Do you think this is a joke? No joke. U.S. and Canadian governments are raiding farmers for distrubuting raw milk. Raids which mirror drug war raids. Yet another clear indication that our government has far too much money and has grown far too powerful.

In Ontario

Two officers had even infiltrated the farmer’s inner circle, obtaining for themselves samples of his product. Lab tests confirmed their suspicions. It was raw milk. The unpasteurized stuff. Now the time had come to take him down.

Schmidt had risen that morning at 4 a.m. He milked his cows and ate breakfast. He loaded up a delivery, then fired up the bus. But as he reached the end of the driveway, two cars moved in to block his path. A police officer stepped into the road and raised his hand. Another ran to the bus and banged on the door. Others were close behind. Eventually twenty-four officers from five different agencies would search the farm. Many of them carried guns.

“The farm basically flooded, from everywhere came these people,” Schmidt later told me in his lilting German accent. “It looked like the Russian army coming, all these men with earflap hats.”

In Michigan

In October 2006, Michigan officials destroyed a truckload of Richard Hebron’s unpasteurized dairy.

In Ohio

The previous month, the Ohio Department of Agriculture shut down Carol Schmitmeyer’s farm for selling raw milk. Cincinnati cops also swooped in to stop Gary Oaks in March 2006 as he unloaded raw milk in the parking lot of a local church. When bewildered residents gathered around, an officer told them to step away from “the white liquid substance.” The previous September an undercover agent in Ohio asked Amish dairyman Arlie Stutzman for a jug of unpasteurized milk. Stutzman refused payment, but when the agent offered to leave a donation instead, the farmer said he could give whatever he thought was fair. Busted.

Read the rest at Harpers magazine.

The raid and seizure of over 400 children from a Polygamist cult in Texas got me thinking.  First let me say that I do not condone the beliefs or actions of these cult members. I simply want to share some thoughts these events have triggered and I’d like your comments.

1. I was unaware that child protective services could seize children from their parents without evidence of abuse. If what I understand about this case is accurate, the government received an anonymous call from a female claiming to be a 16 year old victim of this cult. It now appears this call was fraudulent. A single unsubstantiated call gave the government probable cause to seize over 400 children from over 100 families. I must restate… I don’t like this cult… but regardless of that… does this mean that a single unsubstantiated anonymous phone call could lead the government to seize your children? Doesn’t that seem wrong to you? Shouldn’t the burden of evidence be upon the state? Shouldn’t there be some proof?
   
2. These mothers were not legally married to the men who fathered their children, so technically they were single mothers who drew welfare benefits from the State of Texas. It also appears that no one in this cult was employed in the traditional sense. So the taxpayers of Texas have been funding this cult for years? Isn’t this a case of the state creating (or at least perpetuating) the problem? Wouldn’t this cult have gone bust without government funding? Instead of using police force, why not cut off funding? Or prosecute them for welfare fraud?
   
3. One more time… I don’t condone polygamous marriages, but I must ask an important question. In our modern “loose” society, how can we criminalize this behavior? For example, I’ve met unmarried men who have three children from three different women. I’ve also met women who have three children from three different men. Why is it legal for some people to behave this way and illegal for others? It’s illegal if you have multiple sex partners as a matter of religious principle, but legal if you do it as a matter of casual promiscuity. Doesn’t that seem horribly inconsistent? Wilt Chamberlain claims to have had sex with 20,000 women, yet if he married two of them at the same time, even with their knowledge and consent, he’d be a criminal. So you can legally have casual sexual relations with as many people as you wish but if you make a commitment to more than one of them, you’re a felon? Can anyone explain this? I sure can’t.

I learned about this case listening to Ian and Mark at Free Talk Live who are being attacked for asking similar questions. I’m glad they are there. Someone needs to ask tough questions, even about weirdos.

