Home ec outlaws

Two examples of the kind of intrusive, unnecessary laws that turn otherwise law-abiding citizens into low-level criminals, purely out of frustration:

1. Residents of Spokane, Washington have been forced to drive across the border to Idaho in order to smuggle back dishwasher detergent that contains phosphates, because the town burghers there have seen fit to ban the sale of any cleaner that actually works:

"Many people were shocked to find that products like Seventh Generation, Ecover and Trader Joe's left their dishes encrusted with food, smeared with grease and too gross to use without rewashing them by hand."

And using even more precious, precious water in order to do so. Not very efficient at all, it seems.

"For his part, [resident Ken] Beck has taken to washing his dishes on his machine's pots-and-pans cycle, which takes longer and uses five gallons more water. Beck wonders if that isn't as tough on the environment as phosphates.

'How much is this really costing us?" Beck said. "Aren't we transferring the environmental consequences to something else?'"

You're missing the whole point, Ken. It's not about making sense; it makes the environmental lunatics feel better about themselves to force you to adopt a much grosser and less efficient lifestyle, which is the only thing that counts with them, not actual results.


2. American citizens who wish to buy and drink raw (unpasteurized and unhomogenized) milk are increasingly being forced to go to the milk "black market" (who would have thought such a thing existed? It's only inevitable, though, once the "authorities" ban something, especially an item as innocuous as this) in order to obtain their desired beverage.

According to this article, the sale of raw milk is illegal in some fashion in 42 states, and, naturally, it's against Federal law to transport it across state lines in order to sell it, ostensibly for "safety reasons", although raw milk from healthy cows processed in a sanitary facility is just as benign as treated milk, the author correctly notes.

It would almost be laughable, if the consequences for the producers weren't so serious:

"late last year an Ohio raw milk co-op was raided at gunpoint by sheriffs' deputies. And state officials regularly try to shut down dairies that sell raw milk."

That's right, Ohio residents - your tax dollars went to fund a dangerous armed paramilitary raid of the equivalent of a milk speakeasy. Seem like a rational decision?

I didn't think so.

Texas Rep. Ron Paul (a physician who presumably knows a thing or two about human health) has introduced legislation to repeal the ban at the Federal level. We wish him success in restoring the right of free Americans to purchase whatever it is that they wish to drink. After all, as one activist puts it,

"'People have the legal right to drink it,' says Pete Kennedy, interim president [of the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund]. 'The problem is finding ways to enable them to exercise their right.'"


If the Messiah and his Congressional cronies get their way, these kinds of heavy-handed governmental overreaches into every aspect of one's everyday life will soon become the norm, instead of the exception.