Being that the only people looking at my work is my family and friends, it was decided an epilogue would be beneficial for viewers as non-libertarians will not likely know what the content is even about. Of course, this particular issue is pretty straight-forward, but perhaps I’ll go back and write an epilogue for Negative Interest Rates after this gets published. In this issue (No. 2), Spilled Milk; or, H.R. 1830: Pasteurizing the Fed, The Undisputed Champion for Liberty fights off the Food & Drug Administrator who is torturing a family of dairy farmers and their customers. The epilogue discussed above is designed to walk you through the story and clear up some ambiguity for one who may not have entertained certain uncommon sociopolitical philosophies and dilemmas.
Woe to the fathers of breast-fed newborn babies, for they have no use and, what’s worse, they do not have the luxury of deflecting into resentment of mothers related to irrational irritations caused by hormones the placenta has stopped requiring. Yes, there is the postpartum depression, lack of sleep, rehabilitation of the body, and, of course, the swelling breasts, which surely no man could entertain a rational thought under such circumstances, but this is the effeminate power or feminine strength, and the men remain blameless in the eyes of the woman, which, in certain cases such as my own, inflicts a feeling of guilt. The point is, men are as useless as their nipples, to literalize the age-old idiom, when it comes to the breastfeeding of newborns.
The first story loosely depicts an autobiographical account of the difficulty breast-feeding. However, it is my contention that the trials and tribulations of breast-feeding is something relatable to all nursing mothers if only for lack of sleep and bosom swelling. The fact most hospitals employ a lactation nurse (nurses strictly there to educate and assess lactation and infant nutrition), is testament to the difficulty that comes with breastfeeding. Woe to the mothers without a dread-locked flip-flopped patchouli-smelling lactation nurse, for we did not stereotype them this way but yet somehow satisfied some subconscious confirmation bias. It is a strain on the body, and that is without considering the stubborn babies, latching issues, et cetera. Not going to lie about it. After the birth of our first baby, my wife cried after being unable to breast-feed, but our baby was premature and needed to gain weight and she didn’t produce enough milk. The second one had all kinds of allergies and took seemingly forever to get to the right kind of milk (status post multiple physician evaluations). The third baby was crying a lot and didn’t hit his birthweight in the allotted time. I finally said to my wife, “He’s crying because he’s hungry,” just like in the comic. Which went over like male mammal mammaries—udderly (sic) useless utility. Of course, I got the reaction that all ingrate degenerates should get (just like depicted in the comic). So, I tried showing some empathy and told her there was no shame in it (you’ve already read it). The rest of the story is based on the LibertyReport episode, Washington’s War on Food is Making Us Sick! with Guest Liz Reitzig1 and supposed to resemble the guest’s story. The alternate title (H.R. 1830) is named after the bill introduced by Dr. Ron Paul2 (for the third time, I believe). To anyone interested in some of the politics and situations, this video is great.
Now, as for the subject of banning raw milk, I’m just going to be honest here: I keep rewriting and trying to produce a well put together scholarly argument, and I just cannot help becoming completely bored with it. It keeps getting longer and longer, and what am I really talking about here? Legalizing unpasteurized milk? I am going to be blunt here: I don’t drink raw milk, until this LibertyReport I didn’t even know it was illegal, I didn’t know there was a market for it, and, quite frankly, I don’t care about raw milk. So, how is it that I feel so strongly about something that does not concern me? Especially considering (possibly an unknown fact about me) I am so critical of those who seem to have an opinion about everything (many times contradictory of their own lifestyle). The simple answer: liberty, but I’ll summarize the facts which led me to the conclusions I have made. I’ll start with the arguments that I do not care about.
- As with all agricultural regulations, the decision for outlawing unpasteurized milk is under the guise of health risks. In a study3 covering a 13-year period, of all the dairy-bourne disease outbreaks, 60% were linked to raw milk. Call it a “Rona bias” as we are accustomed, at this time, numbers related to Corona virus, but this does not seem like a particularly impressive number to me, 73 out of 121 outbreaks over 13-year period? Was the government like, “Well, we have to outlaw something, so we went with the slight majority?” (By the way, raw milk products include cheese and yogurt).