Update:

As I expected, I have gotten some serious hate mail and I am being attacked in social media because of this post. I guess that’s what happens when people perceive you to be defending the indefensible. I am not defending these people. I am questioning the actions of the state. There is a difference you know.

I want to point out to those of you who think I am nuts, that right here in Minnesota we have two major immigrant populations who practice widespread polygamy and child marriage. So I ask you who are insulting me, should Minnesota CPS also remove all the children en mass from all the homes of these immigrants based upon their cultural and religious practices? Or would it be better to treat it on a case by case basis like we do now? I prefer case by case because it passes constitutional muster.

Is immigration the ticket to a new age of peace and prosperity like so many free market libertarians tout?

Is immigration the answer to our falling birth rates? Is it the best way to keep our youth competitive in the global marketplace? Is it the path to economic growth and continued freedom?

Or like many paleoconservatives claim, is it the road to national and cultural ruin? The end of liberty as we know it?

Or as many environmentalists say, is population reduction part of the answer to our environmental problems? To energy scarcity? To suburbanization of the hinterlands? Are too many people the problem?

Or will these arguments be proven to be an alarmist fraud, like the 1968 book “The Population Bomb” where Paul Erlichman wrote, “the United States would see its life expectancy drop to 42 years by 1980 because of pesticide usage, and the nation’s population would drop to 22.6 million by 1999 ^[1].

For some reason people love to believe everything is going to hell, but I am skeptical about predictions of cultural collapse and massive eco-disasters, because there have been so many chicken little warnings in the last century, and not one has come to pass. I am even more skeptical of these catastrophic predictions when the only solutions are higher taxes, protectionism, increased police power, and more government regulations.

However, I don’t claim to have a crystal ball, and I will make no predictions in this post. But in our lifetime (the next 40-60 years) we will find out who was right, the warnings of alarmists or the optimism of libertarians.

Japan’s population is declining and they refuse all immigration for protectionist reasons. We will clearly see what happens to their economy and society. To a lesser extent, we will see the same in Russia and most of Europe. And for the first time, without war or natural disaster, we will see the rapid depopulation of major economic powers.

On the flip side, the U.S., Australia, U.K., Ireland, and Canada have liberal immigration policies which are unlikely to change soon. So we will see the populations of these countries explode. Some predictions show the US having over a billion people in less than 100 years.

I tend to favor liberal immigration policies, if the folks seeking our way of life embrace the idea of individual liberty and freedom and if they are here to build a better life and not to get a handout. Most of the complaints I hear about immigration in America are really complaints about our social welfare system. People complain that immigrants are draining our school system and our social services. Which leaves me asking the complainers…

Have you considered the possibility that immigrants aren’t the problem, but instead, that our school system and our social services are? It isn’t just immigrants who drain these systems. Have you considered the possibility that large swaths of humanity do not value things which are ‘free?’ If people had to pay for education and it was voluntary not compulsory, don’t you think they would value it more? There is little we could or should do about people desiring the freedom our nation provides, but there is much we can do about giving away ‘freebies.’

But I digress.

We live in fascinating times, and I am optimistic about our future. And I can’t wait to see our world evolve.

What do you think about these topics?

Sound off.

Irrational fear fuels ALL of our Nanny State legislation, irrational fear of highly unlikely events, events which do happen, but were an acceptable part of life a decade or two ago. Our nation which was founded by risk takers is fast becoming a risk averse nation. The Nanny State is fueled by people who want to prosecute others for taking the most minuscule calculated risks. Paranoid Nanny Staters are calling for the prosecution of New York Sun Columnist Lenore Skenazy who allowed her 9-year-old to ride the subway home alone. She is being attacked for publicly stating that building confident independent children is more important than risk avoidance. Oh the heresy! I don’t know if I’d have the courage and faith to do what she did, but I do know I was allowed this measure of independence when I was 9 and so was every other American kid. Paranoid Nanny Staters say things are different today. It’s far more dangerous. There are more perverts and weirdos than ever. But as Lanore highlights in her column, it is the exact inverse, things are far safer than the 70s and 80s, and abductions are decreasing every year.

