My rancher friend Ellen sent me this:
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http://lowdenplan.com/
Sue Louden is a Republican Senate candidate who really proposed barter for medical care, using chickens as an example. Given a chance to amend her proposal to "negotiate" terms, she refused, saying that chickens were good enough for folks in the past and ought to be fine now. Of course, the internet responded. Enjoy.
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So, let's consider the person who needs some medical care but lives in an apartment that doesn't allow chickens.
Will the Elephants support legislation requiring landlords to allow chicken-coops on balconies? Fire escapes? Roofs? Somehow, given their traditional approach to "rights and responsibilities" I see them siding with landlords' concern for property damage, and cities right to control "nuisances."
Moreover, having worked in a rural medical clinic, I foresee that the arrival of some tens, hundreds, or thousands of chickens would be a logistical nightmare for the doctor's staff. Unless we could go to a whole barter system, replacing money with chickens, so that doctors could ship chickens off to the power company, the gas company, the pharmaceutical and medical supply companies...and if that happens, then legislators will also be paid in chickens.
I can just see the chickens coming home to roost, as it were, in Ms. Louden's living room. Waking her in the morning. Demanding that she feed them. Smelling like chickens smell.
But of course. as this is an Elephant idea, Wall Street will get involved, and there will be even wilder swings in the value of chickens. Pretty soon we'll be transferring virtual chickens (little bobbing icons) by electronic means, with the ownership of the actual chickens (permanently housed on chicken ranches...oops...Texans, we shouldn't go there...um...chicken factories) switching from patient to doctor to medical supply company...from individuals to the Dept of the Treasury, and thence into Ms. Louden's living room computer. Because after all, big corporations never commit fraud; the market always takes care of any little fraud that occurs; and insider trading in chickens is just...chicken feed.
I think if Ms. Louden thinks the old days and old ways are good enough for now, she should remove herself from the ballot--back chickens were worth more than beef, women couldn't vote. Or hold office. She's clearly demonstrated that a woman of her mental era isn't competent, and someone should put a ruffled apron on her, remove her shoes, get her pregnant, hand her a nekkid chicken and a pot, call her "little lady" and remind her that she's really only fit for women's work.