Wisconsin demonstrators in support of farmer Vernon Hershberger, at a 2012 food rights rally outside the courthouse.
Four years ago, I sat in a Wisconsin courtroom for a hearing I was certain would land raw-milk farmer Vernon Hershberger in jail. I wasn’t alone in that belief—more than 100 of his supporters sat in that courtroom as well. We had agreed among ourselves beforehand that if Hershberger was sent to jail, we weren’t leaving unless and until we were arrested.
As it turned out, through a complicated series of maneuvers, Hershberger convinced the judge not to jail him, and his supporters didn’t have to follow through with the sit-in.
Why were we prepared to face jail on behalf of a farmer most of us had little in common with? We were mostly urban, college educated, and non-farmers, while Hershberger was raised as an Amish farmer with limited formal education, and different religious customs.
I can’t speak for others in that courtroom, but I know why I was willing to put myself on the line: To me, food freedom, the right to buy the foods of our choice, and for farmers to provide those foods, is a basic human right. It’s a right as fundamental as religious freedom, press freedom, freedom of speech, and freedom of assembly.
It’s not a right a farmer loses if he’s “a liberal” or “a libertarian”, or if he is friends with foreigners from Iran, or if he inadvertently sold you a half gallon when you asked for a gallon of milk. In other words, there are no excuses to deny him, or us, our food freedom.
I bring this up because I have been watching as people I know who are serious supporters of food freedom, now show much less seriousness about protecting other basic human rights. This isn’t about who won or lost the election. And it isn’t idle speculation, given the threats being made on a number of our basic rights. Some reasons I worry that food freedom supporters are selective in the rights they’ll push to uphold:
— When I express concern about infringements on freedom of the press because the President threatens to severely punish journalists via tough libel laws, or scapegoats journalists as “the most dishonest human beings on earth,” any number of food rights supporters say journalists deserve punishment because some of their reporting has been inaccurate, or the journalists seemed biased. Yet the Constitution’s First Amendment provides for no exceptions.
— When millions of women used their freedom of assembly recently to gather in huge numbers in Washington and other cities, any number of food freedom supporters were all over them. These food freedom supporters were aghast because some of the speakers said disgusting things. They thought some of the demonstrators carried signs with messages inappropriate for children. These food rights supporters said the women shouldn’t have been out there demonstrating, they should have been home with their families. Yet the First Amendment’s freedom of assembly provision provides for no such exceptions, and over the years, Nazis, Ku Klux Klansmen, communists, and others have assembled and demonstrated on American streets based on its provisions.
— Now that our government is singling out Muslims for exclusion from immigration, the same thing is happening. Any number of food freedom supporters are backing the exclusion, despite the ban in our Constitution of religious tests, and discrimination based on religion and race.
Over the last few weeks, several bloggers here have told me, publicly and privately, that I should limit myself to writing about raw milk and other food freedom matters, and leave “the politics” alone. They seem to be saying I should just pipe up when the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is trying to make raw milk cheese illegal. Or just speak up when the U.S. Centers for Disease Control tries to blame a raw dairy farmer for questionable illnesses.
On that last point, I and others are still working to help that farmer, Amos Miller, who is involved in a complicated and tedious court case brought by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. We are making progress.
But I can tell you that his food freedom, our food freedom, is contingent on these other rights. Journalists like myself can only report on his case if we are free to write the truth. No exceptions. The farmer needs to be able to call for public demonstrations on his behalf, if the circumstances call for it. People at that demonstration need to be able to speak out as they see fit, even if the comments might make some people uncomfortable. He needs to know that his religion isn’t a source of bias against him by the judicial and regulatory system.
It seems clear we are entering a period when basic human rights will be tested. My view is they come together as a package. We can’t allow some and not others. We can’t allow them to apply to some people and not to others.
This poem, by Pastor Martin Niemoller, growing out of the Nazi terror, explains better than I can why it’s so important we stand together in defense of our basic human rights, regardless of other disagreements we might have about politics:
First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.
oh, cry me a river : David-come-lately I strongly advise you to study the history of the free Press …. Being one of the liberal Eastern American Liberal Establishment … coddled and swaddled with un-earned privilege for far, far too long …. you’re finding out out what REALLY happens when the dissident genuinely speaks Truth to Power. The incestuous Pigs in Power are squealing… now that the smell in the air is of their own bacon frying … If you perceived corruption, before now, you are getting your eyes opened as to how unspeakably wicked the Monster is.
Neimoller’s cry from the heart was one of the staples of anti-abortion literature, whilst your ilk at the New York Times vilified us as “extremists” for practicing freedom of expression that = suddenly! = is so precious. What were you doing, Mister Gumpert, to preserve freedom of the Press back in the day when my friends were beaten up / hauled away to prison, by thugs in uniforms of the State, for simply standing on a public sidewalk, expressing our opinion that govt. funds ought not to be paying for elective surgery, ie. – killing a child in the womb? You applauded the F.A.C.E Act, dintcha
10,000 people were on the front lines of the civil rights movement of the 1960s : even though +40,000 citizens have out on the streets,and in American + Canadian gaols, for the last quarter century, witnessing against the genocide of unborn children … you’d never know that from what the lame-stream media ever publishes.
there is a time and place for civil disobedience ending up in gaol. Having sat in a cell a couple of times me-self, I advise people NOT to go, if they don’t have to. But for you, Mr Gumpert, I’ll make an exception. From what I can see of your sentiments, you’re looking UP at a very steep learning curve as to the price payed for Freedom … it’s going to take such a “baptism of fire” before you really ‘get it’. … now you’re finding out that freedom of expression belongs to those who practice it.
Thank you, Watson, for reminding of yet another excuse that’s thrown out there: “Where was the media when this or that terrible event was happening?” As if to argue, “The press wasn’t there, or was arguing against me, therefore, they forfeited the guarantee of a free press.” Sorry, that’s not how it works.
Love your line, “Being one of the liberal Eastern American Liberal Establishment … coddled and swaddled with un-earned privilege for far, far too long…” Thought you were describing your Fuhrer.
Yes, even despicable racists and misogynists like you are entitled to the entire package of rights, Watson.
I am NOT sorry to tell you that that IS how it works, in the rough and tumble of genuine activism. Obviously you’ve spent too much time in the hothouse of the lapdog media… you have no idea – yet – as to what how it goes at street level.
this-here court-certified “long-time political activist” earned the media I got, back in the day, by going out and challenging the Powers-that-Be in the real world … as opposed to the luxurious safe space corporate media sycophants enjoyed for too long. So save your simpering condescension til after you’ve actually done something worth writing home about. Your heroine Hilary, sicc’d the US Attorney General on me and my friends, alleging that we were ALL involved in a vast CRIMINAL conspiracy for the sake of what you are just beginning to appreciate is asserting our right to engage in politics. When your efforts for press freedom get that kind of attention, I’ll take you seriously. … “til then, you’re just another social justice snowflake.
as for your knee-jerk pejorative “racist” … I much prefer “race realist”. You can look it up in the NY Times style guide.
“Misogynist” ? yeah, the classic = “woman hater” = because I oppose the killing of children in the womb, particularly, tax dollars mis-spent on supposedly! elective surgery. Out there on the street, one of the best arguments we had, was, presenting how the Jews were de-humanized before they were murdered wholesale, in the 3rd Reich, along with how Hilary Clinton’s gang in office depersonalized unborn children, babies so they could be butchered for parts by Planned Barrenhood. See the similarity?
One of these days – if it’s appropriate – I’ll relate the time I stood my ground against 2 Hell’s Angels, WITH their colours on, who tried to run me off the sidewalk as I was pamphleteering outside the office of abortionist Garson Romalis. When I took out a pen and paper and got their licence #s, they fled. The Pen really is mightier than the Sword. Point being = I payed the price for the right to speak. You have yet to get your boots on.
your blog started out as The Complete Patient, concerned with business aspects of the medical system. When we broke the story of Planned Parenthood butchering babies and selling the parts, in 1994, we thought that commodification of human parts and materials was a blockbuster of a story ; But the lame-stream media – that’d be you – refused to touch it for 23 years.
See if you can muster the integrity to answer the question : did you approve the F.A.C.E Act, or not? Point being : people like went to gaol for simply asserting our right to a free press, in one of those no-free-speech zones … I find it more than a bit ironic, you coming along, bleating like you’re The Great Champion of free speech. “A bit late”, is the essence of my critique of your latest essay.
Abortion is in the bible. God advises how you should abort a child of your wife if she strays from the husband.(book of Numbers) God is probably the biggest abortionist having wiped out an entire planet of people along with their “unborn” children. Jesus never mentions anything about abortion. Most anti-abortion people seem to think they have their christian bible on their side. They do not. Planned Parenthood does not use gov’t money for abortion and very little of their service is abortion. Mostly it is women’s healthcare, contraception. Trump became a born again anti-abortion politician when he saw it would serve him. He was quite pro-choice (probably utilizing the services of doctors for his own mistresses) prior to his run for office. You love Herr Trump who has cut off funding for countries providing abortion EXCEPT for Israel that has government funded abortion and women serving in their army. Why have we not cut off funding to Israel? Our leaders are anti-abortion when it serves their needs. If you triumph and mold the world as it should be in YOUR eyes, you will never ever ever end abortion. It will ALWAYS be available for those with the funds(like your president and his past and future mistresses) and it will drive the rest underground to dangerous practitioners. Abortion has been around before Christ was even a word and will always be around. What you want is CONTROL over women and their bodies. That is what this is about. It urks you that you can’t have that. These same “Pro-lifers” think nothing of demanding the death penalty for others or sending soldiers to kill for them(often in God’s name). So much for all life is sacred.
God doesn’t need your help. It’s clear that you haven’t learned the lessons of the new testament by your previous writings. You’re still stuck in the old.
Bob, many of your comments are off, but I’ll comment on a few of them…
“Very little of Planned Parenthood services involve abortion” –> See this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtgqxvaV-8U
“It will ALWAYS be available for those with the funds and it will drive the rest underground to dangerous practitioners.” –> Countries that made abortion illegal like Poland, Ireland and Chile have better outcomes for maternal mortality than we do with unlimited abortion.
“What you want is CONTROL over women and their bodies.” –> As someone who is pro-life, I believe that what women do with their own body is up to them, but the child inside her should have rights too. What about the women in the womb, remember half of the babies are girls.
“These same “Pro-lifers” think nothing of demanding the death penalty for others or sending soldiers to kill for them.” –> Most pro-lifers I know believe that the death penalty is wrong too in a country where dangerous criminals can be safely kept out of society, but I think we all know we’re not comparing apples to apples here. An innocent person inside their Mom is quite different from a criminal or a serviceperson willingly standing up to protect others.
“Jesus never mentions anything about abortion.” –> Jesus DID talk about the value of all children in Matthew 18.
“So much for all life is sacred.” Yes it is, even those who have had abortions need forgiveness and love and mercy, because afterward they’ll be hurting a long long time after they were convinced that ending their pregnancy was best. Sadly, you don’t hear about these lifelong scars from those shouting ‘women’s rights’.
I really don’t want to get into a “can you top this” thing about who participated in more daring demonstrations. Put it this way: I have smelled tear gas and looked down the wrong end of guns being held by the police. I’m also not going to get into an argument with you or anyone else about abortion rights, except to say that it has been a terribly painful issue for far too many years, and of course I support the right of people to demonstrate on either side of the matter. It is so painful and controversial we haven’t even been able to figure out how to draw the lines so people can exercise their right of free assembly. The courts have tried hard to be reasonable (at least in the U.S.) to ensure protest doesn’t become threat and harassment of women considering or having abortions. But you go off the deep end when you try to equate the mass murder of Jews and others by the Germans with abortion.
Gordon, I find it funny when you brag about your activism (don’t bother disagreeing…it IS bragging) as though you were some demi-god for having marched somewhere over something or other. I have found over the last 45 or so years, since I started paying attention to such things in my teens, that most “protests” you like to brag about and hold out as so great are usually well organized, well funded, and well lawyered ahead of time, so if anyone gets arrested they are out faster than they went in, and if there is a bruise or two? Well, cause for a lawsuit against the police that will get settled by somw agency and you make some good coin.
