Beware the Food Police

In my post, "The Food Riots of 2009?", I dealt with the advisability of having an emergency food supply, in case disruptions occur in production or channels of distribution.

After what happened last week, I feel a need to warn you to be discreet in any preparations you may make. There are bureaucrats out there who would like to control every bite of food you put in your mouth.

The incident-in-question took place in rural Ohio, where a SWAT team descended on a homeschool family that operates a food co-op. An op ed article by Paul Mulshine tells what happened:

On Monday, December 1, a SWAT team with semi-automatic rifles entered the private home of the Stowers family in LaGrange, Ohio, herded the family onto the couches in the living room, and kept guns trained on parents, children, infants and toddlers, from approximately 11 AM to 8 PM. The team was aggressive and belligerent. The children were quite traumatized.

Police seized their records, two computers, over $10,000 worth of co-op food, and their personal food supply for the coming year.

The issue may be over whether or not a co-op needs a retail license, or it may have been over a small amount of non-institutional meat found in a freezer at Oberlin College. And, of course, the proper response to these technical infractions in the minds of bureaucrats is a full-blown SWAT raid.

The storm troopers did not inform the family of what crimes they were charged with, nor have any charges been brought yet, as far as I know. The police are evidently acting under provisions of homeland security that allows them to detain suspected terrorists with no fourth- amendment restrictions.

In point of fact, who are the terrorists, here? We know well that the Hitlers, Stalins and Maos of the world routinely used terror to gain compliance to their regimes. It has begun under "Christian, conservative," Republican GW Bush. What lies ahead under President-elect Obama?

Read more about the food co-op raid here and here.

Gary North has said, "Keep your convictions visible and your assets hidden." Good advice, perhaps, in these times.

There is more info on this topic in the post "Food Riots and Food Police Update"