nkotb said:
If you want things to change, get out and change them. Don't think your kid got enough money? You could have bought his steer. We're all busy, so the time excuse is a joke.
Look at it from the buyers perspective: We used to go to our local sale and buy a few animals. We always supported the families that support our business. There was a bunch of whining, so now we write one check, and all of the 4H kids get a cut. Guess what, now we have more whining from the people who support our business that we are supporting people who take their seed/chem/fertilizer business out of the county. For a buyer, it is a no-win situation. Be glad you got anything.
I have yet to see you post what you did get per pound on the steer. Near as I can tell from the other "momma bear," she is upset, even though she got roughly 2.5X the price of for a fat lamb. Maybe I am wrong, but I would consider any buying at a 4H auction a charitable donation. I think what got most people riled up is your "plan" to take as many kids away from the county fair as you can. Who does this help? If you want something to change, get in and change it. Again, the "I'm busy" excuse is a joke, we're all busy.
Obviously a brain surgeon and NOT a single mom.
I must say that I am a little disappointed to many of the reactions that I read on these 10 pages to the original post. Sometimes it's difficult to empathize with people who are not in the same position that you are in. When we have it good, it's difficult to not believe that if we have it this way, then anyone could. If we've had it bad and then through some good fortune or through the help and kindness of others our situation turns to good, it's hard to believe that others don't have the same ending to what ever their story is. Personally I had a 4-H leader who didn't even know there was a kid alive in his county and an FFA advisor who would give you his last dime but didn't know one end of a cow from another. Everyone doesn't have the same circumstances. I know for a fact that Jeff and Robert and Shawn and others are good people. But for me it is easy to see that the original poster was new, was unaware of how things worked, was a single mom trying to be both mom and dad. IN MY MIND she would be better served by a little empathy and education and not immediate condemnation. Much along the lines of Roberts latter long post and Clints post.
There are "rules" to this game. No different than rules to Football or Baseball. Many are unwritten. And one of those rules for the county sale is if you want your calf to bring more than market, you better bring your own buyers. I get it that you don't have time, I get it that you haven't been there long enough to have established business relationships. I get it that you don't feel that this is the way it "should be." Personally I am all for you fighting to change it to how you feel it should be. However, you should consider the risks that would involve. You're not gonna change it next year. So if you show next year the same thing is gonna happen. If you ever do succeed in winning enough of the right people over to change it it will take several years and you're gonna go through it all gain and again in the mean time. Then say there are two or three years in a row where you have the best animal in three states and they get some recent college grad judging team kid to judge and he puts you in last place. If you give up trying after a couple years you will have a reputation of being difficult to work with and it will be even harder to get others to help your child. You've accomplished nothing and your kid has graduated and his jr show career is over. If your goal is to see him rewarded financially for the hard work he has put in, don't you think it would be easier and faster to work within the current framework? I get that it takes time that you don't have. I think sometimes it's ok just to either not participate in a project or have realistic ideas on the level of participation your resources allow be that time, money, facilities, what ever. It just seems to me if you look at it objectively it would be easier to reach the goal of seeing your son rewarded by working in the present system now that you are aware what that system is.
ALL THAT SAID, and I know it was a lot, but it's not really the reason that compelled me to post. What I find most interesting is the fact that anytime anyone has a complaint about something in a livestock show being unjust they are immediately labeled as a whiner, loser, bad person who is out to "hurt the program." That's really what most of these posts are about. Condemnation over speaking up concerning something the poster felt was unjust. Doesn't really matter what it is. It was that way when people complained about the mess at Ft. Worth last year. It's that way when someone complains about cheating. As long as you are one of the "sheeple" and just go along, all is well. In my mind, those who turn a blind eye to injustice or belittle those who try to fight it are as guilty as those who commit it.
A couple years ago a friend of mine's wife took a picture of someone pumping a calf at our state show on her cell phone. Not knowing much about the industry or "how things work" yet knowing it was against the rules she took it to a high ranking member of our extension service and superintendent of the show. The lady threw her hands up over her eyes and screamed "Don't show me that!!!!!" Then tried to explain how cheating controversies are "bad for the program." :
This isn't about whether pumping a calf is good or bad although you can refer to the Charolais that died in the ring at Agribition a couple years ago if you'd like. This is about cheating children. And it's against the rules here. For me there is NOTHING lower than and adult who cheats a child. I have no idea what place this calf that was photographed being pumped came in. But unless it came in last there was at least one kid who's hard work and effort was thrown away in the 2 min it took to pump that calf. Each child deserves the right to be rewarded on the judges opinion of the merits of his animal. To have that right taken away by an adult who doesn't have higher morals than to cheat a child disgusts me. I've heard that "life isn't fair" so much it makes me want to puke. There is plenty that goes on in a livestock project to teach that lesson without having adults cheating children.
This phenomenon isn't common only to this discussion board, it's like that everywhere. The people in that livestock office made that lady who took the photo feel like she was a really bad person because she spoke up against an injustice. They thought she should have known that you don't do that, it's bad for the program. And she thought they would want to know about it. Why didn't they? What's more important the children or the program? Why would cleaning up some of the scum and maybe removing some of these lazy government employed extension people be bad for the program?
Tell me why you condemn someone who speaks up against injustice when they see it in the livestock project. I am going to hate myself in the morning for saying this. So much so that I may take a long walk off a short pier. But X Bar has some excellent points in his posts in this thread. The best of which is this:
Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. Why do you disagree with that?
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