What is a REAL protest, one I can respect? The person who simply goes quietly about their business, doing what ir right even if against some stupid rule or law, knowing the risk they take but knowing that doing right is the correct choice.
Rosa Parks comes to mind. THAT was protest. The crap you describe is well funded political posturing.
I agree with you wholeheartedly, Bob Hayles … I use the bragging as a way to push-back against what I perceive as children, calling out to each other on a playground … meaning, the snowflakes who go on about their “rights”, never ‘having heard a shot fired in anger’.
You are correct about all that organized posturing, in the 1990s. But I was the “loose canon of the (so-called) Pro_life effort in BC, back then … thrown into it by accident. I would not quit after being deeply insulted by the way I and my friends were mis-treated, for simply trying to have our say. My main issue was, and continues to be : Freedom of Speech
I’d much rather NOT talk about artificial ‘bortion in this raw milk forum. I did so, only because it galls me seeing people fold-in to the discourse their take on it, then flee the field when they cannot deal with the Truth of the matter. ..retorting that I am “misogynist” and all the rest of the trite taunts. One of these days I’ll get around to writing my book, explaining what I found out in that fray : that there is a generations-long conspiracy at the very highest levels, to exterminate the white race. Co-ordinated by the Roman Catholic Church, to further ecumenicism = the one-world religion in which it has pre-eminence. Of course those ideas are too big for most people to wrap deir minds around … so those of us who proclaimed it were criminalized. To understand the enormity of the wickedness of the Enemy, start by locating the Kalergi-Couvenhoven Plan. The Protocols of the Elders of Zion are a forgery, yes, but in that work the Enemy lays out their plans. One of which, is = depriving us of nutrition, so as to make us ill, so the racketeers can paralyze the nation with pharmacopeia. Availability of REAL MILK frustrates that part of the Agenda
Of course I certainly Do support David Gumpert and those with whom I disagree, as to defending our rights … What I encountered on the front-lines of the anti-abortion conflict, was : a pack of Femi-nazi mutts in full throat, same people out there causing chaos today, who despise the constitution. Yet that’s the crowd whom David Gumpert / Mark McAffee would have you believe are the “real Americans”
as for Saint Rosa … go read the history of what actually went on then. The whole thing was pre-arranged well in advance, with a couple of trial runs. And – just like you say – sophisticated lawyers standing by. The apotheosis of Rosa Parks was a major accomplishment of the Communist Party USA, which had pronounced in 1905 how it would play the Race card, to destroy white Christian America. Go read the FBI file on Martin Luther King, and you’ll be startled with the contrast between the myth and the man
I totally agree with you about the private citizen who continues doing what’s right even in jeopardy of trouble … which is why I often ended my screeds on this forum, blessing the people who are out there in the barn tonight, doing the chores, ensuring that the REAL MILK is flowing, because that part of the work is crucial for securing the existence of our people and a future for white children.
David… I was sitting in Wisconsin while we heard the testimony of Hershberg and pledged our support including a pledge to go to jail.
On Sunday, I spoke at a rally at Fresno International Airport when we condemned the illegal exclusion of Green Card carrying Americans.
I too am very concerned about the bigoted Right Wing voices that speak here. Some cowardly even with out names. Yes… This is America and the right to speak is protected.
When I protested on Sunday, I felt so welcomed and so good. It was the best of America coming to speak our hearts and condemn Trumps unvetted, incomplete, and poorly considered knee jerk reactive polices. The signed said…. Ban Trump, impeach Trump, welcome home fellow Americans,
It was a welcoming and warm community of citizens standing up to Alternative Facts and a Dictator mascarading as a president.
The hard voices of the right wing bigots here are the saddest and most pathetic people. I urge those filled with hate to travel to other countries and become a citizen of the world. America is not an island. We are critically dependent on trade with other countries and we depend
on free movement of people that can travel between countries.
To make this real, dried powdered milk values have just dropped because of trade issues with Mexico. This is a direct result of Trumps stupidity with Mexico. This brought down milk prices for American dairy farmers.
Trump is dangerous. Trump is a narcissistic dictator that is operating outside normal ethical and moral standards of conduct.
The right wing Breitbar voices are prehitler. David. I stand with you as you contend with the filth that crawls around here.
you finally made some sense, Mister McAffee after that hysterical fit crescendoing at the Inauguration. Today’s post articulates the essence of THE issue that got Donald Trump elected = white Christian Americans came out in force, to repudiate globalism. That notion which presumes every person has some kind of right to tread on the territory of every other nation.
as for calling your political opponents “filth” … man, that’s another indication how badly your mental health has degenerated since = August 2016 = when you were smugly pronouncing on this forum how you ‘never talk about politics or religion’. You’ve got a lot of introspection to do, in order to get back to that frame of mind
“normal ethical and moral standards of conduct” … you hit that nail on the head, too. It is indeed a moral issue ; the Christians versus the anti-christians. Apparently you’ve made your bed … don’t come crying to me when you are forced to lie in it
comically, you-all ‘way out there with all the commies, have an enormous blind-spot : you don’t grasp the fact that the more you vilify the Trump as he plays his role as the White Champion, the more his constituents rally ’round him.
Mark,
In your endeavor to become a citizen of the world I urge you to begin by visiting Afganistan.
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/21/world/asia/us-soldiers-told-to-ignore-afghan-allies-abuse-of-boys.html
Mark,
The real crime in the above article I referenced for you is not only The United States military’s indifference to the abuse of young boys on American military bases in Afghanistan, but also, its decision to discipline and ruin the career of those soldiers who stood up in defense of the young boys being abused.
I agree with Republican Representative Duncan Hunter from California who is quoted in the New York Times article, “The Army contends that Martland and others should have looked the other way (a contention that I believe is nonsense)”.
You might also want to consider listening to and consider what this immigration lawyer has to say about this perceived “Muslim ban,”
http://www.therebel.media/trump_s_executive_order_not_a_muslim_ban_immigration_lawyer
Hi David,
If you take a step back, I believe this blog is really about persuasion.
(I could be wrong about this)
You are trying to persuade the reader to support the statements that are made in this blog.
This blog started out persuading people to support the persecuted individuals/families that provide real food to real people…
This persuasion worked very well in moving people to support Vernon & many others across the country.
Your current writings are also persuading people….
….your readers are getting upset with what you are writing.
….These writings are causing your readers to become more and more divided…not united…
Note: persuasion *always* works…but is the response what you expected?
How persuasive have these past posts in moving folks around the country to support your cause???
I have found this topic of persuasion fascinating…especially in the era of President Trump.
For those interested, take a look at Scott Adam’s blog and other topics about persuasion….
Excellent points, Bill. I’d only distinguish between “persuasion” and what I see as this blog’s primary purpose–education. I’ve been working to educate people about food rights as a growing issue. Do I get off target sometimes? Absolutely.
David: Well spoken, and you’re absolutely right. If we don’t sharpen our pitchforks we will lose these fundamental rights, which the last three administrations have eroded, especially the last two. Trump may very well be a danger to them, but he is certainly correct in calling out the New York times, WaPo, and the rest of them for their purveying of fake news and propaganda. What they do is not journalism. Ask Sharyl Attkisson what a working journalist is and isn’t allowed to look into and publish. Both her work and home computers were hacked by our own government (not the Russkies!) in a very sophisticated operation, and the DOJ is sitting on the investigation. Every American has the right to see their FBI file, but they are stonewalling her request to see hers. It is the crap that goes on under the radar which is far more dangerous than the stuff the public sees. As for the travel ban, this isn’t the first time Trump shot himself in the foot, and won’t be the last. I see George Soros, the Clintons, and the rest of the political elite as greater dangers than Trump. As for you, exercise your right and speak out! Your blog always has something worthwhile to say, and it has an important positive impact on food rights.
The press via its selective restrictions as to what people can do or say, (similar to the Catholic Church’s Index Librorum Prohibitorum), has abused and suppressed freedom of speech and expression. Their knee jerk response however, to Trump and the republican parties’ travel restriction placed on individuals coming from a handful of specified Muslim nations as a ban against Islam is the latest example of manipulating reality to suit their political bias.
Trump is also correct in calling out high-level bureaucrats who attempt to manipulate elected politicians to forego on promises they made to the electorate. This has been an ongoing problem… Politicians make promises to get elected then once in office there is a change of heart, in large part due to the influence of bureaucrats who think they run the country. Indeed, this is a reflection of top down political governance that needs to… and that Trump promised to end.
Gary,
I have been following the case below for some time now and I am curious as to whether or not you are familiar with it.
http://preventdisease.com/news/17/012717_Biologist-Proves-Measles-Isnt-Virus-Wins-Supreme-Court-Case.shtml
Recently the German Federal Supreme Court (BGH) ruled in Dr. Stefan Lanka’s favor, that existing scientific literature fails to prove measles to be a virus.
When Dr. Lanka initially lost in a lower court ruling in 2015 and was ordered to pay up, the mainstream media was all over it. Yet despite the fact that he appealed and won in two higher courts, lastly, the German Federal Supreme Court (BGH), I haven’t herd or seen boo in the mainstream media other then Wikipedia’s mention of the second higher court hearing in 2016.
Ken: Thanks for the link. I was not familiar with this case, but I’m not surprised at the verdict. As part of research I’m conducting to inform a series of guest blog posts I’m writing on vaccination, I’m giving myself an introductory course in virology. Prof. Dr. Annette Mankertz of the National Reference Institute for Measles admitted that MV contains ribosomes (the protein production machinery for cells)-so their model couldn’t possibly be a virus, which “consists of a genome, either RNA or DNA, surrounded by a protective protein shell (capsid), which often is surrounded by an envelope consisting of protein and lipid.” But no ribosomes or other cellular components. “Viruses are products of regressive evolution of free living cells (like mitochondria).” And just as we, and all other living forms have a microbiome, we also have a virome. Bacteria and viruses are present in and essential to all living forms; they are “self,” not “other,” and they perform a continual intricate dance with each other and their host, up-regulating and down-regulating genes (epigenetics), which is vital to the health and functioning of plants and animals.
Cognitive dissonance is what occurs in believers when new information contradicts fundamental beliefs (and vaccine “science” is not science at all, but religion, complete with high priests). The media would not report such a thing for this reason, and because they are purveyors of received wisdom, and they don’t want to scare parents into stopping the gravy train by refusing to vaccinate their children.
Gary, I don’t have a problem with Trump calling out the media. Politicians have done that practically since time immemorial. Former VP Spiro Agnew built his brief national political career on being Nixon’s attack dog on the media (till Agnew’s corruption caught up with him and he had to resign). My problem with Trump is when he threatens to restrict or punish journalists, and in effect the Constitution’s First Amendment, with libel legislation designed to get journalists jailed or heavily fined. His demeaning of journalists as human beings is part and parcel of that process.
Sheryl Atkinson’s problems (she’s a former CBS reporter who was fired for seeming to pursue a political agenda) from all I can see are with CBS. She’s free to express her opinions elsewhere, and from what I see, is writing a book due to be published pretty soon. I’m sure there will be no censorship or interference with publication of the book. And that’s part of my point: You, and I, can find endless faults with the mainstream/independent media, with their personnel policies, their business policies, what they choose to cover or not cover. My point is that the government is prohibited from making laws interfering with a free press, so as a society we must accept the fact of the media. Just as many people object to the wide prevalence of firearms in our society, we must accept the fact of the Second Amendment, and its prohibitions from restrictions on access to firearms.
David : Sharyl Attkisson was not fired by CBS. She left CBS because they censored (refused to broadcast) real stories in the real public interest that she had prepared for broadcast. In fact the network brought in a cyber-security team to check her work computer, and they agreed with the two private firms she had hired to examine them, that they had been hacked by the U.S. government. Seems you believe what is probably the NYT “spin” (“seeming to pursue a political agenda”-would you say Woodward and Bernstein were pursuing a political agenda? Or virtually the entire media who shilled for Hillary for months?) In any case, I don’t consider her an op-ed writer (“her opinions”), but an investigative reporter, and a good one. I don’t care who’s toes she, or any other reporter, steps on, I value accuracy. By the way: two t’s and two s’s.
