Time to Think About Life
By Trent LoosLast week I experienced the extremes that I believe exist in our society. First, I was fortunate to address the Animal Rights class taught by Dr. Beth Walker at Southwest Missouri State University (SMS) in Springfield, Mo. At the other end of the spectrum, I spent the weekend at the Louisiana State Penitentiary, visiting with inmates, attending the rodeo and touring the prison farm. So I ask you, what is it that keeps you rooted?
At the end of the presentation at SMS, I visited with a local animal rights advocate. He indicated to me that the time had come to stop the senseless killing of animals. “We no longer need to inflict pain on our neighbors.” As the constitution was written for this country, it recognized that all white men were created equal. We later adopted the belief that men and women of all colors are created equal. According to this local activist, it is now time to include our four-legged animals in this equation.
If indeed it is senseless to harvest animals for food, I contend that it is also time we quit driving vehicles. We kill twice as many animals on the nation’s highways every day than we do harvesting cattle and hogs for food, pharmaceuticals, clothing and the other essentials of life. We kill millions of animals in the production of plant-based diets. Why is the life of a grasshopper, bird, mouse, etc. worth any less than that of a food animal?
Fast-forward to the Louisiana State Penitentiary (Angola) where 90 percent of the 5,100 convicted criminals are going to spend every day of their life incarcerated. The prison has an 18,000-acre farm, 1,500 beef cows, 300 brood mares, and thousands of acres of vegetables, soybeans and cotton. Every morning, inmates grab a hoe and form a line to cultivate the fields by hand.
The brood mares are used to produce mules for draft, warmblood horses for the state law enforcement’s mounted police and saddle horse for the guards who oversee the line of workers in the field. The cattle are sold as feeder cattle. The beef is not consumed by the inmates because, as Warden Burl Cain says, “We produce very high quality cattle and beef. These inmates don’t eat steak. We feed them cheap meat.” The revenue from the cattle sales, combined with the vegetables produced, processed and frozen, makes the prison self-sufficient in food production.
Ironically, we have the same percent of our population in the correctional system as we have vegetarians—3 percent. Each of these groups number about double the farmers left in the United States. So how many vegetarians are incarcerated? I don’t know, but my guess would be very few. In my experiences with the dozens of inmates I have had discussions with at Angola, they have had plenty of time to come to grips with how life really works.
They are no longer spoiled and take things for granted. They do not have illusions about how the cycle of life works. Once upon a time, prison farms were commonplace. Yet if you check around the country today, you learn that most of the prison farms are no longer in operation.
I am not advocating that everyone who does not believe in meat consumption should be locked up so they will have better understanding about the cycle of life. I am saying that I truly believe we have growing segment of our population that is too well fed, has too much expendable income and has lost touch with the real concerns of the day.
I would wager that if the average animal rights advocate would go to Angola, they would be more concerned about perceived animal mistreatment than what led these prisoners to being incarcerated. They would have more concern about how the stock was treated at the fantastic Angola Prison Rodeo than about what led these people to crime to begin with.
This was my third trip to Angola and I truly believe it is an experience each of us should have. No doubt it gives you a much better perspective on what is truly important in life.
