MAY ALL BEINGS BE FREE FROM SUFFERING
The beautiful audacity of David Michelson
IP28 was the whole vegan enchilada. And it was scary!
Allie
8/25/20265 min read
For half a day, I felt sorry for the humans – people were losing their minds – but then I came to my own senses.
It's not that I don't care about you, you ranchers, hunters and fisherpeople; it's that I care about animals’ inviolable rights to be free from you so much more.
And that piece of paper circling your state and getting signed on your street corners was making the end of your reign look real, at least a little. You were threatened – and it was pretty great because “live and let live” doesn't work when the one you let live kills.
Of course I’m talking about Initiative Petition 28 in Oregon, the very real abolitionist proposition that failed last month in its effort to get on the November ballot.
Vegans – we’re so used to signing petitions and throwing a little cash from our keyboards, sometimes adding a donation to an animal welfare organization to pressure a corporation to buy eggs from a slightly more humane producer. Piling up shared posts in the echo chambers and living in the register of incremental persuasion. Thinking we’re doing enough by conducting our lives the way we should.
Carnists, etc. – they’ve been busy eating their Big Macs, hanging out in tree stands, packing beers into bait coolers, masturbating bulls for their semen, and generally consuming their own algorithms.
Many people give up on an ask that isn’t big enough in the first place. Others rest easy in a comfortable majority rule that’s baked in tradition and subsidies. It’s all business as usual until this guy shows up with an idea that gets written and pursued as law rather than as rhetoric. That’s when both sides finally look up.
IP28 was an authentic attempt to change the relationships people have with animals. Full stop.
It was the whole vegan enchilada, and the hot sauce had bite. Does calling artificial insemination sexual assault make you flinch? In current animal cruelty law in Oregon, the “sexual contact of an animal’s mouth, anus, or genitals (sexual assault)” is illegal when applied to companion animals. IP28 removed the exemption for livestock. It also removed the cruelty exemptions for the non-companion animals that are abused, neglected, exploited and killed in animal agriculture, hunting, fishing, research, entertainment, wildlife management and pest control.
By the time I heard about IP28, the PEACE Act – People for the Elimination of Animal Cruelty Exemptions – it was in its third iteration since 2022. The power of ballot initiatives is in side-stepping spineless or unsympathetic legislators in order to bring issues before voters. Anybody can attempt it, so long as they live in one of the 26 states that allow citizen-initiated ballot measures. But who was this activist asking for the moon and the stars with such beautiful audacity?
The chief petitioner was David Michelson, a 32-year-old guy working as a substitute teacher. What guts! What balls! I loved him instantly.
Follow the numbers. In order to get a citizen-initiated item on the ballot for 2026, Oregon required 117,173 signatures. That’s not arbitrary, but a percentage of the turnout from the last governor's race. David submitted 142,784 signatures. The state confirmed only 104,262. That’s fairly normal, as signatures are often invalided for lack of residence or registration.
That means at least 104,262 people said yeah, we can talk about this. Yes, I want the opportunity to vote for or against the most epic policy change about animals any state has made in my lifetime.
The petition was short 12,911 names, and that felt like an existential crisis for the status quo. That’s why folks up there were losing their minds.
Here is the summary, written right on the petition:
“Under current law, activities that do or may kill or injure animals are lawful, including animal husbandry practices; slaughtering livestock and poultry; animal breeding practices; fishing, hunting, and trapping; wildlife management practices; rodeos; scientific or agricultural research/teaching; control of vermin/nuisance animals; reasonable handling, training techniques. Proposed measure would make those practices, and other common practices involving animals, criminal offenses if injury/death occurs. Criminalizes breeding practices for domestic, livestock, and equine animals; exception for “good veterinary practices” and self-defense. Applies to mammals (including vermin), birds, reptiles, amphibians, fish. Eliminates hunting and fishing licenses, which would remove funding from wildlife management. Directs state money to fund for animal welfare, food assistance, job training for persons who lose livelihood due to initiative’s enactment. Other provisions.”
If it got on the ballot – and it passed – the state of the state would be upended. Real change is hard, no shit. I think that’s why I felt sorry for them for a hot minute, but the time for change, like the time for rescue, was yesterday. The relationships between humans and animals must not stay the same.
Hey David, if the power really is with the people, what does that mean when the majority of the people are always your opponents?
For example, IP25 is the opposition’s answer to IP28.
The Freedom Amendment is a reactive countermeasure that would codify human rights over animals in the state constitution. By the numbers, surely it will make it to the ballot, and surely it will pass. Its chief petitioner is Kari Goodheart. She said IP28 made her do it. I do not love her.
I visited the Oregon Freedom Amendment page. In short, a three-post scroll wiped away my last ounce of compassion. And patience.
The campaign website says Freedom stands for the “Fundamental Right to Engage in Ethical Domestic and Outdoor Management safeguarding our constitutional right to hunt, fish, trap, farm, ranch, and engage in responsible wildlife management and agriculture animal husbandry for generations to come.”
We were full circle back to the culture war. I started out stunned and amazed to learn an activist had done something really big and bold. I let myself imagine the opportunity to vote for a vegan state, a sanctuary state for animals. I’d move to Oregon or attempt duplication here in California. And then I returned to despair.
In the end, my look at IP28 did not give me hope for the world I want to see. It may have strengthened my conviction, however, and I did not know that was possible.
Some guy on Facebook was writing at length about IP28, effective altruism and a sprawling conspiracy. One thing he got right: “True believers are always more dangerous than mercenaries. A mercenary stops when the money stops. A true believer does not have an off switch.”
There’s something about being so totally fed up that can make you feel emboldened. So embrace – ugh – the confrontation. Let the arrows (hope they are figurative) slip off your back. No matter what, there is no choice but to continue fighting.
See you out there, David Michelson.
