Allow me to be the first with a piece of food writing.
Food Freedom – It’s About Natural Rights and Consumer Choice
By Clair A. Schwan of Wyoming Food Freedom
Most of us are happy with what’s available at the grocery store. Why shouldn’t we be? There are thousands of products in cans, bottles, bags, jars and boxes – all with labels to tell us what’s inside. If you look at those product labels, you’ll often find a long list of food ingredients that are easy to recognize – beef, pork, corn, wheat, rice and spices. You’ll also find unrecognizable chemical names for additives, fillers, binders, artificial flavors and chemical colorings.
Unfortunately, what’s not on the label are untold amounts of chemical residue from herbicides, pesticides and other chemicals used to grow, create and process the food. Despite these unnatural and potentially harmful ingredients and processes, many of us are satisfied with the foodstuffs available. If you’re one of them, then eat up and enjoy because I support your freedom to choose. Why not? Your choice of food doesn’t directly affect me, so I have no business interfering with you buying what you’d prefer to consume.
My support for your right of personal choice comes with only one condition – you have to respect my right to choose as well. All I ask of my fellow citizens, including those elected and appointed to public office, is to recognize that I have the same rights as anyone else to choose my source of food, even if you believe my choices to be foolish. I might prefer natural, whole, unadulterated food like raw milk, grass-fed beef, free range chicken, or produce grown without the use of pesticides or chemical fertilizers. I might choose to obtain my food at a grocery store, from my own garden, or from a local producer down the road.
So you see, we all have a right to food, and we all have a right to make choices about what food we eat. To make certain we’re getting what we bargain for, that also means we have a right to choose where we obtain our food as well. You’ll probably agree that one person’s rights stop where the rights of another begin. I think that’s true, so whenever we think about interfering with the rights of others, we’re obliged to show where their activities are harmful to us or otherwise unreasonably interfere with our lives.
This isn’t just about getting something good to eat; it’s about our basic human right to food. Thomas Jefferson reminded us that we need to support the freedom of others, for with a simple change of circumstances, their plight becomes that of our own. Once we put any of our basic rights and freedoms up for grabs, we’ve put them all in jeopardy. Today it might be our right to choose a source of good food, tomorrow it could be a restriction on where we can buy it, and next we’ll be prohibited from growing and raising it ourselves.
It takes courage to be free, but it takes even more courage to let others be free. Here’s hoping that my fellow citizens have what it takes.
Clair Schwan publishes http://www.libertarian-logic.com and politely argues against anything that infringes on natural rights, violates enumerated rights, creates more government, interferes with free enterprise and otherwise places the interests of government do-gooders above that of concerned citizens who embrace traditional American values of liberty and self reliance.
Allow me to be the first with a piece of food writing.
Food Freedom – It’s About Natural Rights and Consumer Choice
By Clair A. Schwan of Wyoming Food Freedom
Most of us are happy with what’s available at the grocery store. Why shouldn’t we be? There are thousands of products in cans, bottles, bags, jars and boxes – all with labels to tell us what’s inside. If you look at those product labels, you’ll often find a long list of food ingredients that are easy to recognize – beef, pork, corn, wheat, rice and spices. You’ll also find unrecognizable chemical names for additives, fillers, binders, artificial flavors and chemical colorings.
Unfortunately, what’s not on the label are untold amounts of chemical residue from herbicides, pesticides and other chemicals used to grow, create and process the food. Despite these unnatural and potentially harmful ingredients and processes, many of us are satisfied with the foodstuffs available. If you’re one of them, then eat up and enjoy because I support your freedom to choose. Why not? Your choice of food doesn’t directly affect me, so I have no business interfering with you buying what you’d prefer to consume.
My support for your right of personal choice comes with only one condition – you have to respect my right to choose as well. All I ask of my fellow citizens, including those elected and appointed to public office, is to recognize that I have the same rights as anyone else to choose my source of food, even if you believe my choices to be foolish. I might prefer natural, whole, unadulterated food like raw milk, grass-fed beef, free range chicken, or produce grown without the use of pesticides or chemical fertilizers. I might choose to obtain my food at a grocery store, from my own garden, or from a local producer down the road.
So you see, we all have a right to food, and we all have a right to make choices about what food we eat. To make certain we’re getting what we bargain for, that also means we have a right to choose where we obtain our food as well. You’ll probably agree that one person’s rights stop where the rights of another begin. I think that’s true, so whenever we think about interfering with the rights of others, we’re obliged to show where their activities are harmful to us or otherwise unreasonably interfere with our lives.
This isn’t just about getting something good to eat; it’s about our basic human right to food. Thomas Jefferson reminded us that we need to support the freedom of others, for with a simple change of circumstances, their plight becomes that of our own. Once we put any of our basic rights and freedoms up for grabs, we’ve put them all in jeopardy. Today it might be our right to choose a source of good food, tomorrow it could be a restriction on where we can buy it, and next we’ll be prohibited from growing and raising it ourselves.
It takes courage to be free, but it takes even more courage to let others be free. Here’s hoping that my fellow citizens have what it takes.
Clair Schwan publishes http://www.libertarian-logic.com and politely argues against anything that infringes on natural rights, violates enumerated rights, creates more government, interferes with free enterprise and otherwise places the interests of government do-gooders above that of concerned citizens who embrace traditional American values of liberty and self reliance.
Enjoy your writing. Try a bit myself occasionally.