From the article:

“The statistics show that this (child abduction) is an incredibly rare event, and you can’t protect people from very rare events. It would be like trying to create a shield against being struck by lightning.”

In another ray of hope - Charges were dropped against Treffly Coyne the suburban mother charged with child neglect for leaving a sleeping two-year-old in a locked car and steeping thirty feet away for less than a minute. But I still find it disturbing that the police arrested her for this. How humiliating. Have the police lost all common sense? When I was a kid, cops didn’t enforce trivial laws, but instead, as members of our community, they made sensible judgements about each situation individually. It almost seems like these young cops are brainwashed. The old-school ones are much more compassionate and intelligent. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I miss cops like Tony Bouza. I don’t agree with everything he said, but a least he was thinking for himself and not acting like a brain dead zombie. Zero tolerance rules are for robots, not human beings. Human beings have the God given ability to reason. We can understand that everything is not black and white, that every situation is unique and filled with nuance. A free society should reflect our individual ability to reason and judge.

There are those among us who believe individuals cannot be trusted to judge risk, and must be forced under threat of prosecution to avoid risk.
But that brings other questions to mind…

If individuals can’t be trusted to make their own decisions, why should we trust individuals in government to make these decisions? Are they somehow better than us? Smarter than us? It appears they think so.

It frightens me that there are ‘educated licensed’ professionals who try to justify this abuse of children. Reasonable sane people would never do this to begin with. Honest ethical people would admit their overreaction and apologize. I can’t write another word… or I think I’ll explode…

I have tough questions for the Republican Party leadership. Questions which I think most Americans want answered.

I am going to use Minnesota as a specific example, but these questions apply to every Republican leader in the United States and I’m asking for your help to spread these questions from California to Maine. Digg it. Reddit it. Email it. Twitter it. Stumble it. You know what to do.

Saturday, 3-29-08, as an elected delegate, I attended the Minnesota 2nd Congressional District Convention. The Following Elected Republicans Addressed the Convention:

• Governor Tim Pawlenty
• Senator Norm Coleman
• Congressman John Kline
• Minnesota Republican Party Chair Ron Carey

To Republican leaders:

Each of you said the following…

• I believe in free markets, free enterprise, and entrepreneurship.
• We need smaller government
• We need limited government
• Government is not the answer, government is the problem
• We need less regulation
• We need fewer taxes
• We need fewer government programs
• We need less spending
• I believe in individual freedom and liberty

I agree with each and every one of your statements…

Like many voters, I want you to do the right thing and I desperately want to support you, but I’m afraid this is just more hollow rhetoric. I have been an active Republican since 1989 and since then the size and scope of government has increased dramatically. In that time, the US Federal Government and Minnesota State spending has increased 300%. We’ve seen smoking bans. We’ve seen stadium subsidies. We’ve had half-trillion dollar federal deficits. We’ve had Republican presidents, governors, legislatures, and Republicans even controlled all three branches of the federal government for six of the last eight years.

At our convention on Saturday, Chairman Carey castigated the Ron Paul Revolution, saying revolutions are for tin horn dictators, not Americans (ever heard of the American Revolution?) and said that results take many years of hard work and patience. In all respect Mr. Carey, many of us were proud members of the 1994 Republican Revolution. We didn’t expect instant results and easy answers. We expected action and instead got empty rhetoric. Many of us held our noses and supported you through 2000 and 2004, but finally, fet up in 2006, we (and many others) didn’t support you and you lost in record numbers.

To win, we need you and you need us, and it is time to talk. But do not impugn us or take us for granted. You are winning and losing elections by the smallest of margins.

