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Great Moments in State Government: Bureaucrats Threaten Family with Possible Prison Sentence for Rescuing Bambi
Daniel J. Mitchell
As a public finance economist, I normally focus on big-picture arguments against excessive government.
If the public sector is too large, for instance, that undermines economic growth by diverting resources from the productive sector of the economy.
The damage is then compounded by a needlessly destructive and punitive tax system.
But I’ve also discovered that it helps to personalize the analysis by pointing out examples of ridiculous and wasteful behavior by government.
That’s one of the reasons I share horror stories as part of the U.S. vs U.K. government stupidity contest – such as the world’s most pointless sign linked nearby.
Some actions by government, however, belong in a different category. I’m not sure what word I would choose to describe them – perhaps venal, evil, despicable, reprehensible, or disgusting would be good options.
Am I being overly dramatic? Perhaps, but is there any other reaction when the government persecutes a family with possible jail time for rescuing Bambi?
Here are some absurd and disturbing details from the Indianapolis Star.
When Connersville police officer Jeff Counceller first encountered the baby deer, she was curled up in the corner of a front porch.It was clear the fawn was injured. Counceller could see the wounds… If left to its own, the animal would surely die… So the Councellers took in the deer, which they named Dani, cleaned and dressed its wounds and nursed it back to health, all with the intention of turning it out into the wild once it was big enough and strong enough to have a chance on its own. …she was unable to stand, and her maggot-infested wound was ugly. The Councellers contacted DNR at the time but were told to return the deer to the wild and let nature take its course. “It would have been a death sentence,” Jeff said.
So the family did what any decent people would do. They nursed the deer back to health. But decency and government often are in conflict.
Trouble is, what the Councellers did is against the law. Now, more than two years after rescuing the deer, more than six months after conservation officers began an investigation, the Indiana Department of Natural Resources wants them prosecuted. …DNR officials began an investigation that entailed half a dozen visits to their home and numerous calls to local authorities. In July, the agency issued an eight-page report and asked for a special prosecutor from another county to handle the case. Why the charges are being sought now — six months later — isn’t clear.
I think the answer is obvious. The bureaucrats from the Department of Natural Resources are sulking because their imperious demands weren’t obeyed.
So they’re lashing out at an innocent family, as indicated by the following excerpts.
…when the DNR came calling, the Councellers say they were almost ready to release Dani back into the woods. They were just waiting for the summer drought to pass and the nearby corn crops to mature enough to offer cover and food for Dani. They say they weren’t aware it was illegal to keep the deer.
That’s when the bureaucratic nightmare began.
When the DNR began its investigation, the Councellers say the conservation officer suggested they obtain a rescue permit. But that was denied. Soon, the DNR said the deer must be euthanized, that it was a safety threat to humans.
Fortunately, an unknown good Samaritan intervened and freed Dani before the government could kill the helpless animal.
But on the day of Dani’s scheduled execution, the deer turned up missing, its enclosure left open. The Councellers say they didn’t arrange the escape or know how the deer was freed but acknowledge that they didn’t probe too deeply to find out.
But no good deed goes unpunished when spiteful bureaucrats are involved.
…there was nothing but silence from the DNR until the Councellers received notice of the charges earlier this month. They plan to fight the case, even though jail is unlikely and the lawyer costs — which could reach $5,000 — are significantly higher than a likely fine. It’s a matter of principle, they say. They don’t want to plead guilty for trying to help an animal and when they had no criminal intent.
Not surprisingly, the rest of the community is on the side of the deer (and the persecuted family). Indeed, there’s even a Facebook page for folks who want to register their displeasure with this example of government thuggery.
“People are outraged at the DNR and that the government has nothing better to do than harass these people,” said John Waudby, an Indianapolis man who created the Facebook page after hearing about the story. “Anybody in their right mind would have done the same thing.”
All things considered, this story from Indiana shouldn’t be part of the government stupidity and incompetence contest. Given the venality of the bureaucrats, it belongs with this list of horrifying examples of government thuggery.
- A story of vicious IRS persecution.
- A women jailed overnight because she let her kids play outside.
- Cops legally stole $17,000 from a man who committed no crime.
- Threatening to send a woman to jail because someone whistled at a whale.
- Two stories of innocent people who were victimized by the idiotic Drug War.
- A video about how the EPA tried – and fortunately failed – to destroy a family.
- A story about the Justice Department’s discriminatory attack on a hapless homeowner.
- The government treating child molesters more leniently than people who accidentally omit irrelevant info from forms.
In a just world, a court will immediately dismiss the charges against the Counceller family.
I would urge that the family then be awarded damages, but that’s not the right response. The bureaucrats would merely shrug and let taxpayers pick up the cost.
The only good outcome is to unceremoniously fire every bureaucrat who played a role in this outrageous episode.
Like most bureaucrats, I suspect the paper pushers at the Indiana Department of Natural Resources are overpaid. So losing their pampered positions would be genuine punishment and it would send a message to the rest of the crew not to harass innocent and good people.
