Another Raw Milk Store Raided by Police

 A store specializing in the sale of unpasteurized dairy products was raided Wednesday in Los Angeles, and the owners are facing charges of criminal conspiracy and operating a buisness without a license, local officials say.

The store, called Rawesome, is a volunteer-run dairy store that sells unpasteurized milk to members of their co-operative, provided they sign a release stating that they know that the milk they are purchasing is raw and less safe that pasteurized milk. This should be considered okay under the premise of voluntary association and purchase of goods, but since the market is unlicensed (due to the difficulty of attaining a license, despite the fact that unpasteurized milk is legal), it was shut down.

Raw milk is indeed more hazardous for you than regular milk, but that shouldn't mean that anybody that sells it should be shut down, especially if it's legal under local law. If people willingly consent to buying a product, knowing the risks and hazards of doing so, they should be allowed to without any government agents telling them they can't. That isn't protecting the people, it's just an unnecessary use of force on willing customers of a particular product over bureaucratic malpractices that are redundant and protectionist.

Life, Liberty, and Lemonade

"Our legislators are not sufficiently apprised of the rightful limits of their powers; that their true office is to declare and enforce only our natural rights and duties, and to take none of them from us. No man has a natural right to commit aggression on the equal rights of another; and this is all from which the laws ought to restrain him." – Thomas Jefferson.

The role of government is to protect our rights.

According to a Midway, Georgia statute, these rights include freedom from unlicensed lemonade:  MSNBC reports that Midway police shut down a lemonade stand run by three girls who were trying to save money for a trip to the water-park.

The police were quick to the scene saying “we understand you guys are young, but still, you’re breaking the law, and we can’t let you do it anymore.  The law is the law, and we have to be consistent with how we enforce the laws.”

It’s clear to anyone that this is a debacle. This travesty raises three major questions. What is the underlying problem?  Whose fault is it? What’s the solution?

Raw Milk Mania

Thanks to Campaign for Liberty for publishing this article of mine:

The feds recently conducted a year-long sting operation (yes, really.) to arrest an Amish farmer for selling raw milk in DC. Fortunately, raw milk devotees have not allowed this ridiculous law to go unnoticed:

AMERICA, sleep well. After a year of surveillance, an undercover operation, and a pre-dawn raid by gun-toting U.S. marshals, the country is safe from an Amish farmer. Dan Allgyer’s crime? Selling unpasteurized milk to a food co-op in the Washington area.

But raw-milk advocates, the feds are learning, do not go down easily. About 400 people protesting Mr. Allgyer’s arrest arrived on Capitol Hill earlier this month with a cow named Morgan, a milking stool, plastic cups, and plenty of passion. Toasting their favorite drink, they pointed out that the signers of the Constitution also drank raw milk and proclaimed “the right to choose what to eat and drink” without government interference.

Perhaps one of the reasons this story has managed to get some media attention (despite the obvious factor of an Amish man being arrested) is the complete absurdity of legislating milk.

One of my best professors in college was a progressive with whom I disagreed on…a lot, to put it mildly. He was right, however, when he said that it was always important to consider what would actually happen given a certain legislative outcome, as opposed to what our worst fears for the situation might be.

In this case, were raw milk totally legal (as it has been for most of our nation’s history), what would actually happen is that raw milk fans would keep drinking it, and everyone else would keep avoiding it. It’s not like there’s a giant Amish conspiracy to somehow slip unpasteurized whipping cream onto the shelves of your local Giant without you noticing.

Read the whole thing here.

Feeding the Homeless? Got a permit?

Yes, it's true. If you want to feed the needy, you need a permit and a professional preparer to do so in the city of Houston. A couple's charity organization, called "Feed a Friend," was basically shut down when the city randomly decided to enforce a law requiring people who want to feed the homeless to have the food prepared in a "certified kitchen" with a "certified food manager."

If you recall back in 2007, there was a story similar to this, except it was in Orlando. These laws are enforced in many different major cities.

Apparently it is believed that these ordinances are designed to "help the public" because poor people are the most vulnerable to food borne illness because they have the least access to healthcare. Unfortunately, such concepts are  rooted in pure nanny state nonsense.

To sum up the logic: Yes, apparently the same people who dig through trash and beg for meals care whether or not the fresh home cooked meals prepared by caring individuals are made in a "certified kitchen" under the supervision of a "certified food manager" with a permit through the city. 

This makes me wonder whether or not charities support such laws. 

Controlled charity? What's next, panhandling permits?