Are the hog farmers in nuisance lawsuits ‘villains?’

I’m a farmer. And I raise hogs. I read “A rally can’t mask the hog industry’s real stink in NC” (July 13) about the ‘nuisance’ trials in Raleigh, and I’d like to offer a farmer’s perspective.

Ned Barnett didn’t have a kind word to say about either farmers or Republicans – he views nuisance lawsuits that put farmers out of business as a virtue and views Republicans who disagree as wrong. But are farmers the villains he describes? Let’s step back and examine a couple of facts.

Four of Joey Carter’s neighbors, who live closer to his farm than the two plaintiffs in the second trial, testified Carter’s farm is not a nuisance to them. So did the jury awarding the two plaintiffs $25 million make sense?

Stop to remember how these lawsuits started: A group of lawyers from out of state came to North Carolina and went door-to-door signing up clients so they could sue farmers like Joey Carter. Barnett never mentioned that in his editorial. And worse, the same fact was ignored during the trial. (The judge decided jurors should not be told how these lawsuits began.)

The original out-of-state lawyers are now gone, replaced by another group of lawyers from Texas. And their lawsuits have been lethal to farmers. Both of the farms they sued over are being shut down. Which is the reason Republican lawmakers decided it was time to strengthen legislation to protect farmers from predatory lawyers, whose lawsuits threaten to cripple a pillar of Eastern North Carolina’s economy.

As I said, I raise hogs. However, even when I disagree with Barnett, I respect his right to have his say. At the same time, people need to hear both sides.

Ask children?

Why do we bother to educate children at all? Why establish public schools and require children to attend instead of work in factories?

Because we’ve collectively decided: children do have rights and parents don’t always know best, contrary to “For school choice, father and mother know best” (June 22).

Our children have a court-mandated right to a sound, basic education. Our statutes specify that public-school health curriculum be “factually accurate” and “accepted by credentialed experts.” Why?

Three-quarters of N.C. voucher schools use textbooks which tell children that “God made animals to fit their environments” and that “The Bible is the only completely reliable source that reveals how history began,” – a kind of rogue anti-education rightly condemned by “credentialed experts.”

Lawmakers insist that public educators prove outcomes, but this scrutiny disappears when funds shift to voucher schools, where “educators” needn’t have any training, or prove anything to children or taxpayers.

It’s possible that a “sound, basic education” is not the main goal for many parents seeking vouchers. Shouldn’t we ask children whether they want to be taught what’s factually accurate, or what is comforting to their parents?

‘House of straw’

Regarding “An early voting site at NC State? After split along party lines, the state will decide” (July 10): this result was what election boards across the state are seeing – deadlock. By law, every county elections board is now evenly split between the two major parties.

If even a third of our 100 counties deadlock, the state board becomes a bottleneck. By the time counties get a decision from the state, it may be too late for them to line up their voting sites.

Make no mistake, this is the intent of the Republican legislature: shift power upstream to the state, and interfere with voting access wherever possible.

In Wake, the Democrats’ plan would cost $30,000 less than the GOP proposal, even in the face of new laws that increase costs. Nevertheless, the two GOP members refused to vote for any plan that included NC State.

Maybe they’re afraid of the big bad Wolfpack blowing down their house of straw. It’s time to tell the state Board of Elections that we want wide access to early voting where our population is most dense. Approve voting at NC State.

This story was originally published July 16, 2018 at 10:48 AM.