View full post on Cato @ Liberty
Firearms • Border Patrol agent Brian Terry’s family sue over Fast and
Border Patrol agent Brian Terry’s family sue over Fast and Furious
Family’s lawsuit target federal prosecutor and ATF managers who were responsible for failed guns operation on Mexico border
guardian.co.uk, Friday 14 December 2012 23.31 GMT
Brian Terry was fatally shot north of the Arizona-Mexico border while trying to catch bandits who target illegal immigrants in 2010.
The family of a murdered Border Patrol agent has sued federal officials over the botched Fast and Furious operation to track smuggled guns to Mexico.
Agent Brian Terry was mortally wounded on December 14, 2010, in a firefight north of the Arizona-Mexico border between US agents and five men who had sneaked into the country to rob marijuana smugglers.
Federal authorities conducting Fast and Furious have faced tough criticism for allowing suspected straw gun buyers for a smuggling ring to walk away from gun shops in Arizona with weapons, rather than arrest them and seize weapons.
The lawsuit filed Thursday and made publicly available on Friday came from Terry’s parents against six managers and investigators for the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
The family also sued a federal prosecutor who had previously handled the case but is no longer on it, and the owner of the gun store where two rifles found in the firefight’s aftermath were bought.
The family alleges that the ATF officials and federal prosecutor created a risk to law enforcement officers such as Terry and that the firearms agents should have known their actions would lead to injuries and deaths to civilians and police officers in America and Mexico.
The family also alleged that firearms agents and the prosecutor sought to cover up the link between Terry’s death and the botched gun smuggling investigation.
The "Fast and Furious" operation was launched in 2009 to catch trafficking kingpins, but agents lost track of about 1,400 of the more than 2,000 weapons involved.
Authorities say the ring was believed to have supplied the Sinaloa cartel with guns. Mexico’s drug cartels often seek out guns in the U.S. because gun laws in Mexico are more restrictive than in the U.S.
Some guns purchased by the ring were later found at crime scenes in Mexico and the United States.
The probe’s failures were revealed and later examined in congressional inquiries.
So far, 15 of the 20 people charged in the gun smuggling case have pleaded guilty to charges.
Authorities have a separate case pending in federal court in Tucson against five men charged with murder in Terry’s death.
So far, one man has pleaded guilty to first-degree murder. Of the five men accused in Terry’s killing, two are in custody, and three others remain fugitives.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/de … st-furious
Statistics: Posted by yoda — Sat Dec 15, 2012 1:38 am
View full post on opinions.caduceusx.com
Agriculture • 526,421 family farms threatened by new death tax
526,421 family farms threatened by new death tax
December 11, 2012 | 3:38 pm | Modified: December 11, 2012 at 3:40 pm
New legislation that jumps the death tax to 55 percent of estates exceeding $1 million threaten 526,421 family farms, of about 25 percent of all farms in America, according to a Senate analysis.
According to the analysis from the Senate Republican Policy Committee, chaired by Wyoming’s John Barrasso:
If President Obama and Senate Democrats do not act, the federal government will begin taking more than half the value of family farm estates exceeding $1 million beginning next year. This summer, Majority Leader Harry Reid and Senate Democrats passed legislation (S.3412) on a party-line vote that allows Washington to take up to 55 percent, a huge increase over today’s top rate of 35 percent, and drop the tax’s exemption from $5.1 million to $1 million. The lower exemption — combined with soaring farm real estate values — could put more than 420,000 additional farm estates at risk from the death tax.
Farm values are largely tied up in non-liquid assets like land, buildings, and livestock. Many farm and ranch families would be forced to sell their assets to satisfy Washington Democrats’ insatiable appetite for tax money. Up to 24 percent of America’s farm and ranch families could be forced to hand over a large chunk of their heritage to the Internal Revenue Service when a family member dies. This would economically devastate rural communities. The President and Senate Democrats should join Republicans in rejecting this irresponsible policy.
http://washingtonexaminer.com/632281-fa … Med6YNi58F
Statistics: Posted by yoda — Tue Dec 11, 2012 2:58 pm
View full post on opinions.caduceusx.com
Other • Lock Your Doors And Prepare To Defend Your Family
Lock Your Doors And Prepare To Defend Your Family
By Michael, on December 2nd, 2012
Do you think that is an alarmist headline? Well, I am not the one saying this. Law enforcement authorities all over the country are telling citizens that they can no longer deal with all the crime and that people need to lock their doors and prepare to defend their families. Just recently, the city attorney of San Bernardino, California told citizens to "lock their doors and load their guns" because there is not enough money to pay for adequate police protection any longer. The murder rate in San Bernardino is up 50 percent this year, but the city is dealing with bankruptcy and has been forced to lay off 80 police officers. But San Bernardino is not the only city dealing with this kind of a thing. In Oakland, burglaries are up 43 percent so far this year, and to say that there is a "crime wave" going on in Oakland would be a massive understatement. If you can believe it, in Oakland "more than 11,000 homes, cars or businesses have been broken into so far this year – translating to about 33 burglaries a day." Sadly, there simply are not enough police to keep up with it all. Due to budget cuts, it is being projected that by February the size of the police force in Oakland will be about 25 percent smaller than it was back in 2008. But what is happening in Detroit is perhaps even more frightening. Today there are about 1,000 fewer police officers in Detroit than there was a decade ago. But crime just continues to rise. So now even the police are telling people to "enter Detroit at your own risk". With very little police protection, an increasing number of citizens are taking matters into their own hands. As I noted in a previous article, justifiable homicide in the city of Detroit increased by 79 percent in 2011, and the rate of self-defense killings in Detroit is approximately 2200 percent above the national average. But don’t laugh at what is happening in cities like San Bernardino, Oakland and Detroit. What is happening in those cities will be coming to your community soon enough.
