The Maine Department of Agriculture has decided to make a statement against Raw Milk in Maine and the new food freedom ordinance trend occurring in towns around Maine. They have decided to sue a Blue Hill farmer over selling unpasteurized milk, although within the town, what he was doing was legal by the self governing food ordinance.
This food freedom ordinance is one that issues that respective towns in Maine and their farmers have the right to be exempt from licensing and inspections as long as they are selling directly to consumers for home consumption (source).
The impression I get is that these towns and their people, which have passed the ordinance, are effectively declaring the right to choose what goes in their bodies, and what doesn’t. These people are declaring that their health is their health, and that the right to dictate what food and substances someone puts in their body was not one expressly given to the Federal Government under the Constitution.
Of course, I understand how hard it must be to pay attention to Constitutional rights when not doing so is so easy. I mean, why allow the public to choose a product based on its efficiency for them? It’s much easier to pass laws based on safety or something similar and illegalize the products deemed harmful by the Government.
For those of you who didn’t catch it, that was sarcasm. In reality, if we truly believe in Capitalism, which I do, we should allow the free market, also known as the people, to choose the winners and losers of the market. If Raw Milk is so unsafe, regardless of whether or not humanity has consumed it for much longer than pasteurized milk, and regardless of opinions that tell a different story, then the market for it would not be there.
Of course, the Dairy Industry doesn’t think so, which is why much of the industry lobbies to give the Government more power over the food industry, and more power over personal liberty. This way, when the Government has established a controlling position, laws, regulations, and taxes against small farms and raw milk farmers can be imposed, and the larger companies can effectively monopolize the market and crush rising competition. And to me, this is exactly why the Maine Department of Agriculture is targeting raw milk, it’s a move against food freedom and the free market.
And this is exactly the kind of thing that Representative Ron Paul & raw milk enthusiasts understand, that the entire raw milk Maine issue isn’t even over milk, it’s over the idea that someone other than you, shouldn’t decide what you’re allowed and not allowed to eat. It’s over the idea that in a free society, and in a free market, companies shouldn’t be able to pay the Government to become a winner, they should have to make the best product at the best price so the people make them the winner.
Note: You can hear more about Ron Paul & Raw milk in this video by Health Freedom USA. I’d also highly recommend a read of Liberty Defined.
My point here is that we shouldn’t be so easily pushed over, and we shouldn’t so easily give up our rights, even in an area certain people may not feel imposed upon, like food. There are farmers around the country, and small business owners, and regular hard working citizens, who do feel imposed upon.
There are farmers, business owners, and citizens, attempting to live the life they started under the idea of a free society and free market, but instead, face raids by Federal enforcers, and face a situation that is so against everything we believe in, and so against the system that took this country so far. Their right to freedom is your right to freedom.
What you can do for Raw Milk in Maine and Food Freedom:
- Understand the idea of a free market and the idea of a free society, view the video and reading from above
- Contact the Maine Department of Agriculture and voice your concern if you wish to
- Support local farms and local Government
- Use your Constitutional rights: free speech, freedom to petition, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly
Ahmed Serag
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