I have had some comments on my post about the NAIS and on my perception that the government is overstepping its bounds and encroaching upon personal freedoms in the name of defense against terrorists.
Benjamin Franklin said, “Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.”
Framing my definition of “Essential Liberty” is easy: if I have been afforded due process, then I have not given up my liberty. If I am under suspicion for something, then my accuser can take his or her case to a judge, where the judicial branch of government can consider the validity of my rights vs. my accuser’s suspicion. My beef with the presidential wiretapping was not over my support of the president, but over his choice to bypass the checks and balances put into place by our founding fathers. It would be like B bypassing the smoke detector in our home. I have every reason to trust him, but if he purchased the smoke detector in the first place, and then he was the one disabling it, it would be silly. Firstly, it protects him, too! And if he didn’t have anything to hide, then why would he be going around it?
Land of the free, home of the brave. It seems that there are some who are willing to give up their freedom because they are scared. That is the very nature of terrorism. Some seem to be so willing to give up freedoms to the government—why? Do they think that the government can protect them? Is it so that they will have someone to blame when the government can’t? Folks cried foul when the government couldn’t protect against 9-11, and now people are willing to give up their freedoms right and left so that the government can “protect” us against some future unnamed attacks. What makes you think that they can do it any better than they already have? It’s the same principle as the people who sue because the companies have not adequately warned against every possible danger of a product. We bitch about the high prices, the lawyers in everyone’s business, and then we cry foul when we slip and fall on the wet floor because we didn’t have the sense to take that personal responsibility necessary to prevent an issue.
Maybe I am selfish, as I have been accused. Maybe so. I would like to think that it is more about being secure in my personal responsibilities and the rights that go along with them. It seems that many citizens don’t want to assume the personal responsibilities, they just want to hand it over to the government and let someone else do it for them. So, I guess in that sense, I am selfish. I am happy to comply with the responsibilities if it means keeping my rights.
I would not point my finger at the government if there were a terrorist attack on our food supply. I don’t feel that the government can adequately prevent an attack like that, so I would not accuse them if they couldn’t. What makes you think that if the government implements NAIS (or, should I say “WHEN”) that the food supply will become magically safe? A microchip isn’t going to keep someone from poisoning an animal, or from it entering the food supply. Nor is someone registering his or her feed purchase. Criminals can always find a way around the “protections” that the government has established. And while “tagging my cattle” may be my responsibility and someone’s perception of “doing my part” against terrorism, I fail to see how it will REALLY prevent any incidents.
Look at the bombing in Oklahoma City. The government has all kinds of regulations about who can handle dynamite and C4 and other types of explosives. All it takes is one bad person to buy a bunch of fertilizer and rent a truck, and mayhem ensues. Do we outlaw fertilizer? Rental trucks? What good would that do? Did the laws restricting the public’s access to explosives (like dynamite and C4, for example) prevent someone from buying fertilizer to use it for an explosive?
It is not an inconvenience to me to put a microchip in my animals. I can afford it, and with the small number of animals that I have, it will not be difficult. However, who will bitch and moan when food prices increase? And believe me, they will. Here is an excellent illustration of how one has to file a report every time their animal practically so much as blinks. Don’t think that a farmer’s having to file all of these “incident reports” will not increase the price of your food!
Be aware, however, that the NAIS will require a two-fold identification system: a premises ID for the farm, and an animal ID (a radio-frequency ID chip inside the animal or on an ear tag). Small farmers will be required to tag each individual animal. Larger operations (“Big Ag”) will be required to identify their preemies, but will NOT be required to identify individual animals—only herds. So identifying diseases such as mad cow disease will not be any easier unless the animal came from a smaller farm. If it was a Big Ag animal, then the animal could be one of a crowd. The Big Ag animals are already able to be identified by herd, which is how we can trace back the (MINUTE NUMBER OF) Mad Cow diseases that have been identified in the food supply. NAIS will change NOTHING with Big Ag, other than giving them a premises ID. Small farmers already keep good records. If they didn’t, they would stand to make even less than the small profit margin that they currently do. Even with my animals, that are not my livelihood, I keep records on FileMaker Pro, recording births, breeders, vaccinations, routine procedures (like hoof trimmings, wormings, etc.). My kids are learning the importance of record keeping in 4H. This isn’t a new thing, and farmers don’t need the NAIS to keep records for them, or to force them to keep records.