From coast to coast, criminals are becoming increasingly bold and increasingly desperate. My sister lives near a large city in the middle part of the country, and a house across the street from the one her family just moved into was recently vandalized. The criminals took all of the exposed copper pipe and copper wire that could be accessed easily.
Other criminals have become very focused on gold because it has soared in value and it is easy to resell. For example, there have been more than 250 gold chain robberies in Stockton, California just since the month of April. According to the CBS News affiliate in Sacramento, criminals are just ripping these chains right off of the necks of unsuspecting citizens, and many of the victims that have tried to resist have ended up getting hurt. Normally the criminals sell off the jewelry within 24 hours, so solving these crimes is a real challenge…
Most victims of the robberies are female (65 percent), and 44 percent of victims are age 50 or older, the data showed. The most common time of day for the crimes were between 12 and 5 p.m., though this only accounts for about a third of the crime.
Parino said robbers took even police by surprise initially.
“When [criminals] do these crimes, they normally get rid of the items within 24 hours,” he said.
That’s why police are now checking up on secondhand stores and pawn shops on a weekly basis.
Many dismiss reports such as these as "anomalies", but how many "anomalies" do we need before we finally admit that we have a widespread problem in our society?
Personally, there are many major U.S. cities that I would not want to be living right in the middle of right now.
Just take a look at Chicago. It has become one of the deadliest major cities on the entire globe. In recent years we have seen massive cuts to the police budget coupled with a dramatic increase in gang activity in Chicago.
The murder rate in Chicago is way up this year and the police force is massively outnumbered.
As I have written about previously, there are only about 200 police officers assigned to Chicago’s Gang Enforcement Unit. It is their job to handle the estimated 100,000 gang members living in the city.
How would you like to be outnumbered 100,000 to 200?
When things really hit the fan, Chicago is going to be a complete and utter nightmare.
And sometimes we get a peek into how people will behave when things break down. Just look at what happened during the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy.
If you can believe it, some criminals actually took advantage of the Thanksgiving holiday to loot homes in the Breezy Point neighborhood of Queens. That was the neighborhood where approximately 100 homes burned down. The suffering of the residents of that neighborhood made headlines all over the nation. But that has not stopped criminals from moving in and taking advantage of their vulnerability…
Cops told the victims burglaries are on the rise in Breezy Point.
There were 14 home break-ins from Nov. 12 to Nov. 18, compared with none a year before.
And in the 28 days before that, there were 48 burglaries. Only four break-ins were reported in that time period the year before.
In the days after Sandy, some of the hardest-hit areas were plagued with store looting, home burglaries, street muggings and other crimes.
There are some very sick people out there. These days you simply do not know who you can trust. The person you meet on the street may be perfectly fine or they may be a total sicko. It is so hard to tell. But without a doubt there are a lot of sickos out there. Just check out what authorities in Pennsylvania found recently…
Animal welfare workers say 11 puppies were found dead and skinned near an eastern Pennsylvania park.
Sadly, authorities in that area had come across another similar incident recently…
The discovery is second disturbing incident in the county in less than a week. About 20 miles away in Lynn Township police say a dog was discovered skinned and cooked.
Who would do such things?
What in the world is happening to this country?
Things are changing, and this is just the tip of the iceberg. As conditions shift, we are all going to have to carefully evaluate what is necessary to protect our families. Don’t ignore all of the warning signs. Sticking our heads in the sand and pretending that everything is going to be okay is not going to help anything.
