Let's Let These People Run More Things

The beginning of the year is a sort of unofficial mandatory contest among state legislators to introduce the stupidest bill that even the most out-of-touch among them know will never be law. It's unofficial because there's no announced contest, categories or specific criteria, but it's also mandatory because they can't help themselves.

An early contender for the top spot is H.B. 2994 from House District 17 Representative Jim Grego of Wilburton. It would prevent anything from being called "milk" unless it came from a "hooved mammal." Rep. Grego focused on cows and goats, although presumably bison and other hooved animals would be included in case anyone happened to begin to run dairy operations with them. The bill apparently does specify mammal, although there are presently no known hooved birds, insects or reptiles. Although they are mammals, nursing mothers are not hooved. They would probably be exempt since they do not actually sell their milk to their children. Nor is the packaging very often labeled with the word "milk," except perhaps in the case of unfortunately ironic tattoos.

The targets of Rep. Grego's ire are products with labels like "soy milk" or "almond milk." These are often milk-like in texture but consumed by people who have trouble digesting animal dairy material. Rep. Grego magnanimously allows them to continue to be marketed, but under names such as "soy extract." Exactly how he thinks he's going to get food companies not based in Oklahoma to produce special labels just for sale here is not clear. His stated rationale, "It's just to help our dairy farmers," is also unclear, and by unclear I mean one hundred percent bat-effin-guano crazy.

Some folks have made predictable comments on the bill, given Rep. Grego's party affiliation and claimed "rural strong" conservatism. They aren't displaying much more awareness than he does; there is literally nothing about trying to turn one's own personal dim-bulb idea into legislation that could be considered "conservative." He's attempting to use the power of the state to force people to agree to something he either can't convince them to do by argument or is too lazy to try to convince them to do. There are plenty of people who claim to be conservatives who try that same trick all the time, but it is not a conservative idea or action. True, progressive folks usually rely on the courts instead of legislation, but that does not make personal snit-fit legislation conservative by default.

I read another couple of comments on this item when it was shared that this kind of stunt is the reason we need to vote for smarter people for public office. The smarter people don't run for public office -- they stay in the private sector where they can actually fix things without having to explain them to someone who wants to remove the words "almond milk" from a paper carton at the point of a gun. What we need to do is to remove important things from the control of Rep. Grego and people like him, both in elective and non-elective government positions.

We should do this not because we want those things to stop or to go away. We should do it so we get them away from people who think that a billion-dollar agricultural co-op like, say, Blue Diamond Growers is going to print new labels for one state that barely cracks the top 30 in population.

As to that, Grego says that he hopes enough other states follow our lead on this to make federal officials pay closer attention to milk branding. I know you're thinking that no other state would be so dumb as to adopt this legislation -- in fact, this state won't be dumb enough to adopt this legislation. But I speak out against your pessimism. There are plenty of elected and non-elected officials at every level of government who are easily dumb enough to make this happen. After all, if you remember, a dairy in Florida had to go to court for the right to call skim milk by the name skim milk, something the state of Florida opposed so emphatically it paid almost half a million dollars in attorneys' fees for the privilege.