First they came for the chickens...

Rod, if you go to backyardchickens(dot)com and the forum there and click on the section called "Local Ordinances and How to Change Them", you can read stories like this all day long or so, depending on how fast you read. Take a look. There are plenty of stories from all areas of the country.

Just a question, why was the shoddy post about Investment bankers getting the H1N1 vaccine, taken down and at least not explained why it was taken down?

Rod, the problem is that those on the whacked-out right have blamed so much crap on Obama that it is hard to recognize sarcasm. I saw Obama being blamed for a crooked local election in New York recently, like New York never had a crooked election before Obama was elected!

You may want to be more careful, Rod, when you write this off as an incidence of "totalitarianism in Obama's America." A city council votes not to allow its residents to keep chickens, and that is somehow Obama's fault? I have my doubts about the president, but I haven't sunk so low as to need completely unrelated issues for smear material.

I think the original post (Massie's) has a serious, valid point. Massie said nothing about Obama. I'm not sure why Dreher bothered to throw that in -- it could be good sarcasm about the way certain blogs blame Obama for everything including the weather, but it didn't quite connect. Perhaps that is because, after all, Massie has a good point.

There are, in many urban areas, fairly good reasons for passing ordinances against keeping live farm animals inside city limits. There are, in many of these areas, good cause for making exceptions. There is no excuse for one-size-fits-all model ordinances, or training would-be community leaders and politicians that some expert's model should be imposed on every community everywhere in America. Don't allow everyone in Manhattan to keep chicken coops and spread disease. Don't stop people in a small town in Montana just because its not appropriate in NYC. That applies to gun laws too -- maybe there is good cause to make possession of a gun a felony in itself in downtown Chicago. Maybe it works to let everyone carry a sidearm in San Antonio, Texas. This country was built on the idea that some fundamental principles are not up for grabs, but in all kinds of other matters, each state, even each village, can experiment with what works best.

On the other hand, if the city council members are the only ones unwilling to allow chickens, why doesn't everybody else just vote them out? That's one option we have, which in a truly totalitarian system no longer would exist.

But no, its not about Obama.

But no, its not about Obama.

:::points pistol at head, fires, falls forward into laptop::::::

I also wouldn't have known it was sarcasm if you hadn't updated. My initial reaction was that maybe you were trying to please conservatives who have become annoyed you for being "soft on Obama."

I'm surprised that nobody has brought up the fact that this is another example of a creeping dhimmitude in America. If any old chap allowed to raise his own chickens, there is no way of knowing that the food thereby produced will be Halal, which is obviously anathema to our new Muslim President. Are we not just tearing down our chicken coops in the hope that it will appease the Islamofascists?

"the problem is that those on the whacked-out right have blamed so much crap on Obama that it is hard to recognize sarcasm."

and the same finger can be pointed to folks on the "whacked-out" left. seriously a lot of this can be laid at the feet of the cable news folks primarily their opinionators (and I'm not talking about just FNC). go listen to any of the programs at MSNBC, CNN, CNBC, FNC WhateverC and you'll hear over the top commentary. there is no nuance, no digging into why the law or ordinance was passed in the first place.

as we used to say years ago CHILL OUT!

Rod,

Just please don't come clean with RobL that you were, indeed, joking. Let him keep his word and we'll enjoy this blog all the more!!!

Perhaps the over-heated rhetoric that has surrounded us in the political world for some time does make it harder to recognize sarcasm in these types of postings. We can’t control what extremists say and do, we can control our own actions. I’d rather Rod emailed the poster and explained the intent of the blog entry to him rather than saying “good riddance.” The more people who read the blog and comment here, the better.

That leftwing and rightwing pundits’ presentations on cable tv often lack nuance and context certainly is true. Many of them are way too formulaic, unshaded and, worst of all, didactic, for my taste. The value in blogs (those that allow comments) lies in the ability of the people reading to provide color, texture, and shading to debating issues which cable and talk radio presentations often fail to display. (Siarlys Jenkins’s musings about gun laws on this thread is a good case in point. Things of that nature often look different depending on whether you live in San Antonio, Texas or Chicago, Illinois. We should be able to talk about that without yelling or implying, “I’m right” and “no, I’m right.” Cable hosts rarely seem to be able to move discussions forward so that advocates can provide the insights needed to really understand what motivates them.) There are some issues where the differences are so great, in terms of reasons for and sources of disagreement, that reasonable people may find it hard to agree to disagree. But at least people posting are able to put a human face on some policy disputes in ways that tv, for all that it actually shows the physical images of advocates and pundits, fails to do.

Rod Dreher
:::points pistol at head, fires, falls forward into laptop::::::

That's the only thing you would ever have in common with Hunter Thompson and Ernest Hemmingway. Seriously

Back in the summer (August, I think) I ran into a dear and good friend at a restaurant on a Saturday afternoon. I'm getting take-out for my brother and me, she's having her lunch. Amongst the idle chit-chat, I mentioned that my bro's property taxes were out-of-sight (the town property tax bills had just come out) to the tune of about $16K for 2 modest houses and 3 acres of land. Though we live in New England's bluest and smallest state, the town we live in is very up-scale, and, yes, the property taxes are extremely high (schools, it's "all for the children"). My friend is your classic country-club Republican right-winger. Her response to the out-of-sight tax bill?
"It's Obama's fault".