http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/arch … our-family
Statistics: Posted by yoda — Sun Dec 02, 2012 3:58 pm
View full post on opinions.caduceusx.com
Lock Your Doors And Prepare To Defend Your Family
Do you think that is an alarmist headline? Well, I am not the one saying this. Law enforcement authorities all over the country are telling citizens that they can no longer deal with all the crime and that people need to lock their doors and prepare to defend their families. Just recently, the city attorney of San Bernardino, California told citizens to “lock their doors and load their guns” because there is not enough money to pay for adequate police protection any longer. The murder rate in San Bernardino is up 50 percent this year, but the city is dealing with bankruptcy and has been forced to lay off 80 police officers. But San Bernardino is not the only city dealing with this kind of a thing. In Oakland, burglaries are up 43 percent so far this year, and to say that there is a “crime wave” going on in Oakland would be a massive understatement. If you can believe it, in Oakland “more than 11,000 homes, cars or businesses have been broken into so far this year – translating to about 33 burglaries a day.” Sadly, there simply are not enough police to keep up with it all. Due to budget cuts, it is being projected that by February the size of the police force in Oakland will be about 25 percent smaller than it was back in 2008. But what is happening in Detroit is perhaps even more frightening. Today there are about 1,000 fewer police officers in Detroit than there was a decade ago. But crime just continues to rise. So now even the police are telling people to “enter Detroit at your own risk“. With very little police protection, an increasing number of citizens are taking matters into their own hands. As I noted in a previous article, justifiable homicide in the city of Detroit increased by 79 percent in 2011, and the rate of self-defense killings in Detroit is approximately 2200 percent above the national average. But don’t laugh at what is happening in cities like San Bernardino, Oakland and Detroit. What is happening in those cities will be coming to your community soon enough.
From coast to coast, criminals are becoming increasingly bold and increasingly desperate. My sister lives near a large city in the middle part of the country, and a house across the street from the one her family just moved into was recently vandalized. The criminals took all of the exposed copper pipe and copper wire that could be accessed easily.
Other criminals have become very focused on gold because it has soared in value and it is easy to resell. For example, there have been more than 250 gold chain robberies in Stockton, California just since the month of April. According to the CBS News affiliate in Sacramento, criminals are just ripping these chains right off of the necks of unsuspecting citizens, and many of the victims that have tried to resist have ended up getting hurt. Normally the criminals sell off the jewelry within 24 hours, so solving these crimes is a real challenge…
Most victims of the robberies are female (65 percent), and 44 percent of victims are age 50 or older, the data showed. The most common time of day for the crimes were between 12 and 5 p.m., though this only accounts for about a third of the crime.
Parino said robbers took even police by surprise initially.
“When [criminals] do these crimes, they normally get rid of the items within 24 hours,” he said.
That’s why police are now checking up on secondhand stores and pawn shops on a weekly basis.
Many dismiss reports such as these as “anomalies”, but how many “anomalies” do we need before we finally admit that we have a widespread problem in our society?
Personally, there are many major U.S. cities that I would not want to be living right in the middle of right now.
Just take a look at Chicago. It has become one of the deadliest major cities on the entire globe. In recent years we have seen massive cuts to the police budget coupled with a dramatic increase in gang activity in Chicago.
The murder rate in Chicago is way up this year and the police force is massively outnumbered.
As I have written about previously, there are only about 200 police officers assigned to Chicago’s Gang Enforcement Unit. It is their job to handle the estimated 100,000 gang members living in the city.
How would you like to be outnumbered 100,000 to 200?
When things really hit the fan, Chicago is going to be a complete and utter nightmare.
And sometimes we get a peek into how people will behave when things break down. Just look at what happened during the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy.
If you can believe it, some criminals actually took advantage of the Thanksgiving holiday to loot homes in the Breezy Point neighborhood of Queens. That was the neighborhood where approximately 100 homes burned down. The suffering of the residents of that neighborhood made headlines all over the nation. But that has not stopped criminals from moving in and taking advantage of their vulnerability…
Cops told the victims burglaries are on the rise in Breezy Point.
There were 14 home break-ins from Nov. 12 to Nov. 18, compared with none a year before.
And in the 28 days before that, there were 48 burglaries. Only four break-ins were reported in that time period the year before.
In the days after Sandy, some of the hardest-hit areas were plagued with store looting, home burglaries, street muggings and other crimes.
There are some very sick people out there. These days you simply do not know who you can trust. The person you meet on the street may be perfectly fine or they may be a total sicko. It is so hard to tell. But without a doubt there are a lot of sickos out there. Just check out what authorities in Pennsylvania found recently…
Animal welfare workers say 11 puppies were found dead and skinned near an eastern Pennsylvania park.
Sadly, authorities in that area had come across another similar incident recently…
The discovery is second disturbing incident in the county in less than a week. About 20 miles away in Lynn Township police say a dog was discovered skinned and cooked.
Who would do such things?
What in the world is happening to this country?
Things are changing, and this is just the tip of the iceberg. As conditions shift, we are all going to have to carefully evaluate what is necessary to protect our families. Don’t ignore all of the warning signs. Sticking our heads in the sand and pretending that everything is going to be okay is not going to help anything.
So what do all of you think about all of this? Please feel free to post a comment with your opinion below…
View full post on The Economic Collapse
Welfare Costs More Than $60,000 per Family
It’s not exactly news that the United States harbors an enormous number of people on welfare. By one account, more than 100 million Americans are on at least one welfare program run by the federal government. And despite the 1996 welfare reforms, the number of adults on foods stamp skyrocketed from an already high 1.9 million in 2008 to 3.9 million in 2010. Less well known are the government costs involved in welfare.
According to information from the Senate Budget Committee, in 2011 the United States spent $61,194 on welfare programs for each household in poverty. According to some committee members, if this spending was converted to cash and handed out to those below the poverty line, it would exceed by more than 2.5 times the federal poverty threshold of $22,350 for a family of four.
