Post Scripts

by Jack Lee

There are a couple of things on the republican slate I will not endorse. I will be voting YES on Prop 2 for the ethical treatment of farm animals. This issue was not just invented out of thin air, there were darn good reasons why so many people were moved to sponsor it. They saw the evidence. Now they are asking you to cast your vote based on your character and not your wallet. Even if you think farm animals don’t know they are being abused, that they don’t know the difference (which is unlikely), we know the difference..

People who support the NO vote say it will cost too much. I say that is a false argument, I know what it costs to raise animals right, and it’s not that much more. The big commercial producers should have addressed this problem long ago before they started cramming chickens into cages too small to move in, but they didn’t and now it’s up to us as an ethical society. We’re a better people than to tolerate animal torture, like they do in China and many parts of Asia. In China they raise dogs in small cages and club them to death for the meat and fur. What we do here to some farm animals isn’t much different….in some ways its worse. “Two weeks ago, video from an undercover investigation at Norco Ranch, owned by Missouri-based Moark, was released to the public showing pitiful images of animals abused at a California factory farm. The undercover investigator not only recorded images of four to six birds crammed into small cages and unable to extend their wings, but also dead birds in cages, birds with legs or other body parts caught in the wire caging, and the animals living in absolute filth and squalor…”

Democracy and human rights is not and should not be, our only government export. The ethical treatment of our farm animals matters, it’s just another measure of our good character on display for the world.

Next, I also like the idea of a high speed train to SoCal. The Reps oppose because they say it’s too costly, but I think we’ve lost that pioneer spirit that built the first Continental railroad! It united a young America. Let’s do it again, let’s show them our spirt and our vision, for our current and future generations!

I really like the concept and I think a high speed rail is a first rate ride into the future for California. Imagine a train going 200 mph for hundreds of miles! It will be a fantastic tourist attraction and a cost effective way to connect people and commerce in this long state.

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