There Ain’t No Liberals in Feed Stores
THEY AIN’T NO LIB’RULS IN FEED STORES. I spend a lot of time (and money) in feed stores and I guarantee that those who feed America on anything other than corporate level do not and never have wanted any part of what Obama is selling. Yup, we’re a mean-spirited, selfish lot totally without a shred of social conscience. We know precisely how narrow our margin for safety is and how many threats assail it. Meat prices in grocery stores have no reality in a rancher’s life except when he is buying meat for his own table. Daddy always said, “You can’t afford to run cattle unless you have a private income.” It wasn’t a joke; it was a simple statement of the uncertainties of weather, the economy, actions of the government, disease, sun spots, and other forces of nature. In a really good year we might make a miniscule profit; grocery store chains think they’re doing well when they maintain the classical four per cent. That’s not a “small” profit. That’s a good profit in the business world, after operating expenses and taxes. Too bad it doesn’t cover inflation.
You go into a feed store (wonderful smells, fascinating merchandise, nice folks, and sticker shock wherever you look. Are you up to $2500 saddles? An average price, nothing special… how about fencing at five thousand a mile? And up. Mostly up!), and you can have a good, rousing, patriotic conversation on every aisle if you want to make an opening remark…the price of antibiotics (animals’ make ours look cheap), or the astounding increase in wire and T-post prices (non-precious metals) during the last year…or the probable effect on future feed costs from a crashing economy.
THEY AIN’T NO LIB’RULS IN SMALL TOWN BARBER SHOPS. In small towns purt’ near ever’body knows ever’body else and either employs, works for, or trades with ‘em. We are tied to the land and our small social groups, and charity really begins at home. We have no patience with the shiftless but pour out our bounty at times of birth, death, and catastrophe. I traveled extensively in six western counties of Texas in ’08 and saw precisely three Obama signs: one each in front of the shabbiest house in two small towns, and one in the little storefront that housed the Obama campaign in a small county seat. Democrats control local politics firmly (backlash against Reconstruction), but they are quite conservative at that level. Mebbe it takes critical mass before Demmies go really goofy…or perhaps hometown boys and girls get led astray by slick city mice. Probably both. We’re too busy trying to keep our land and businesses in the family to want to tell other people how to wash apples at th’ county level.
THEY AIN’T NO LIB’RULS IN GROCERY STORES. Hoo, boy, are there not. This is something that will grow as supplies decrease and prices increase. Now you still see the occasional liberal tee-shirt, but more and more people are focusing on their own problems in survival and are not really sympathetic with those who toil not, neither do they spin. It is frustrating to have to be careful about what we put in our carts because we know how much money is in our purses, and annoying to watch people buying luxuries with food stamps. Did you ever notice that those paying with our money are usually pretty nicely dressed and wearing good jewelry? Well, if somebody paid our grocery bills we could buy Boar’s head ham and cheeses, too. We’re the ones who know we have to choose, have to know the difference between what we can afford and what we can pay for, and have to make decisions on what is most important to us. If we buy that very expensive ham, something else has to be foregone. The welfare crowd doesn’t have that problem, nor do the illegals, for the same reason.
THEY AIN’T NO LIB’RULS IN HONKY TONKS ‘CEPTIN’ TH’ DIXIE CHICKS! One uh th’ gang commented that he hadn’t had any good political discussions in upscale bars recently. That’s ’cause th’ chardonay and sushi crowd doesn’t know much about traditional values, how money is made, how the monetary system is supposed to work, or anything except influencing public opinion and insider deals.
You git in tuh a great honky tonk lahk Willie’s Broken Spoke, in Austin, and yew don’t run into th’ welfare crowd, th’ illegals, or th’ politics of envy–although Congress is certainly doing its best to recruit us over the AIG mess which was all their doing. Ain’t nobuddy thar but good ol’ boys an’ their ladies havin’ fun, an’ we don’t hold with tearin’ down the Constitution, amnesty fur illegals, or anythin’ else much goin’ on in DC. Don’t you go burnin’ our flags or spittin’ on our Bibles, ’cause it ain’t safe. Ladies will thank you fur openin’ doors an’ look startled if you address a letter to “Ms. Farmerswife.” “Mizz” is how we pronounce “Miss,” and “Mizz-rus” means the gal’s married. We ain’t got no other honorifics, ‘cept courtesy “Aunt” an’ we like th’ ones whut we got. We don’t usually know sexual deviants unless we meet ‘em when visitin’ in th’ big city, an’ nobody has a problem with “Merry Christmas!”
You look at one uh them thar fancy charts whut shows how th’ country’s divided up, all purty in red with disfiguring blobs like De-Troit, MY-ami, an’ Washin’ton, an’ coastal strips in blue, an’ you’ll see maht’ quick that th’ disagreement between th’ Nawth an’ th’ South has expanded to that between th’ city fellers an’ th’ country boys. We’re still fighting (sorry, “fahtin’”) ovuh th’ same thangs: tariffs, taxes, big government vs. small, laissez faire, standin’ on our own two feet instead of on our neighbors’ wallets, States Rights, killin’ our own snakes, the Good Book, an’ sech lahk. (DJ’all git that? “Like,” if’n you don’ savvy mah lingo.) We don’ want no gummint subsidies an’ we don’ think y’all should pay our mortgages. We don’ want tuh support anybuddy though they ain’t no kinder hearts in th’ universe.
