Here is the article.
Is this is why we have a federal government? So bureaucrats can invade a picnic and pour bleach on everyone's food?
If this isn't tyranny, plain and simple, I would like to know why it isn't. One of the problems with the federal government is that in spite of all the talk of "democracy" and "republic" and "of the people" and "freedom," what we really have is an oligarchical top-down empire held captive to two nearly-identical political "parties." There is no check and balance from the states and the people as envisioned by the founders. Neither do each of the branches of the federal government check the other. They have all gone into cahoots - and this is the result.
Moreover, our "elections" are completely overseen by these two extra-constitutional parties with crazy internal rules designed to allow the parties (The Party?) to keep a stranglehold on the entire process.
And for the most part, in response, the people focus on a media-driven goose-chase of buying into the politics by blaming the other party, name-calling, aping platitudes and talking points offered up again and again as mindless mantras on talk radio and in tabloid TV. The politicians are all "outraged" and promise "change" - all the while benefiting by keeping the people divided against each other while they literally do things like pour bleach on people's food. CNN-watchers blame the FOX-watchers; FOX-watchers blame the CNN-watchers. The "liberals" blame the "conservatives" and the "conservatives" blame the "liberals" - all the while those terms have switched places back and forth, gotten mixed and matched, and have become utterly meaningless labels.
Hooray for our team!
Meanwhile, once entrenched in Washington, Republicans and Democrats continue growing old agencies and creating new ones like mushrooms, generating reams and reams of new laws and regulations, destroying civil rights and national security, and printing dollars until they are nearly worthless. Both "parties" support both warfare and welfare - while cleverly convincing their own members that it's really the "other" party doing it.
It's Laurel and Hardy. And it would be funny if they weren't equipped with the power to tax, to regulate, to control, to execute, to torture, etc. and with enough nuclear firepower to turn the planet into a cinder - all with the brainpower and wisdom of two toddlers that have unlocked the liquor cabinet and the gun rack. A little bleach anyone?
Instead of blaming Bush and Obama, and getting all wrapped up in getting their partisans elected, Democrats and Republicans ought to ditch the party apparatuses and apparatchiks and blame the federal government (comprised almost exclusively of functionaries of both of these parties) and its arrogant, imperial, bureaucratic attitude toward the people they are supposed to serve, not rule. Whether we are Republican, Democrat, or neither, we would all benefit by going back to the Constitution and restoring the republic.
There was a time when federal bureaucrats did not pour bleach on food. There was a time when Americans could not secretly be executed by the president. There was a time when people had the right to a trial. There was a time when people were free to eat whatever food they wanted to eat. The Bill of Rights (that historic relic) actually addresses these things, although every amendment has been whittled away or outright abolished de facto by partisan lackeys in all three branches of the federal government, by both alleged parties, and by their confederates in the state governments who play along to get ahead themselves. We are no longer a union of fifty states, but rather an empire of two teams (Red Team and Blue Team, the Elephants and the Donkeys) of the same ideological philosophy of government that holds ordinary people in contempt.
And the people have been lulled into playing along, serving as "food" as it were to the monster. To borrow the punch line of the old Twilight Zone episode: "It's a cookbook!"
One day, maybe the people will say "enough is enough." This is exactly the kind of thing that happens when power is left unchecked. A little Clorox on your porterhouse, anyone? How disgraceful and shameful! Pouring bleach on food to ruin a peaceful picnic. "We the people" indeed!
Have you had enough yet? Or are you waiting for some party hack from the Red/Blue Team to vandalize your dinner table? Public service indeed!
Thank you for posting this ... following up on this story is providing a real education! Here’s a link to a letter describing the raid written by the farm’s owners to their dinner guests. http://quailhollowfarmcsa.com/30.html
ReplyDeleteAbout halfway down we read about how they scrambled and were able to find a way to salvage the event despite everything that had just happened. They were also able to finally get the gov’t agent off their property with the help of the local cops, no less.
This is not the end of the story, though. Similar battles are being waged all over the country. You might find this Michigan story interesting. It’s posted at the Farm to Consumer Legal Defense Fund website. http://www.farmtoconsumer.org/michigan-dnr-going-hog-wild.htm
The linked video is also quite enlightening (run-time about 8 minutes.)
"He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance." - Declaration of Independence
Sorry, couldn't figure out how to make the links "active."
ReplyDeleteI know some people here in Richmond whose home was broken into at 6:30 in the morning by federal investigators. Turns out their son had been visiting the wrong web sites. He has Downs Syndrome. Did that matter one bit to the agents? Nope.
ReplyDeleteFortunately, nobody was arrested, this time.
Thanks for the comments! (I apologize for not acknowledging them sooner!)
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