Let’s Go Brandon

 

Where’s the Beef?

This was news to me. When I was young, we’d often chip in with two or three people to buy a young steer. It would be butchered under sanitary conditions at a local meatpacking plant, the Federal Government was not involved. I’m obviously out of touch with farm-to-table.

Processing meat on your own property in the U.S. can now lead to jail time, as has been proven by an Amish man from Pennsylvania who has been threatened with a hefty prison sentence and issued a whopping $250,000 fine for doing just that.

Who owns the meat you buy? The US government, apparently.

Amos Miller says he is being persecuted by the Biden administration for practicing his religious freedom to raise and prepare food the way he believes God intended food to be raised and prepared.

Miller practices rotational grazing on his independently owned, holistically managed, century old farm in Bird-In-Hand Pennsylvania. His heritage-breed cows are raised on organic pastures.

Ourorganicwellness.com reports: Around 4000 customers of his private, members-only, food buying club are dependent on his meat, eggs and dairy products, as well as fermented fruits and veggies… and are willing to spend top dollar to get it shipped to them all over the country, as they don’t trust food from the grocery store.

But a couple of weeks ago, a federal judge told Miller to cease and desist all meat sales, and sent armed U.S. marshals to search his property, farm store, and freezers. They took an inventory of all his meat to make sure he doesn’t sell any or slaughter any more animals.

Last summer, the judge also ordered Miller to pay $250,000 for “contempt of court,” and said he will also have to pay the salaries of the USDA investigators assigned to his case, $50,000 of which was due last week as a “good faith” payment to avoid jail.

Slaughtering and processing the meat he raises on his own farm and selling it fresh-frozen to members of his private food buying club, who’ve all signed contracts stating they understand the meat is not processed in USDA-inspected plants, or treated with USDA-required chemical preservatives… because that’s how they want it, and the very reason they are willing to go to such great lengths to get it – is his crime.

If he was black or a tranny, I’m sure that it wouldn’t be illegal.

“We slaughter one animal, distribute it among our members, and then, when the need arises, we slaughter another one. That’s how we eat. Our members are healthy and thriving and never want to go back to where they came from.”

Our animals are born and raised on our own farm. We have the oversight. We know the mother. We know the father. There is no incest. There is no cross-breeding.

What does the USDA label on your food do to make your food safer? Nothing.

 

Ukraine – a great time to be in the scrap metal business.

 

It was once like that everywhere.

 

Fly Fishing School?  Apparently…

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33 COMMENTS

  1. Yep. USDA wants their licensing vig. USGOV (and local USGOV) are always all about the vig.

    We get local boutique meat, and we know the farmers, and the butchers and the smokers. It does have to go to a local (-ish, up in Massholia) boutique slaughterhouse, though. The farmers and butchers vouch for them though; no shenanigans. The fees and crap are just too much for farmer to slaughter their own.

    I miss Hudsons. My wife had a ’51 Hornet sedan back around the turn of the 20th Century that was pure sweetness.

    I think that poster is referring to the other kind of fly…

    -Kle.

      • My parents had a Hudson when I was young. No seat belts. I opened the door and fell out at about 20 mph near the house. Which might explain why I am the way I am. Some skin abrasions, that’s it. Nobody took you to the doctor in those days unless they thought you were dying soon.

      • Hudson is still in 7th place on the NASCAR manufacturer wins list. Probably higher if all the added venues since they ceased racing are discarded.

  2. If crops you grow on your own land to feed your own livestock can violate interstate commerce, then it’s not a big stretch to switch over to control of livestock as well.

      • I’m afraid that I’m behind the times. I was surprised at this, but I’m not in the farming or ranching business.

    • already there. when a calf is born it has to be tagged and it is tracked and reported until it dies by federal law. an untagged cow is a big no-no. czar must get his due.

      • Foot-and-mouth disease requires drastic action to keep it under control.
        However, it should be a medical/veterinarian event..NOT a politicians dream-come-true.
        I can see why you would want to immediately know where an infected cow came from in order to prevent the epizootic event spread through the Chicago stockyards back in the 1800’s. But that wasn’t accomplished with the special busybody wishlist we have today.