We’s ’bout divided equally in population and on policy ‘twixt the Red an’ th Blue, but th’ Damnyankees (Yes, that’s all one word.) are still stackin’ th’ ballot boxes an’ stid o’ writin’ to y’all Ah should be out ‘splainin’ tuh people why th’ Democratic party they’s addicted to ain’t been around for a mahty long spell. Habits er good when we’s talkin’ ’bout sloppin’ th’ hawgs, but they ain’t no reason tuh vote for uh bunch uh scallawags an’ carpet baggers what er pushin’ th’ Lib’rul agenda. We jes’ ain’t got ovuh bein’ mad at Lincoln, Sherman, an’ Beast Butluh, thass all.
Hay-ul, no, Ah ain’t makin’ fun uh mah frens an’ neighbors, mo’ lahk mah seff. We tawk funny ’cause we like it, an’ tuh remind ah-sevs that we ain’t th’ problem heah an’ we’uh dag-nabbed tarred uh havin’ socialism thrust upon us an’ bein’ beggared fer a bunch uh useless slime an’ payin’ fur votes tuh keep Pelosi, Reid, Maxine Waters, Ted Kennedy, an’ Ron Dellums in office. Don’t believe in welfare, but if them folks gonna git somethin’ fur nothin’ leastways they could do is clean our houses an’ gummint buildin’s, or be th’ ones holdin’ them traffic signs ‘stead uh payin’ ovuh twenty bucks an hour fur sich services.
Ah done give up appologizin’ fur bein’ South’n. Ain’t gonna make no more jokes ’bout how Ah flies th’ Stahs an Bahs ’cause it amuses th’ hands. It does, but Ah likes it too. Ah’m fed up with income- an’ soul-destroyin’ regulation thass drahvin’ us outta business, an’ what’n tarnation made th’ Feds thank that outlawin’ are raht t’ feed ourselves an’ others should be a crime in th’ name of “food safety?” Hey, anybody you know evah git sick from eatin’ at home? Didn’t think so. Evah have any problems with home-canned vegetables? ‘Course not. Th’ problems come out uh heavily regulated an’ inspected restaurants an’ factories. Had a fren, oncet, back in mah college days, heir to uh big corporation. (Hey, got me three uh them pay-puhs whut says DEE-gree on ‘em, but common sense counts thuh most, that an’ th’ bonnie blue flag.) Aftuh a summah spent learnin’ th’ bidness in the Phillipines warn’t nuthin’ would git Lon tuh eat Daddy’s best-known confection. Seems he took a real dislike tuh th’ gi-gantic bugs an’ rats what infested th’ factories.
Restrictin’ food perduction ain’t ’bout nuthin’ but pertectin’ agribusiness an’ controllin’ crowds should it come tuh “insurrection,” as th’ Feds’ull call it. ‘Bout tahm ya’ll got serious about wass goin’ on an’ reflectin’ on a gummint that dun’t want yuh t’ have no more’n two weeks’ food in yore house. ‘Bout tahm t’ question how cum them varmints got they eyes on our guns agin’ an’ whah they ain’t much ammo available an’ that costs three tahms whut it did last year. Thank Gawd we’uh “one shot–one squirrel” types, not prone t’ sprayin’ bullets ’round like th’ SWAT guys do, or we’d be ovuh-run with squirrels, ‘possums, ‘coons, bob cats, an’ othuh pests. Dang if it don’ cost a dolluh evah tahm Asia shoots a wild hawg. Plus tax, uh cos.’
THEY AIN’T NO LIB’RULS in small town banks. They ain’t no Lib’ruls cat fishin.’ Don’t think they’s many Lib’ruls in small town lie-berries, jes’ ladies wantin’ tuh keep th’ computers from bein’ used for porn-ography. Probly ain’t no Lib’ruls in th’ Boy Scouts, lease-wise not at Eagle Scout level.
Ya’ll thank this ovuh whahl Ah stots ovuh an’ whips out twenny or thutty thousan’ wuds on whah th’ South was rot. We wuz, y’know. Had a perfect raht tuh git shet uh dictatorial gummint an go are sep-rut ways. All we wanted was uh simple little no-fault dee-vorce an’ Lincoln an’ his bunch dun turnt it intuh a shootin’ mattah.
Save yo’ Corn-federate dollars. No, not because th’ South’s gonna rise agin, fer shoe-uh, but ’cause they got IN-trinsic value, unlike Bernanke Ben’s counterfeit.
Regards,
Linda Brady Traynham
March 31, 2009
Linda Brady Traynham
Linda Brady Traynham is a former editor and analytical project report writer and is now a Whiskey & Gunpowder field correspondent on a ranch in the Republic of Texas. She studied Counseling at Boston University and got her Masters degree in Philosophy from the University of Hawaii.
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Very cute, except the very idea of “waring partys” and values is so tired. You think the Repub’s care about your issues? You are being pandered to for votes! There are no good guys. It was the “conservative” Republican Party that lied us into hideously expensive foreign wars for profit, doubled our deficits and deregulated and thereby enabled the financial piracy that ruined our economy. Turn off the flack Limbaugh and open your eyes. Privatized profits and socialized losses make the Republicans the de-facto socialists. Watch here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8y06NSBBRtY and you will see the conservative patriot Eisenhower warning of what the PARTY THAT WRECKED AMERICA would become.
interesting article linda. so why is it that when the socialist subsidies are handed out the farmers are always the first ones at the trough? No liberals in your space i’m sure, but without the government subsidies initiated by FDR your feed store, barber shop, grocery store, etc. would be as empty as a hobo’s pocket.
Value. There are no liberals in the feed store because the liberal farmers grow their own feed and grind it themselves. They’re called Amish, and they implement local government to keep their lives within the limits of their beliefs and cultures. Is that conservative? I guess I’m so far right, I’m left. I see through the left and the right and that both come up with schemes which simply cannot work. Eliminating government from trade at the national level leads to monopolies and violence against workers, as well as overconsumption and self-destruction of the country. Putting government on every street corner leads to clowns as police and entrenched idiots sitting around waiting for pensions.
