Posted on 05/06/2008 6:15:37 AM PDT by DaveyB
A Pennsylvania farmer has been fined $4,000 for dealing in raw milk in violation of the state's bureaucracy that demands he hold a permit in order to sell his natural products to friends and neighbors.
A rally protesting the governmental action against Mt. Holly Springs, Pa., farmer Mark Nolt drew more than 100 people today outside the courthouse where a magistrate threw out one count filed against him, but pronounced a guilty decision and $1,000 fine on each of four other counts.
WND reported earlier on the SWAT team-like raid on Nolt's farm, the government's confiscation of tens of thousands of dollars worth of his products as well as pieces of machinery he used for his milk handling and sales.
(Excerpt) Read more at worldnetdaily.com ...
Sure. Got four grand?
Selling un-pasteurized milk?
This calls for a para-military police team to assault your farm.
This, people, is a result of the grossly misnamed War on Drugs that have turned so many police forces from their original job serving their communities to intimidating them.
What about farmers that sell raw veggies?......
I remember drinking fresh milk from my Grandad’s cows when I was a kid. The best I’ve ever had. Too bad bureaucracy has screw it all up. Of course all the nannies go apoplectic at the thought.
I understand the regulations for retail distribution, and yes, the bacteria and somatic cell counts need to be kept way down, but this is going a LITTLE too far. Pretty soon you won't be able to drink the raw milk out of your own bulk tank...oh wait, that's against the law too.
How many bureaucrats planned/executed this paramilitary op against a COW FARMER
But it's for the chil'run!
I wonder if the Amish know about this raid. Do THEY sell raw milk to their friends and neighbors?
Raw milk is much healthier. Pasteurized milk, the norm, accounts for many diverse health problems. I haven’t drank it for many years.
A SWAT raid is totally unjustified. Another example of the dark fascist side of our gov’t. when someone steps out of line of what is considered normal by unaccountable bureacracies.
Sure glad we have government to protect us from ourselves...
/cynicism
The sad thing is, a large percentage of FReepers is 100% behind such nanny-statism.
I feel like taking a trip to Mt. Holly Springs and becoming a customer when he’s back in business (dairy allergies, be damned!)
Shhhh,
Don’t give the feds any new ideas!
Just another example of how big government and big business are generally the same thing. It is the small guy and freedom that suffer when liberals get their way.
I wonder if a fake caller named Sarah called the Dairy Hotline to allow them to get the warrant.
Pennsylvania has price controls, too.
(Ever get in trouble for pouring off the top of the jug?) Yum!
http://www.thecompletepatient.com/ has more info and photos.
Gondring thanks for the link - it is good to have multiple sources with WorldNet.
I grew up on raw milk from Suzie, our Jersey milk cow. I am sure she was healthy cause none of us have TB. Isn’t that what you can catch from an infected cow? Correct me if I am wrong.
I’m from Pa, and I would never drink raw milk.
Sure, its all over-regulated, and I have bought properly pasturized milk from local farmers, but raw?
Come on guys.
Who was Louis Pasteur?
The man fined was a Mennonite - not quite Amish but close.
I agree with you. I’m not too worried about diseases, but can’t get over how gross it is to drink something that hasn’t been pasteurized.
You freaks can keep your pus-filled buckets of warm milk.
I also have contempt for the idiotic government
Just in case there's any possibility of Mad Cow or a host of other diseases out there that can be passed on through raw milk, I'll stick with pasteurized milk products. The freedom to infect others is not very high on my list of Must Have Personal Freedoms.Well the freedom to not know what the hell you're talking about must be high on your list. Aside from the fact that raw milk isn't being forced upon anyone, and it's not being introduced in the general pasturized supply (which demonstrates the stupidity of the "The freedom to infect others is not very high on my list" comment), Mad Cow and other spongiform encephalopies aren't affected by pasturization and as such is irrelevant to the issue...
ROFLMAO!! I take it neither of you Einsteins were breast fed?? It's CERTAIN neither of you know the first thing about dairy farming.