All I ask is that you, the elected officials and leaders of the Republican Party, for the record, answer the following questions honestly and candidly:

• If, like you say, government is too big, how much smaller should the government be? 10%, 20%, 30%, 50%? Give me a measurable goal.
• If, like you say, we need limited government, what are those limitations? Is government currently exceeding its limitations? If so, where? And what do you propose we do about it?
• If government is the problem, which parts of the government do you plan to eliminate?
• If we need less regulation, which regulations do you plan to eliminate?
• If we need fewer taxes, which taxes do you plan to eliminate?
• If we need fewer government programs, which programs do you plan to cut?
• If we need to spend less, how much less? Give me a dollar figure. Something measurable.
• If, you believe in an individuals right to freedom and liberty, which laws and regulations restricting an individuals private life do you propose we eliminate? Be specific.
• How do you plan to get the Democrats to compromise with your vision of a smaller limited government? It appears that even when you have power you consistently compromise with the Democrat’s vision of a larger more powerful government.

Can you please clarify these items for us?

When I have asked these questions in the past, I get a talking point about how dangerous the Democrats are. And I agree. It is a given that the Democrats are bad. But don’t sell me fear of Democrats, I don’t want to hear it. I will not work for you or support you out of fear. Give me something positive, something optimistic, and something measurable.

On Saturday, Senator Coleman spoke about optimism, free enterprise, and limited government.

Help us be optimistic Senator Coleman. Tell us your plan to reduce government interference in our lives.

You could start with ethanol subsidies.

Dangerously Irrelevant is one of my favorite blogs. Why? Because its writers think! They are innovative people who are question the system. In a recent post Scott McLeod quotes Roger Shank about math education.

[T]there is no evidence whatsoever, that accumulation of facts and background knowledge are the same thing. In fact, there is plenty of evidence to the contrary. Facts learned out of context and apart from actual real world experience that is repeated over and over are not retained. . . .

[K]ids don’t like math much and it is clear why. They find it boring and irrelevant to anything they care about doing. If you think math is so important, then why not teach it within a meaningful context, like business, or running a school doing the kind of math you had to do to do that – which certainly wasn’t algebra II. There is plenty of evidence that shows that teaching math within a real and meaningful context works a whole lot better than shoving it down their throats and following that with a multiple choice test. . . .

[T]here is no evidence whosoever that says that a nation that is trailing in math test scores will somehow trail in GDP or whatever it is you really care about. This is just plain silly, but we keep repeating the mantra  that we are behind Korea in math as if it has been proven that this matters in some way. . . .

[N]early every grown adult has forgotten whatever algebra he or she ever learned to pass those silly tests, so it is clear that algebra is meaningless for adult life. I ask every important person in public life that I meet to tell me The Quadratic Formula. No one has ever been able to do so.

Most of us have known this our entire lives! I have been quite successful in business, IT, and programming and I haven’t passed a formal math class since the 7th grade. That doesn’t mean I don’t have a math education - passing a class and having an education are two different things. Unfortunately our culture doesn’t allow for that nuance.

I know people who own multiple businesses, live in 6,000 sq ft homes, have millions in net worth, and barely passed “Math for Daily Living.” For most people high level math is a waste of time.

If we don’t get a handle on what is happening to our youth in our public educational system we will have huge crisis with young males. Why do they hate school and what we can do about it? Our educational system creates the underclass, and the answer isn’t pouring more money into an antiquated 19th century system.

*****

The Puget Sound Libertarian sounds off about government protection of private information. Republican Party leadership… pay attention!

our personal information should be secret from government and protected, while government information should be completely open. But the system works the other way unless you happen to be a big political or other celebrity; i.e., someone with power or able to buy power with money.

Why do so many people trust the government with personal information? Aren’t they the most likely to abuse it? Historically?