The problem is that human beings don’t understand where value comes from. They don’t know the value of government nor the value of manual labor nor the value of resources left in the ground. They only understand their wants, not their needs. Fencing in the prairies to run cattle instead of letting the buffalo have it and eating the extra meat that grows without doing anything. Filling the land with roads to drive cars to places which nobody needs to go. Working at jobs in order to buy cars to work at jobs.
I mean, who is it that wants a book published called, “Fertility for Dummies”?
Doesn’t anyone actually think? Or do the best of our thinkers live angry, resentful lives like you? What is the Net Usefulness of your view of government? How does constantly arguing for less government actually find a way that government can be useful at improving the net usefulness of the people? Freedom has a price: it’s called responsibility for our actions. Some government makes doing the right things easier than doing the wrong things. Some government IS the wrong thing (wars on false premises, for one). Ranting against lib’rals or comm’nists may be fun and humorous at the feed store, but it doesn’t change the fact that some people need help in order to be useful members of society. Sometimes those people are farmers, sometimes not. The collective usefulness is improved with cooperation and decreased by competition (redundant use of resources to accomplish the same goals). Competition can be a fun game, but unbridled growth is cancerous. Many people are looking at the current economic situation and lamenting the ‘horrible’ crash, but the truth is that it was the blind faith during the ‘good times’ that caused this mess. There is no cure but to start over, and Obama’s actions are merely following the corporatocracy’s path, as presidents have since Lincoln invaded the South.
“Knowledge, not College.”
There’s no liberal farmers, but boy, hear them holler when the gum’mint handouts dry up! Socialism on the hoof, to be sure. And there’s no liberals in these small towns, because there’s no anybody left in them, as they dry up and blow away.
Funny how Obama’s got 60%+ approval ratings. Or is that because liberals conspire to fake the polls, too? Here’s a farm term for you: BS.
I dislike the way you always talk about yourself and it appears to be a broken record whining away.
The accent is high school and not worth reading.
Dear R. Sproul:
I’m glad you enjoyed my foray into the vernacular.
I don’t have time to listen to Mr. Limbaugh and his guests because (choke of laughter) I prefer to think for myself. I’d be a Libertarian (I think; I’m not quite sure what they believe, never having done the research.) if there were any point in it. For a really old-fashioned phrase, I’m an “Agrarian Republican,” a la Thomas Jefferson. What I take to be your meaning is very true: in general the Republican party just sells us out a little more slowly than the Dems do. I will check out the site you suggested and let you know what I think.
I kept reading this article wondering if their was ever was going to be a valid point but instead it was just idiotic rambling . I think you self righteous republicans forgot who quit their campaign to go back and fix this mess by doing what exactly what weare doing now. If McCain was in charge I doubt all that much would be different . Obama is being a failure by following the lead of the last Bozo in Charge and not really taking a different course.If they pay you to write this garbage where can I sign up ? Let me go beat my head against the wall and down a bottle of Jack and maybe I can be as insightful as you are.
Dear Jay:
Glad you asked!
You wrote: “interesting article linda. so why is it that when the socialist subsidies are handed out the farmers are always the first ones at the trough? No liberals in your space i’m sure, but without the government subsidies initiated by FDR your feed store, barber shop, grocery store, etc. would be as empty as a hobo’s pocket.”
There are farmers, and then there are farmers. I’m talking about family-owned small ranches, farms, and dairies, or some mixture of the three. I, personally, have never had a subsidy in my life, nor had my father, unless you count an agricultural exemption on the land. That is a break on taxes which we get for keeping the land in productive use, NOT some boondoggle like being paid not to grow crops I wasn’t going to grow anyway. If we lose that exemption for not having the requisite number of thousand pound units it takes seven years to get it back!
Agribusiness isn’t in the feedstores because they purchase by the thousands of tons and have their own distribution nets. When someone becomes a Sanderson Farms affiliate (not well-paid work and full of frustrations over and above the fact that chickens are stupid, messy, and singularly dim-witted), he still lives in the community, but on a different footing. Taking care of those chickens and trying to make a profit under SF rules tends to keep the guys pretty busy, and I am informed that the several in surrounding counties are owned by the Vietnamese. I keep meaning to look into that. When I’m not whistling “Dixie” I’m an analyst and logistics type, and I spend most of the time I’m not playing with animals and those I love researching and poking in odd corners. I noticed long ago that almost all nail techs are from Vietnam, and most shops have both men and women devoted to keeping our fingernails elegant and painting pretty designs on our toenails. I have wondered what they are going to do when this mess worsens. Having a professional pedicure is definitely a luxury. Same thing with bowling (I don’t), and the price of taking the family to a movie. Back to the Vietnamese…who is providing the funding, and why this trend?
I live near a large university town, and we sure have more Liberals than are good for a body or the body politic. They stay occupied indoctrinating our kids if they are with most departments of “education,” while the bureaucrats are busy raising taxes, increasing regulations (like a patrolman who wanders around writing tickets because the grass is too long to suit the city counsel or your garage isn’t neat enough to suit him), and deciding they know better than we do about everything in the world.
