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "StrataList-OT" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/stratalist-ot?hl=en.
