I'm reading a book manuscript by a friend about consensus government.  About a quarter of the way in I'm finding nuggets that are quite good.  It'll be interesting to see what it proposes as alternatives to what we have.

              Here is a nugget:  that the U.S. Declaration of Independence meant that we were willing to fight for independence.  Today, it seems like we're fighting FOR DEPENDENCE.  Great turn of phrase and profound insight, I think.

             The point is that if you're not independent, you're enslaved, and people are clamoring to be enslaved.  Independence requires self-reliance and personal responsibility which is the opposite of bail-outs, government programs, and other top down technocracy ideas.  Just look at how many people expect somebody else--the president especially--to manage Covid-19.  Next thing you know, your job is declared non-essential, you can't go to church, to school, and you get facial lesions and respiratory problems from mask mandates.  This is enslavement and by and large the populace loves it.  The right to secede is how you know your level of independence.

             A farmer came by yesterday who told me he was going to direct sell into his local patron base next spring, but because he can't get into a local processing facility, he just sold the steers into the industrial commodity chain.  This is happening all over the country as people shift from supermarkets to local suppliers and overrun the local abattoirs.  Processing slots are now filled clear through 2021.

             Why do we have this problem?  Because as a culture we've decided that government inspection is required in order to protect buyers from sellers of meat and poultry.  As a result of this dependence, we've enslaved the local food system to a bureaucracy that makes participating in neighborhood food commerce highly prejudicial.  This did not happen yesterday; it happened back in 1906 when Teddy Roosevelt created the Food Safety Inspection Service. 

             Copvid-19 did not create this enslavement; it's simply the crisis that exposed it.  The enslavement was already there; we just didn't see it as acutely.  Now, the local food system is trying to get legs but is shackled by this long-standing notion that a bureaucrat needs to poke and sniff at food in order for neighbors to engage in consensual trade. 

             A nascent revolution is happening to circumvent this slavery.  Farmers all over America are taking to their outbuilding and barns to slaughter animals for friends and neighbor patrons completely under the radar.  Similar to the Underground Railroad of yesteryear, this is an Underground Railroad to get nutrition to local clients.  I hope it's as successful as the Underground Railroad.

             Meanwhile, the mega-processors receive concessionary benefits under emergency powers status.  Yet another manifestation of dependency within the marketplace, arrogating to bureaucrats the power to choose winners and losers.

             Would you trust a farmer with your hamburger, or do you think a bureaucrat needs to approve it before it's safe for you to eat?