This week’s project is refurbishing a modest cattle trailer (probly’d hold five-six head) Daddy got in the Sixties. It needed a new floor, to have one gate replaced, and new tires. No problem, we’re handy, so we built the floor, Charles used the welder to repair the hinge, and we got four tires. Come to find out that not only do we have to have lights and directional signals (sensible precautions we planned to update anyway), but we are required to put fenders over the wheels and a top on the thing! Well…possibly the fenders will prevent gravel from being kicked up (the rationale given us), although I doubt it (the mud flap place in DFW is closing down), but that has nothing to do with hauling cattle safely. Neither does having a covering over the cows (horses, mules, goats, whatever.) They are accustomed to being out in all sorts of weather other than lean-to sheds, in most areas. They don’t need to be protected from the sun’s rays, or whatever some twit thought this mandate would accomplish. My guesses are making life more complicated and necessitating replacing serviceable equipment! Call me a cynic.
We’re stubborn, and we’ve come up with four different ways to fabricate fenders and three ways to enclose the trailer top. By the time we are through we will have spent several days to no effect whatsoever other than being able to take the trailer on the road to go pick up some more cattle. Trust me, the cows really don’t care, and they can’t jump out. They were carted around for years in complete safety, and we have a far bigger interest in preserving their health than the government does. That is the trailer Daddy used to take horses on the show circuit, and he guarded their health assiduously.
That’s the basic breakdown: those who go out and solve problems, even those we should never have had, and those who interfere in areas they are ignorant of, wasting precious resources. We aren’t going to go spend a good many thousands of dollars to purchase a flossy chariot we will use perhaps two or three days a year–but you can bet that when Ah’m down to th’ feed store I’m going to make a very good story out of the latest battle with the Nanny State.
The REAL dividing line is between those who are chained to cubicles or assembly lines, rush hour traffic, and the rat race, and those of us who work and live in the same place. THEIR “leisure” is what they can scrounge around running errands on the weekends and that once a year vacation. OURS is a function of how we live. “Every day in the Navy is like Sunday on the farm.” (I was working on an article along this line last night.) That means that EVERY day we have to feed, water, milk, and take care of emergencies. Other than a few seasonal demands…our time is our own. No, we don’t go on formal vacations much because it is difficult to get the stock seen to, but most of us are gorgeously happy right where we are doing what we’re doing. Nobody does busy work, and nobody is expected to look busy when he isn’t. We have time to be hospitable, and time to read…good healthy exercise like splitting our own wood for our own fireplaces (I bought a hydraulic log-splitter and no one has ever used it!)
Dinner is a highlight of the day coming right behind feeding Molly, Peggy, Fiona, K-k-k-katy, Maggie Thatcher, and Michelle Ma Belle their evening treat by hand, scattering grain to supplement what the chickens found for themselves, and loving on the goats. (I wish every person in America could have a goat! They love people, are insatiably curious, and are so darned funny…they teach responsibility, and reward us with milk and meat…)
I got sidetracked. Dinner is something we enjoy planning and cooking because we aren’t going to flop in front of the telly, and we don’t have a bedtime more serious than a yawn. We get up when we feel like it, go to bed when we feel like it, do the routine chores, choose which project to putter with, and think good, cheerful conservative thoughts. We eat exceedingly well from the bounty the land, our effort, and lots of money provide. The hands live the same lives we do. The cattle don’t care what they ride in and they don’t care when they get fed and milked so long as it happens ever day.
If anyone had asked the founding fathers, who had never heard of Malthus or the technological changes that would come, they would have supposed that as the population grew it would spread slowly westward, leaving settlers with enough land and livestock to support themselves behind. They couldn’t foresee even the Industrial Revolution, you know. Most of our states have populations that would have staggered them.
I am not saying that a Republic will not work for an urban society, only that those who are tied to the land find it easier to grasp the principles of freedom. Thomas Jefferson and his friends did their best to protect us against totalitarian governments, but they also knew all about having to protect ourselves against the elements, predators, and crop losses. They spoke out against the welfare state and people who did not take responsibility for their own actions.
Let’s hear it for old dead white guys!
Remember “Forty acres and a mule!” from your history text? I will always hold that all people capable of it would be happier with meaningful work they enjoyed, and that what America needs is more small farming operations. Unfortunately, the start up costs are prohibitive.
I’ll leave you with this thought. In FDR’s day, there were 5.1 million small farms. Today there are 2.1 M. Some of that was the lure of the big city lights, but most of it was exorbitant taxation and vastly increased regulation and costs. FDR was no friend to small scale farmers, and no one else has been, either. Sure, Borden, et al., beekeepers, and others have been able to purchase favors–favors that restrict the ability to compete.
Somewhere along the line it should occur to Mr. Obama, Mr. Reid, and Mrs. Pelosi that we cannot rely on the rest of the world to feed us; for too long it has been the other way around. Cap and trade, new restrictions on what we can produce even for our own use in the name of “food safety,” and the IRS being eager to label what we do “hobbies” are going to reduce the amount of food America can produce to the detriment of all. James Howard Kunstler writes very well on what he thinks is coming, and I’m with him. Don’t blame the farmer for the price of food. Blame Congress, lobbyists, and big business.
Linda
The executives of General Mills don’t live in our community. They don’t know that my doctor’s mama works in the court house. The CEO doesn’t go to the First Baptist Church in a town of 2300, and his kids don’t go to our tiny schools. The bosses have no connection with the land, the people, the social life, or our values. Come to think of it, unless it is corn I don’t know what agribusiness does in Texas.
I DO know that Texas (according to the new Almanac out) has fully ten per cent. of the small farms, for lack of a better term, in the entire US! I’d rather talk to you than go dig that tome out, but we have half a dozen megalopaluses, and a handful of good-sized towns, but we have miles and miles of family-owned land that is ranched, farmed, or leased to others for those purposes.
Agribusiness isn’t in feed stores
Dear Dan:
What an interesting response, and how well you write. Let me see what I can do when confined to this tiny box (Gary! PLEASE may we have rich text so I can answer in the middle of letter’s like Dan’s?!) We’ll have to make do with setting his words off in quotation marks and I’ll struggle with all caps.