  3. I see “Fly-Fishing” has become a double entendre. I can’t unthink that now.

    The Amish are next on the hit list because they don’t have TV therefore didn’t fear Covid, get the Not-A-Vax, or otherwise kowtow to the local Health Director Gestapo tactics. They kept farming…all day everyday. One would think “organic” would have had the Liberals coming to his aid in droves, but Lib’s are cowards. Brother had a friend with an award-winning cheese-making farm (the amount of stainless was incredible). PA operation. Farm to Table for local restaurants. Used a team in the fields, worked his rear-end off everyday. What one would call “old school”…or Amish. Also sold whole milk and organic beef to his customers in the shop. Then it happened. One of The Not-A-Woman (now, Not-An-Admiral) PA state Health Dept. minions shows up unannounced, trespasses at will, then spends a year harassing him, trying to shut him down for selling whole milk without their official “approved” sticker. Customers were livid. Too bad the local “inspector” didn’t fall into the pigsty…’course, the HD would have just sent another Mr. Smith.

    Time for a real reset…the .Gov HOA has gotten out of hand, having no ability to leave people alone while taxing them in order to pay for .Gov “necessary free services”. Getting old real fast.

  7. Is there any federal bureaucracy that does not seek to expand itself. Just one more example of Dr. Pournelle’s Iron Rule of Bureaucracy I guess.

    • Bureaucracies protect themselves and expand usually forgetting why they were formed in the first place. Empire building is the dream of every bureaucratic leader.

      I worked in a government agency where the lady in purchasing (minority hire) would turn out the light in her office, lock the door, hide under her desk, and eat food that she brought — all day

  8. That’s just NUTZ! I grew up eating food my family and relatives grew. Can’t get much fresher than backyard-to-table. We caught fish from rivers, lakes, and streams and nobody died from eating it.

    God, please protect us from these busy-bodies!

    • Inch-mile with these people. They get more creative every year at torturing America’s producers. But hey, at least we’re not England, watching Clarkson’s Farm is an eye opener with regulation.

    • Generally, in most cases, you can still eat what you grow. Especially if you don’t tell anyone.

      If you try and sell it though… then you suddenly have ten million new masters.

      It’s a stupid world, anymore. OTOH, this is how Bill Gates gets to be the biggest “farmer” in America, so I guess it’s working for someone.

      -Kle.

  10. Well, in regards to the Amish rancher, you can slaughter your own cows on your own land for your own use.

    But because of the late 1800’s lack of food safety, meat (and dairy) for sale has to go through a licensed facility, which to get a license has to show some minimal levels of food safety and security.

    Yes, I understand the need for government to get its unruly hands off things, but the rules and regulations are there for a reason. We, the USA, have the safest food anywhere. At one time we were just like everywhere else, and people were dying. It’s one of the reasons our food tastes so differently, because it has to meet certain standards. You don’t normally, unless eating ‘organic’ food, get ill from our food. Go across the border without imodium and without having your DDP vaccine titer up and you’ll pay for it. Same with going to any Caribbean island and eating ‘native’ or, oh God, going to Asia, any part of Asia and eating outside of a ‘European’ location and half the time even in supposedly clean facilities.

    So, well, ‘raw’ milk? Yeah… no… maybe if I’m the one getting it and I’ve seen what milk cow udders look like before they get pressure sprayed and disinfected before being commercially milked.

    Same with meat. If I raise it or shoot it and slaughter it and trust myself to do it right, yes, I’ll partake. Trust some other person? Well, only if it’s cooked real well.

    It is a copulated-up situation, and I wrestle with the concept of freedom over this but this is one of the things that our government does do well.

    Now, if Mr. Amish got his licenses and facility up to standards, then, yes, I’ll buy from Mr. Amish.

    There are mobile slaughter-trucks and some of them even do the processing on site, but most take the slaughtered animals to a central facility to allow the meat to age before final processing.

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