Got Milk?
We are not insensitive to the plight of dairy farmers as two large dairy producers, Dean's and Borden's have filed for Bankruptcy protection recently. It is a sad thing, in a perfect world no one would go out of business, no one would have hard times befall them, and no one would lose there job or their livelihood, but that's life. But redefining the English language to help out private industry to get a completive advantage is not Capitalism, It is not Free Market, and it is not Conservative. Using the government to help out another industry to the disadvantage of another industry is not moral. Yet we have a bunch or Republicans signing on to legislation (SB 81) to do just that, and calling it "truth in labeling" as if it is some sort of consumer protection program. Why? Because people are being duped by the soy and almond milk industries, and now they are hooked and just keep buying it in place of dairy milk?
NEWSFLASH: No one is buying that much Almond or Soy Milk by mistake.
So alternatives to traditional dairy milk are cutting into a market that the dairy industry once had all to themselves. Conservatives have always preached that free markets and competition bring out the best, and if the alternative milk industry is cutting into the dairy milk industry's bottom line that is a good thing because it forces them to shed the bad and improve themselves. Changing the definition of milk will only delay the inevitable and encourage the same bad business practices. A change in the definition of milk and what can be on a label will ultimately be only a minor set back to the alternative milk industry. Again people are not buying it by mistake, this has been happening for a looong time now. Personally we at KLR like dairy milk, its what we grew up with, its what we know, we like the taste, so a bill like this is scary to us, because it is cradling the dairy milk industry like a small child telling them it will be ok, but instead it is not, because they are unwilling to address their own business practices that are not working. You have bigger problems than you think if you believe changing a word on the carton is going to fix everything. We dairy milk drinkers want the industry to fix itself, so we can have high quality local milk to turn to, and not wind up having it outsourced from far off places.
For the record here is the definition of milk taken right from the 1828 Webster's Dictionary, you know the same words used around the same time the founders started this nation, and as we all know when it comes to Constitutional Law words are important.
Look at that, turns out plant based juice is milk after all, talk about truth in labeling. Actually enacting this bill will do the exact opposite.
Just to illustrate how silly this is, we might as well change the University of Kentucky's name to the University of Lexington. After all Louisville being the much larger city should have a much larger fan base for the University of Louisville one would think, but it does not, why? Because UK is eating into their fanbase by claiming to be the University of Kentucky when in reality it is the University of Lexington, a smaller city. If both Universities were able to vie for fanbases based on more "accurate" naming then there is no way "UK" could have more fans than UofL, right?
Call the legislative hotline at 502-564-8100 or 1-800-372-7181 and tell your Senator, All Senate Leadership, and the Senate Agriculture Committee Members and tell them you are Opposed to SB 81. Stop tinkering with the English Language, we don't need to redefine milk.
If they want to help the milk industry they might want to actually reexamine some of the regulations we have on the dairy milk industry. Come one GOP we need less regs not more, we thought that was one way you were differnt than the Dems.
#GotMilk #Agriculture #Dairy #SoyMilk #AlmondMilk #Cows #FamilyFarm #Farmers #2020LegislativeSession #2020Alert