“Value. There are no liberals in the feed store because the liberal farmers grow their own feed and grind it themselves. They’re called Amish, and they implement local government to keep their lives within the limits of their beliefs and cultures. Is that conservative? I guess I’m so far right, I’m left.” WHAT A FASCINATING PAIR OF POINTS. I FIGURED YOU HAD AGRIBUSINESS IN MIND, AND THEN YOU CAME UP WITH THE AMISH! I’M IN FAVOR OF THE AMISH LIVING EXACTLY AS THEY WISH BECAUSE I’M IN FAVOR OF ALL PEOPLE LIVING AS THEY WISH SO LONG AS THEY DO NOT HARM OTHERS OVERTLY AND SPECIFICALLY IN WAYS I CAN QUANTIFY, SUCH AS PHYSICAL ATTACK OR THEFT. I DO NOT APPROVE OF ANY GROUP IMPOSING ITS BELIEFS ON THE LIFESTYLES OF OTHERS, AGAIN, WITHIN SENSIBLE LIMITATIONS OF THE NEED TO RESTRICT HUMAN SACRIFICE, ROBBERY, MURDER, AND SO FORTH. I see through the left and the right and that both come up with schemes which simply cannot work. Eliminating government from trade at the national level leads to monopolies and violence against workers, as well as overconsumption and self-destruction of the country. HMMM…YOUR THESIS IS THAT LIFE IS NASTY, BRUTISH, AND SHORT AND WE WOULD ALL BE ROBBER BARONS IF WE COULD? WHY WOULD ANYONE BE VIOLENT AGAINST WORKERS? WE’VE ALREADY GOT MONOPOLIES! HOW DOES OVER-CONSUMPTION COME FROM ELIMINATING GOVERNMENT? ARE YOU ADVOCATING RATIONING?Putting government on every street corner leads to clowns as police and entrenched idiots sitting around waiting for pensions.
The problem is that human beings don’t understand where value comes from. They don’t know the value of government nor the value of manual labor nor the value of resources left in the ground. They only understand their wants, not their needs. Fencing in the prairies to run cattle instead of letting the buffalo have it and eating the extra meat that grows without doing anything. Filling the land with roads to drive cars to places which nobody needs to go. Working at jobs in order to buy cars to work at jobs.
I’M WITH YOU ON MOST OF THIS PARAGRAPH, EXCEPT BUFFALO ARE REALLY AWFULLY BIG, YOU KNOW. IF THEY WERE WANDERING AROUND LOOSE IT COULD CAUSE PROBLEMS. DID YOU HAVE IN MIND JUST BEING ABLE TO GO OUT AND SHOOT ONE WHEN YOU NEEDED MEAT? AGAIN…BUFFALO ARE VERY, VERY BIG, AND I’M HAVING TROUBLE WITH THE LOGISTICS! I THINK ABOUT TRYING TO LIFT, TRANSPORT, SKIN, BUTCHER, WRAP, AND FREEZE SOMETHING THAT IS OVER A TON ON THE HOOF AND I TEND TO BLANCH. I THINK THAT DOMESTIC CATTLE ARE AN IMPROVEMENT.
Doesn’t anyone actually think? Or do the best of our thinkers live angry, resentful lives like you? ME? ME PERSONALLY? GRACIOUS, I’M THE SWEETEST, HAPPIEST, MOST CHEERFUL AND LOVING LADY I KNOW! MY FRIENDS SAY THAT I BUILD OASES OF LOVE, JOY, HAPPINESS, AND KINDNESS. I’M EVEN QUITE BRIGHT FOR MY AGE AND SPEND MOST OF MY TIME THINKING. THINKING IS THE ACT OF IMPOSING ORDER UPON DATA, DRAWING CONCLUSIONS, FINDING BETTER WAYS TO DO THINGS… What is the Net Usefulness of your view of government? YOU ASKED, I’LL TELL YOU. THE BASIC PURPOSES OF GOVERNMENT ARE TO PROVIDE SAFETY FOR THE CITIZENS FROM INVADERS AND FROM THOSE WHO DO NOT WISH TO ABIDE BY MINIMUM STANDARDS OF PUBLIC BEHAVIOR. PERIOD. WE CAN’T AFFORD TO BE BE OVERRUN BY THOSE WHO WOULD TAKE OUR LAND OR OUR BELONGINGS AND MURDER OUR CITIZENS, AND WE CAN’T TOLERATE SERIAL MURDERERS, BURGLARS, HIGHWAY MEN, AND OTHER ACTS OF ANARCHY AND BRUTE FORCE. How does constantly arguing for less government actually find a way that government can be useful at improving the net usefulness of the people? PRECISELY. I THINK. “THE USEFULNESS OF THE PEOPLE?” I EXPECT OTHERS TO BE SELF-SUPPORTING AND REASONABLY HONEST, BUT I DON’T SEE WHY THEY SHOULD BE USEFUL TO ME UNLESS THEY RECEIVE SOMETHING IN TURN. I DON’T THINK I SHOULD BE THE PUBLIC’S MILK COW, EITHER. Freedom has a price: it’s called responsibility for our actions. Some government makes doing the right things easier than doing the wrong things. Some government IS the wrong thing (wars on false premises, for one). Ranting