According to the Congressional Research Service, the United States spends more on welfare than Social Security, Medicare, defense, or any other item in the federal budget. Federal spending on approximately 80 welfare programs has risen 32 percent since 2008. Include state contributions to those programs and the amount approaches $1 trillion. These fathomless costs illustrate some economic realities.
Despite what some people imagine, a dollar cannot be extracted from a taxpayer, travel to Washington DC, go out on the town, and then return intact as $1 to a district in the form of benefits. That is because all taxpayer dollars must trickle down through multiple layers of bureaucratic sediment. The welfare bureaucracy has a stake in the expansion of the number of people on welfare, not in the reduction of that number. This dynamic helps explain why, even in the worst recession since the 1930s, the federal government has made no serious move to trim bureaucratic waste. Indeed, the current administration larded up an already bloated Leviathan by adding new federal agencies, such as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB).
That happened under Barack Obama who now gets four more years, but this is not a partisan issue. George W. Bush, a Republican, was the biggest spendthrift since Lyndon Johnson. Whoever happens to be in the White House, government spending and dependency seem to increase in tandem.
View full post on MyGovCost | Government Cost Calculator
American • iTaxes vs. Uncle Sam’s friends and family plan
iTaxes vs. Uncle Sam’s friends and family plan
Simon Black on SEPTEMBER 12, 2012
September 12, 2012
Cape Town, South Africa
Yesterday, news broke that the US government has awarded a whopping $104 million to convicted felon and former inmate Bradley Birkenfeld.
It was a big headline and you likely saw the news… but it’s worth a deeper look. Because if there is one story that neatly summarizes what is wrong with the US these days, it is the case of Mr. Birkenfeld.
Birkenfeld, as you may recall, is a former private banker at UBS. For several years, his job at the bank was to help clients evade taxes, including one now famous instance in which he snuck diamonds hidden in a tube of toothpaste into the United States on behalf of one of his clients.
It turns out that Uncle Sam had his eye on Birkenfeld. Big time. And when the government started leaning on him, Birkenfeld sung like a canary… confessing not only his own transgressions, but also those of his clients.
Birkenfeld was subsequently convicted and sentenced to 40 months. And based on the volume of information he provided, a number of his former clients were also charged, imprisoned, and forced to pay steep penalties to the government.
Look, just to be crystal clear, tax evasion is not OK. I’ve been writing this for years– not paying taxes is stupid. Whether you have the moral or legal justification is irrelevant. When the guy holding the gun gets to make the decision, you lose. It’s simple.
That being said, Birkenfeld violated just about every professional ethic imaginable when he turned on his clients. It’s not like he had a change of heart and suddenly wanted to ‘do the right thing’; this is a guy who used to advise his clients about how to hide their money, and then ratted them out to save his own ass.
Now the government is rewarding this behavior. It’s extraordinary when you think about it– Birkenfeld actively assisted people evading taxes. He helped make the money disappear to begin with. Now he gets a piece of the pie?
This is like driving the getaway car in a bank robbery, then getting a cut of the recovered funds after you dime out your accomplices.
It’s despicable to see such actions rewarded while people who work hard for an honest living struggle to get by. Another triumph of justice, it seems.
Naturally, US politicians are supportive, saying that Mr. Birkenfeld’s reward sends a warning message to tax cheats and dodgy bankers around the world.
Yeah, maybe. It also send a message to every bitter ex-wife, disgruntled employee, and suspicious neighbor out there: you too can become unimaginably wealthy by ratting out your friends, family, clients, and co-workers.
It’s really unfortunate, though not terribly surprising, that Uncle Sam would seek inspiration from Nazi Germany when it comes to taxes. Frankly, I think Singapore serves as a much more powerful example.
Taxes in Singapore are low. Compliance is simple. The laws are easy to understand. The tax code itself is short. They make it so easy, it’s not worth anyone’s while to evade taxes. Amazingly enough, the country is swimming in cash. Shocker.
When he launched the iTunes store several years ago, Steve Jobs fundamentally believed that most people would be willing to pay for music (instead of illegally downloading songs) if they were presented with an easy, inexpensive, legal alternative.
He was right. The iTunes store went on to be a big success for Apple, the record companies, and consumers. There’s no reason why taxes can’t be the same way. It’s certainly a better option than having a nation of weasels.
http://www.sovereignman.com/expat/itaxe … plan-8657/
Statistics: Posted by yoda — Wed Sep 12, 2012 1:29 pm
View full post on opinions.caduceusx.com
The State is Not a Family: Associations and Political Obligation
Our trek through the major theories of political obligation continues as we now move on to the association account.
It’s probably easiest to think of association theory as the “We’re all Americans” version of obligation. If you live in the United States, you’re an American, meaning you’re part of this thing called America, which is both the collection of all citizens and bigger than all of us. And being an American means respecting and obeying America’s institutions, including its laws.