Allegations that the borders will be magically opened with NAIS in place are crazy. The government is not going to be any more likely to find the source of contamination from “mad cow disease” (really, it’s BSE), given the above setup.
A comment was made regarding the EU and other foreign market demands for tracking of US beef. There are several responses I have regarding that, one being that the tags are not simply for cattle. I personally have no cattle, I have pet goats, horses, and a llama. None of them will ever be eaten. What justification can the government give for requiring non-commercial producers, homesteaders, or hobby farmers to tag pets or livestock that will not be sold (i.e., the family that buys their own steer to raise and butcher)? I may end up commercially raising goats for meat production, and that may be a different circumstance. But regardless of my status, if I have a sheep, cow, pig, chicken, llama, horse, goose, duck, alpaca, donkey, mule, miniature horse, or other livestock—for whatever purpose I keep that livestock—I will need to have a premises ID, and will need to tag that animal with RFID unless that animal is born on my property, lives its entire life on my property (never sees a vet, never goes on a ride off my land, to a show, to school for show and tell, gets out of the fence, or is sold), and dies on my property (never goes to a slaughterhouse or meat locker),
It was suggested that we have lost foreign export markets because we do not comply with the tagging requirements, and that if we complied, these markets would open up and the farmers’ profit margin that I have been whining about (not my own, the profits for my neighbors) would increase. Might I suggest that we look to offset the amount of beef exports by those we import? If other markets will not accept our exports, then we can simply sell it domestically. In 2003, the US exported 1.163 million tons of beef. We imported 1.5 million tons. If we just eat our own beef, we’d not need to worry about the hoops that other governments have set for us to jump through.
I remain unconvinced that the NAIS is a good idea, and if anything, it infringes upon the rights of small farmers.
As an aside, I recently had to doctor Bert’s ear because his ear tag was torn out. It was incredibly painful for him, and I was worried about infection and treated him preventively. I made a decision at that point that I would not have ear tags at our farm. He and Ernie came with tags, and both were ripped out in a matter of months. Ernie’s bled just a bit, but Bert’s was a major wound. Cindi has tattoos in her ears (no ear tags), and I decided that tattoos were the way to go for my herd of goats. Well, the government has stepped in and determined that I will have ear tags, and they will be RFID, and they will hold the entire 15 digit animal identification number. I’m no rocket scientist, but something tells me that in holding a 15-digit number, the tags will not be small. Plus, can you imagine the amount of paperwork I will have to file when a goat has an eartag torn out and I can't find it? (I never did find Bert's ear tag, but I did find Ernie's.)
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2 comments:
Good write up!
You might want to check out NoNAIS.org and http://lazyja3.blogspot.com/2006/01/thoughts-on-national-animal.html#links
"My beef with the presidential wiretapping was not over my support of the president, but over his choice to bypass the checks and balances put into place by our founding fathers."
Despite what Democrats and the liberal media would like you to believe, it is not yet conclusive whether Bush has broken the law or sidestepped constitutional provisions regarding wiretaps. If he violated the law fine, he should face the consequences, but please stop spreading rumors to that "fact". Right now, there's just maybes. It's kind of like saying that he was driving 65 MPH, which is speeding, if he had been on a 25 MPH road. However, we're not sure the speed limit of the road he was actually on at the time, but we're going to stop his momentum and pull him over anyway.
The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) of 1978, the law that Democrats are trying to pin on Bush, gives a president a few liberties of his (maybe hers someday) own as our chief commanding officer. The liberties afforded to him, give a president the right to wiretap 15 days after the start of a war. From there, if congress permits and based on reasonable evidence, he may wiretap for an extended period of time. If congress drags their feet on extending the deadline, the president is given the permission to continue wiretapping assuming evidence exists that would deem permissible.
