Hippie stunned that laws aren't just for other people.

[maiforpeace]

Sorry to hear about you folding your business Seth...you sound very bitter. So, since you suffered, everyone else should, eh?

I'm pretty sure Seth would be thrilled if all the laws and regulations governing his ranch and this woman's farm were repealed. It's the "they shouldn't be enforced against this woman because she's a hippie, but they should be enforced against Seth because he's a libertarian" argument that's going over poorly.

Where did I, or anyone else say that Seth should be forced to follow all the laws and regulations because he's a libertarian?

If he had that view, then wouldn't he comiserate with her plight and have some sympathy for her? And, I was sincere when I said I was sorry he folded his business.

My comment to him was to response to this:

Yup. Ask any REAL farmer what it takes to be in business. I've got no sympathy for these poseurs at all.

Sorry to hear about you folding your business Seth...you sound very bitter. So, since you suffered, everyone else should, eh?

Besides, single proprietor REAL meat farmers like Seth, aren't being put out of business by government, they being put out of business by corporations like Hormel, Smithfield and Tyson, with their incredibly powerful lobbies that push for these government laws and regulations. They are the ones who benefit from the little guys like Seth going out of business.

[Warren Dew]

Where did I, or anyone else say that Seth should be forced to follow all the laws and regulations because he's a libertarian?

I certainly don't see anyone suggesting that Seth should just ignore the regulations and count on their not being enforced, the way people were saying for the person in the original post.

Besides, single proprietor REAL meat farmers like Seth, aren't being put out of business by government, they being put out of business by corporations like Hormel, Smithfield and Tyson, with their incredibly powerful lobbies that push for these government laws and regulations. They are the ones who benefit from the little guys like Seth going out of business.

Flatly false. Those companies are meat packers, and are often actually the customers of people like Seth. It's the consumer advocacy groups that push for those regulations - but ultimately it's the government that controls more money because of them.

[JimC]

There is no point in being anti-regulation for purely ideological reasons. Many regulations are there for absolutely vital reasons concerning the health and safety of consumers and the general public. It may well be the case that a cool, analytical examination of government regulations would find many that are historical legacies, or wasteful duplications; in that case, streamlining the system by removing truly useless regulations would be desirable.

[Seth]

Most food in the supermarket is fine. And, getting stuff straight from a farm doesn't necessarily make it better.

Not true when it comes to food safety - food from small farms is safer. On the most part small farms are more likely to raise produce and meat naturally and/or organically, and if they were ever to have an outbreak, they have much more control over dealing with it, unlike the factory farm - remember the recent outbreaks with the spinach and the eggs? They came from factory farms.

Organic Chicken Has Less Salmonella Than Conventional Chicken, Study Says

I agree, a small farm can't hurt as many people as quickly as a large factory farm if there is salmonella or e coli or whatever (and I'm the last person to defend factory farming)

But, if a small farm is a source, How can the government identify and redress the issue, if they can't inspect it? And the inspection process isn't free...

Why should government have to? The free market and the civil courts will quickly rectify any small-scale instances of force or fraud (which applies to selling tainted food) through consumer action. All the Government has to do is provide a law which says "It's against the law to sell tainted food, and anyone harmed by someone selling tainted food can own the farm of the person selling the tainted food by going to court and proving that the farmer knowingly sold tainted food."

The first time someone can prove the farmer knowingly sold tainted food, he's out of business, permanently and forever, and the victim is compensated by taking title to the farm.

For unknowing contamination, the law need only provide for appropriate damages to the victims of negligence.

On the other hand, a farmer advertising non-pasteurized milk who disclaims responsibility for any harm that follows to customers, should be immune from suit if he gave adequate and proper warning of the facts, because the responsibility for ensuring that one's food is healthy and not tainted lies primarily with the consumer, who has a right NOT to buy from a producer she doesn't trust, but who ought NOT have the right to sue a producer merely because the consumer failed to do her homework or wash her vegetables.

Again, government doesn't need to inspect, the market will provide private food inspection paid for by the producers or the consumers if the risks of food contamination are substantial. Otherwise producers get a reputation for selling tainted food and soon their customers will abandon them and they will go out of business, as they should.

Government need merely provide the police power regulations prohibiting the selling of tainted food of any kind, and then permit the markets to control the rest.

[Seth]

There is no point in being anti-regulation for purely ideological reasons. Many regulations are there for absolutely vital reasons concerning the health and safety of consumers and the general public. It may well be the case that a cool, analytical examination of government regulations would find many that are historical legacies, or wasteful duplications; in that case, streamlining the system by removing truly useless regulations would be desirable.

