Really. It isn’t. I promised I wouldn’t make any more political posts until the election is over and I’m sticking to that. This isn’t about politics.



Okay, it’s kinda political but it’s about North Dakota. I don’t think talking politics counts if it’s North Dakota. Here’s what happened.



Last weekend I went up to Bismarck, ND to tell some jokes with Mike Brody. As we drove down Interstate 94 further and further away from the cities we saw fewer and fewer lawn signs and billboards telling us what to vote for. Instead, we saw more and more hand-painted signs with clever little slogans like “WORST PRESIDENT EVER! SAY NO TO SOCIALISM!” or “REAL MEN VOTE YES. SO DO SMART AND PRETTY LADIES!” (actual sign on 94 by Fergus Falls). As we crossed the border to ND, we started seeing hand painted political signs against “5”. The first one we saw said “Don’t hurt hunters and farmers! NO on 5!”



Well, shit. I don’t know who’s hurting all these hunters and farmers but I hope they beat this “5” thing and leave the poor guys alone.



The second sign we saw said “Stop outside special interests! Vote no on 5!”



So it’s outside special interests coming to hurt hunters and farmers? Somebody needs to stop them! These poor hunters and farmers are getting hurt by outside special interests! If I could, I’d have voted no on 5 right there on the spot. Hunters and farmers are people, too!



When I was home last night I remembered all the “no on 5” signs in ND so I decided to look up what that bill was all about. Was it a law that, if passed, allowed outside special interests to come in and punch hunters and farmers? Who knows?



Turns out it’s a measure that, if passed, will make it a felony to torture dogs, cats and horses.



Seriously. Here’s the official ballot measure courtesy of ballotpedia –

Initiated Statutory Measure No. 5
This initiated statutory measure would create section 36-21.1-02.1 of the North Dakota Century Code. This measure would make it a class C felony for an individual to maliciously and intentionally burn, poison, crush, suffocate, impale, drown, blind, skin, beat to death, drag to death, exsanguinate, disembowel, or dismember any living dog, cat or horse and provide a court with certain sentencing options. The measure would not apply to production agriculture, or to lawful activities of hunters and trappers, licensed veterinarians, scientific researchers, or to individuals engaged in lawful defense of life or property.

YES — means you approve the measure summarized above.
NO — means you reject the measure summarized above.



Okay. How the shit does this hurt hunters and farmers?



Seriously. Have I been Pheasant hunting the wrong way all these years? I mean, I’ve shot a few birds but I haven’t beaten any cats to death or exanguinated any horses. They never covered horse exanguination in our gun safety class.



Also, how does this hurt farmers? Exactly how many dogs do you have to impale to grow an acre of corn?



There’s a ton of exemptions for all this written into the measure, too! If this measure passes you can still drag a cat to death if you’re a licensed veterinarian or scientist. You can still blind a horse if you can prove he wanted to kill you.

It’s not just a few farmers off of 94 that feel this way, either. North Dakota seems pretty split down the middle on whether it’s within your rights to disembowel a dog for no reason.



Granted, it seems some of the opposition comes from the fact that the bill is limited in scope and does nothing to prevent the most common forms of animal abuse seen in the state. Which sort of makes sense I guess but “it’s not good enough” shouldn’t invoke such vehement opposition. The other big sticking point with the “vote no” crowd is that a lot of the financial support for this bill is coming from the Humane Society of the United States (the “outside special interest group”). To get a better idea of why people oppose this, you can either read this article detailing farmer’s concerns or just check out this comment from a blog post criticizing measure 5 –

mony • 13 days ago −
Im born and raised north dakotan hillbilly broke horses raise cattle chickens goats aint never done nothin wrong this measure was NOT wrote here some dumbass veggie lovin ass did it wake up nd all animals are equql not just the horses cats n dogs vote no and say yes when they can protect ALL farm critters i hunt and trap and there is nothin inhumane about it like i said wake up nd and if u aint from here dont vote this year u city crybaby jerk



Man, I thought politics in this state were fucked up…

Protect Hunters and Farmers! Because… horses…. uh….