The American Spectator

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3.31.06 @ 12:01AM

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HORSEFEATHERS REVIVAL
Re: Trent England and Paul Rosenzweig's Horsing Around in Congress:

In their opinion piece "Horsing Around in Congress," Trent England and Paul Rosenzweig opine that protecting our horses from slaughter by and for foreigners is a waste of Congress' time. I could not disagree more. Our horses are a proud part of our American culture and we do not want them butchered. One would have thought two distinguished scholars representing the "Heritage Foundation" would understand this much about our heritage.

But the distortions and errors offered up by these gentlemen are not limited to their basic premise. They state "Low carb dieters should be particularly upset." This is nonsense because the meat from these slaughter houses could not be sold for human consumption in the United States even if there was a market for it. The meat is not inspected for medications and other prohibited substances as would be required were it to be sold here. This is very convenient too, as many of the horses slaughtered have come directly from race tracks and auctions where they commonly receive medications that are banned in food animals. These substances range from phenylbutazone (bute), a known human carcinogen used widely in horses, to drugs used to induce ovulation in mares which can cause spontaneous miscarriages in women who handle them (much less eat meat laced them). Luckily we do not consume this meat and it is dumped in Europe where it is sold as the "healthy alternative" to our "hormone laced" beef.

The authors go on to inform us of other non-facts. For example, they state that the bill does nothing to stop the use of horse meat in dog food and glue. That could be because there is no such usage to stop. All major American pet food manufacturers discontinued using horse meat in the early 1980s. There were several reasons for this, including the fact that Americans don't like to feed one pet to another. Worse, pet food contains entrails and other by-products. This led to the accidental inclusion of the common horse wormer Ivermectin. This wormer can be deadly to certain breeds of dogs of the collie family. The last mom and pop horse meat canner for the pet industry closed its door a few years ago in Chicago. Likewise, while rendered animal proteins are used in some glues, horses are not slaughtered for this purpose.

It is not until their forth paragraph that the authors finally get something right. They state "THE BILL IS REALLY morals legislation." I would point out that the same can be said for the Emancipation Proclamation, our laws against murder, and probably the majority of our body of law. Yes, we as Americans cherish the horse and its contributions to this society and we want to protect it.

But the article gets better. The authors follow with "The legislation also tastes a lot like cultural imperialism." To claim that we are being "cultural imperialists" because we do not wish foreign countries to come here and slaughter our pets and eat them is hyperbolic reasoning in the extreme! I would think that if America appearing to be imperialistic were their true concern, a ban on horse slaughter would be the least of their worries.

Finally, I find it is interesting that these gentlemen are so obsessed about this "excessive" criminalization of the innocent act of brutally killing over 90,000 horses a year. As if the average American is going to wake up tomorrow and say "You mean I can't kill horses for meat anymore?" Protecting the right to slaughter horses seems more important to these gentlemen than laws that continue to be passed limiting our civil liberties in the name of a "war on terror" that has no definable end-point. Even if we all agree that some measures are necessary, isn't that just a tiny bit more worrisome? Wouldn't their powerful intellects be better utilized trying to find ways to avoid trading our liberty for security? If the American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act tastes like cultural imperialism to England and Rosenzweig, then their opinion piece tastes like phony "think tank" horse hockey to me.
-- John Holland, horse owner
Shawsville, Virginia

Letter to the Editor

topics:
Taxes, Education, Economics, Federal Budget, Social Security, Religion, Abortion, Hollywood, Law, Israel, NATO, Conservatism, Immigration, Oil, Unions, Medicare