Also, regarding Trump, he would have had to go to the ends of the Earth to find a worse nominee for Agriculture than Sonny Perdue.
From a Georgia farmer…formerly a raw goat dairy farmer and now a producer of heritage pork and Large Black Pig breeding stock…spot on regarding Sonny Perdue. It would be yeoman’s work to find anyone worse. He is OWNED by big agri.
Bob please contact me regarding your pork. We currently buy our beef from an Athens farmer and was getting pork at the Athens farmers market which is now closed until April. We live about 20mi from Athens but will travel to meet you if possible.
Thanks
frank@hyperthinking.us
David,
A few things regarding this post.
I will always support your right as a journalist, just as I did when President Obama went after journalist in a very aggressive manner to the point that Jake Tapper from CNN defended Fox News and vehemently disagreed with President Obama. I guess Jake and the Fox News reporter could have utilized the poem (at the bottom of your post) at that time as well.
I agree and disagree with the EO or Muslim ban, personally I believe that moratorium is a better word. There are over 40 countries in the world that are predeominantly Muslim and 7 are now facing additional scrutiny or a hold on their ability to enter the US for the next 3-6 months. There is good reason to focus on these seven. Yet the other 36 have no such limitations entering the country.
The execution and haste in this order was done poorly to put it mildly with the inclusion of Green card holders being inexcusable and, if not mistaken, has been corrected. This is not the first time immigration has been suspended/slowed for a muslim country, probably not the last.
I will always support your right and agree with you regarding Amos Miller and his rights, then again, I thought the same thing regarding bakers in the NW, they could have used the poem as well. The ability to protest must be protected I believe I am very consistant on this matter. However, I also believe there are good protests that work towards solutions/change and protests that do not achieve this. IMO the latter played a large part in the election of DJT. This belief does not come from or stem from a protest making one, myself inluded, feel uncomfortable. I did find it curious that one of the women at the womans rights march is a big advocate of Sharia law, ironic is an understatement but I digress.
I would challenge you if not flat out disagree with you that we are now entering, in your opinion and apparently due to Trumps election if I understand you correctly, an age of human rights being tested.
That age started a long time ago.
The poem you posted
was referenced in my youth many times as my parents grew up in Europe with their parents being part of the underground route for Jews and Christians escaping the Germans. So I appreciate its significance hopefully it doesn’t lose that significance as other terms have over the last few years. The racist term/label has been so politicized it has lost or is losing its strength.
I will always support food rights and journalist rights but have found, as I communicated to you recently, but am tired of the over the top rhetoric from all sides in politics which is getting worse if at all possible and seemed to be coming here as well. I did want to respond as I thought I may have played a part in your post.
Respectfully
Frank
David, you disappoint.
First, lack of support isn’t exclusive of food rights. 10 years ago, when I went up against the Georgia Secretary of Agriculture over food rights in general and raw milk specifically, you wrote about it.
Second, your Chicken Little reaction to Trump’s election is fine. That is your right. But as a journalist (which I still consider you, though you are skating on thin ice there) you practice sophistry at best, and possibly flat out lie. I cannot see inside your brain to know which.
“Now that our government is singling out Muslims for exclusion from immigration…”
That statement is false.
Before pointing out why, I would point out that those 7 states are sponsors of terrorism NOT because Trump says so but because both Bush and Obama said so, and Obama has bombed 6 of the 7 because of it. Obama also barred Iraqis from entry to the United States for 6 months a few years ago. Back during the Carter administration, failed president Carter banned Iraniaans from entry to the United States as well. Did you get your panties in a bunch then? Did you accuse Obama or Carter of “singling out Muslims for exclusion” then? I didn’t think so.
Let’s look at Trump’s action specifically, and your statement of (your) fact that he is excluding Muslims. Let’s use that too little used thing called logic.
The 10 countries with the largest Muslim populations, in order, are Indonesia, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nigeria, Egypt, Iran, Turkey, Algeria, and Morocco. Those 10 countries have 65% of the world’s Muslims living in them. One…ONE…of Trump’s seven, Iran, is in that top 10, and Iran has only 4.6% of the world’s Muislims.
Now, wouldn’t anyone wanting to “single out Muslims” choose from countries with more Muslims that Trump did? And before you say…claim…that he picked low hanging fruit that would get the least pushback I would submit he could have easily added Turkey and Pakistan to his list as they are arguably just as dangerous a vector for terrorism and several of the others and as good an argument could be made them as any others.
David, you used to be a good journalist. I hope you still are, but you need to get over your Trump Derangement Syndrome.
Oh, and your attempt to subtly equate Trump to Hitler using the Niemoller poem is really beneath you. Its beneath any civilized person.
Bob Hayles
I agree with much of what you said other then your point that David “used to be a good journalist”… In my mind David is still a good journalist. He certainly has tremendous respect for freedom of speech and this is certainly reflected by leeway given to commenters who participate on his blog.
Ken, I didn’t say…or imply…he wasn’t. I said he wasn’t acting like it with his using information that is factually incorrect that is easily checked, information that might be correct in context but that he takes out of context to make a wrong point, or both.
I have always considered David to be a good journalist for the 10 years or so I’ve known him. I just wish he would go back to acting like one.
People wanting into America, no matter what country they are from, who don’t pass the “border patrol/checkpoint charlie” smell test, should not be allowed in. PERIOD. I don’t care if their muslim or French or Irish, I don’t want bad people from anywhere in here if it can be helped/stopped.
This idea that we need only *check out* the muslim’s is absurd. And that, of course, is not what Trump said either. He didn’t say only muslims should be kept out if they don’t vet properly. Where do these ideas get their genesis? He was, as I was, referring to people from all nations.
Trump in his explanation referred to “radical Islamic terrorists,” which is code for Muslims. And if you look at the executive order, it exempts religious “minorities” in the seven countries named–the “majority” in each country is Muslim. What’s ironic is that we’ve not had a terrorist incident associated with any of those seven countries. The one country that has sent the most terrorists–Saudi Arabia for 9/11–wasn’t included.
“Radical Islamic terrorism” is not “code” for anything. It means precisely what it says and, in fact, that’s essentially what those terrorist thugs call themselves. They subscribe to radical Islam and their doctrine is terror and annihilation of ‘infidels’. Doubt that David? Fly on over and interview the leaders of ISIS and the other radical Islamic terror organizations, see what you learn as an innocent unbiased journalist (other journalists have been beheaded by the radical Islamic terrorists but, hey, maybe they misspoke, didn’t use PC speech, or something?).
What, exactly, is being achieved when we refuse to speak the words “radical Islamic terrorism”? We dilute our meaning and make our remarks dangerously generic by being politically correct in that way. Certainly Muslims are implicated in this horrific mess, as worshipers of Islam they own it. That doesn’t mean they all subscribe to radical Islamic terrorism (though far, far too few renounce it with any sincere enthusiasm), but it is a facet of their religious beliefs. Is there a distinction? Let’s hope so, but until we can at least discuss it openly and honestly we will continue to be confused about it.
Anyway David, if we must not call it “radical Islamic terrorism” what, then, is the politically correct terminology? We need to get serious about squashing it, and to do that we at least have to identify what we’re rejecting and fighting. So what terminology suits your taste, David?
Exactly, Ben, and well said.
Trump said during his campaigning days that he was not going to be afraid to use the term radical islamic terrorists because if we can’t even say it how can we deal with it? He’s right about that. But never do I recall him saying that ONLY islamic/muslims should be vetted. He made it clear that all people coming in to America need to be checked because we have no other way of knowing who’s coming in. There is a distinction, slight as it may be, but those are the things Trump is being attacked for. Attacked unfairly if I may say so. One word here, one word there gets added to what he “said” or left out of what he “said” and all of a sudden it becomes a big deal.
What short memories we have….
“DONALD J. TRUMP STATEMENT ON PREVENTING MUSLIM IMMIGRATION
(New York, NY) December 7th, 2015, — Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country’s representatives can figure out what is going on.”
https://www.donaldjtrump.com/press-releases/donald-j.-trump-statement-on-preventing-muslim-immigration
That was from 2015. He wasn’t the President then. People are allowed to change their views and their minds. And, I’d really like someone to answer this question for me – – what on earth is wrong with slowing down the current flow of immigrants until we know what’s going on? I just don’t see how that can be wrong or how it can continually be referred to as a “ban”.
Is it really the position of the dems to just let everyone in? Really?? Did you truly read that paragraph you quoted, David, or did you just read the first half of it and completely ignore the last half?
Speaking of short memories, how about this:
[quote from article in link below:]The left’s arrogant, aristocratic withholding of legitimacy from Trump by extension legitimises his predecessors, including those who did far worse things than Trump has even countenanced.
This is why some pretty unpleasant politicians have been able to rehabilitate themselves via the anti-Trump hysteria. Consider Madeleine Albright. She won heaps of Twitter praise last week when she said she might register as a Muslim in protest against Trump’s travel order. This is the same Madeleine Albright who in 1996, as Bill Clinton’s ambassador to the UN, was asked if the surplus deaths of Iraqi children following America’s imposition of sanctions was a price worth paying for weakening Saddam’s rule. Her reply? ‘I think this is a very hard choice, but the price — we think the price is worth it.’
Just think about this. Let it sink into your head. A woman who apologised for, and who was in an administration that was responsible for, great suffering among Muslims can now get brownie points for saying she will register as a Muslim. In what sort of moral universe is it considered worse to restrict the freedom of movement of the citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries than it is to participate in the near-destruction of a Muslim country? In the warped moral universe of anti-Trump hysteria. In the historically illiterate world that has been fashioned by the protesters against him, who tell us he is abnormal and therefore the rest of them are normal; that Trump is evil and therefore others, Albright, were good, or at least better.[end quote]
And that article is written by a guy who’s not even a Trump supporter. But you really hafta read the whole article in order for this to make sense because he has other examples from the left, as well as the one I quoted.
http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2017/01/anti-trump-hysteria-lets-others-whitewash-crimes/
BTW I found that article this morning over at the Lew Rockwell dot com site.
I’m with Trump. I was taught by my father, Colonel Richard Raymond, of the US AirForce, to respect our Commander in Chief. I get it. He’s trying to keep us safe. So, how about learning about the dangers? And, then a common sense approach, based on my life experience living with Muslims?
http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/attacks/attacks.aspx?Yr=Last30
During the last 30 days, in the world, there were 152 attacks in 26 countries, in which 1122 people were killed and 1184 injured. Average: 5 attacks per day, 74 people injured/killed daily.
We’ve been relatively unscathed, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t dangerous.
Does anyone on this list have ANY experience with the Muslim CULTURE? I like to differentiate between the religion and the CULTURE. It’s easier to ban CULTURES for incompatibility than it is for religion, since we honor all religions.
I married to an Iranian I met during the Shah of Iran’s reign. He and his family never practiced Islam so I was not bound by Sharia law. I wouldn’t have married him if I was. I had the consulate print in my passport..”this woman can travels without per husband’s consent” after seeing “Not Without My Daughter”.
I think back to a time when I was in the oldest, most traditional bazaar in Iran, and asking for a “mashrub” from the waiter. The guidebook said “drink”. I thought I was asking for a beverage, but I set off an uproar as it actually meant “alcoholic beverage”. The waiter and owner were yelling at me. I now wonder how I survived with my head. That was pre-you-tube, so I was spared. I know I wouldn’t fare as well in today’s Iran.
Riding with my arm outside the car, on a hot day was “suggestive”. I had to wear a scarf and be escorted by a man in the old parts of the city. I starred in a commercial for “Chin Chin Tomato Paste”, but my bofriend/husband-to-be, bought the rights to it, because all actresses/artists are considered whores.
My spotlight dance on “Iranian Bandstand” with my brother, was never aired, likely for the same reason, and because my Marilyn Monroe kind of skirt gave glimpses of body parts unseen on Iranian TV. My boyfriend protected the reputation of the future mother of his children.
Most Muslims, because of Sharia law, are a possible threat as this former Sunni Muslim explains. I agree!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSPvnFDDQHk&feature=youtu.be&app=desktop
Of course I recognized there are amazing Muslims who would be a credit to our country. My ex inlaws for example, but, how to discern which is which?