- Now, of the people sick, 239 were hospitalized, and 200 of them were related to raw milk. This surely makes for a more convincing argument (even keeping in mind we’re talking about an average of a little over 15 people per year), but what are we really talking about here? Salmonella? E. Coli? We’re essentially dealing with abdominal pain, nausea, bloody diarrhea, and dehydration at its worst—fluids, antibiotics, these are all fairly cheap and easy treatments. Certain antiemetic therapies can get expensive, but they don’t have to be. We’re essentially dealing with dysentery, which is a serious leading cause of death in the world4, because countries without clean water (which is actually typically the cause) cannot hydrate people. Not a huge problem for Americans. Furthermore, the most virulent of the infections, antibiotics is not even recommended for!
- However, 59% were children under 5. 28% were related to shigella toxin producing e. coli and can lead to kidney failure. These treatments are maybe not so cheap; we’re looking at dialysis, possible blood transfusions, and long-term effects or even death (three people died). However, I have to say, even with the inflated prices with our monopolized healthcare industry, I still have no problem contributing to these treatments for a 5-year and under patient.
- Finally—the kicker—of the outbreaks, 81 % were from states where it is legal5. Now, I am not going to get into the lessons taken home from the recent pandemic in healthcare (COVID-19 issue coming next, more below), but suffice to say “saving people” is not always the best goal. This was the reasoning the CDC gave to continue with the milk ban, but I am not convinced that this is such a good argument. Are they implying that where unpasteurized milk is legal there is more consumption of it? Or that there is less rigid standards? I am not sure, but it does imply that consumers of raw milk seem to be a law-abiding community. The idea that they’re saving lives by enforcing these laws do not take into consideration all that goes wrong during raids and such (more on that later).
- The CDC’s anecdotal videos6 from people who would have never given their family the milk if they knew how sick it could make them is a little contrived. People grieving with guilt because they made their family member sick by giving them raw milk is a bit one-sided—if they would have become ill from pasteurized milk and they had no idea that could happen, would they feel that strongly? Or any food for that matter? Maybe, maybe not. A lot of the risk/value assessments people are doing (whether correct or not) are, at the least, understandable and written in an intelligible.
Just to prove the position I am taking on this and the way I deliver it is not based in some stubborn narrow-minded, “don’t tread on me”, bitter, “you don’t need driver’s licenses to drive”, “militia-types” stereotypical libertarian fashioned claim (this can sometimes sound just as ludicrous as any utopic idea), I will share a problem within libertarian philosophy. Libertarians, without diminishing the value of their contributions in political philosophy, are strong on individual rights, voluntary contracts, and written law, as they should be. However, sooner or later (hopefully sooner because that would mean that this philosophy is being applied institutionally and garnering popularity), libertarians will have to deal with the fact that social contracts and individual circumstance for grievances will be subject to “common law”, or that which is customary for the peoples’ demographic. As Bob Murphy puts it, “To a certain extent, when someone sits down at a restaurant, they do expect that the food prepared will not make them sick.” The individual circumstances surrounding a farmer who sold unpasteurized milk would include the number of people, warnings, verbal or written contracts, and pretty much every other thing that does not have a written law attached to it. However, in a way, these laws protect farmers by either a) driving their raw milk underground (to the black market) or b) falling back on the legalities of the substance implying the afflicted party should have known there is a risk associated with consumption of unpasteurized milk (which I discovered they do get into on the episode after rewatching it).
