Minelle & Joe Paloff wrote:
>
> The reason that the government ( of the people, by the people ----us, in
> other words) , outlawed the selling of raw milk was because of the
> unsanitary practices of some sellers in addition to the great danger of
> brucellosis, a high risk disease.
So, if I had all the animals in my herd vet-checked and certified free
of brucellosis, and did not bring on board any other animals which were
not first similarly screened, how large is the risk of contracting
brucellosis from drinking the raw milk from such a herd?
Gee whiz, some people send hazardous substances through the mail,
therefore we should discontinue postal service? Is this kind of
thinking we really need to enshrine in our laws?
I don't care for the "one size fits all" sort of assumptions embodied in
having the government "protect" me. If the shoe does not fit, I do not
want to be made to wear it! It hurts! I keep finding that I am ONLY
protected from the ability to select which risks I am willing to assume
and which I am not, in the clear light of my own circumstances, about
which I have perfect knowledge. Averages, pooled data, and pooled
assumptions are not especially relevant to me. It is silly to imagine
that my buying milk or eggs from a neighbor known to me personally is
identical to my being a resident of an urban area with no opportunity to
exercise my well-developed sense of which individuals are trustworthy
are which ones are not with respect to my milk purchases.
> If a person
> wants to drink raw milk from his/her own animals, that is their right, in my
> opinion... But
> when they want to sell the raw milk to the general public and thus place
> others at risk, then society has a right to impose conditions to protect
> public health and safety.
Is there no room for the existence of a different category of
relationship between the dairy farmer's own family and "the general
public"? Anybody who has even a single dairy cow probably gets more
milk than one family will use.
That is what is so maddening about "the government" --the intrusion of
regulation at a scale inappropriate to the circumstance. It is entirely
unreasonable to apply regulations designed for anonymous transactions to
a scale where nothing is anonymous and where actual feedback can and
does occur. Thus the person in such a circumstance concludes that such
regulation is idiotic, and MAY extend that assumption inappropriately to
all governmental oversight, regardless of the details. Having ordinary
citizens being unable to see any real logical correlation between the
law of the land and the law of reason is not a stable arrangement.
> Granted, we are not a perfect people, but we do try to protect our
> citizens, which is why we have food safety laws.
Why must this be framed as "food safety laws" vs. "no food safety
laws"? Are we completely unable to tell the difference between one
thing and another? When one of my kids needs help with algebra, should
the ones who have already mastered the subject matter be forced to sit
in on the tutoring session, beating their heads against the wall in
desperation to escape the boredom and futility of it all? (oops, this
is a bit like going to school, isn't it? No wonder the kids don't like
it.) Is this in the interests of fairness or impartiality? I think that
my parental credibility would suffer if I were to institute such a
plan. I think governmental credibility suffers likewise, and with good
reason. If it is not possible to establish a nexus between the
regulation and the outcome, it would be well to examine issues of
appropriate scale.
Bottom line, if I get brucellosis and die, as a result of stubbornly
exercising my own judgement, then I'll be dead. This does not
constitute a public health emergency. So write "it seems fair to me" on
my tombstone. It is only a private tragedy.
Can we test individual animals for disease or not?
I would not oppose some kind of quarantine on stock to establish disease
free status.
Loren Muldowney
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