Is there another approach to a ban? How about we admit those Muslims for which an American citizen in good standing, will vouch for them. My father had to vouch for my in laws to get a VISA. Next, obtain a sizeable bond, which will be returned after an appropriate amount of time, for demonstrated good behavior. It can also be forfeited if the visitor incurs expenses (i.e. medical bills), so that the visitor is not a burden on our society.
Many of the Iranians I know get one green card, then get citizenship and then bring over the whole family, especially parents, since Iran does not have social security, they use ours.
After our divorce, my mother in law (a lovely woman) who had lived with us, received subsidized housing, food stamps and free medical care till the end of her days. To me, it felt like a misuse of our social security system. She never worked a day in her life in the USA. Other countries don’t have social security. They use ours.
Not every Muslim has our best interest at heart. Without a better system to vette, I suggest we stop immigration based on CULTURAL values and admit KNOWN people, who have folks over here routing for them to arrive!
David, comparing PRESIDENT Donald Trump to Hitler is offensive. I believe your fear is getting the better of you. Mercola just said that stress (and I imagine the thoughts you think are stressful) bring on heart attacks. Please change your thinking and live a long, happy life.
I think we all ought to buy stock. That’s one area I hope we can all agree on has been markedly improved by President Trump. Wish I had bought sooner.
Hey David…why not cover President Trump’s effect on business? I would actually love to hear you weigh in on that, especially if you can step beyond your Hitler theories.
We all rely heavily on our personal experiences, especially when they shed light on huge controversies. So Cathy, I can appreciate where you are coming from, in applying your personal experience living in an extended Muslim family in Iran.
My comparison of Trump to Hitler also is based on personal experience. My family was forced to flee Germany in the 1930s because of Hitler’s tyranny. There was similar kinds of demonizing by Americans of Jews from Germany at that time as there is now, from you and others on this blog against Muslims: The Germans will send in spies and saboteurs with the refugees. The Jews are so loyal to their religious practices they can never be patriotic Americans. They are parasites and will bleed our system by taking welfare. They are part of a worldwide conspiracy to control the world. On and on. As a result, the U.S. blocked most Jews trying to flee the Nazis, unless they had that personal sponsor who would not only vouch for them, but agree to support them financially if they became destitute (what you are advocating for Muslims attempting to come to the U.S). You can read the story of my family’s experiences in a book I co-authored with my aunt, “Inge: A Girl’s Journey Through Nazi Europe”; http://www.ingejoseph.com).
Even though I have seen a lot of similarities between Trump’s ascension to power and Hitler’s, I should probably adjust my comparisons. I doubt Trump will eventually carry out genocide like Hitler did. What I am most concerned about is Trump’s authoritarian tendencies. He could turn out like Chavez in Venezuela, Erdogan in Turkey, Duterte of the Philippines, or Putin in Russia. Any one of those, or some combination, would be terrible news for us. The biggest problem would be loss of our liberties.
But you asked about Trump’s effect on business. I know the stock markets have reacted favorably, but I would advise you against buying in now. No one can predict what the stock markets will do, and they often confound. Two things concern me about Trump’s impact on business. One is his desire to tear up international trade agreements–with Asia, Mexico/Canada, and maybe even Europe. I know that feels good to a lot of people, who believe him that they are bad deals. The reality is more complicated, and Trump’s various political opponents on his way to being elected did a terrible job of explaining the positive side of trade agreements. The world has become so tightly linked by trade that it’s easy to overlook all the ramifications of tearing them up. As just one example, I’ve heard farmers now worried that the deals they thought they would have in Japan and elsewhere with the TPP will now be lost, which means lost income, and lost jobs. Second, people forget how important our religious and ethnic diversity is in creating new businesses and new jobs. Entrepreneurs who start new businesses create the bulk of new jobs, and many of these entrepreneurs come from Asia and the Middle East. One of the reasons Europe has such high unemployment, much higher than ours, is because of its inability to integrate foreigners into its economy and workforce.
In fact, if you want a picture of where the U.S. economy could be headed, just look at the economies of the countries I mentioned, which are run by tyrants. Think about it. Starvation in Venezuela. Stagnation and corruption in Russia. Economy stumbling and business people fleeing Turkey. The only country I mentioned that seems to be doing well is the Philippines, and that may be due more to the fact that it continues to offer businesses low-wage labor that is helping all of Asia boom. Remember, it was trade wars that led to the Great Depression of the 1930s. If we continue toward that, then I’d strongly suggest investing in gold and bitcoins.
I’ll just add that it’s essential we keep talking, and not descend into the blood lust that has led so many countries into the hate that leads to tyranny and economic depression.
David, your last sentence is very apt – that “it’s so important we stand together in defense of our basic human rights . . .” This principle is what unites readers of your blog, even though our individual politics vary from far left to far right and everything in between. Please keep writing about whatever moves you. Your analysis and publicity of food rights cases all over the country is a great service to our society.
Shana, I completely agree with you on “what unites readers” of this blog. It is not the herd mentality, it is the universal dissonance ranging from farm to table, and wallet to wallet large and small. I don’t really even drink milk much, though I regularly make raw cheese so I’m a tangent customer.
I too cringe at the level of politic statements made here, but better to have that than overhanded suppression. Food rights are equal to food lefts, and it’s amazing that Peter, Gordon and Mary didn’t become millionaires just based on their singing. Please people, can’t we all just get along?
I do wish people would recognize and respect the fact that the owner of this blog is Jewish and that there are basic frictions between various religions in the world but that doesn’t mean we need to have wars and kill innocent unawares caught in the crossfire.
Labels are so, ah… divisive. Which is great in the case of knowing what’s in your food if you care, vs having everything be corporate produced generic cardboard pretty pictures with no connection to nutritional reality.
David, go back to what you were doing years ago. And you would be very good at it. Investigate the fraud and corruption and business end of the BigPharma cartel, and on medical and health rights–which also incl food and water. There is no end to the material and I think it will be stimulating and rewarding for you and your smart readers. But all you do is FF and milk, its so monotonous-same issue with different twists– I quit coming here. I was going in this direction and had led the #1 case in the US on the Amish girls forced chemo. Give this some serious thought, my friend. I would be willing to bet your your readership would double. Also you can put out a book on it basically using your articles. And please, keep the politics out– it is irritating. BTW, no potential immigrants or illegal alien has rights under the constitution. A “pause” in immigration is a good thing. And the refugees have plenty of places to go–which by the way–is caused by the war being fought for Israel mainly I think– and which are destroying the European cultures. If you would to chat about content let me know and we can hook up. PS
As an immigrant (legal, it took us years and much $$ to jump through the required hoops to get settled here) I have a personal and distinctive view on immigration law. I say, if you want to move on, be my guest but give me my privacy and respect what I have worked hard for from my home to what I teach my kids. And btw fyi, the USA is probably the most oppressive repressive nation in the world and getting more so as the years fly by. We have far more people in jail than any other country in the world, so much for “Land Of The Free.” Just ask the Indians what they think about that.
Augie I believe you are correct and that the vast majority of us would rather have David focus on the food safety – raw milk issues, however we do not have any right to steer wherever his instincts and curiosity lead but will gladly follow.
Augie, meant to thank you for the suggestion. That was a good series you did about the Amish girls forced into chemo. I shared it around on Facebook. I think where I’m running into more of a personal conflict reporting on such things relates to the subject of this post– I have difficulty advocating for rights on behalf of people who are selective in the human rights they respect. For example, your willingness to discriminate against Muslim refugees just deflates my balloon. Sorry, I can’t help it.
someone mentioned on this blog, the other day, that we have to be especially careful of your feelings, Mr Gumpert, because you’re Jewish. Well … if that’s so, and I do not know it to be a fact … then the chance of you holding citizenship in the Jewish homeland, as well as holding a passport issued by the US of A, is high. Reason why that’s germane to this discussion ( as far off-topic as it is lately! ) is : the government of that territory over there in the Middle East, is more “selective” as to who sets foot on the territory, than anyone else in the world. The very constitution of the Israeli state pronounces that Judaism shall be the official religion, and refuses to let even people who were born there, come back and live there … based on a religious test.
You-all rant-on about it being “discriminatory” for the US to defend our physical being? Not to mention our culture?!! Your effort and sympathy would be better spent advocating on behalf of people who were driven off at gunpoint, from territory on which their ancestors lived, for a coupla thousand years … sometimes called “ethnic cleansing”, categorized as a crime against humanity.
Watson, you are not only warped in your racial and political views, but you are also badly misinformed. As for me, I am a Jew, and proud of it, but since when do you care about feelings?
As for Israel, it is a theocracy–it is based on an official religion–like any number of countries, including Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the Vatican. But all Jews aren’t citizens of Israel, any more than all Catholics are citizens of the Vatican. You have to apply for citizenship and, no, I am not an Israeli citizen. The U.S. is a secular state, or at least it has been for the last 240 years. I appreciate there are people who would like to turn it into a Christian theocracy, perhaps including the people now in power, which could help explain their obsession with scapegoating Muslims and keeping them out of the U.S. By the way, Israel has a substantial Arab/Muslim population (more than 20%), which lives in peace in Israel and enjoys the benefits of Israeli citizenship. All you have to do is read a little, outside your usual polemics and hate literature–it’s all common knowledge, out there on the Internet from multiple sources.
someone who makes his living as a wordsmith, had to try pretty hard to miss my point = that being : that the Israelis restrict invaders so as to protect their culture. From what I hear, it’s common knowledge that they built a wall to keep out their enemies.
What I was referring to – and you know it – were, the several million (?) human beings who were driven off the place, decades ago, now unhappily in the world’s largest concentration camp = the Gaza Strip.
Strikes me as paradoxical that you – seem to – say that ‘anyone who can make it to US soil, by fair means or foul, is somehow ENTITLED to live in the US of A’, then surely those Arabs / Muslims who were dispossessed from ( what used to be called for about 2000 years) Palestine have the right to return to the land of their fore-fathers.
Even the United Nations entrenches the right of a people to self-determination … If the Israelis have the right to defend their territory against those whom they perceive as “not us”, then so do Americans.
Your notion that ‘America has been a secular nation for 240 years’ explains an awful lot about your perverse opinions. I’ll find you the case where the Supreme Court of the United States pronounced that the country is a Christian nation … regardless of the turmoil visit on it now, it always will be
Please do find that Supreme Court decision that pronounces the U.S. “a Christian nation.” Maybe a justice stated that. But the entire court has been pretty consistent: “Jefferson’s metaphor of a wall of separation has been cited repeatedly by the U.S. Supreme Court. In Reynolds v. United States (1879) the Court wrote that Jefferson’s comments “may be accepted almost as an authoritative declaration of the scope and effect of the [First] Amendment.” In Everson v. Board of Education (1947), Justice Hugo Black wrote: “In the words of Thomas Jefferson, the clause against establishment of religion by law was intended to erect a wall of separation between church and state.”[2]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Separation_of_church_and_state_in_the_United_States
As for Israeli policies, I think you’ll be hard pressed to find any writings I’ve done on the subject. As I said, I’m not an Israeli citizen, or apologist; I have enough to do to keep track of American history.
BTW, if you and others are looking for a little levity in all the political craziness, Saturday Night Live has been unbelievably funny, and cutting. Last night, it reached a new high, as you’ll see in clip within this article:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/05/arts/television/trump-snl-melissa-mccarthy-sean-spicer.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=first-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0
NOTE… this mother decision to allow her daughter to be vaccinated was based on so-called science based government and media propaganda!!!
https://www.facebook.com/
The truth… vaccinations cause harm and vaccine manufactures and it’s government and the media puppets don’t have the moral scruples to fully acknowledge that fact. No… they choose rather to push for increased mandates to force vaccines on individuals, violating their fundamental human rights.
The moment someone such as Robert F Kennedy Jr. stands up in defense of parents whose children have been damaged by vaccinations, calls for safer vaccines and heven forbid, aligns himself with Donald Trump, the media turn on him as if he is the devil himself and brand him with every anti-vaccine label in the book.