The objectionable regulations are NOT the ones that government imposes to prevent the initiation of force or fraud, it's the ones it imposes in its socialist redistributionist schemes whereby the government favors some and disfavors others in order to pick economic winners and losers in the markets in order to achieve some social engineering goal.

[Seth]

Sorry to hear about you folding your business Seth...you sound very bitter. So, since you suffered, everyone else should, eh?

Not at all. They are merely extended the courtesy of having the opportunity to lift themselves from suffering without my assistance. It's good for their character to do so. I've done my bit, both in paying taxes and in direct volunteering in emergency services and working as a police officer. Now it's my turn to enjoy the fruits of my labor without other people demanding a piece of my pie. I now get to pick and choose very carefully who I will agree to assist voluntarily, you don't. I get to bake my pie and share it with my friends and family and those I deem worthy of the fruits of my labor. That doesn't include any dependent-class delusional entitlement-mentality socialists at all.

Go make your own fucking pie. Or starve. It's up to you now.

[Seth]

Re- the charity idea-- I'm not sure how this would work out-- just thought of it relative to the issues she's gotten into with the produce she sells, not the stuff she eats herself. If she's selling the produce to give to the community but still cover some operating costs (which is the gist I got from the article), it seems that giving the produce away and claiming a charitable deduction would possibly be a way around burdensome fees. Although I'm not sure-- possibly she might still be required to get a license, since people eating her produce are at risk, whether she gives it away or sells it. I'm not enough familiar with the laws of California to say.

What complicates matters is that whether or not the farm as farm per se is earning her an income, she's definitely earning an income off her book publication, based on the farm work, not to mention exposure she's gotten for her work doing reviews in national magazines, etc. (This is not the first time I've heard of this woman and her work, and given she runs a very small urban farm and I live 3000 miles away, that must say something in terms of the publicity she's used the farm to garner, for the urban farming movement, and foraging, etc.)

Here in Canader it's illegal to sell raw (unpasteurized) milk, but there's nothing to stop a farmer from consuming it himself. The human entrepreneurial spirit being what it is, farmers simply sell a "share" in the farm, for a nominal sum, and thus the "customers" are only consuming "their" milk.
There's always a way around these left wing conspiracies.

Here in the US, the courts have ruled that if you "own" the cow, you can drink the raw milk. As a result, people are buying "shares" in dairy herds that allow them to act like a cooperative and have raw milk delivered to them by an "employee" who runs the dairy operation. Works pretty well most of the time. Only on a couple of occasions have there been health problems related to unpasteurized raw milk, and in every case, the members of the cooperative accepted the risks and they fix the problem right away, because it's their ass on the line.

Do-gooder Nanny-state liberal politicians, however, constantly try to put such cooperatives out of business on the specious notion that government has an obligation to protect people from themselves.

[Seth]

I join the voices that use this situation to get on their fucking soapboxes and shout out their predictable and worn admonitions. Why don't you lot become real politicians, and pester us from afar?

It is the posted in the politics forum, is it not? And the OP did seem to spin the story with a broader agenda, did it not?

Nothing wrong with discussing politics in a forum. Why, I've been known do it myself. It's the shouting from soapboxes I object to, in particular the libertarians tediously screeching their mantras at every opportunity. All we need, to make the cacophony complete, is for Sandinista and Gawd to chime in.

Then kindly fuck off somewhere else and let the adults have whatever sort of discussion it pleases them to have. Don't be such a fucking control freak.

[Seth]

Sorry to hear about you folding your business Seth...you sound very bitter. So, since you suffered, everyone else should, eh?

I'm pretty sure Seth would be thrilled if all the laws and regulations governing his ranch and this woman's farm were repealed. It's the "they shouldn't be enforced against this woman because she's a hippie, but they should be enforced against Seth because he's a libertarian" argument that's going over poorly.

Yes and no. Mostly yes.

[Seth]

Besides, single proprietor REAL meat farmers like Seth, aren't being put out of business by government, they being put out of business by corporations like Hormel, Smithfield and Tyson, with their incredibly powerful lobbies that push for these government laws and regulations. They are the ones who benefit from the little guys like Seth going out of business.

The fuck we aren't. You simply don't know what you're talking about. The big agribusiness companies are NOT lobbying for the identichip program, which will cost major feedlot operators and packers BILLIONS of dollars in compliance costs. That's a product of the Progressives in Congress who want total control over the food supply.

Sure, small producers have problems with the meat packing industry, largely because they are getting into the beef production industry too, but there are plenty of market opportunities for organic beef growers outside the bigs. Many larger organic producers are opening their own slaughtering and processing facilities right on the ranch in order to take advantage of the local organic meat markets and specialty markets like custom cutting. Competition is always an issue, but that's the nature of the beast and isn't really the problem.