This sets association apart from the other theories we’ve looked at. With fair play and gratitude, for instance, political obligations arise because of something we’ve done—whether accepting benefits or voluntarily participating in a cooperative scheme. With association, the obligations flow from who we are. Association theorists thus often draw parallels between country and family. As a father, I have obligations toward my daughter not because of some agreement we entered into or because I gained in some way from her. I have obligations to her because I am her father. Association simply applies this same sort of thinking to the state. Having political obligations is just part of what it means to be a member of the community. Given that our membership isn’t something most of us chose (we were instead born into it), our political obligations don’t flow from our choices, either.
This account depends on a number of assumptions, none of them particularly plausible. First, we very likely do have obligations arising from our role in our families, among our friends, or even in our very local community. But it’s not at all clear that the state is an association of a kind with those others. I don’t have a relationship with most Americans—let alone with Congress, the President, and the administrative agencies—that in any way parallels the relationship I have with my wife, my daughter, my parents, my friends, and my neighbors. In fact, when the state does try to act as if such a relationship exists (take Michelle Obama’s call that we all sign a father’s day card for her husband), it comes off as almost creepy.
Second, if political obligations flow entirely from community standards (“You’re an American, and Americans support their government.”) then it seems they bind us to the state no matter how bad it is. We might luck into a state that’s reasonably just, but we might just as easily have found ourselves politically obligated to turn over our peers to Stalin or to send Jews to the gas chambers. If the response is that of course you can’t be politically obligated to do that, then we’ve introduced moral standards outside of the association—and why can’t those moral standards include a prohibition on being obligated to a state involuntarily? It seems that, no matter what, we want some way to become unobligated to obey the state if the state grows bad enough. And this opting out shouldn’t be limited to “Love it or leave it.” For why, if the government behaves sufficiently unjustly so as to lose my obedience, should I also be forced to abandon my (true) community of my family, friends, and neighbors?
I don’t want to completely dismiss the strong feeling many of us have that we are, in fact, obligated to obey our government and that those obligations arise from it being the government of our country. The association theory matches quite well the unstated reasoning that leads most citizens to respect the will of the state. But those feelings by themselves don’t settle the issue. We might, after all, be mistaken in our emotion. And, at the very least, we want to leave open the option to back out of our obligations should the government change sufficiently that it no longer represents the America we’re a part of.
I’ll close with this passage from a paper by A. John Simmons, our most important contemporary philosopher of political obligation.
Absent any compelling argument for general political obligations (of the sort to which traditional theorists aspired), and absent any compelling argument for the independent binding power of local rules requiring obedience and support (of the sort to which proponents of the normative independence thesis aspire), it seems plausible to dismiss as a kind of false consciousness our feelings of obligation toward our countries of birth or residence. Of course we identify ourselves with “our” countries, “our” governments, and “our” fellow citizens. We have typically been taught from birth to do so, have typically spent our lives in a particular political culture, have been identified with a particular community by those outside our own (for purposes of praise or blame, say), and have associated with and become used to our own ways. That I might feel shame or pride at the acts of my countrymen (or that I might vote in elections and obey the law) is hardly surprising under these conditions. But none of this identification (along with its accompanying feelings of obligation) none of these ways of speaking and acting-seems, considered by itself, in any way inconsistent with denying that we are morally bound by political obligations to our countries of residence.
The appearance of authority must never be mistaken for the real thing.
View full post on Libertarianism.org
Agriculture • The Family Farm Is Being Systematically Wiped Out Of Existen
The Family Farm Is Being Systematically Wiped Out Of Existence In America
An entire way of life is rapidly dying right in front of our eyes. The family farm is being systematically wiped out of existence in America, and big agribusiness and the federal government both have blood all over their hands. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the number of farms in the United States has fallen from about 6.8 million in 1935 to only about 2 million today. That doesn’t mean that there is less farming going on. U.S. farms are producing more than ever. But what it does mean is that farming is increasingly becoming dominated by the big boys. The rules of the game have been tilted in favor of big agribusiness so dramatically that most small farmers find that they simply cannot compete anymore. Back in 1900, about 39 percent of the U.S. population worked on farms. At this point, only about 2 percent of all Americans now live on farms. Big agribusiness, the food processing conglomerates, and big seed companies such as Monsanto completely dominate the industry. Unless something dramatic is done, the family farm is going to continue to be wiped out of existence. Unfortunately, it does not look like things are going to turn around any time soon.
The way that the farming industry is structured today, it is simply not economically feasible to operate a small family farm. According to Farm Aid, every week approximately 330 farmers leave their land for good.
Many old timers are trying to hang on for as long as they can. A very large percentage of family farmers are in their fifties, sixties or seventies at this point. Today, only about 6 percent of all farmers are under the age of 35.
Most young people these days are not too eager to choose farming as a career. A lot of young adults that grew up on family farms have decided that investing hundreds of thousands of dollars in a business that requires you to work 12 hours or more per day most of the year for very meager wages is simply not worth it.