You should be for the “rights” of all, including PROSTITUTION(unregulated), DRUGS(unregulated), & ownership of FULLY AUTOMATIC MACHINE GUNS(unregulated) etc. And if you’re really a “true believer” in freedom, you take care of the dictators the “chimp” way….they got rid of their tyrant –> https://www.newscientist.com/article/2119677-chimps-beat-up-murder-and-then-cannibalise-their-former-tyrant/
Great article, David. My grandfather immigrated from Holland right after WWI ended. He never spoke of the war or how his mother died during it, but he did speak of the kindness of others who helped welcome them and volunteered to teach them English. Before this ban went through, I decided to help volunteer with the refugees. Half of them are children. The example of the Good Samaritan in the Bible is inspiring. I am truly worried about this President and his lack of maturity, character and good temperament, as well as his professed admiration for dictators. I hope we don’t turn into an autocracy because our senators and representatives won’t protect the foundations of our democracy.
David and Mark M. You should move in together
Bob,
Loved your comment about women’s reproductive rights…..those are true human rights. God does make women pregnant….penis’s do. Get over it. Pregnancies conceived with not a care or morsel of responsibility in the world are not gods little gifts. I am so totally sick of religious supremacy preaching to all the world…that their narrow choices shall be everyone’s choices. If you hate pro choice…that is your protected choice. You have no right to dictate that choice onto others.
How about a return to humanity, love and kindness and nourishment and care for the children we do have??
Mark, go play with your friends at Berkeley.
Remember Mark, it is only a protected choice once you make it out of the womb.
Mark,
Gods gift to mankind is our sexuality, which fundamentally manifest itself into the conception of a child. If human beings choose to pervert that gift… and indeed it is their choice to do so, then they bring adversity on themselves.
In the last two paragraphs of his Templeton address, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn states, “To the ill-considered hopes of the last two centuries, which have reduced us to insignificance and brought us to the brink of nuclear and non-nuclear death, we can propose only a determined quest for the warm hand of God, which we have so rashly and self-confidently spurned. Only in this way can our eyes be opened to the errors of this unfortunate twentieth century and our bands be directed to setting them right. There is nothing else to cling to in the landslide: the combined vision of all the thinkers of the Enlightenment amounts to nothing.
‘Our five continents are caught in a whirlwind. But it is during trials such as these that the highest gifts of the human spirit are manifested. If we perish and lose this world, the fault will be ours alone. “
” Pregnancies conceived with not a care or morsel of responsibility in the world are not gods little gifts.”
How far before some take this moral(religious) supremacy, in the sentence above, and project it on to the childrent that make it out of the womb. Definitely shows a glimpse into Mark and his thought process. When you choose to kill those in the womb it is only a matter of time before that expands.
I would also add that you are not sick of religious preaching you are only sick of religious preaching that doesn’t fit with your religious thoughts and idealogy.
for a guy who spent the last 20 years, breeding and feeding cattle, you’re surprisingly ignorant as to how it goes in animal husbandry. In objective reality it ain’t penises which make a female pregnant. One quick proof being ; the business now booming, in which this generation of American females are resorting to ‘fertility clinics’, because they cannot conceive a child naturally.
President Trump has nominated a genuinely Pro-Life candidate for the vacancy on the Supreme Court. Anytime you feel up to it, start dialoguing with him as to the morality of artificial ‘bortion. Read his books first to get up to speed, or he’ll wipe the floor with your notions which are laughably dated … SO 1960s.
out on the street, I soon learned that I don’t do well talking to women on that topic. They have a major handicap thinking logically. I resorted to simply offering them literature put out by the MILLLIONS of women who underwent an artificial abortion, and regret it. Until you listen to testimonies of women who are Silent No More, then you, Mark McAffee and the Pro-Abort true believers, are in the category of “IGNORAMUS” – someone who is confronted by overwhelming evidence on a given topic, yet refuses to change his position
since you’ve chosen this forum to rant-on about the legality of women conspiring to have their babies killed in the womb, you’d better get up to speed by familiarizing your-self with the ruling in Roe versus Wade. The Supreme Court of the US of A, pronounced that if they were to consider the unborn child as a “Person”, then ‘all bets are off’ – my paraphrase. In British jurisprudence, the Legislature and the Courts have always known that the child in the womb is a Person in law, with status to own property. Point being ; the nation is remembering our heritage : the Law of the God of Israel. Coming to its senses, we are at the stage where the ancient prophets preached “We are Israel. Our God is among us. WE AND OUR FATHERS HAVE SINNED. the very first thing reported to have been said by Jesus Christ when he started his ministry, was : “Repent for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand”
Sin has its season, and the anti-christs had their way for a generation. But the Pro-aborts are on the wrong side of history… they’re stuck, apologizing for having condoned genocide.
Some of the most energetic people in the Pro-life movement are individuals who were involved in killing their own child by abortion. In my experience, the most vociferous, intransigent men were guys who’d enabled an artificial abortion. [ One of whom threatened to kill me on the spot ; a friend of yours? ] Let’s see if you’re a big enough man to admit you made a mistake?
Does anyone else other than me see the irony of several men arguing about abortion? 🙁
No, I’m not going to give my own (strong) opinion about abortion, because: (1) I have friends on both sides of the issue and I do not wish to lose any of them, and (2) I do NOT want to encourage this argument by adding fuel to the fire.
What saddens me is seeing two important advocates in the raw milk movement come to discord over this issue, NOT related to raw milk. Can we please solve the raw milk prohibition problem and THEN argue about other issues?
Example: my agister is RAWMI-trained and has been producing great test results (see “Farm 517” in the project at http://tinyurl.com/bcfm-compiled-results), has a RAMP and SSOP, is milking only 4 cows, and was hit recently by a cease-and-desist order for “creating a health hazard” when the vindictive ex-boyfriend reported the farm to VIHA in retaliation for her breaking up with him. The penalty: a maximum $3M fine or 3 years jail under B.C.’s Public Health Act and/or confiscation of her entire farm under the Civil Forfeiture Act. The inspector could return to the farm any day to enforce the order.
Am I the only one who sees this as being a crisis situation?
Can we please either get the conversation back to the issue of raw milk? Farms are at risk and the Ministry is rejecting all calls for change.
Mark and Gordon, both of you are vital to this movement and to legalizing raw milk in B.C. and elsewhere. We need to stand strong and stand together.
Emma Gardner
you’ll note that I said [ above ] I’d prefer NOT to go on about ‘bortion.
Coming along just lately, you’re not aware that Mr Gumpert’s forum started out as the Complete Patient, scrutinizing the business of the medical racket.
The issue of legality of raw milk for human consumption, is ‘way, way down the list of priorities when considering hazards to public health. Whereas the harms done by the gutting of women’s bodies and the and sequelae of artificial abortion are at the very top. 20% of the women who go into an abortuary are rendered infertile by the procedure. so when they do want to have a baby, they can’t. In Canada, these same people come bleating to the government for taxpayers to pay for their infertility treatments. No greater scandal in our lifetimes, than the harms done to women AND men, by availability of elective-abortion-on-demand.
Apparently you missed the posts, when – towards the end of the Presidential race, when it became obvious that Saint Hilary had lost – Mark McAffee got on his high horse and folded-in to the discourse, moralizing about “women’s reproductive rights”, just before deteriorating into full-blown Trump Derangement Syndrome. He personified the major weakness of the lib-tard … happily dishing it out when in power, but getting all pouty about his precious feelings being offended, when confronted with substance. Cue Barbara Streisand’s version of “Feelings”
The (so-called) Christian church lost the war around artificial abortion by simply failing to show up. When I was = literally = thrown into the fray, Rather than slink away like the rest of the luke-warm simpletons, I stood my ground on the public streets in British Columbia, against much more menacing idiots than Mark McAffee ever will be. Same here on this forum always AT the pleasure of its owner.
What was preached at the Inauguration made it perfectly clear that The Republic is engaged in a war for its soul. The abortion issue is one of the most important fronts in that contest between Christianity versus the enemies of the Gospel of the Kingdom of Heaven. Choose you this day whom you’re going to serve … Jesus Christ or the gods of mixed multitude rabble. Mr McAffee positioned himself on the side of the antichrist communists. He made himself my enemy : so be it
as long as someone is permitted to abuse this forum to promote genocide of children, I am not going to quit
No irony at all, life is life, all should treasure it. In the womb and out. I have several pro abortion friends; men and women interestingly none of them think it is a woman only subject.
As technology continues to improve and we see more and more in the womb, earlier and earlier the discussion becomes different.
I am very sorry to hear about your situation especially as the laws in Canada are pretty severe on this issue from I recall.
Yes, Frank, and they are not loath to go after ordinary consumers — livestock owners such as our friend Gordon here. He is not a raw milk farmer – he is an ordinary herdshare member and stood up for his fellow herdshare members in court in front of Justice Wong. But because of the charge against the herdshare of “packaging and distributing,” he received a suspended sentence of 3 months jail plus payment (correct me if I’m wrong, Gordon) of ~$150,000(?) of Fraser Health’s court costs. All for a small farm milking a only couple of dozen cows for herdshare members.
Yiannopoulos states, “One thing we do know for sure: the Left is absolutely terrified of free speech and will do literally anything to shut it down.”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/feb/01/milo-yiannopoulos-uc-berkeley-event-cancelled
Yiannopoulis’ broad assessment of the left is certainly not totally accurate… however, are we beginning to see the dismantling of free speech via mob rule or mob censure? Why do they view Yiannopoulos as such a threat?
The Progressive left versus the conservative right and the issue of free speech.
I have always thought that the American Education System is number one cause of the spread of GMO’s and biotech and therefore the subsequent loss of our food rights (and free speech?).
And now back to your regularly scheduled raw milk discussion:
Proposed North Dakota law would legalize raw milk and end “milk prohibition.”
“Raw dairy has been maligned by the mainstream media and the medical establishment, despite being consumed in its whole, natural state for millennia. We are warned that it is not safe, but Real Milk counsels that when a dairy farm operates with sanitary conditions, harmful pathogens are not present in the milk, despite conventional wisdom: “Health officials are highly biased against raw milk and published reports reflect that bias. Very often raw milk is blamed for an outbreak of illness without proof, or even for an outbreak that affected many people who did not consume raw milk.” Raw milk is real milk, and raw milk should not be a crime. The thugs at the FDA are the problem, not raw milk.”
http://www.naturalnews.com/2017-02-01-north-dakota-bill-legalize-raw-milk.html
Dear Emma Gardner,
I deeply respect your comment and will abstain from further comment.
We have assisted your cow share with as much support as we can muster and will do more if I can.
You are correct about the bacteria counts from your Canadian RAWMI trained source….she is wonderful.
Sweetie, I adore you, you know that. I have, would and will again stand for you, for honest, hard-working and long-suffering farmers, and for the consumers hurt by government interference in our food systems. And, we have disagreed before – vehemently so.
Despite what I am about to say, I do respect your opinions, and trust your facts. I will defend your rights to both with my life or my liberty if I have to. I just think we are looking at different documentation and perhaps a different dictionary this time.
I have little problem with what Trump has done so far, and a huge problem with the women’s protests as well as those at Berkeley, and several others. I don’t like the pipelines going on, but I did have to laugh at him requiring American steel and American workers, neither of which were part of the process before.
In the case of Berkeley, my suggestion on Trump’s blog was that rather than de-fund the university, he consider using the federal funds they would get to instead purchase Webster’s Collegiate dictionaries with special mirrored front covers on them. He could have the word “hypocrit” highlighted for a nominal fee…. Then defund the high schools that graduated these people who can’t read, let alone understand the English language.
It is sad that even ‘Americans’ (meaning those nationalized as well as those born and bred here) seem to require taking English as a third language nowadays.
I respect your rights to say what you think and feel, but I will also reserve my right to disagree just as loudly.
I don’t think detaining 109 of more than 360,000 people is such a huge deal – even if some locals were over-zealous – or even just plain wrong – in their enforcement. The inconveniences are minute compared to what has happened in countries that don’t have this going on – the ones who accepted refugees and didn’t check green cards – and I don’t want to see the same happen here.
I don’t see any Muslims being rounded up and placed in concentration camps like Hitler did, or Roosevelt for that matter.
This is “Wag the Dog” at its finest, and quite frankly, anyone who knows their history knows that most journalists deserve jail time, not face time.
