Skip to main content

Should farm animals be counted in electoral vote?


To counter the growing strength of the Latino votes, Midwest state legislators are proposing a 3/5s rule for farm animals that would allow them to have a greater number of US representatives and more electoral votes in subsequent general elections.   They looked at the huge swathes of red in farm and ranch states and felt there must be some way to get a better accounting for this vast amount of real estate that votes Republican.


The beef and pork industry seems keen on the idea as they hope it will increase federal subsidies and allow them to have an even greater voice in politics.  These industries felt it unfair that corporations could be counted as persons but that farm animals are still regarded as non-human.

Animal rights activists have yet to weigh in on this, but there is some favorable response as they feel farm animals have long been overlooked in the struggle for equal rights, and hope that such legislation would allow them to press charges against those ranchers who treat them adversely.  Farm animals themselves have yet to be interviewed on the subject.


Comments

  1. In this day and age things need to be clearly labeled as Satire/not Satire because this type of nonsense could very well be legitimately proposed in certain circles. =P

    ReplyDelete
  2. The other problem is that 3/5 of a vote has a popular historical precedent that was not all that different at the time. Colbert, disappointed in the outcome, has instead suggested counting geography. (I love seeing my tiny tiny patch of blue up there)

    ReplyDelete
  3. I think Colbert was just facetiously suggesting that. I don't think he really cares about the outcome ; )

    ReplyDelete
  4. His comment was something like -- Obama won. You think I work this hard just for fun of it?

    ReplyDelete
  5. Probably the best thing to come out of this election is the Karl Rove meltdown. The audacity of the guy to claim Obama suppressed white vote based on a flimsy piece of research in Real Clear Politics.

    Maybe once we get past all this denial in the right wing we might be able to move forward, although I'm not holding my breath.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Rove claimed that Obama ran negative ads that turned off voters and was thus guilty of suppressing the vote. I'm sure I've said this before, but these guys will SAY ANYTHING!

      Delete
  6. This is another one of those cases, like faulty math, "that you do as a Republican to make yourself feel better." It's also classic Rove: blaming your own weaknesses on the other side.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Megyn Kelly became my hero with that comment. There is a glimmer of hope at Fox -- 0,05%

      Delete
  7. It's just so mind-numbingly blatant. The echo chamber is alive and well.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Dylan in America

Whoever it was in 1969 who named the very first Bob Dylan bootleg album “Great White Wonder” may have had a mischievous streak. There are any number of ways you can interpret the title — most boringly, the cover was blank, like the Beatles’ “White Album” — but I like to see a sly allusion to “Moby-Dick.” In the seven years since the release of his first commercial record, Dylan had become the white whale of 20th-century popular song, a wild, unconquerable and often baffling force of musical nature who drove fans and critics Ahab-mad in their efforts to spear him, lash him to the hull and render him merely comprehensible. --- Bruce Handy, NYTimes ____________________________________________ I figured we can start fresh with Bob Dylan.  Couldn't resist this photo of him striking a Woody Guthrie pose.  Looks like only yesterday.  Here is a link to the comments building up to this reading group.

The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire

  Welcome to this month's reading group selection.  David Von Drehle mentions The Melting Pot , a play by Israel Zangwill, that premiered on Broadway in 1908.  At that time theater was accessible to a broad section of the public, not the exclusive domain it has become over the decades.  Zangwill carried a hopeful message that America was a place where old hatreds and prejudices were pointless, and that in this new country immigrants would find a more open society.  I suppose the reference was more an ironic one for Von Drehle, as he notes the racial and ethnic hatreds were on display everywhere, and at best Zangwill's play helped persons forget for a moment how deep these divides ran.  Nevertheless, "the melting pot" made its way into the American lexicon, even if New York could best be describing as a boiling cauldron in the early twentieth century. Triangle: The Fire That Changed America takes a broad view of events that led up the notorious fire, noting the gro

Team of Rivals Reading Group

''Team of Rivals" is also an America ''coming-of-age" saga. Lincoln, Seward, Chase et al. are sketched as being part of a ''restless generation," born when Founding Fathers occupied the White House and the Louisiana Purchase netted nearly 530 million new acres to be explored. The Western Expansion motto of this burgeoning generation, in fact, was cleverly captured in two lines of Stephen Vincent Benet's verse: ''The stream uncrossed, the promise still untried / The metal sleeping in the mountainside." None of the protagonists in ''Team of Rivals" hailed from the Deep South or Great Plains. _______________________________ From a review by Douglas Brinkley, 2005