ORGANIC DEPENDENCY

The howlers are howling.  I'm hearing from organic/sustainable/regenerative/ecological farming organizations--most of them non-profits, screaming about Trump's budget cuts through USDA.

                  Whether it's grants to build hoop houses or grants to fund personnel in organic type programs, the screams are loud and long.  "How are we supposed to continue helping local non-chemical food systems and farmers when the USDA cuts funding?"  The helplessness and frustration are wild.  

                  For the most part, they're unhappy that I don't join the letter writing, petitions, and phone calling to get these monies flowing again.  Sorry.  I've said all my life that if our side ever gets into the driver's seat, the worst thing we can do is act like the industrial system that we've accused of feeding at the public trough.

                  I've consistently opposed ALL grants, ALL subsidies for ALL agriculture my whole life.  I advised these friends filling out grant forms many years ago not to do it.  Becoming dependent on taxpayer money is not only unfair, it rides your charity on the back of confiscatory taxes.  You cannot build charity on a foundation of violence.  Stop paying taxes and see who gets violent.

                  Unfairness comes from the inherent demand that people pay for things in which they have no interest.  If I'm a vegan, what philosophically-justified argument can you make for taking my hard earned wealth (taxes) to pay for livestock watering systems or tall tunnels for winter housing chickens?

                  If I can't stand vegetables, how can you justify taking my wealth via taxes and paying for produce development on farms?  The problem with government assistance is that it inherently makes people pay for things they dislike.  That breeds contempt and resentment in a culture.  Paul Harvey used to say government should only do for those people the things they cannot do for themselves, and only that.

                  Not many things exist that we can't do for ourselves.  If an organic outfit wants to help farmers build tall tunnels, pass a hat.  Or better yet, do some business and marketing promotion so farmers understand margins and profit to pay for the development they need with their own earnings.  That's the way to build a meritocracy and keep people from being mad at each other.

                  The first restaurant I supplied with eggs in the early 1970s when I was a teenager was owned and operated by a Greek family with a wonderful sense of humor.  They had a big sign hanging behind the cash register:  A GOOD MONKEY IS A MONKEY THAT DOESN'T MONKEY WITH OTHER MONKEYS' MONKEY. Now that, folks, is as succinct an adaptation of the Golden Rule as any I've seen.

                  The urge to have public monies not used for greedy, selfish interests must be balanced by the urge not to be accused of similar greedy gain when political winds change.  If our side is just as quick to demand goodies from hard working taxpayers as Tyson and Monsanto, we're operating from the same political ideology.  "But our stuff is good and their stuff isn't," I hear.  In politics, what is good and bad is completely subject to the whims of the mob.  Let's rise above that and be courageous enough to say "how about we let folks keep their hard earned money?" 

                  This is why the most defensible and consistent position is to eliminate ALL public transfer payments:  universities, farmers, pharmaceuticals, foreign countries, health care, housing, education, retirement . . . .

                  Can good farming continue without government funding?