I have Muslim friends. I have friends from several of those countries listed in the EO. Not one of them has voiced an issue with me but several have commented on knit body parts on women’s heads on the 21st.
Now as Americans, for some unGodly reason, we don’t seem to mind being watched on the net, listened to on our cell phones, monitored through our “smart meters”, being photographed at intersections, having black boxes in our cars and letting OnStar unlock our vehicle remotely, but to even question someone from a foreign country is suspect and possibly criminal??? I would rather he’d written that order to apply to all foreign countries, but then everyone would be protesting.
So yes, given research rather than hearsay, I would most definitely support any innocent against the government.
I am not disappointed that we have, after 44 previous (FAILED) attempts, the first man who was elected to the White House that is actually capable of keeping a campaign promise. I’m also not going out in public wearing my knitted fake pink P on my head, not making (nor really having) a point other than my 15 minutes of fame whilst screaming obscenities and throwing flaming underwear (oh wait – that was bras and draft cards in the 60’s, sorry) at police officers while my “friends” throw rocks at them, either.
And that “This is War” banner was a real winner, too. They need to remember they supported the woman that would take the guns away (maybe why they throw “flaming objects” and rocks at cops???), not the man who supports open carry. I know who wins that war…
Private property rights and guns are what made this country, and the only things that will prevail against our government – no matter which party is in office. We’ve lost one to the liberals already. I was not – and am not – prepared to lose the other.
If people want to be taken seriously, they need a point and they need to be able to articulate as well as back that point up with facts. The crap that has happened in this country especially, but around the world as well, since the 21st of last month (actually since November 2016) looks more like letting the kindergarteners out of the insane asylum for the summer. Maybe if they would behave like semi-intelligent human adults……
GrannySue
Standing ovation here for GrannySue. Thank you and good night from the cheese maker.
My hat’s off to you GrannySue,
I appreciate your courteous, matter-of-fact honesty.
Granny Sue, thanks for your sobering, well reasoned, and entertaining comment. I’m reassured you will “support (my) life with (your) life and liberty…” You may have to. I know it sounds paranoid, but I’m not sure how long I (or you) will retain the right to speak freely via forums like this.
You say, “I don’t see any Muslims being rounded up and placed in concentration camps like Hitler did, or Roosevelt for that matter.” Remember, we’re only two weeks into the new regime. As Mark McAfee notes, Trump & Co. have so far followed the Hitler script pretty closely, through the election campaign and now into governing. Hitler began with all kinds of decrees and purges (particularly of civil service). He went after university intellectuals; in the U.S., a major by-product of the immigration ban is to create huge uncertainty at universities, which draw heavily on international students (because American higher education is considered the highest quality in the world). Then, about a month into his reign (Feb 1933) Hitler’s regime engineered “the incident.” This was the burning of the German parliament, The Reichstag. It was blamed on communists (the major “enemy” of the day, like our “radical Islamic terrorists”), but was eventually discovered to have been the work of the Nazis. He used that incident to restrict freedom of speech and press, and freedom of assembly. Keep an eye out for some incident here, perhaps major or perhaps not, that will be blamed on one or another country or one or another ethnic group, and used as an excuse to restrict our liberties. Once again, hope I’m wrong. (BTW, Hitler didn’t start putting people into concentration camps on a significant scale until 1938-39, more than five years into his reign.)
Dear Sue,
In the 1960s and early 1970s, UC berkely was the moral center of America. The resistance to the vietnam war, protests against the Mia li incident with intentional cold blooded murder of innocent unarmed Vietnamese families by US Army soldiers…..yes, Berkely burned and protests raged as students protested the carpet bombing and napalming of Vietnamese children In the end, we lost the vietnam war, why???? Because it was wrong, it was morally reprehensible and a war crime. Now we are favorite trade partners with Vietnam and they have forgiven us. No terrorists coming from Vietnam.
Now…the moral center speaks again. Trumps backers are extremists that speak about extreme right wing nationalism. They support Hitler like supremacy of the white and hate of others. They are racist, nationalist, sexist etc….they fail to consult with “the bigger experienced team ” and simply dictate the right wing way its gonna be….if not you are fired.
Trump lies persists. He did not win the majority vote….he lost miserably by more thsn 3 million votes, yet he starts conspiracy theories about 5 million illegals voting illegally. He is one twisted sick bastard. Fox News is the only news source that supports Trump. All others without exception find deep fault in his corruption and false alternative facts reporting. The Berkely protests are about Breitbart right wing reactionary speakers presentations. As far as I am concerned, the protests are clearly, a freedom of speach reaction and are protected by the first amendment. The moral center speaks again.
The question I have is why people at this blog fail to be human at their core??? Right wing is equivalent to Hitlerism. Hitler rose to power just like Trump. The paths are identical. The moral educated center of America refuses to allow Hitler to rise again.
Because of Trump anti trade and pro Russian policy, dairy trade around the world has stumbled and prices have dropped. Mexican trade, Canadian Trade and EU, New Zealand dairy and cheese traders are freaking out and prices are dropping to Anerican farmers??? Is this the Trump you voted for? Is this the better trade deal he ran on to win your votes? Is it a coincidence that Trump banned immigrants and return of green card holders from 7 countries that have never attacked Americans on our soils and continued to permit entry from the countries that killed more than 3500 in terrorist attacks ( and also have his hotels ) including Saudi Arabia, UAE and Egypt.
I strongly suggest that my raw milk loving friends readjust their moral compasses. They are spinning wildly. Nationalism kills American jobs and our farm economy. 30% of American dairy export goes to Mexico. Mexico is now meeting with China and has given us the finger after Trump threatened Mexico with a wall and huge tariffs.
Trump is a sociopath pathic idiot….no question. Seems like perhaps Fox News has steered you astray. Get your news from some place that reports news not fake right wing nationlist racist bullshit.
Spoken like the blinded idiot you are, Mark. Thanks for all your tolerance, compassion, and inclusivity.
“The mainstream media tried to spin a narrative that the masked thugs who set the Berkeley campus on fire were just “protesters” and even “anti-fascists.” But the real fascists were the rioters who assaulted those who’d come to hear Milo Yiannopolous speak.”
http://www.therebel.media/berkeley_vs_milo_that_s_not_a_protest_that_s_a_riot
This conversation between Robert Vaughan of Just Right Media and Dr. Bill Warner on “Political Islam” is very much worth taking the time to listen to.
A key point made in the conversation is the importance of distinguishing between Islam and Muslims… Rather then get a Muslims interpretation of Islam one need to go to the source and get Mohammed’s interpretation.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Lai_Massacre
In 1969, Berkely reflected the moral center of America. I was there in People’s Park when protesters protested war crimes and outrageous inhuman misconduct of the US Army and its direction by Nixon. I was only 8 but my dad would not tolerate in his name. No napalming of children or murder of innocents.Today, Berkely is still the moral true north of America. In the 1960s George Wallace and the right wing tried to run America off of its moral cliff….but failed. MLk and others stood against the machine and prevailed. Today, Vietnam is a favored trading partner and has forgiven Americans for their crimes. No terrorists coming from Vietnam.
Why do I bring up My Lai and 1960s…Nixon, pardoned Calley after killing 504 innocent women and children holding their babies. That’s the right wing in action. No different than today. Hatred and total loss of touch with humanity or reality.
Trump is the reincarnation of those darkest days.
” … no napalming of children or murder of innocents…” ? Unlike, of course, your boy in the whitehouse for the last 8 years, who personally directed drone strikes on his enemies ON FOREIGN SOIL … often called assassinations … which just happened to take out innocent bystanders. We don’t have to have the Pentagon’s figures on it, but we can be sure O’Bama’s body count is much higher than Lt Calley’s.
Don’t hide your light under a bushel, here on this tiny forum, CEO McAffee. you deserve the spotlight Big Time ||||| get out there on the national stage and pin your hysterical Marxism to the OP brand, like all the idiots who think that celebrity status in Holly-weird somehow makes them elders of the society |||| it’ll be fascinating to see how that plays in prime time. I predict that once informed consumers find out that the spokesman for Organic Pastures applauds race-based domestic terrorism out of the other side of his mouth your revenues will fall by 50%. All those moms who previously adored you – who vote Republican – will find other sources of REAL MILK.
saying “Today, Berkely is still the moral true north of America.” you have thrown yourself in with the anti-christ enemies of the Republic. And you’ll be rewarded accordingly
David
As a Christian I believe that we should welcome refugees into our countries. As a rational person (my wife may beg to differ at times), we dare not throw discretion to the wind. Indeed the notion of turning the other cheek and loving ones enemies in light of persecution, adversity and religious pride has been an ongoing struggle for many Christians throughout the centuries.
Call it cynicism, call it foolish faith, or call it what you will; as a fallible human being I am certainly weary of the future we are faced with, as a Christian on the other hand my faith rests in Jesus’ word that His Church will “prevail”.
It is common to read articles and hear speeches with respect to the present crisis that describe Islam as a peace-loving religion. But is this really accurate? It is one thing and correct to say that there are many peace-loving Muslims yet quite another thing to say that Islam is a peace-loving religion.
Muslims come in many forms, liberals, moderates, conservatives, non-violent fundamentalists and violent fundamentalists, to name a few. Mohammed’s revelations and teachings on the other hand, the bases for Islam comes at the end of a sword… Indeed, and although the same characteristics certainly hold true for some who claim to be Christian, Jesus Christ’s revelations and teachings, the foundation for Christianity, was based on non violence.
Consider this analogy, Muhammad rode into Mecca on a stallion with a sword in hand to conquer by force. In contrast, Jesus rode on a donkey into Jerusalem to conquer sin with mercy; “Forgive them Father for they do not know what they do”
Herein lies the difference. Jesus founded a religion based on capitulation to the powers that be. Mohammed founded a “religion” based on violent overthrow. Christ’s words rebuking Peter for having raised his sword against the high priest’s servant “Put your sword back into its place… For all who take the sword will perish by the sword”, ought to ring loud for those Muslims who recognize Jesus as a prophet.
There are fundamental differences between Islam and Christianity, Islam and Judaism and likewise, if not more so, between Islam and secular, humanistic materialism.
How are we to overcome such differences when Muslim leaders who head the worlds fastest growing religion (Islam), caricature the West (especially America) as the “Great Satan”?
David,
In response to the Saturday Night Live episode I’d like to point out the following ideology.
“Hollywoodism” is defined as a, “Western culture (that) has come to define itself through an alien ideology disseminated through Hollywood. It is a superimposed culture, a fantasy structure that we’re all living in”. emphasis in brackets is mine
I n 2011, 2012 and 2013 Iran hosted the “International Conference on Hollywoodism”.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Conference_on_Hollywoodism
Why in heavens name would such a conference be hosted by Iran of all places? Are the participants involved in these conferences aware of something that most people in the west are unaware of, or are turning a blind eye to?
With respect to the following article written during the presidential election campaign. I agree with the analogy that words do matter. Indeed, and although I hate to sound off like a broken record, these words made by Solzhenitsyn in 2008 certainly rig true t this day and do indeed matter.
In reply to the question, “Do you feel that many of the problems in the modern world are due to an inadequate grasp of spiritual and philosophical truth by the population as a whole?”
In his reply Solzhenitsyn states, “This is certainly true. Man has set for himself the goal of conquering the world but in the processes loses his soul. That which is called humanism, but what would be more correctly called irreligious anthropocentrism, cannot yield answers to the most essential questions of our life. We have arrived at an intellectual chaos.”
Last evening, a special ran on tv that credited the Amish and Lancaster county as being the most welcoming of all places in America for new immigrants of all kinds. Truly a tribute to true Christian values in action.
When Regan the republican gov of CA sent in the national guard and defended the use of deadly buckshot against protesters at UC Berkeley for protesting the Vietnam war…. That was the right wing in action
Trump is a 2017 version of Regan worse. Regan had large areas of Berkley sprayed by helicopter with a special type of mace gas…. Children and residence miles away were left choking. Students were killed for objecting to Vietnam war.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/People's_Park_(Berkeley) Go educate yourselves. Republicans have been the party of intolerance, murder and hatred. Kent state student murders,
Lest we all forget. History is history. Going father to the Right wing is not our goal. Peace, tolerance, increased trade, more economic growth and advanced education is the goal. The rust belt should be called the dust belt for being left in the dust for its ignorance and refusal to become adaptive and educated for the future jobs of America.
