Overlawyering our fresh food to death

Walter Olson is against regulation in all its forms. There's nothing wrong with him or that political position, but I would take his claims about the imminent threat this poses to small-scale producers with a grain of salt. It's not the small-scale producers who are opposing this bill, it's big business. If you look at Slow Food USA's blog and like places, they are taking a more cautious approach.

The government lost all trust on these issues with the terrible CPSIA act that they passed and have refused to fix. I would write my legislators about this, but at this point I honestly don't think they give a s**t about my or any other citizen's opinion. As long as they can raise enough money to out-advertise their opponents, their jobs are safe and they can do whatever the fudge they want. I was on the fence about whether our government could be trusted to at least try to do what's right, but CPSIA was the last straw for me. I have no faith in our government. If they keep this up, in another decade or so, we will start hearing serious minded people asking if we don't need to do just what our forefathers said was both our right and responsibility in the Declaration of Independence:

"Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government."

I may sound like a kook today, but mark my words, this is where we are headed.

While there is some concern about facility scaling and a one size fits all approach, having read the bill it seems strikingly similar to laws that regulate the restaurant industry for example, and while we do have bland, tasteless chains at times, having to follow food safety protocols by law has not really limited restaurant creativity now has it?

iw, has good points, personally i think nais is far more worse and speaks of the matter of scaling i mentioned.

Hooray! finally a thread on something other than ssm.
If this HR passes, and small farmers are affected, then perhaps those of us who are concerned about the crunchy-con life will finally be forced to take action. A return to living in agrarian clusters wouldn't be so bad...and if I'm "trading" you vegetables for your meat or dairy products in return, and none of the "money" changes hands, then are we really doing "commerce"....I'd look for the loopholes... I'm ready to move back to the country...anyone else?

"A return to living in agrarian clusters wouldn't be so bad...and if I'm "trading" you vegetables for your meat or dairy products in return, and none of the "money" changes hands, then are we really doing "commerce"....I'd look for the loopholes... I'm ready to move back to the country...anyone else?"

I'm in. I've already started trying to wrangle up my Benedict Option crew. :)