In recent years, many family farmers have been forced to find second jobs in order to support their families. Many farm families are constantly on the verge of financial ruin. It is a really tough life for many of them.
Sadly, less than 25 percent of all farms in America bring in gross revenues in excess of $50,000. The following comes from the EPA website….
It has been estimated that living expenses for the average farm family exceed $47,000 per year. Clearly, many farms that meet the U.S. Census’ definition would not produce sufficient income to meet farm family living expenses. In fact, fewer than 1 in 4 of the farms in this country produce gross revenues in excess of $50,000.
On top of everything else, the federal government and many state governments just keep endlessly piling more rules and regulations on to the backs of farmers.
Big agribusiness has the resources to deal with all of these regulations fairly well, but most family farms do not.
With each passing year, the farming industry becomes even more centralized. If current trends continue, big agribusiness will eventually control nearly all of it. The following is from the EPA website….
By 1997, a mere 46,000 of the two million farms in this country accounted for 50% of sales of agricultural products (USDA, 1997 Census of Agriculture data). That number was down from almost 62,000 in 1992.
In certain industries the amount of consolidation has been absolutely stunning. For example, between 1970 and today the United States has lost 88 percent of its dairy farms.
Another factor that is shaping the farming business is the incredible power that the giant food processing conglomerates have accumulated.
Today, there are 10 corporations that control most of the things that Americans eat and drink on a daily basis. If you doubt this, just check out this chart.
The giant food processing conglomerates have a massive amount of influence over how food is grown in the United States today. Small farmers that try to go against the tide often have a very rough go of it.
That is also true when it comes to seeds.
For example, approximately 80 percent of all corn grown in the United States is grown using seeds that have been genetically modified by Monsanto.
If you want to try to defy companies such as Monsanto, you are playing a very dangerous game. The predatory business practices of Monsanto have been well documented. Monsanto has taken countless numbers of farmers to court, and they are absolutely ruthless.
Plus, it certainly does not help that there is a constant revolving door between Monsanto and federal government agencies. If you doubt this, just check out the chart about Monsanto on this page.
Amazingly, in spite of all this there are still some small farmers that are able to overcome all of these obstacles and run successful businesses.
But that is where the federal government comes in.
In recent years, the federal government has become absolutely obsessed with going after small farmers.
For example, a recent Food Freedom News article detailed what the feds have been doing to Randy and Karen Sowers. They were keeping their cash deposits under $10,000 so that they would not have to fill out a bunch of paperwork, and the federal government came down on them like a hurricane….
“Structuring,” explains Overlawyered.com, “is the federal criminal offense of splitting up bank deposits so as to keep them under a threshold such as $10,000 above which banks have to report transactions to the government.”
While being questioned, the Sowers were finally presented with a seizure order and advised that the feds had already emptied their bank account of $70,000. The Dept. of Justice has since sued to keep $63,000 of the Sowers’ money, though they committed no crime other than maintaining their privacy.
Without funds, they will be unable to make purchases for the spring planting.
When a similar action was taken against Taylor’s Produce Stand last year, the feds seized $90,000, dropped the charges, and kept $45,000 of Taylor’s money.
Knowing that most farms operate on a very thin margin, such abuse of power wipes out a family’s income, and for a bonus, the feds enhance the monopoly power of Monsanto, Big Dairy and their supply chain.
At many other small farms across America, the feds have conducted military-style raids at the crack of dawn over the smallest infractions.
Some examples of this were detailed in a documentary entitled "Farmaggedon". The following is a short trailer for that film….
The sad truth is that the federal government has been using your tax money to go after small farmers in absolutely vicious ways.
For example, the feds raided one Amish farm at 5 AM one morning.
So what was the big crime that the feds were so concerned about?
Well, the Amish farm was selling raw milk.
Oh the horror!
The feds seem content to leave big agribusiness pretty much alone, but they are constantly going after small farms in hundreds of different ways.
Did you know that the Department of Labor is instituting new regulations that will ban children from doing many kinds of farm chores?
Just another way to kill off the family farm in America.
America is changing, and not for the better.
Just like the middle class, the family farm is heading for extinction.
Eventually, the big corporations and the federal government will have near total control over food production in America.
http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/arch … in-america
Statistics: Posted by yoda — Thu Apr 26, 2012 8:29 pm
View full post on opinions.caduceusx.com
The Family Farm Is Being Systematically Wiped Out Of Existence In America
An entire way of life is rapidly dying right in front of our eyes. The family farm is being systematically wiped out of existence in America, and big agribusiness and the federal government both have blood all over their hands. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the number of farms in the United States has fallen from about 6.8 million in 1935 to only about 2 million today. That doesn’t mean that there is less farming going on. U.S. farms are producing more than ever. But what it does mean is that farming is increasingly becoming dominated by the big boys. The rules of the game have been tilted in favor of big agribusiness so dramatically that most small farmers find that they simply cannot compete anymore. Back in 1900, about 39 percent of the U.S. population worked on farms. At this point, only about 2 percent of all Americans now live on farms. Big agribusiness, the food processing conglomerates, and big seed companies such as Monsanto completely dominate the industry. Unless something dramatic is done, the family farm is going to continue to be wiped out of existence. Unfortunately, it does not look like things are going to turn around any time soon.