against lib’rals or comm’nists may be fun and humorous at the feed store, but it doesn’t change the fact that some people need help in order to be useful members of society. WHAT SORT OF HELP DID YOU HAVE IN MIND? POTENTIALLY USEFUL LIVES ARE DESTROYED ALL THE TIME BY POLICIES THAT PROVIDE FOOD, SHELTER, MEDICAL CARE, AND WALKING AROUND MONEY IN RETURN FOR ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. THE JAMESTOWN RULE WAS “IF YOU DON’T WORK YOU DON’T EAT.” THAT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE OCCASIONAL PERSON WHO IS INCAPABLE OF TAKING CARE OF HIM- OR HERSELF, PERHAPS BY REASON OF DIMINISHED REASONING CAPABILITY OR SEVERE PHYSICAL HANDICAPS. THAT’S WHAT FAMILIES, PRIVATE ORGANIZATIONS, AND CHURCHES ARE FOR, NOT AN EXCUSE TO TAKE WHAT IS MINE FOR THE BENEFIT OF SOMEONE ELSE. IT IS AN ACT OF THUGGERY TO SEIZE WHAT IS MINE ON THE GROUNDS OF SOMEONE ELSE’S NEED; IT IS, IN FACT, STRAIGHT OUT OF THE COMMUNIST MANIFESTO: “TO EACH ACCORDING TO HIS NEED, FROM EACH ACCORDING TO HIS ABILITY.” WHO DECIDES? Sometimes those people are farmers I WOULD LOVE TO HEAR AN EXAMPLE OF A FARMER WHO NEEDS HELP TO BE USEFUL TO SOCIETY, NOT THAT I THINK BEING USEFUL TO OTHERS IS A LAUDABLE GOAL. IT IS CERTAINLY A PERMISSIBLE PERSONAL CHOICE, AND MOST ADMIRE MOTHER THERESA, BUT IT SHOULD NOT BE PUBLIC POLICY. IF HE IS AN UNSUCCESSFUL FARMER FOR REASONS WITHIN HIS CONTROL HE COULD GO DO SOMETHING ELSE AND BE HAPPIER AND PERHAPS SUCCESSFUL IN TAKING CARE OF HIS OWN NEEDS AND THOSE OF HIS FAMILY. IF HE CANNOT SUCCEED BECAUSE FARMING DOES NOT PRODUCE A SUFFICIENT SURPLUS TO PAY FOR HIS SEEDS, TOOLS, SUPPLIES, EQUIPMENT, LABOR, ENERGY COSTS, AND TAXES, ALL OF WHICH THINGS ARE INFLUENCED HEAVILY BY GOVERNMENT ACTION, THEN HE HAS BEEN HAMPERED BY THE GOVERNMENT WHICH IN THEORY WAS SUPPOSED TO PROTECT HIM. SOME LAWS CANNOT BE CHANGED, SUCH AS THE LAW OF SUPPLY AND DEMAND AND WHAT I HAVE TO PUT INTO A GOAT TO GET GOOD THINGS IN RETURN. YOU CANNOT MANDATE THAT FAITH OR ANGIE GIVE MORE MILK OR THAT THEY SHOULD PRODUCE IT FOR LESS FEED. I CANNOT TELL THE CHICKENS THAT UNLESS THEY LAY AN EGG A DAY INSTEAD OF ONE EVERY 26 HOURS I’M GOING TO FIRE THEM AND GET SOME CHICKENS WHO PRODUCE BETTER. FOR ALL THE JOY WE TAKE IN IT, FARMING IS HARD WORK FRAUGHT WITH PERIL OF MANY SORTS, AND WE TAKE A LOT OF OUR “PAY” IN PERSONAL ENJOYMENT. IF IT DOESN’T RAIN ENOUGH, THE CORN DIES, AND THAT’S THAT. IN A GOOD YEAR, FREE FROM ARTIFICAL RESTRAINTS, FARMERS MAY MAKE FOUR PER CENT. AT PRESENT, THAT SOUNDS LIKE A GOOD INVESTMENT (IF YOU DON’T HAVING TO FEED COWS IN A BLUE NORTHER OR FIND THAT THE WILD HOGS HAVE ROOTED UP THE NEW CROP), BUT DURING MOST DECADES OF AT LEAST THE LAST COUPLE OF CENTURIES 4% HAS BEEN REGARDED AS PRETTY PATHETIC , sometimes not. The collective usefulness is improved with cooperation and decreased by competition (redundant use of resources to accomplish the same goals). Competition can be a fun game, but unbridled growth is cancerous. BLINK. AH. I DON’T KNOW WHAT COLLECTIVE USEFULNESS IS BUT I DOUBT I WOULD APPROVE OF IT. SOMETHINGS WORK BETTER WITH COOPERATION WHILE OTHERS ARE SPURRED BY COMPETITION. IF THERE IS NO COMPETITION THERE IS NO IMPETUS TO IMPROVE PRODUCTION OR PRODUCTS. THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS THOUGHT A PERFECTLY GRAND CENTURY WAS ONE IN WHICH ABSOLUTELY NOTHING CHANGED. THEY’D WIN A WAR IF THEY HAD TO, BUT BASICALLY THEY WERE CONTENT TO PUTTER ALONG EXACTLY AS THEY WERE FROM DYNASTY TO DYNASTY. Many people are looking at the current economic situation and lamenting the ‘horrible’ crash, but the truth is that it was the blind faith during the ‘good times’ that caused this mess. WELL, THAT WAS CERTAINLY ONE FACTOR.
There is no cure but to start over, and Obama’s actions are merely following the corporatocracy’s path, as presidents have since Lincoln invaded the South. HOW DO YOU PROPOSE TO START OVER? IF THAT DOES NOT INVOLVE PEACEFUL MEANS SUCH AS SEEKING LIKE-MINDED ASSOCIATES TO WORK THROUGH THE BALLOT HOW WOULD YOU GO ABOUT IT?
