On Milk and Government

I recently came across a contest that encourages students to express their views on what changes would make America better. I thought about entering, but then realized my views would be too radical to actually make it through to the final judging rounds. After all, it seems that a lot of people, especially involved with this contest, are extremely liberal. (I mean, one speaker at the awards ceremony last year sang Obama's praises every few minutes!)

In essence, I take the stance that our government needs to mind their own business. It has become a monster, hungry for power, and greedy for money so they can keep what power they already have. Oppressive. We've given our government too much freedom. They try to protect their citizens by regulating human stupidity, but in doing so, they have almost destroyed at least one of our foods for the majority. Because of government, it is impossible to buy unpasteruized milk. They do this because of bacteria and the like. But the pasteurization process destroys a lot of the natural enzymes, needed to digest the milk. Not everyone produces these enzymes naturally. This means not everyone can digest the milk easily.

So wait a minute...in a way, doesn't that mean that government has regulated a food to be more unhealthy? I think so. And to get back to something I said earlier, since you cannot buy unpasteurized cow milk, you can't even go to a direct source and legally buy it! Okay, so maybe there are some legal health concerns. But why can't we be given our freedom to choose whether to buy unpasteurized milk or not? You can force all sellers to display something in big bright letters warning about the potential hazards. And I'm not saying stores have to carry unpasteurized milk or anything. But if they gave us the option to choose, than maybe there would be one more local business around. And another business means more jobs and more money in the community, something I'm sure most communities would be glad to have.

The milk example is the one I'm most familiar with. But don't discredit it just because it's focused on a single commodity. I heard a story a couple of years about a small grain mill in my area that had to shut down. Regulations had been passed that made it impossible for a family owned mill to compete with the commercial mills. This is another example of government becoming too restrictive. With our focus being forced to shift away from locally grown foods and products, is it really so confusing as to why there is so much poverty? If we had more freedom, more oppurtunity to make a little extra money here and there, there would be more options people could use to keep themselves afloat.

I did not mean to spend so much time on agriculture, something that will not apply to all areas, but I hope you see my point. Government needs to stop trying to regulate everything, often time just so it has more ways to get money. I think we need true freedom again. Because isn't it one of our rights that we can choose what we can and cannot do? Besides, if towns can legalize marijuana, shouldn't we be allowed to drink unpasteurized milk if we so choose?

EDIT: Reading through this, I realize I come across like a milk nazi. =P