*****

David Weigel at Reason Hit and Run posts about felons trying to rebuild their lives. I’m sure you have little sympathy for felons, and that is justified. However, we release these people back into society. I’ve done a little work helping people rebuild their addiction and crime ravaged lives. I recently met with a 40-year-old man who was convicted of methamphetamine possession in 2005. He lost his job, his family, his home, all his possessions, and did over a year in prison. Now he is out and he can’t get a job for $8.00 an hour. He’s strong, intelligent, and talented, and he genuinely wants nothing more than to rebuild his life, but his name is in the database of felons. You may say, this was his own choice and he has to live with the consequences. I agree, however, our lack of acceptance and forgiveness will insure he returns to prison because he has no other options available. Is that what we want? Shouldn’t we re-evaluate how we classify and deal with non-violent offenders? A prison guard told me that our current system is manufacturing monsters out of average drunks and potheads. This 40-year-old felon confirmed this, when he described in detail, the gang rape of a suburban father, who was a DUI offender in the Dakota County Jail. Is this what we want? Doesn’t that constitute cruel and unusual punishment? The State of Texas has realized its mistake putting non-violent offenders in the general population and has begun to segregate them. Minnesota is facing the same problem and we should follow suit… quickly.

*****

Steve Palmer explains how the two party system is leading us further left after each election cycle.

The U.S. population in the political realm consists of three main groups: liberals, conservatives, and so-called “moderates,” which are also labeled swing voters. Each political party will always have a definite constituency that can be counted on to vote along party lines, and therefore candidates put relatively little effort into campaigning for the votes of their clearly defined base. Instead, hopeful candidates spend the bulk of their time and efforts catering to the vacillating swing voters.

The result of this is that previously defined party lines and definitions are now obscured and concealed behind ambivalent rhetoric, propaganda, and proposals designed to entice voters from all sides. A perfect example of this is President George Bush’s $400 billion proposal for prescription-drug benefits for seniors, which has traditionally been a key Democratic issue. His obvious strategy was to steal the issue from the Democrats in an attempt to entice both swing votes and Democratic votes, knowing full well that even staunch conservatives will still vote to reelect him.

I am a delegate to the Minnesota Republican Party Minnesota State convention, but Steve Palmer explains why we can no longer afford to support any candidate with the R next to his name. If we do, they have no motivation to change. The RINOs take our support for granted. I for one will not support or vote for them… and that includes John McCain. We go to Rochester not as a patsy enablers, but to intervene and save our beloved GOP from its drunkenness on government largess. We’ll see if the GOP can take the first step, and admit it has a problem.

This blog is about ideas, not personalities. This isn’t personal, unless you want to wrap your ego around your ideas and beliefs. Making it personal is your choice, not mine.

I’ve already been told by a reader to quit blaming licensed professionals and government institutions for the problems in public schooling and how unfair it is to the people who are trying so hard to make these institutions work. I don’t blame the people, I blame the failed ideas which they choose to defend. It is when they let go of those failed ideas that they will find the solutions. I want to debate those ideas. You may directly benefit from the ideas I challenge here and that doesn’t mean I don’t like you. It means I am challenging you to think about the ideas you fail to question. Most of us live our lives and without questioning the ideas and institutions of which we are a part.

For example… Professional Licensing. We claim professional licenses exist to ensure safety and quality. Do they? Can you prove it? How? As compared to what? Why do you believe in this idea? What are the facts? Have you done any critical thinking about the matter?

It is impolite in our society to question certain ideas. I will question the very foundation of many of our political ideas, beliefs, and institutions. I don’t do this in an attempt to malign anyone or be impolite. I do it in an attempt to get you to think and question reality.

In American political discourse we don’t challenge ideas. We attack people who challenge ideas. This is an effective way to end debate and resist change, because keeping the debate personal makes it uncomfortable for most of us to debate ideas. Our focus on personalities over ideas obscures fact from fiction and reason from emotion. People shut down quickly when I challenge the fundamental beliefs they hold about our political culture. In many areas they are uncomfortable even entertaining the idea that there may be better ideas than the ones we currently embrace.

One retort I hear most often…
Now, that is never going to happen!