LINCOLN HAD A VERY GOOD REASON FOR INVADING THE SOUTH: “LET THE SOUTH GO? LET THE SOUTH (VERY EMPHATIC) GO?!!! HOW ELSE TO FILL MY COFFERS?” IN CONTEXT MEANING THAT HE HAD TO HAVE THE TAX REVENUE FROM WHAT WAS THEN THE WEALTHIEST PART OF THE COUNTRY.
“Knowledge, not College.” BOTH. KNOWLEDGE, THOUGHT, SOUND PRINCIPLES, CHARACTER, TEACHING OUR CHILDREN RIGHT FROM WRONG ACCORDING TO OUR LIGHTS, BEING RESPONSIBLE FOR OUR OWN BEHAVIOR, AND BEING KIND, GENTLE, AND GOOD WHENEVER POSSIBLE.
I WOULD BE INTERESTED IN KNOWING WHAT YOU DO FOR A LIVING, SIR, AND HOW THAT CHOICE REFLECTS THE VALUES AND CHOICES WHICH YOU HAVE AND MADE.
I MAJORED IN PHILOSOPHY AND HAVE A MASTERS IN COUNSELING. I WAS A FULL-TIME DONNA REED HOUSEWIFE, SOMETHING I STILL THINK THE MOST WONDERFUL LUXURY A MAN CAN PROVIDE FOR HIS CHILDREN. MY PERSONAL COMMUNITY SERVICE FOR DECADES HAS BEEN RESCUING ILLITERATES ONE AT A TIME. I USUALLY TEACH CLASSES IN PHONICS GRATIS ONCE A QUARTER FOR ON-GOING EDUCATION. I SHARE THE BOUNTY WE PRODUCE GENEROUSLY AND OUR TWO HANDS ARE PROUD OF THEIR JOBS AND LOVE THEM. I’M NOT A SAINT, BUT I’M A PRETTY NICE LADY AND I THINK I CONTRIBUTE QUITE A BIT TO THE WELLBEING OF OTHERS. I DO IT OF MY OWN FREE WELL, AND THAT IS IMPORTANT TO ME. I’M INTERESTED IN LIFE, LIBERTY, AND THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS FOR MYSELF AND ALL OTHERS WHO ARE WORKING TOWARDS THE SAME GOALS IN THEIR OWN WAYS. I WISH THEM WELL, AND HOPE THEY SUCCEED. I WISH THE SAME FOR YOU.
LINDA
Dear Panskeptic:
You wrote: “You wrote: There’s no liberal farmers, but boy, hear them holler when the gum’mint handouts dry up! Socialism on the hoof, to be sure. And there’s no liberals in these small towns, because there’s no anybody left in them, as they dry up and blow away.
Funny how Obama’s got 60%+ approval ratings. Or is that because liberals conspire to fake the polls, too? Here’s a farm term for you: BS.”
Thank you for your charming reply. What government handouts? I don’t get any and I don’t know anyone else who gets any. The small towns are still doing fine because they have a balanced ecology. As I said somewhere, we trade with, employ, or are employed by others in the community. We don’t look to Washington because we…for a lot of reasons. One is that in small societies things tend to balance out. The Bank president didn’t make loans for MacMansions because there aren’t any. Besides, he tends to know most of the people who live there and who is a good prospect for being able to repay a loan and who isn’t.
Do I think the polls are biased? Well, sometimes. If I take a poll on Town Hall, I can be pretty sure that the answers will be overwhelmingly aligned with those I gave, but that’s because we’re there to read conservative columns. If I read one in a major liberal newspaper in a major liberal city, at the very least I expect to find that they have tossed the “fair” answers, on a scale of “excellent, good, fair, and poor” into the “approve” column. The one that is simplest for most of us to find that might be pretty reliable is on AOL. I don’t think there is any connection between AOL and its subscribers, even though it bashed Bush Dubya daily all through his term. About eighty thousand of us responded today, and the split was right at fifty-fifty.
If you are satisfied with Mr. Obama’s policies and accomplishments, enjoy them and work for them. That is your right under our Constitution, and I wish you success and happiness in the career of your choice using exactly the same principles.
Mrs. John C. Traynham
Dear Flip:
Aren’t you the sweetest thing?
You wrote, with singular charm and tact: “I dislike the way you always talk about yourself and it appears to be a broken record whining away.The accent is high school and not worth reading.”
If my cheerful little excursions into how politics, productivity, and investing are interrelated bore or offend enough of you, no doubt Gary will sensibly cease to devote space to my amateurish outpourings from time to time. Your vote has been recorded duly, Flip.
Chuckle. I guess I set myself up to be a “public figure” and fair game by appearing here and should regard the two very bad grades I got on this article as a compliment of sorts.
I wish to thank Gary again for allowing me to contribute. I am, yes, “proud” is the best word, to have my articles appear in such distinguished company, and I always have a great deal of fun writing them. It is very kind of Gary to choose to publish things I send him occasionally.
Linda Brady Traynham
I left a comment earlier that has disappeared.
Why is that?
The comment was not mean but was an honest comment saying: I dislike the way you always talk about yourself. I also said the accent is high school.
What is wrong with that? They are true statements.
How can you object to someones honest opinion.
What kind of writer cannot take mild criticism?
I do dislike your need to talk about yourself and the written accent.
I like the site but if a comment such as this is pulled without any explanation it changes the site imo..
I just read the comment rules and I do not see where my comment violates any of the rules. I gave a valid email address so who knows why and it will be interesting to see what happens.
Flip
xxx@xxx.com
xxx.xx.xxxxxx Submitted on 2009/04/01 at 4:24pm
I dislike the way you always talk about yourself and it appears to be a broken record whining away.