The biggest problem by far is government overregulation. For example, the EPA requires livestock producers to submit pollution control plans to reduce nitrate levels in streams and rivers even for relatively small-scale open pasture non-feedlot organic operations like mine. The cost is enormous just to do the science involved, much less come up with a mitigation plan that the EPA will sign off on. And God help you if you actually fertilize your pastures or hay fields and they are anywhere near a watercourse.

And then there's the detailed annual production data that the USDA demands from me every year, and their badgering letters threatening me with all manner of dire consequences if I don't tell them everything they want to know. It's none of their fucking business how many cows I raise or what crops I grow, but I've got to spend my time working for the government filling out unnecessary paperwork, and I refuse to do it any longer.

It's just not worth the trouble any more.

So, when the cost of your hamburger at Wendy's, or the cost of your salad goes up, remember the little guy like me who is irreplaceable, and who is not going to be replaced because today's youth are too fucking privileged and lazy to do the kind of work I do, and remember that the productive croplands that I owned are now going to be developed with houses, where at best some rich folks will keep a couple of horses and maybe a cow or two just to keep the agricultural land use designation for tax purposes, but which will produce nothing by way of actual food for the fucking ingrates who live in the city and expect ME to work my ass off to feed them for next to nothing, while laboring under a burden of oppressive and expensive liberal government regulations created by nosy busybodies and NIMBYS who couldn't grow a carrot in a flowerpot if their lives depended on it.

Hoist on your own petards, every one of y'all, and good riddance.

[hadespussercats]

Says Seth: "This is because I approach the subject respectfully and with due consideration for the feelings of those I'm discussing with."
(In "I actually hate Christianity!" thread)

But consider:

Go make your own fucking pie. Or starve. It's up to you now.

Then kindly fuck off somewhere else and let the adults have whatever sort of discussion it pleases them to have. Don't be such a fucking control freak.

and:

Hoist on your own petards, every one of y'all, and good riddance.

I see. This is "what rational adults do," eh, Seth? Set one standard in one discussion, then act out according to a different standard in another?
I can see why you're such a fan of Christianity.

[maiforpeace]

Indeed, Hades.

You honestly don't think you sound bitter Seth?

I'll admit I don't know much about what goes on with regular cattle producers any more because I don't eat factory farmed meat and I don't eat fast food, so thank you for informing what goes on with beef producers like you (used to be).

I have had a few discussions with the producer I buy my meat directly from (who also happens to be named Seth ) which is where I get some of my fantastically crazy ideas.

Anyway, after rereading the article I realized there's not much to discuss here...they are going to change the zoning laws in Oakland to accomodate the conditional use permitting so she won't have to deal with this issue for long. And wouldn't 'ya know, it's on the heels of new zoning laws being created in your favorite city, San Francisco, CES.

I'm curious CES why do you read the SF Gate? SF news must piss you off to no end...

[Hermit]

I join the voices that use this situation to get on their fucking soapboxes and shout out their predictable and worn admonitions. Why don't you lot become real politicians, and pester us from afar?

It is the posted in the politics forum, is it not? And the OP did seem to spin the story with a broader agenda, did it not?

Nothing wrong with discussing politics in a forum. Why, I've been known do it myself. It's the shouting from soapboxes I object to, in particular the libertarians tediously screeching their mantras at every opportunity. All we need, to make the cacophony complete, is for Sandinista and Gawd to chime in.

Then kindly fuck off somewhere else and let the adults have whatever sort of discussion it pleases them to have. Don't be such a fucking control freak.

In so far as you regard yourself as an adult, your conduct is an insult to those who actually are adults. Also, I don't deny you the right to decide what to say and how to say it, and I reserve the right to say exactly what I think about it. That seems rather more generous than your attitude. Go, shoot some communists. Start with that crypto commie, Obama.

[sandinista]

I join the voices that use this situation to get on their fucking soapboxes and shout out their predictable and worn admonitions. Why don't you lot become real politicians, and pester us from afar?

It is the posted in the politics forum, is it not? And the OP did seem to spin the story with a broader agenda, did it not?

Nothing wrong with discussing politics in a forum. Why, I've been known do it myself. It's the shouting from soapboxes I object to, in particular the libertarians tediously screeching their mantras at every opportunity. All we need, to make the cacophony complete, is for Sandinista and Gawd to chime in.

Then kindly fuck off somewhere else and let the adults have whatever sort of discussion it pleases them to have. Don't be such a fucking control freak.

Seraph just can't handle the thought of someone having an opposing ideology to his own. Predictable.

[maiforpeace]

I swear, when you guys start having all your hissy fits with each other the first thing that comes to my mind is this:



What a bunch of cackling roosters.