The way that the farming industry is structured today, it is simply not economically feasible to operate a small family farm. According to Farm Aid, every week approximately 330 farmers leave their land for good.
Many old timers are trying to hang on for as long as they can. A very large percentage of family farmers are in their fifties, sixties or seventies at this point. Today, only about 6 percent of all farmers are under the age of 35.
Most young people these days are not too eager to choose farming as a career. A lot of young adults that grew up on family farms have decided that investing hundreds of thousands of dollars in a business that requires you to work 12 hours or more per day most of the year for very meager wages is simply not worth it.
In recent years, many family farmers have been forced to find second jobs in order to support their families. Many farm families are constantly on the verge of financial ruin. It is a really tough life for many of them.
Sadly, less than 25 percent of all farms in America bring in gross revenues in excess of $50,000. The following comes from the EPA website….
It has been estimated that living expenses for the average farm family exceed $47,000 per year. Clearly, many farms that meet the U.S. Census’ definition would not produce sufficient income to meet farm family living expenses. In fact, fewer than 1 in 4 of the farms in this country produce gross revenues in excess of $50,000.
On top of everything else, the federal government and many state governments just keep endlessly piling more rules and regulations on to the backs of farmers.
Big agribusiness has the resources to deal with all of these regulations fairly well, but most family farms do not.
With each passing year, the farming industry becomes even more centralized. If current trends continue, big agribusiness will eventually control nearly all of it. The following is from the EPA website….
By 1997, a mere 46,000 of the two million farms in this country accounted for 50% of sales of agricultural products (USDA, 1997 Census of Agriculture data). That number was down from almost 62,000 in 1992.
In certain industries the amount of consolidation has been absolutely stunning. For example, between 1970 and today the United States has lost 88 percent of its dairy farms.
Another factor that is shaping the farming business is the incredible power that the giant food processing conglomerates have accumulated.
Today, there are 10 corporations that control most of the things that Americans eat and drink on a daily basis. If you doubt this, just check out this chart.
The giant food processing conglomerates have a massive amount of influence over how food is grown in the United States today. Small farmers that try to go against the tide often have a very rough go of it.
That is also true when it comes to seeds.
For example, approximately 80 percent of all corn grown in the United States is grown using seeds that have been genetically modified by Monsanto.
If you want to try to defy companies such as Monsanto, you are playing a very dangerous game. The predatory business practices of Monsanto have been well documented. Monsanto has taken countless numbers of farmers to court, and they are absolutely ruthless.
Plus, it certainly does not help that there is a constant revolving door between Monsanto and federal government agencies. If you doubt this, just check out the chart about Monsanto on this page.
Amazingly, in spite of all this there are still some small farmers that are able to overcome all of these obstacles and run successful businesses.
But that is where the federal government comes in.
In recent years, the federal government has become absolutely obsessed with going after small farmers.
For example, a recent Food Freedom News article detailed what the feds have been doing to Randy and Karen Sowers. They were keeping their cash deposits under $10,000 so that they would not have to fill out a bunch of paperwork, and the federal government came down on them like a hurricane….
“Structuring,” explains Overlawyered.com, “is the federal criminal offense of splitting up bank deposits so as to keep them under a threshold such as $10,000 above which banks have to report transactions to the government.”
While being questioned, the Sowers were finally presented with a seizure order and advised that the feds had already emptied their bank account of $70,000. The Dept. of Justice has since sued to keep $63,000 of the Sowers’ money, though they committed no crime other than maintaining their privacy.
Without funds, they will be unable to make purchases for the spring planting.
When a similar action was taken against Taylor’s Produce Stand last year, the feds seized $90,000, dropped the charges, and kept $45,000 of Taylor’s money.
Knowing that most farms operate on a very thin margin, such abuse of power wipes out a family’s income, and for a bonus, the feds enhance the monopoly power of Monsanto, Big Dairy and their supply chain.
At many other small farms across America, the feds have conducted military-style raids at the crack of dawn over the smallest infractions.
Some examples of this were detailed in a documentary entitled “Farmaggedon“. The following is a short trailer for that film….
The sad truth is that the federal government has been using your tax money to go after small farmers in absolutely vicious ways.
For example, the feds raided one Amish farm at 5 AM one morning.
So what was the big crime that the feds were so concerned about?
Well, the Amish farm was selling raw milk.
Oh the horror!
The feds seem content to leave big agribusiness pretty much alone, but they are constantly going after small farms in hundreds of different ways.
Did you know that the Department of Labor is instituting new regulations that will ban children from doing many kinds of farm chores?
Just another way to kill off the family farm in America.
America is changing, and not for the better.
Just like the middle class, the family farm is heading for extinction.
Eventually, the big corporations and the federal government will have near total control over food production in America.
So what do you think about all of this? Please feel free to post a comment with your thoughts below….
View full post on The Economic Collapse