Food Fight!

“there is no absolute right to consume or feed children any particular kind of food ..."

Thus sayeth the Nanny.

Believe it or not, that quote is from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in response to a lawsuit regarding the ability to purchase, consume and transport raw milk products.

"Now, Chief," you may be saying to yourself, "don't go gettin' all paranoid on us.  This is just a single incident with a single product.  Chill, dude."

Really?

Students at Chicago's Little Village Academy are required to eat the lunch provided to them by the school -- a policy that has cooked up controversy among parents and educators amid a national debate about the best way to promote healthy eating for children.

This arm of the government is now requiring children to eat the food they provide.  Not suggesting.  Not offering.  Requiring.

Where are the parents of these kids?  How can they stand by and allow their children to be treated like sheep in a pen?
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I have regular arguments with folks regarding the spread of the federal government in particular, and Nanny State ideology in general.  We usually butt heads over things like federal food and drug laws.

I point out that the only potential food or drug authority granted to the feds is the right to regulate commerce between the states and with foreign nations.  So, if you're growing pot, cooking meth or processing cocaine in California, you can't sell it in Nevada without the feds OK.

BUT, the feds have no power to tell you you can't produce and sell the drugs WITHIN California.  Only the state of California can make that call.

Yet look where we are.  If California and every other state had any "stones", they'd re-assert their constitutional powers and declare that they will protect and defend any citizen that follows state law, but runs afoul of unconstitutional federal law.

I believe Montana and a few other states are doing that with regards to in-state firearms manufacturing and sales.  It's a start, but is a woefully small and localize movement.

This whole idea is difficult for many "conservatives" to swallow.  They want a small fed when it suits their own personal beliefs - guns and money, for instance.  But they also want a large fed when it suits their beliefs - the war on drugs, personal freedoms (porn, DUI checkpoints, search-and-seizure laws, etc.) .  This is one of the reasons I don't call myself a conservative.  I want a small, Constitutional federal government whether I like an issue or not.

Of course, this applies to liberals as well, it's just the opposite of the conservatives.

It's all about principles.  You either embrace liberty or you don't.  Do as you wish as long as it doesn't infringe on the rights of someone else to exercise their liberties.

When a government proposes a new program to protect you, be wary.  The FDA sounds like a great idea.  All they wanted to do was ensure we're getting safe, healthy food and drugs.  Whenever you willingly transfer personal responsibility to another entity, you must give up some part of your liberty.

Look what that seemingly innocuous FDA charter has brought us.
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Food has been used as a tool of control throughout history.  Read a history book if you don't know what I'm talking about.

We are standing idly by and allowing this to happen.  Re-read the position of the FDA.  They assert that THEY are in control of ALL of our food supply.  As the fascists in the Chicago school are demonstrating, they're right.

They have asserted that every single parent in that school has no right to feed their child as they see fit.  There is no finding that a parent or two was endangering the life of their child by feeding them a diet exclusively of Twinkies, peanut butter cups and chocolate milk.

They know best and just STFU.

When does your home food storage become excessive, or dangerous, or hoarding and need to be controlled by the state?  What about your seeds and garden?
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A bit of a follow up:  In yesterdays post on evaporated milk, I was going to mention how food prices are going up.  A recent article discussed how the LDS canneries had a major price increase.

Yesterday, I went to the store to check prices since my last visit (a week ago Monday).  I noticed that beans, rice, pasta and sugar had all gone up.  Beans were up about 10% and my regular brand of pasta was up 40%.  Yeah, in a week.

I checked out the evaporated milk.  As I noted in the post, it cost me 75 cents for a 12 oz can.  Yesterday, the same brand, Carnation, was up to $1.22!  That's a 63% increase.  The PET brand was at the same price.  The store brand, which was 65 cents a can last week was now 77 cents - a mere 18% increase.


Accept The Challenge

For my life, this whole story emphasizes OpSec - Operational Security.  I don't have kids in school, so this isn't going to happen to me.  I won't have to go drag my kids from school because some fascist food-cop grabbed my kid's lunch.

But, I will redouble my efforts to not disclose the quantity and locations of my food stores.  Just a few years ago, it would have been tinfoil hat paranoia to consider that the government would try and tell you what you can eat.

We now have restrictions at all levels of the education system on what kids can buy or eat.  We have restrictions on the kinds of fat you can eat or that restaurants can use in the preparation of your meal.  We have restrictions on the types of dairy products we can eat, let alone purchase.

This whole Chicago thing may blow up, and we'll think we got some of our rights back.  What will happen, though, will be a slow creep of restrictions.  Even now, you can't bring cakes and cookies into most classrooms to celebrate a birthday.  They'll just extend the restrictions to what's in the lunch bag.

The only mistake these food fascists made was to take too big of a bite, so to speak.  Most successful fascists understand that you need to slowly restrict rights so that the populace doesn't notice what's going on.  Soon enough, your choices are down to Government Option One or Government Option Two.

That's no option at all

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