by Jon Decker
Excerpt from Charleston Gazette-Mail:
No one is talking about the giant threat to individual liberty taking place right before our eyes: Congress is attempting to ban greyhound racing.
The recent House-passed version of the Farm Bill included an amendment by Rep. Salud Carbajal, D-Calif., that would abolish this American pastime once and for all. Mind you, only two greyhound tracks are currently operational, and they are both located in West Virginia. Why are we letting animal rights lunatics in California dictate what the laws should be in West Virginia?
It’s about federalism, sure, but it’s more than that. It’s easy for California to say what other states should do to lure in tourists; they already have it all: beaches, Hollywood and the largest corporations on the planet. Now that sightings of the Mothman have grown infrequent in recent years, all West Virginia really has left are abandoned coal towns, the New River Gorge and yes, the thundering sound of dozens of greyhounds chasing eternal glory down a track led by a mechanical hare. If you take that away, there ain’t much left — although you’ll still enjoy a better burger anywhere in West Virginia more than you would at any of California’s In-N-Out Burger chain restaurants.
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Look, like it or not, there’s a lot of history behind greyhound racing. Ancient pharaohs, such as King “Tut” Tutankhamun and Cleopatra, viewed greyhounds as “gifts from the gods” because of their extraordinary physical prowess. A similar sentiment was adopted by England’s Queen Elizabeth I, who helped transform the sport into an entertainment industry, which, in her honor, came to be known as “The Sport of Queens.”
Now, a man from California is trying to outlaw it — will the patriarchy ever end?
Read more at: Charleston Gazette-Mail