Diary of a Mad Voter: Dan Rostad

Order Me a Steak

By Dan Rostad, 10-15-07

Isn’t it amazing when someone, or a group of someones, think they need to instruct the rest of us, on what is good and what is bad.  Especially when they come into our own neighborhood and try to tell everyone who will listen, that the way we live, is offensive to them and wrong for us.

Those of us who live in the Rocky Mountain West grew up with a certain sense of right and wrong and were raised with a rural sense of values.  Those values included honesty, hard work, a love of the outdoors, an appreciation of agriculture and a love of red meat.

Country singer Bucky Covington has a great new song out, talking about being a kid, growing up in the previous generation.  Comparing the differences of growing up during that time and today.

The refrain to his song aptly sums up those differences with this refrain:

“It was a different life
When we were boys and girls
Not just a different time
It was a different world”

With that song in mind, I read a recent Billings Gazette article telling how a group of “do-gooder” vegetarians from out of state were mad because Montana Senator Max Baucus had accepted political contributions from agricultural groups.

“A pro-vegetarian doctors’ group will be running television ads in Billings this week targeting Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., for allegedly accepting campaign donations from large agribusiness companies that benefit from federal farm subsidies,” reads the article. “The ads, paid for by the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, a Washington, D.C., nonprofit group, will run Friday and Saturday on CNN in Billings. They are part of a national effort to draw attention to the 2007 Farm Bill.”

The gall of those folks. Coming into a state, like Montana and decrying the evils of beef, pork, lamb, chicken and other meat. Heck, this is what we were all fed growing up as kids in the West.  And for many of us, we didn’t just go to the store and pick up the meat in the refrigerator case, we had a part in the whole process from raising the animals all the way to the butcher shop.

I can’t imagine any Senator or Representative from the Rocky Mountain West who would NOT support the agricultural industry, let alone take money from those same interests for their reelection campaigns.  A senator like Baucus, who chairs the powerful Senate Finance committee with his minority colleague Senator Charles Grassley from Iowa, would both be thrown out of office if they ever decided to vote against supporting the most important industries in their home states.  We raise crops and cattle in the West.  It has been that way for more than a century now.  Even some of the newcomers, like Ted Turner, raise bison on their expensive rangeland and receive some form of federal subsidy.

In general though, sheep and cattle producers do not receive subsidy or compensation from the federal government for producing their livestock. They depend on the free market system and the laws of supply and demand.  Farmers and grain growers do receive assistance from the government and that is what keeps them in business, so they can provide bread and produce to this country.

Why would a group of vegetarian doctors find it necessary to assault a senator from the West, who represents the voices and livelihoods of his constituency, just for the sake of saying that our way of life is wrong in their eyes?  It can’t be financial.  The amount of money the federal government provides in subsidies to growers of produce and vegetables, far exceeds the amount the government provides to livestock producers.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not some “slack-jawed redneck” who doesn’t appreciate the danger of heart disease and it’s effect on society.  But livestock producers are not like tobacco farmers. Good health and longevity depends on more than what we eat.  It also involves the way we live. The rural western environment has one of the healthiest lifestyles available. Most city folk yearn to live in the west, to experience the outdoors, the views, the lack of traffic and stress free living.

I hope I live a long life, but know that I will enjoy a great steak and good bottle of wine often.  To my vegetarian friends, I hope you live a long life too, but please keep your politics out of our business and our way of life.

Editor’s note: Dan Rostad’s weekly blogs are part of a new feature on NewWest.Net/Politics called “Diary of a Mad Voter,” a group blog, published in partnership with the Denver Post’s Politics West intended give a glimpse into the hearts and minds of several independent-minded voters and thinkers in the Rocky Mountain West in the ‘08 election cycle. Check back this week at www.newwest.net/madvoter.

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