The United States of Jamerica

The Roots - “The Next Movement”

Enjoy the day.

In Reason Magazine, Jacob Grier reports on the important but low profile struggle between federal regulators and raw milk farmers:

On May 1, Pennsylvania state troopers arrived at the home of Mennonite farmer Mark Nolt, seizing a reported $20,000 to 25,000 worth of farm equipment and placing Nolt under arrest. His crime? The illegal sale of unpasteurized milk and other dairy products. And Nolt isn’t alone. In February, federal investigators subpoenaed two employees of Mark McAfee’s Organic Pastures Dairy in California. Though the subpoenas do not indicate the purpose of the investigation, McAfee told me the feds were seeking evidence that his dairy was selling unpasteurized milk for human consumption across state lines.

These are just the latest skirmishes in the growing conflict over the right to sell unpasteurized, or “raw” milk. On one side of the fight is an odd coalition of whole foodists, dairy farmers, and libertarians who want the government to butt out of their milk-drinking decisions. On the other side are public health officials and assorted busybodies determined to tighten regulations.

Our regulatory environment is completely bereft of any acknowledgement of contingency or historical circumstance.  Regulations are largely reactive measures; they are created in response to abuses with the aim of preventing any further abuses and they are usually crafted within the context of a very specific incident (regardless of how broad they are) or circumstance.  This applies to agricultural regulations as much as it does to anything else.  Most of our regulations were crafted within the context of large-scale industrial husbandry, where a combination of poor conditions and poor diet yield animals far more likely to develop illness and disease, and far more likely to produce products rife with dangerous bacteria (among other things).  Under these conditions, it makes sense that regulators apply regulations vigorously and punish those who refuse to comply.

But every farm isn’t an industrial farm, and not every animal is confined to an industrial life.  Even if unpasteurized milk contains a higher concentration of bacteria, it’s likely it is nowhere near as harmful as the bacteria present in industrial dairy, since “raw milk” cows live far healthier (and ecologically sound) lives.  With that in mind, it doesn’t make any sense to apply standard regulations to raw dairy farms.  Regulators however, oblivious to both history (”grass-eating cows have become so rare that, to California health officials, they seemed unnatural.”) and contingency (to them, what works for one must work for all), refuse to modify their to raw dairy farms (or for that matter, ecologically sustainable farms like Polyface in Virginia).

Now, one solution is for Congress to craft a new set of regulations - specific to small, local farms - allowing them to sell their products as they see fit, with a minimal set of standards to adhere to.  And another is simply for Congress to carve out an exception to existing regulations for small, local farms.  But both of those solutions would leave for the federal government a part in determining what these farmers can or cannot do with their product, and I’m inclined to say that’s unacceptable.  We regulations for industrial farming and husbandry because the negative externalities - disease ridden lagoons of pig shit, for example - are so great as to almost require federal intervention.  The same can’t be said for small, local farms.  The consequences of small, local farming - whether from the farming itself or vis a vis the farmers and their customers - are so local and so personal as to make it impractical and, frankly, wrong for the federal government to intervene.

I understand the need to regulate certain transactions, but let’s keep things reasonable.  There is no reason (outside of a pathological need to control) for preventing a farmer who trusts her product from selling it to a consenting adult aware of the consequences. 

I’m down with animal rights, but I absolutely hate PETA.

Pwned!

Tony Perkins is on Anderson Cooper 360 complaining about the California ruling giving full marriage rights to LGBT couples, and Dan Savage (of Savage Love) is mopping the floor with him.  I knew Perkins was a no talent hack, but I’m actually surprised by how shockingly dishonest he is.  Every sentence was seasoned with baseless assertions and willful misinterpretation of sociological data (Savage even says that you could debunk Perkins’ claims with a five second Google search). 

