I mean, let's be real here. We vote people into office whom we believe to have our best interests at heart and will be our voice in the grand scheme of things. However, even at the local level, it seems some politicians have more of a personal agenda than a logical one.
For example, in the city of Eastpointe, MI (my home town) it is considered illegal to keep chickens or other farm animals. Their reasoning? From what I was told by the mayor is that chickens, especially roosters, are just so loud. They're a nuisance. However, when we measure the noise caused by chickens (male and female), we find that they are no louder than the average dog. In fact, they'll crow at the same things dogs will bark at! The average dog barks anywhere from 60 to 100 decibels. Hens? Roughly 60 decibels AT THEIR LOUDEST. And roosters? They HAVE to be just ridiculously loud, right? Nope. 90 decibels. But wait a minute, why do they seem so much louder??? Because, my dear Watson, it's not a typical "city sound". Tell me, when you go to a black tie type of event and you see a huge sea of suits and ties, nothing really stands out. Now stick a man wearing a bright green t-shirt and blue jeans in there and tell me where your eyes are drawn. The same concept works with sound. It's why we notice the sound of sirens over our music and the other driving noises on the road.
Well, then there must be a logical reason for why chickens are illegal, right? I mean, they must carry diseases, or stink, or maybe their fecal matter is damaging to the ground-water or something?
Ha, therein lies the real kicker.
NONE OF THE ABOVE. Let me just repeat that: NONE OF THE ABOVE!
Chicken diseases aren't transmittable to humans when they're kept in small flocks. Avian flu and viruses like it are only a danger in commercial-grade situations where the animals are kept in completely unsanitary conditions and uncomfortably close quarters with hundreds and thousands of other chickens. What happens is their immune systems are worn down to nothingness due to breathing in their dried, powdered fecal matter and ingesting nutritionally deficient food. The only way to combat these diseases in this situation is with heavy drugging both for their comfort and for their "health". Comfort? What? Oh, you didn't know? Commercial chicken feed contains traces of fluoxetine (aka Prozac) and drugs like it. Why? To keep them from tearing each other apart. Literally. They also cut their beaks for this reason. So they pump them full of antibiotics (great for us, too right? I mean no harm can come from that....), mood altering drugs, and literally the junkiest "food" money can buy. Then, they sell them plucked and packaged to us, the unquestioning consumer.
Stinky? HA! Have you smelled dog poop lately? Better yet, have you compared the two in both quantity and stench? How about in value? Yes, value. Chicken poop is worth its weight in gold. In fact, you can buy it as an all natural fertilizer/manure product. It's basically a nitrogen-charged super growth supplement from what I've seen in my experience (which happens to be first hand). It composts like a champ and makes commercial "fertilizers" look like crap (HAH!).
Contamination and ground-water....hmmmm well if we're going to take THAT route, which would have a case of, salmonella or cancer? Don't answer that. I know you're not stupid. But let's think about this for a minute. RoundUp is readily sprayed to take care of those pesky weeds. I mean that crap is about 99% carcinogenic and pure poison to everything it touches. It is NOT biodegradable, NOT environmentally safe, and we're (please note that the "we" in this is NOT myself.) dumping it by the bucketload practically on our lawns and crops that are now available in RoundUp Ready form. As for commercial fertilizers, unless you buy organic and REALLY know what you're getting, they're pretty much all oil based and do more damage than good. THAT crap will leak into groundwater a lot faster than poo of any sort will.
So let me just put this into perspective for you all:
It is perfectly legal to purchase and pour into our lawns ALL sorts of chemical poisons. It is perfectly legal to keep dogs which can get louder than roosters. It is considered normal to ingest eggs and meat from chickens pumped full of growth hormones, mood altering drugs, and low-grade feed that have lived their short lives in cramped, unsanitary spaces. These chickens aren't processed one at a time with care. They're processed in a factory by machines....hundreds....thousands at a time.
However, it is illegal to keep and raise chickens on property YOU pay for. It is illegal to experience the joy of harvesting eggs from your own backyard chickens each day. And why? For no apparent reason.
"Oh, but people will complain if their neighbors raise chickens!" Really? Let them. I mean honestly, I complain about so many stupid things and nothing gets done about those....Actually, the last time I complained about something, I had it tossed back into my face (regarding the building of Eastpointe's 10,000th senior home). So why isn't the same tactic used here? The only conclusion I can find that makes any sense is that someone within the city government at some time had personal agenda. I'm NOT accusing the current mayor of this, just to be clear. I don't believe she wrote the law on this. However, laws without purpose are not only unjust, but VERY scary things. It's a slippery slope down the road to dictatorship and yes, even cities can be dictatorial. Look at New York.
I suggest any and all readers contact their city officials about any unjust or pointless laws or ordinances and do what you can to nullify them. Maybe it seems like a lot of pointless effort, but it makes a point more powerful than a riot could. Riots are pretty simple to put down. Rebellion involving intelligent minds is a much harder flame to extinguish.
Viva la Revoltion.