I hope this proves that I am not naïve of the fact that a purely libertarian society does not provide elimination of social problems altogether, but, before I move on, I do feel compelled to express that I feel these situations could and should be handled civilly (not criminally, unless, of course, it was deemed some type of fraud was committed) with cheap and speedy legal recourse based on the individual circumstance. All I mean to say is, I realize this is not a utopic solution. I mean, true libertarians know the idea of a “utopia” is bologna anyway, but I will concede that some arguments can come across that way. It is also true that constitution gives authority to congress to regulate interstate commerce: a much-abused clause but a clause, nonetheless. And, you know Dr. Paul would never introduce a bill that was not constitutional or step on state’s rights.
That being said, I gots to be the afore mentioned libertarian: It’s milk. I do not see how outlawing milk, spending money to shut down farmers, and all that is consistent with a free society… I don’t know what else to say. People think if a law saves one person, then it is worthy of enforcing and think nothing could possibly go wrong. If this is not understood, go ask George Floyd what could go wrong. Oh, he’s dead. Go ask the officer that killed him; oh, he’s in prison. Which, counterfeiting should be enforced7, but the government lets the Federal Reserve counterfeit by the trillions and encourages them to do so (rich white bankers I might add)! That’s the government for you, stand there and watch as people raze the city, burn your business, and hurt people, but you better believe they’ll be there to step on some crackhead’s neck for counterfeiting or arrest perpetrators that don’t pasteurize their milk. In the LibertyReport of discussion, Liz Reitzig, states no one has been imprisoned to her knowledge, and (not trying to demagogue or rattle nerves) I just have to wonder how many black dairy farmers there are. That’s what this country has come to. Do they even tell us we have freedom anymore?
When I wrote this (long as we’re being honest), I was under the impression that Dr. Paul was successful in passing this bill. Hence, the segment where The Undisputed Champion for Liberty is explaining it’s “legal now.” I wasn’t sure how to end the story, though; the whole premise of the comic is based on the fact that Dr. Paul never bends or waivers and hits you with truths that have remained true since the seventies, but no one ever listens to him, he is nonviolent and promotes peace, and none of the powers that be take him serious even though he is right about everything time and time again. If you notice, he only uses violence in self-defense, but I can’t just have him kill the bad guy and he also cannot win the war (just the battle). All I knew, was that The Champion for Liberty was going to swoop down on his bald eagle chopper after donning his star-spangled spartan helmet wielding his “Gold Standard” baseball bat like a spear to save the day. That’s when a friend sent me an article about how the FDA shut down a hospital in Michigan for advertising they were doing high-dose vitamin C to fight COVID with successful results. Also, this was a nice segue to the next issue: Mark of the Beast, which is the COVID-19 issue.
Citations:
1. Ron Paul Liberty Report (2017). Washington’s war on food is making us sick! with guest star Liz Reitzig. Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NiSQ-ssxTnM&list=WL&index=19&t=605s on 9/6/2021.2. Govtrack (2011).H.R. 1830 (112th): To authorize the interstate traffic of unpasteurized milk and milk products that are packaged for direct human consumption. Retrieved from: https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/112/hr1830 on 9/6/2021.3. . Langer, A. J., Ayers, T., Grass, J., Lynch, M., Angulo, F. J., & Mahon, B. E. (2012). Nonpasteurized Dairy Products, Disease Outbreaks, and State Laws—United States, 1993–2006. Emerging Infectious Diseases, 18(3), 385-391. https://doi.org/10.3201/eid1803.111370.4. Ranked #9 in 2016, by WHO, and over 60% in low-income countries: https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/the-top-10-causes-of-death5. Mungai, E. A., Behravesh, C., & Gould, L. (2015). Increased Outbreaks Associated with Nonpasteurized Milk, United States, 2007–2012. Emerging Infectious Diseases, 21(1), 119-122. https://doi.org/10.3201/eid2101.140447.6. CDC (2017) Real stories of the dangers of raw milk. Food Safety. Retrieved from: https://www.cdc.gov/foodsafety/rawmilk/raw-milk-videos.html on 9/6/2021.7. George Floyd’s alleged crime police were investigating before he was killed.