What if Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin, and John Adams had sat down in a pub and thought up the idea of a free constitutional Republic, and a couple of pints later… Ben said, "Hold On. Wait a minute. What will the British Empire do?"

To which John and Thomas reply, "You’re right, that’s never going to happen. See ya at the pub tomorrow."
It would be a different world, wouldn’t it?

We must challenge and debate the ideas which shape our current reality:

• Public Schooling is an idea
• The IRS is an idea
• Licensing is an idea
• The Nanny State is an idea
• The War on Drugs is an idea
• The University is an idea
• Terrorism is an idea
• War is an idea
• Prison is an idea
• Paramilitary police tactics are an idea

These are just a few of the ideas that I am going to challenge.

Have these ideas been implemented in our reality? Yes.

Did they exist before they became an idea in someone’s mind? No.

So in order to change our current reality, what do we need to change? Our ideas.

Do we have to cling to old ideas in fear that new ideas are dangerous? No. That is a choice.

Can these old ideas be replaced with new ideas? Yes. Better ideas? Certainly.

I don’t want you to come here and get offended. I want you to come here and think.

Too many people - even smart people - believe the only way to change something is by passing a new law. At the core of all law enforcement is coercion and force. Go ahead and tell a police officer you aren’t going to comply with the law and you’ll see what I mean (I’m kidding - don’t try it - I’m just trying to make a point). As a nation, we’ve either forgotten what can happen when a law is enforced, or we don’t care. This is an example of how some of us are willing to use the force of law to end the simplest of disagreements.

Last summer I was talking to my neighbor about youth baseball, when I asked, “Did you see that New York City passed a law banning aluminum bats in youth baseball games. Isn’t that outrageous?”

My neighbor is a smart successful small businessman. He’s a hunter and a lifelong Republican and I love having him as a neighbor and a friend. But I am going to use his quote to make a point.

He replied, “I’m with ‘em on that one. There should be a law here too. Aluminium bats are dangerous. The ball comes off the bat too fast.”

I don’t have an opinion about the safety of the bats. I don’t know enough about it. I know people have reasonable opinions on both sides of the issue.

But I do have an opinion about laws like these.

Youth baseball leagues have governing boards which set the rules of the game. The government shouldn’t set the rules, the league members should set the rules. So if you want aluminum bats removed from your youth baseball league, petition the youth baseball association and not the government. There is no need for the government to regulate the rules in youth sports, we are capable of doing that privately.

Or are we incapable of resolving an issue as simple as baseball rules without government? Is that what we’ve become as a free society?

A law like this shows a lack of respect for the rule of law itself and for free society. When laws like this are enforced, they make a mockery of real law enforcement.

I want you to read this story about two 4-year-olds handcuffed in a public school for not taking a nap. I don’t want you to read it because I want you to hate public school. I don’t want you to read it because I want you to fear public school.  I want you to read it because it exposes a lie. One of the bigger lies ever told.

The lie:

You and your children are safest when ‘protected’ by government licensed professionals.

Children are abused, raped, attacked, lied to, and neglected by government licensed professionals in public schools all over the United States. In reality, the government bureaucracy and union protection obscures the problem in ways that would never be tolerated from a private enterprise. Licensed professionals are no safer than any other people. They are people who have problems just like everyone else. They just happened to have the patience to work through all the government and union red tape.

The purpose of licensing is not to insure quality. The purpose is to protect the market from competition. If you want safer/better schools you should demand that parents and children are allowed a full array of free-market choices for education services.

Government and ‘big education’ leads us to believe that only licensed professionals can provide a safe quality education. They are selling safety and failing to deliver. Meanwhile millions of talented intelligent people who would love to teach children are barred from teaching under the guise that letting unlicensed people teach is dangerous. We’re not talking about criminals here… A Ph. D in physics working for NASA can’t teach third grade math without a license. A billionaire entrepreneur can’t teach finance or business without years of schooling and loads of red tape.

It is time to demand free markets, so we can decide for ourselves what constitutes quality and safety.