If he had 300 illegal aliens working on his farm that won't be an issue, and he wouldn’t even get a fine! Ask Pilgrims Pride how that works. http://www.pilgrimspride.com
Think about that. 300 illegals are OK, selling raw milk (and all parties are fully aware of what it is and it's potential hazard), now that's a big deal! Is there something wrong with this picture? This is ridiculous!
I can see your point. It’s much safer to live in a society where SWAT teams raid farms for almost nothing, than one in which a farmer can sell milk straight from a cow to a neighbor. I mean, the latter would spell the end of civilization if allowed to continue!!
Pasteur was a scientist not a tyrant!
From another account-...a Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture microbiologist-turned-undercover-agent, got me thinking about such encounters between citizen soldiers and their subjects. Rousseau, a lanky bearded fellow who has been with the agency 21 years, had just testified about two occasions when top PDA food safety official Bill Chirdon asked no, demanded, that Rousseau accompany him on an undercover assignment. The undercover assignment involved going to a farmers market near the state capital of Harrisburg and purchasing raw dairy products from Mark Nolt so he could be put on trial.
I think buying raw milk from a farmers market is a bad idea - buying it from a farmer you know a better idea - busting a farmer for selling a milk, tyranny.
lmao
Later, back at the Nolt farm in Newville, where the inventory in the stores cooler is a bit thin, Mary Ann Nolt, still in her black bonnet and purple dress, expressed wonder at what she had seen at the trial. I was sitting in the court room and there were all these important people there. They have these degrees. They were taking time from their busy day for this. Were just a tiny speck. Why are we so important? Why are we a threat to them?
I wonder when they go home tonight. Will they feel they did an honest days work? Will they feel good about what they did?
Because people take things like antibiotics and pasteurization for granted, they've come to believe that many things are minor or harmless that are only minor or harmless because of those thing.
Only one form, which is considered atypical. You’re more likely to catch it from someone coughing on you.
As a home brewer... cider is the same sort of BS. Unpasteurized cider makes the best hard cider. It is damn hard to find. Before brewing, you sanitize the cider with camden tablets. No real risk of nasty bugs. Along the lines of rev Wright... G D the friggin nanny state.
Are you callin’ my momma a cow?
Them’s fighting words.
This is total BS.
Why is it so hard to buy a gallon of raw milk, the unpastuerized kind. Milk like what our parents and grand parents and great grandparents and great, great...etc.
Why is it easier to purchase vodka or tequila, which when consumed in large quantities will kill you or make you wish that it had?
But raw milk, some thing that is actually good for you isalmost impossible to buy legally?
The Middletown Police Department Chief of Police, Keith R. Reismiller (717-948-3000
Magisterial District Judge Susan K. Day
229 Mill St.
P.O. Box 167
Mt. Holly Springs, PA 17065
Telephone: (717) 486-7672
Fax: (717) 486-0224
Practically every business has to have a license. This is no different than fining a building contractor for being unlicensed. Except that this farmer received a warning first. Others who conduct business without the proper license aren’t that fortunate.
I wonder,
The cost of the raid, the planning of it, the court and legal proceedings....... is that what my tax money is used for? To go after a dairy farmer giving milk to freinds and neighbors?
I love the FDA: http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/~dms/rawmilk.html
In 10 YEARS 800 people got sick from raw milk. Not died, but sick. I wonder, how many millions have died from coranary disease caused by Big Macs and greesy fries? People love to throw statistics and obviously the bigger the number the better. Let’s put it in perspective though. In the US in one year more people will die from food poisening they got from spoiled food in their own fridge!
I'll fight to the death for that freedom!
I see, so, since the farmer received a warning, and had no business license, then a SWAT raid is fully justified.
Here are some good sites to educate yourself on the benifits of raw milk:
http://www.westonaprice.org/splash_2.htm
I am no greenie-weenie by no means, but I do believe that our factory produced, processed, genetically modified foods are killing us.
What?!?!?!?!?!
Next you’ll tell me a Big Mac and fries aren’t healthy? Jeez, what’s up with you?
Didn't happen.
Another good site with links at the bottom of the page:
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2004/04/24/raw-milk.aspx
Another good site with links at the bottom of the page:
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2004/04/24/raw-milk.aspx
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