The only thing that is constant is change. The jobs of the past are not the same jobs as those of the future. Education is the key to future jobs.
Mark,
That just goes to show that one can be welcoming of immigrants yet still support Donald Trump.
I am smack dab in the center of an Amish community whose members originate from the United States… As such they and their family members from south of the border travel back and forth for weddings, funerals and hunting etc. All of the conversations I’ve had with them in the last several months confirms what the following ABC news article states, “The Amish In America Commit Their Vote To Donald Trump; Mathematically Guaranteeing Him A Presidential Victory”.
http://abcnews.com.co/amish-america-commit-vote-donald-trump-mathematically-guaranteeing-presidential-victory/
“The organization typically meets once a year and the meetings usually consist of about 300 Amish leaders who meet to discuss the challenges, such as urban sprawl, that face the community. This year, however, the organization wanted as many people in attendance as possible so they can effectively instruct all Amish men and women of legal voting age to cast their vote for the flamboyant Republican nominee.”
An opinion piece addressing the Hilter hysteria…
https://regiehammblog.wordpress.com/2017/02/01/this-hitler-nonsense/
thanks for the much-needed comic relief, Mister McAffee ; but the very premise of the Amish cult, is “separation from the world”. … so what you’ve brought to our attention is dis-information put out by the deep State… often called propaganda. Donald Trump won the election because he and his advisers knew that the lame-stream media IS THE ENEMY OF white Christians. Thus, consider the source : in the race war now coming to a head in Ham-merica, no mere co-incidence that those enemies have targeted the most homogenous of all ethnic groups for miscegenation = blue-eyed blond haired Caucasians with pure bloodlines right back to the tribes of ancient Israel.
non-whites residing within the Amish compounds? I very much doubt it. And even then – with federal bribes called “subsidies”, of course – not for long!
education, you say? Couldn’t agree more. … find out what the Kalergi-Couvenhoven plan was = and continues to be = race-mixing so as to eliminate white people. See if the Lib-tard mind can handle a concept as big as that.
You hurl invective at me / my friends as “haters”, for simply articulating our right to defend ourselves individually, and corporately? Meanwhile you’re right there in the epi-centre of the invasion of country by a group which is predicated in racial superiority = La Raza. Could it be that the majority of workers on the Organic Pastures farm are types whom George Bush 2nd called his “little brown brothers” ? Could it be that you’ve got a dog in this globalist fight? If so – then your business is a textbook example of how unchecked immigration leads to low wages for white people. Exactly as the Democrats explained, ‘way back when that party actually represented the American working man.
time you quit staring at the hind end of a cow long enough to find out what really happened in Rhodesia, then South Africa, as the white farmers were betrayed by the Western nations. Improve your reading comprehension by studying the work of Dr Henry Makow on his website, where he’s compiled the evidence of what communists INEVITABLY do, once in power. Quite a different tale than the one told to you by your pal Caesar Chavez.
Before you have unload another of your public melt-downs on this forum … educate yourself as to what ALWAYS happens in street fighting, which the commies are so good at. Think you’re nice and safely-removed from it all on your spread in Kernan? Think again. Educate yourself as to what Lenin said about “useful idiots” … the first ones the commies turn on, and execute once the bloodbath starts …. fools who’d assumed the revolutionaries were their friends… that’d be you. When your pals, now rioting and torching the town, come ’round to your house in the middle of the night, and rape your women, and slit your throats, I won’t be all that sympathetic.
This is a call to Gordon, GrannySue, Ken, Bob and Cathy —
We are in serious need of staging an intervention with Mr. McAfee. The wheels have completely come off his wagon.
His constant ad hominem attacks, mis-interpretation of history, and misunderstanding of our current situation is becoming a self portrait in clownmanship — it’s embarrassing for all of us. He needs our help — ASAP.
Winston Smith, the protagonist in “1984”, was charged with the job of revising historical documents to match the constantly changing current party line — even doctoring photographs to remove “nonpersons” who, over time, came into ill favor with the regime.
Mark has allowed Winston Smith (nearly the entire MSM) to tell him what to think, how to react, and what names to call those of us who disagree with his “party line” of bullshit.
Before folks out here take off on a tangent about Islam as a “religion of peace,” I suggest you carefully review the Quran and also understand how it is interpreted. You need to understand how the chapters (Surahs) are arranged and also the difference between the Mecca period of Mohammed verses the later Medina period of Mohammed. You also need to understand the relevance of the chronology of the Surahs.
If you make the effort to dig deeper into this, you might find that Islam and those who are staunch believers in Islam must also abide by Sharia Law. As such, a strict practicing Muslim will never be able to follow the Constitution of the United States and follow Sharia Law as well because there are basic conflicts between the two legal systems.
I am sure that I will be called all kinds of names for making this observation, but I welcome an adult dialogue on this topic because the slogans and emotional “boil downs” of the MSM regarding “immigrant” Muslims does not give us an accurate picture of reality and the potential consequences of slinging the doors wide open to American, no questions asked.
I find it absolutely ironic that anyone who practices the Jewish religion could welcome with open arms a purist Islamic, since there is no reconciliation to be had from the perspective of the Quran between Islam and Judaism.
Same observation goes for the modern American/Western woman. The most oppressive religion, cult, philosophical outlook, worldview, or whatever you want to call it, Islam, subjugates women and places their social status below that of men. Another absolute cognitive dissonant irony in my view, when I see these useful idiots out there on the street in their little cat hats.
Back to Mark. Intervention anyone? Or is it just too late?
Your “theories” about Muslims are so old and tired–all you have to do is substitute “Catholics” or “Jews” or “Japanese” or whatever group you want. When Al Smith ran for president in 1928, he lost because he was a Catholic, who it was thought would be ruled by the Vatican. John Kennedy ran into the same thing in 1960, and fortunately minds were more open, and he was up-front in defending himself. Jews have been accused of being communists, or loyal first and foremost to Israel (as Watson has suggested of me). Americans of Japanese descent were rounded up in the U.S. during WWII, even though there was no evidence of their disloyalty. And yes, Jews and Muslims do live in peace in many places, including in Arab countries and in Israel.
There will be exceptions, of American Muslims murdering non-Muslim Americans, but there are plenty of cases of Baptists, Lutherans, Jews, and Catholics murdering other Americans as well. We have a good ways to go before we learn to live peacefully together. Fortunately, the tolerant and compassionate people way outnumber the kooks like you. Please take your rubbish to some other forum.
Grab some tissue and prepare to shed a few tears.http://occupydemocrats.com/2017/02/06/trump-wall-super-bowl-ad-censored-heres-unedited-version/
Your Trump right wing has censored an advertizement paid for by 84 Lumber. A Super Bowl ad that really talks about humanity and the welcome arms of America. Trump would not allow the ad from airing because freedom of expression was not welcomed.
If my wheels have come off….great to hear it. I welcome an intervention, I would love to set you straight and measure your soul and your heart. You have no idea what dwells with in me. My level of compassion and humanity follows me from generations of humanitarians that acted to help others….that will not change. Trump is a fraud….a fake and a liar. He is a racist, a narcissist, a sexist, and a sociopath. His alternative reality and made up alternative facts news makes me want to puke. His Mr. Banon is Hitler in carnate.
The division between us…defines our humanity.
Mark, I appreciate your concern. I certainly share some of it. At the same time, it’s important for both sides to avoid descending into the gutter. Everyone loses in that situation. Here is an assessment from a Venezuelan economist who was part of the long-term opposition to Chavez in Venezuela. In the end, all the name-calling and accusations led the entire country to the same terrible outcome.
“I grew up as the ‘you’ Trump is about to turn you into. In Venezuela, the urban middle class I come from was cast as the enemy in the political struggle that followed Chávez’s arrival in 1998. For years, I watched in frustration as the opposition failed to do anything about the catastrophe overtaking our nation. Only later did I realize that this failure was self-inflicted. So now, to my American friends, here is some advice on how to avoid Venezuela’s mistakes.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2017/01/27/in-venezuela-we-couldnt-stop-chavez-dont-make-the-same-mistakes-we-did/?tid=a_inl&utm_term=.84a3098409ea
thank you for the URL to that in-valuable article about Venezuela. Profound. And Mark McAffee’s personal “teachable moment”, if only he’d read it through and through ’til he “gets it”.
as for “You have no idea what dwells with in me” … Mr McAffee, your stream-of-consicousness diatribe over the last coupla months gave it all away …. you’re a crypto-commie. If you ever regain your sanity enough to say something intelligent about raw milk, let me know. “Til then ; you need a break >>> fly on down to the socialist paradise of Venezuela, and get a taste of where things are headed after Berkeley and environs is totally Californicated by your comrades-in-arms
David,
Indeed, as the article suggests…. “By looking down on Trump’s supporters, you’ve lost the first battle. Instead of fighting polarization, you’ve played into it”.
A personal hero of mine and one of my moral mentors…..always act for humanity no matter what it takes or what it costs. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_Thompson_Jr.
Through the years when I was a paramedic, many times I acted to protect lives when out of control trigger happy cops were looking for any excuse to shoot an unarmed person. Thompson’s actions at My Lia and his lessons guided me all along.., stepping in front of the police to care for those they had injured and those that they had at gun point….when they were unarmed and needing medical or emtional real help. Compassion would always win and always de- escalate. It is a heart set….a mind set. Hard ass, right wing, kill them all and let god sort them out is a ” law and order” right wing culture…..it is sick.
I get the message so loud and clear that you right wing racists….would defend any conduct of police, just because that’s your mantra. You would defend the beating or shooting of protesters by police.
Not me….I measure actions each on their moral merits. Today those measures of moral conduct remain indelible on my true north. There is nothing that you can do to change this. This is a time in America when our morals are being measured. The judges are being highly criticized by Trump, yet they stand for what is right in spite of Trump. That’s my America.
you didn’t do your homework, did you Mister McAffee … i.e. = read that article about Venezuela ?
no, rather than step back and take a deep breath so as to stabilize, you’re cranking-up the stakes … thrashing-around more, dumping your pain on bystanders.
you compound your foolishness with absurd broad-brush allegation against all the ‘right wing racists’ …. Claiming I, or anyone else you can name who contributes to this forum, “would defend any conduct of police, just because that’s your mantra”. is only your paranoia writ large. In all seriousness ; you’re certifiable = an intervention isn’t that far off
In fact, I’m the guy who took a cop, all the way through the complaint process, after I caught him committing Perjury, ’til he resigned from the force in shame.. I’m the guy who shook hands with captain of the San Antonio police, commending him for his calm restraint under duress in the antiabortion protests. Et cetera. Contrast us who want due process and accountability of officials, with you = a couple of days ago on this forum = commending destruction of private property as ‘expressions of free speech’. Did you go down to the copshop and make bail for the thugs so they could go out and do it some more?
At least you’ve rendered this thread down to brass tacks : you’re on the side of the anti-christ Reds who thrill to rebellion. I and patriots of the Republic want Liberty under Law. Lost in your delusions = can you even grasp the difference?
you used to be highly respected as a leader in the fields of nutrition and dealing with govt. . In 4 short months, your bellows of psychic distress hurled at people who simply hold a different political opinion, have resulted in alienating your former supporters = 20 years’ of effort building your business, squandered. Negative advertising is many times more powerful than positive. From now on, when people hear about the Organic Pastures raw milk, the knee-jerk reaction will be “oh, that idiot McAffee, didn’t he wind up in an insane asylum?”
Mr. Gumpert —
Sorry I offended you with “rubbish.”
I studied Sharia Law in law school. I have also studied the Quran. I also studied the connection between “mosque and state.” There is no separation between the two — which flies in the face of our First Amendment. But you don’t want to hear that, do you.
With all due respect, calling folks who have a different opinion than you “kooks” is unbecoming of a true “journalist.” But . . . what the heck, it’s your blog, right.
By the way, I did not get political on this site until you and McAfee decided to go out there like the rest of the unbridled lefties out there and wear your true colors on your collective sleeves. It’s an amazing thing to watch. Sorry you’ve bought into that mantra. You guys need to try to quit hyperventilating, take some deep breaths, and get a handle on your emotions.
