Government officials came hard after Amos Miller, an Amish farmer selling raw milk among a huge variety of other products. For many years, he has provided for the community through a private membership association, like a country club for people who want healthy food. In the whole course of doing business, there hasn’t been a single report of sickness or any other problem.
The Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture came after him anyway for not having the right permits. They confiscated tens of thousands of dollars of food and shut him down. A judge looking at the case ruled for the government, which was also acting in cooperation with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which represented large corporate agricultural interests.
This had nothing to do with health, obviously. It’s all about large business using lawfare to shut down the competition. Such organic farming practices are becoming annoying to the big guys because more and more people are interested.
It seems that the grim COVID-19 experience changed the opinions of multitudes. No longer are government agents trusted in their claims to be defending our health. The mRNA shots were the straw that broke the camel’s back. They forced them on millions who didn’t need them even if they were effective and safe, which they were not. That was it. People are no longer putting up with it.
I made my way to a local farm I had never visited that sells raw milk. I was startled to walk in the door to the store and find myself standing next to cows everywhere. That’s not exactly what I expected. The milk from those very animals is collected each morning and put in jugs sold to customers. The only thing is that the refrigerator was completely empty.
I had arrived at noon. The nice owner walked in and I asked. She said that her milk sells out within 10 minutes every day. There is a line that develops outside the barn door an hour before she opens. Many people leave disappointed. This happens every day. I asked when this began. She said it started after the COVID-19 controls, when it became clear to people that something was fishy about the whole government regulatory/healthy machine. Now, she cannot possibly keep up with demand.
Many other independent farmers around the country are saying the same thing.
So you see what’s happening here. They cannot possibly shut everyone down, so they are going after one of the more conspicuous and popular producers in the country, as an example to the others. It’s all about flexing muscle: “We are in charge!”
This is a particularly egregious example because it attacks the very core of American enterprise. This country was founded and built by yeoman farmers and families living on the land and feeding the community. Thomas Jefferson used to opine that this model of agricultural provision was essential to freedom because these people, more than anyone else, had the strongest investment in true freedom and the desire to defend it.
Personally, and looking back in time, I never really took that view very seriously. Like many others of my ideological ilk, I believed that urbanization and industry were the way of progress. With that of course came an uncritical celebration of digital media and all the companies that ushered in the age of the internet. Those companies have now betrayed the American people by becoming regime spooks that work hand in glove with ruling-class power brokers.
What does this new dawning reality tell us? Well, it was not too many years ago that the main cheerleaders for raw milk, organic produce, and small farmers were what we called “crunchy liberals.” They went to all the farmers’ markets and hung out with the natural-food people. I took the cues from my political ideology and laughed at them. I saw them as rich and privileged, indulging some weird affectation and rejecting modern capitalism. For that, I cannot apologize enough.
The “crunchy liberals” were right, and I was wrong. And yet most of the people in the pro-organic camp went all in for lockdowns and vaccine mandates. Why? I cannot say that I understand, but it has something to do with hating on President Donald Trump or something. The lockdowns were seen as a repudiation of the Trump administration and the shots were regarded as inoculation against right-wing ideology. Only a historian of religion can fully understand this.
Now, when you read the corporate media on the Amos Miller case, they all suggest that this farmer is a bad man for defying the government and that his cause is being taken up by people on the far right! Can you imagine? The facts of the case are completely unchanged; only the ideological orientation of the defenders of independent farming has changed.
Or maybe it hasn’t changed. I don’t know. I can only observe this: The old categories of left and right don’t make much sense anymore, if they ever did. On that point, I do wonder to what extent these neat belief packages were invented for us and shoved down our throats to get us to turn against each other rather than see the real enemy, which is very clearly the government/corporate combine that is conspiring against all freedom and human rights to engorge itself and crush all opposition.
There seems to be a new freedom movement forming, one that is far more sophisticated than anything that has preceded it. It consists of the following:
1. People demanding educational freedom in the form of homeschool/hybrid/choice options and/or parental control of local public schools for which they pay, as against administrative state impositions and crazed curriculum agendas of woke activists.
2. Medical freedom people who demand the right to go their own way against Pharma monopolies and their connected bureaucracies, and that includes fully informed consent plus a default emancipation from all vaccine mandates.
3. Food freedom people who are sick of highly regulated and cartelized trash coming from most all industrialized supply chains and favoring traditional methods of farming that reject chemicals and methods mandated by the bureaucracies, and that includes grass-fed livestock, raw milk, and farm-to-table produce provided by independent producers.
4. Second Amendment people who believe that staying armed is an essential right of the people. They are determined never to let that be infringed. Every threat to gun rights recruits more into this camp, with millions and millions joining at all levels of society.
5. Independent contractors who are trying to stay away from the government’s grip and are determined to stop the efforts to rope them into the regime’s favorite schemes for business and payroll.
6. Scientists and doctors who dissented against the COVID-19 regime.
7. Some peace activists who are fed up with the American empire, which funds both sides of every war to sell munitions and rebuilding services.
8. Small businesses working against the big-boxization of American enterprise.
9. Principled civil libertarians who are fighting for free speech.
10. Religious people who take seriously the injunction that they will give to God what belongs to God, and that means their worship and their practice of their chosen faith.
The fights are in the courts, on social media, in the rush to independent publishing venues, and otherwise roiling up in all parts of American life. The key to all these groups is an uncompromising commitment and a willingness to exercise moral courage against the hegemon.
Notice that these groups defy normal categorizations of old-style left and right. This is why these categories no longer explain much at all about the ideological landscape of the emerging political situation. Also, note that religious commitment and the demand for the freedom to live one’s faith play a strong role in each group.
It’s exciting to watch these disparate groups work to claw back their rights. They face difficult odds, as the attacks on basic freedoms are escalating and hitting all sectors of our lives. Indeed the more victories that the good guys win, the more the bad guys intensify their crackdown.
A beautiful thing about our current age is that our loyalties are becoming ever more obvious to one and all. Cases like that affecting Mr. Miller provide a perfect template for understanding. If you stand with this farmer, that’s a very good sign that you understand the stakes and are willing to lend your voice and actions to a great cause.