This is why there's just speculation. In these scenarios, the president had permission for the first 15 days after 9/11, but what happened after those days? The president did meet with eight (8) congressmen to discuss approval for further investigating phone conversations. But when? Both Democrats and Republican congressmen met with him. Did they drag their feet in discussing it with the rest of the senate?
The second area of speculation exists because FISA is written to protect against domestic wiretapping. However, the National Security Agency (NSA) was listening to international conversations. You may argue that the NSA was listening to domestic individuals while being communicated overseas but there are those that argue that international luggage/transport from the U.S. to overseas has no protection under the constitution. Therefore, communications going outside of the U.S. may not be protected either.
Third, regarding civil liberties, the police in our country may search (wiretap) if they have probable cause that a person has committed a crime and a judge has issued a warrant. There is no arguing that Bush didn't receive a warrant for wiretapping. However, the law does allow a search without a warrant being issued if the particular circumstances justify the cause. I believe leveling a couple of buildings, killing 3,000 people, and speaking to a known terrorist group justifies the cause. This brings me to my next comments.
"Benjamin Franklin said, "Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." Framing my definition of "Essential Liberty" is easy: if I have been afforded due process, then I have not given up my liberty. If I am under suspicion for something, then my accuser can take his or her case to a judge, where the judicial branch of government can consider the validity of my rights vs. my accuser's suspicion. Land of the free, home of the brave. It seems that there are some who are willing to give up their freedom because they are scared."
I believe you have to know your liberties before you can say that someone is giving them up. Let me give you a little lesson on one of your Civil Liberties called the Right to Privacy. Your right to privacy, as described in the constitution, is a narrowly defined term and very gray at that. A lot of people, myself included, like to pretend that our actions and communications are well guarded by this "liberty", when in fact, that is just a facade. It's greatest protection is within our homes and private life. But, that right diminishes in power when we begin dealing with the public and especially commercial entities.
For example, businesses collect and share peoples' information all of the time. Credit card companies, insurance companies, and obviously magazines sell personal information. Websites store cookies on your computer to collect e-mail address information and websites you visited, and then they sell the information to e-mail spam companies. Credit card companies track your purchases and sell that information to marketing firms. You should be more worried about commercialized organizations violating your privacy more than the government.
Furthering the discussion, the Supreme Court uses two tests to determine whether someone has a right to privacy. 1) Did this person actually expect a degree of privacy? 2) Is this person's expectation reasonable - that is, one that society would recognize.
If you yourself are a business, you are by default giving up your right to privacy. Especially when you sell perishable goods to the public. This is because the public demands a level of safety and expects their products to be of good quality. This is where tagging animals comes into play.
If an outbreak occurs, it must be handled. You misinterpreted my first post by the way. I wasn't saying that a tag itself would stop/prevent a disease, but it would help the authorities discover the root of the problem or prevent it from spreading.
"Do we outlaw fertilizer? Rental trucks? What good would that do? Did the laws restricting the public's access to explosives (like dynamite and C4, for example) prevent someone from buying fertilizer to use it for an explosive?"
You're really reaching here because of the misinterpretation but you proved my point anyway. The U-Haul truck (livestock) carried a terrorist (disease). The U-Haul had a license plate (radio tags) that allowed the authorities to find the terrorist and capture him preventing said terrorist from spreading further mayhem.
Our right to privacy would probably be better described as a privilege. So, are we really protected from wiretapping? Yes, if we're not communicating with Al Qaida.
By the way, I know that on one of your previous posts you stated: "If you notice, I am quite anonymous". I know that you appreciate your privacy and I respect that so I won't expose too much information. However, I thought that you might like to know that you're not as anonymous as you think; just something to be aware of and proof: Your first name begins with L. Last name begins with E. Husbands B that you refer to is a nick name for something else. Your city begins with E. Your street number begins with 1 ends with 2 and road begins with H ends with Rd. I apologize if your heart stopped but I never like people to be naïve about the façade of anonymity.
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