It was fun to watch Cooper and Savage clown Perkins, but I was disappointed when neither of them challenged Perkins claim that same-sex parenting harms children.  As far as I know, there isn’t a lick of evidence to suggest that same-sex parenting harms children.  There is however, plenty of work which suggests that single parent households can negatively affect children, and it seems like Perkins was referencing that but extending the results to same-sex parenting.

Stay classy Tony, stay classy.

Via (again) John Cole:

During the trial, which was held in Panama City yesterday and today, Ponce de Leon High School’s principal David Davis admitted under oath that he had banned students from wearing any clothing or symbols supporting equal rights for gay people. Davis also testified that he believed rainbows were “sexually suggestive” and would make students unable to study because they’d be picturing gay sex acts in their mind. The principal went on to admit that while censoring rainbows and gay pride messages he allowed students to wear other symbols many find controversial, such as the Confederate flag.

John Cole is a genius:

We should have a January 20, 2009 countdown ticker at this blog, and I think we should have a national celebration when this criminal leaves office. I mean a truly national celebration, with fireworks, street parties, city proclamations, etc that would be televised all over the world. I want President Bush’s last day in office to be the most huniliating experience of his life – one where the American people show him how absolutely jubliant they are that he is no longer the leader of this country. We could call it “National Thank Fucking God Day” or something like that.

I understand John Aravosis’ anger, but there is really no reason to call Clinton “horrible” for staying in the race; Clinton is dangerously close to the nomination and thus the presidency, so close in fact, that refusing to drop out is a totally reasonable position.  I don’t particularly like it, but it doesn’t make her horrible.

Normally, I don’t pay any attention to Taylor Marsh and crew’s unhinged anti-Obama tirades.  It’s been clear for some time now that Marsh is deeply invested in smearing Obama, and frankly, there’s no reason to give her blog the time of day.  But today, one of her guest posters - Marc Rubin - attacked Obama by claiming that he betrays the principles of Martin Luther King Jr.:

Race has always played a role from the beginning, either notable by its absence in Obama’s victory in the Iowa caucus and mostly white mid west caucus states, or notably present in getting 90% of the African American vote. Unless you believe that one ethnic group has suddenly acquired a monopoly on wisdom, about half of the 90% of African Americans voting for him were voting for him because of skin color, the same reason their grandparents couldn’t use white restrooms.

Which means that half the African American community and everyone else, black or white, who has voted for or supported a candidate simply based on race, has decided to take everything Martin Luther King took a bullet for and throw it out the window.

King’s most enduring comment was, “I dream of a day when a man will be judged on the content of his character and not the color of his skin”. That idea has been discarded by supporters of Obama both black and white who have been trying to promote the idea that having a black President is a good reason to vote for him regardless of anything else. [Emphasis mine]

I really have no patience for anyone who willfully misinterprets King or lifts his statements out of context for the purpose of scoring a cheap political point.  Usually it is anti-affirmative action and anti-multiculturalism crusaders who are quick to do this, so it’s a bit disappointing to see this kind of rhetoric from the left.  But truth be told, liberals have been equally guilty of appropriating King, so I guess it really isn’t that surprising. 

When - in the “I Have a Dream Speech” - King says that he hopes for a country where his children “will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character,” he isn’t referring to an “end-state.”  It’s clear in the speech that he is expressing a sort of eschatological yearning, which - by definition - can only be satisfied by divine intervention.  King was a radical, but he was also a realist, and recognized that for the foreseeable future the color-line would be the central fault line of American society.  King even, towards the end of his life, spoke forcefully for affirmative-action policies and a sort of quasi-black nationalism.

It’s impossible to know whether or not King would have supported or opposed Obama, but it is clear from his writings and speeches that he was not opposed to using race as the sole consideration in some cases.  King recognized (correctly I think) that for an oppressed community to focus on race isn’t racist, but empowering.  Instead of simply dropping King quotes for rhetorical flourish, I wish people - liberals and conservatives - would actually delve deeply into King’s ideas and treat them with the seriousness the deserve.  Something Marc Rubin really isn’t doing.

Old racist white people are awesome.