At the end of the day, we’re all in this thing together whether you like it or not.
Cheesemaker, I just provided some response in my latest blog post that just went up. It’s not about left vs right or any of that.
Gordon,
I sponsored a family to immigrate from Venezuela that had been oppressed under Chavez.
Chavez is no hero of mine. Just as Putin is no saint in fact he is a KGB thug. Trump seems to have a bromance with him!!
OPDC is doing just fine and our consumers have no problem with organic raw milk produced with compassion and by a family that puts humanity first.
Lets just say that Trump has serious problems and I object to him at nearly every level. Enough said.
Peace brother….
Past, Present, and Future Walked into a bar…
…and things began to get tense.
h/t Professor Vallicella a maverickphilosopher
When has one ever seen a President of the United States admit something like this?
It’s no wonder that he has raised the ire of both republicans and democrats. His uninhibited honesty is causing members from both camps to squirm. Indeed, this is what his grass root supporters probably like about the man despite his shortcomings.
http://www.therebel.media/_you_think_our_country_s_so_innocent_trump_confounds_left_right_and_opposition_media
Ken, I’m with you on that one. Trump’s “we aren’t so innocent” remark indicates an honesty that both the left and right are uncomfortable acknowledging.
It seems most have forgotten when the US government burned 76 people, mostly women and children, to death at the Branch Davidian complex in Waco, TX because of their religion.
It seems most have forgotten that the FBI murdered Randy Weaver’s son and wife (while she held their baby in her arms) with shots to their head at Ruby Ridge.
It seems most have forgotten a very recent incident, the murder by the FBI (again) of Robert “Lavoy” Finicun.
And yes, we DO jail political prisoners…It seems most have forgotten the maker of the YouTube video that was falsely accused of causing the Benghazzi attack and who was jailed in order to protect HRC.
It seems most have forgotten. Most, not all. I haven’t.
We Americans do not agree on all issues. One of the reasons I have focused on food rights is that it is unifying — people of both Red and Blue can come together for food freedom. But this doesn’t mean they will agree on abortion, or on immigration, or on the purpose of the so-called “women’s march” (I say so-called because not all women feel it represented their stance; and even those in attendance seemed divided). Similarly, people may come together on immigration reform but disagree on GMO’s. I concur with the idea that we must preserve our constitutional freedoms (I have written against screening Muslims), but I do not think it will benefit the fight for food freedom and small farms to expect people to come together on a range of disparate issues: on the contrary, and as revealed in the wide-ranging discussions in these comments, people will come together despite such differences. And Amen to that.
3 weeks ago, David Gumpert started out this thread, lamenting that he feared HIS freedom of the Press would be infringed by the new administration. Have a look at his CV … Mister Gumpert being an eminent member of the Eastern Establishment ‘chattering classes” . You don’t get any more prestigious in his crowd, than being published in Business Week / a few others. so he’ll be the last guy to feel “libel chill”. What he was voicing was his intuition that Donald Trump had prevailed in the exploiting the FACT that ordinary Americans feel that the Lame-stream Media is The Enemy. Meaning = himself. Paranoia strikes deep in the Eastern LibTard psyche.
I mocked Mister Gumpert as a victim of his own self-centred-ness.
my friend Douglas Christie used to put it : “freedom of expression is a gift that you have to give even your worst enemy, if you want it for yourself”. There will always be Freedom of Speech and of the Press in America : it belongs to those who go out and earn it, daily, in the public square. As contrasted with over-educated idiots insulated in their ivory towers, who despise the “deplorables” who vote differently than they do. The so-called “news media” squandered its reputation by prostituting itself as propaganda outfall for special interest groups / especially : Suppressing news important to Americans, so as to suit foreign powers.
in 1985, Lawyer D Christie prevailed in the Supreme Court of Canada, for his client, Ernst Zundel who had been charged with “publishing false news’. Zundel had the temerity to voice doubts, publicly, about versions of what had happened in the Third Reich. That section of the Criminal Code was ruled un-constitutional. Yet – in 2012, my friend Arthur Topham was charged with 2 counts under section 319 of the Criminal Code, i.e. the “hate speech law”. What he’d done, was ; take the book “GERMANY MUST PERISH’ published in the 1930s and simply insert the word “Israel” everywhere the word “Germany” was to be found in the original. He then published it word for word as “ISRAEL MUST PERISH” …Topham thus published on his website, a piece of satire which portrayed the modern Israeli state in exactly the same language as Germany had been, including = calling for the sterilization of every adult male! At the time – the 1930s – the book “GERMANY MUST PERISH’ received rave reviews from the very same Eastern Establishment press to which Mr Gumpert now cleaves!
last fall, Arthur Topham was found guilty by a jury, on of one of those counts, but not the other, even though they were identical, varying only in time-frame!
Since he wanted assurance that we will back up his right to freedom of the Press, now’s the time to find out David Gumpert’s position as to how far he’s willing to extend Freedom of Expression to others. As I write, Arthur faces 2 years in gaol at the sentencing hearing, next month. For what? for publishing satire over the internet!!!! David Gumpert sits home, nice and safe and warm and dry, insulated from any real threat of retaliation from the state for his political views …. see the difference?
Worth noting that Arthur Topham has been married to his wife, for 40 years, a Jewess by birth.
Take it easy, Watson. You are becoming incoherent….and in so doing, you are letting your fascist tendencies show through a bit more than I think you’d like. But just to clear up one of your points (if I understand it correctly), I think you are confusing press freedoms in the U.S. with press freedoms in Canada. The prosecution of Arthur Topham (if, indeed you describe it correctly) could never happen in the U.S., because there is no law under which it could happen. Freedom of the press in the U.S. is about as absolute as anywhere in the world….at least for now. But the “libel chill,” by which I presume you mean to be Trump’s threats to pass libel laws to make it easy to prosecute journalists for criticizing politicians, would most certainly apply to mainstream media pubs in the U.S.–those would be his primary target.
actually, the first thing that did happen to Arthur Topham when the Zion-ists went after him, was : the server of his website – which was situated on the territory of the US of A – gave him 48 hours to save content then pulled the plug. That wasn’t a publisher folding in the face of having to come up with untold amounts of $$ to fight government …. that was a private enterprise caving in to extortion by agents of a foreign power,
Given the opportunity to tell us in plain language : “yes” or “no”, do you support Arthur Topham’s right to publish his opinion in the form he did, i.e. satire? which is it?
as for “PRESIDENT Trump passing libel laws to make it easy to prosecute journalists for criticizing politicians” … you’re out of touch. First of all, the President doesn’t just dream up a law like that all by his little ol’ self. Congress = both Houses = generate law. Do you see a majority of 540+ lawmakers backing such non-sense?! Second : do your own homework ; find the recent case in the Supreme Court of the US in which the black-robed princes pronounced that ‘public figures are fair game’, i.e. have no right to sue for defamation for comments made in context of political fray. It parallels the SC of Canada case of Kari Simpson versus Rafe Mair in which a judge called my friend Kari Simpson “road kill on the information highway” for comments about her, over the radio, even when the Court found as a matter of fact, that the comments were made maliciously! Why? Because she was a public figure
I support right of anyone to publish their version of satire. I support right of Nazis and Klan to march in the streets.
Hey, I allow your prejudiced personal attacks on me on this blog.
On defamation, yes public figures are pretty much fair game, unless they can prove intentional disregard of the truth, which is difficult to prove. Trump would like to change all that–make criticism of politicians a crime under new libel laws; of course he’d need approval of legislature, but with a Republican majority, well within his reach.
John, I wish I could be as optimistic as you are. While you and I may agree on the idea of preserving our constitutional freedoms, I have the distinct impression from comments here that we are very much in the minority. I have read any number of arguments here for compromising two of our most precious freedoms–freedom of the press and freedom of religion, not to mention due process of law.
You make a good point that we don’t need to agree on non-constitutional issues like abortion or GMOs or vaccination. I personally have long understood that I am not in agreement with some in the food rights movement on such issues, and accept that pretty easily. But I have assumed that we hold the rights guaranteed by our Constitution, in particular, the Bill of Rights (the first 10 amendments) to be sacred. And that we would like to see food rights, even though they aren’t mentioned anywhere in the Constitution, to be taken as seriously.
I have found it terribly disheartening to see how readily many here would give up such sacred rights, together with our Constitution’s separation of powers and checks-and-balances, to the whims of a politician who happens to be fanning certain emotional flames that capture their fancy–like posing religious tests for immigrants or somehow compromising or limiting the freedoms of journalists. I had always assumed we had each other’s backs, that we were united on behalf of all our basic freedoms, and would stand up for any one that came under attack. That has been a major motivating force for me to push for food rights. To witness the hysteria, xenophobia, and prejudice that have poured forth here was a big surprise.
I worry as a result that not only are we further from being united than ever, but that we actually may be headed toward civil conflict of some kind. Kind of a western version of the Shiites vs the Sunnis. It’s happened in any number of major countries over the last century–why should the U.S. be different?
One thing for sure….all of the many divergent voices in America are alive and well here at the complete patient.
Interesting….very interesting to note that our one thing we share in common is our love of raw milk..,and raw milk is where we circle our wagons.
Maybe…..peace on earth will come from universal availability of raw milk??!!
If so….peace on earth is a bit down the road.
In the late 1800’s, there was a popular political party called The American Party, also nicknamed The Know Nothing Party which had as one of their main platforms, the banning of Irish and Italian immigrants because they were considered to be thugs and criminals and because of their Catholic religion, they would be beholden only to the pope and not to US law. Sound familiar?
In the first place our civil liberties are reserved for citizens only, not the entire world. Secondly, nowhere in the Constitution does it mandate that the United States take in refugees of ANY kind. Muslims have no Constitutional protections. Americans have protections, the President has the authority – granted to him by Congress to stop any person or group of people that HE deems a threat. ANY PERSONS OR GROUPS. It doesn’t say “except religious groups” the President has VERY broad Authority and he was absolutely within his rights to issue that ban. The overstep by the Judiciary should be immediately addressed by Congress who was also usurped by a rogue liberal SJW Justice who should be impeached for his failure to rule according to the law. Since we’re talking Constitution here, the Constitution does not grant a group of unelected, unaccountable people to write ANY law including immigration law. What the 9th circuit did was grant itself that power – absolutely. I wonder how on earth they’ll handle all those refugee, immigration, and visa requests? They’ve essentially established that it is THEM who will decide who can and cannot enter our Nation. Pretty scary considering that they’re not privy to National Security information. I said that because it falls in line with what you are protesting. The FDA. A group of unelected unaccountable officials who in this case have usurped God himself. I know you liberal “enlightened” individuals don’t like it but God is very much part of the founding document. The right of a human being to eat whatever he wants, even if it’s $hit is an inalienable right granted all humans by God- not Gov’t. The Gov’t is supposed to protect those rights. In this case like the Judiciary the Gov’t has chosen to usurp the powers granted it by the Constitution. Now the Gov’t is telling you what you can and cannot eat. You can’t have it both ways. Either you’re a liberal and you want the Gov’t to decide everything and provide everything you need. Or you are a Conservative and you want the Gov’t to stay out of your life and DO the TWO jobs that the Constitution granted them the power to do. 1. Protect our borders (sorry, that’s immigration well within their responsibilities) and Defend our Nation’s States. THAT’S IT.
Did I read that right: “Muslims have no Constitutional protections.” Take a look at the Constitution’s First Amendment.
As for food, there’s not a word about food in the Constitution. Probably because the founders never thought the government would try to interfere with our access to the foods of our choice. But the absence of such a mention has made it very difficult to get federal courts to rule in favor of things like private food rights. I don’t like it, but I respect the system.
There’s also no mention of God in the Constitution, and likely that was intentional. The founders wanted the U.S. to be a secular state, with complete separation of church and state, unlike the country that had governed them (England), which had a state religion.
The judiciary is one of three branches of our government. The legislature and executive are the other two. The judiciary interprets the laws (and executive orders, in this case). It’s interesting that the administration apparently chose not to appeal the Appeals Court ruling on immigration that upsets you so much, to the U.S. Supreme Court. Wonder why.