The accent is high school and not worth reading.
You mean that comment. It’s still there. Copied here in all its glory.
Working at jobs in order to buy cars to work at jobs.
Like the breeders having babies then dying…so those babies can grow up, have babies, then die.
Vanity, vanity…all is vanity.
I am so sick of listening to you people and your stupid liberal conservative argument . Many people are libertarians and believe in small govt and want them out of our lives for all reasons . I could care less if gays marry hope they legalize marijuana and want to eliminate large govt . So what does that make me a Liberal conservative ?Or conservative liberal ?Must be nice to think everyone can be classified so simply,as far as that Bush Idiot he was anything but a conservative and I am sure you worshiped at the stupidity of Bush conservatism, which only existed in the minds of his ardent followers . The world is much more complex then your little simpleminded analysis of the world. The only true conservative was Ron Paul and he was about as welcome in the republican party as a liberal in your supposed small town, which probably is infested with meth addicts and promiscuous teens wearing promise rings and getting pregnant because they weren’t smart enough to use protection. I have lived in small towns and now live in Dallas and things are not as different as people want to believe them to be. Liberal and Conservative are only terms for people who have limited intellect to understand there are always many complexities in all things and usually not simple answers or definitions.
Wow I dont know who lets you write on this website but I think they should serioulsy reconsider . Mark Twain you aint!!!!
Gary – It was gone when I came here or why would I have bothered with the second comment.
What glory are you referring to?
I made an honest comment about her writing whats wrong with that?
Are you saying the comment was always there and never removed even temporarily?
When I came here my comment was gone.
It seemed strange to me that a site like this would remove any comment.
Whats stranger is for you to imply that it was always there and never gone and to choose the word glory.
You can keep the glory along with her written accent and fun.
I won’t comment anymore since I am not after the glory that you feel we get by commenting here.
Mr. Wacker,
I let her post here. You’re free to send a submission too.
Linda-
i’m honored by your thoughtful and cogent response. i’m glad to hear that you are not in the handout line and i am in total agreement with your views on agribiz and factory farming. as a history teacher (and transitioning to semi-retirement small scale farming) i can’t agree with your assessmant of our founders or their expectations for the future. jefferson’s vision of a nation of yeoman farmers was already out of date by the time he became president and hamilton, in particular, made clear that he expected the US to become an industrial power. but these issues aside, G-d bless the small farmer.
jay
Hah Linda! It seems that some people cannot take a bit of a joke and/or corny talk. Linda you were not really just talking about yourself, you were talking for others that have a way of life that differs greatly from say, the lives of city people for instance. This wasn’t so much a soapbox for your own personal values but for you to be able to speak for many others. Some people are so stubbornly political that they have a difficult time with balance in their lives. I admire your thinking and know that the “corny talk” is no different than the way “The Mogambo Guru” goes on his rambling, extended, sometimes goofy explanations. But do you know what? It makes people stop and think doesn’t it? You, as all good thinkers and writers do, have stimulated the thinking of others who at least have been prompted to respond back to you, either negatively or positively and sometimes in between. Hah, hah, hah, Wheee!!!, getting people to write back to your corny columns is easy!
Best Regards, Canada North
Good call, CanadaNorth.
As long as I manage this here Whiskey Bar, Linda will have a forum.
“I WOULD BE INTERESTED IN KNOWING WHAT YOU DO FOR A LIVING, SIR, AND HOW THAT CHOICE REFLECTS THE VALUES AND CHOICES WHICH YOU HAVE AND MADE. ”
The order in which I answer reflects poorly on the choices that I’ve made. Chronologically doesn’t do justice to my life, which isn’t mine, but belongs to the hologram we call America.
(with many overlaps:)Farmer, mechanic, machinist, Navy aviation electronics tech, test engineer, inventor, farmer, homemaker, philosopher (self-taught).
You made many comments to my post, and this isn’t a criticism as much as an observation. Your life is your own, and you say you don’t want others imposing their way of life on you (re: Amish), yet here you are pontificating on the internet….hmmm. I’ll think about that (Everyone on the internet is wrong, including me for being here.).
The perspective which I see (missing?) in your commentary is one of the international human condition. As this is the W&G site, I expect a certain Americanized bent, and so I’m just noticing this, not saying it is a bad thing. When I joined the Navy as a young fool, I enjoyed my ‘ugly American’ status with my ‘friends’. As I have grown older, however, and seen the horrid things caused by the pursuit of wants instead of needs by American businesses, I understand more of where that came from in my Scotts-Irish borderlands/hunter/Nanook of the north background.
Thanks for your reply. As for community usefulness and net usefulness; it’s how life evolved. Everything comes from the bottom-up by cooperating with its environment. Sometimes the cooperation involves eating buffalo. (By the way, bringing down a ton of meat is no different than a goat. You just get to feed more people at the party. Stop thinking in terms of hauling it away to put it in plastic wrap or an electric freezer. The benefit of the buffalo isn’t necessarily the meat, but the fertilizer they put on the soil (Buffalo Bill couldn’t live with the buffalo, and he couldn’t make a living without them.) Don’t be so fond of the current state of agriculture as something good. I’m involved in it, one way or another, from the organic barefoot hippie vegans to the Monsanto-sponsored drug-burgers and I’m trying to see where it works and doesn’t work. So far, it mostly works for the people building drug factories and ethanol plants and government boobs creating little government empires of paperwork that is actually written by the drug companies and plastic wrap manufacturers.)
“in general the Republican party just sells us out a little more slowly than the Dems do.”
What a joke, after 8 years of total bankruptcy called “conservative government”. And you people wonder why your credibility is at the absolute zero point?