mkirsch said: (quoted from post at 20:16:36 05/01/13) I really don't know that the government "wants" anything nefarious.
I'd say nefarious is a good word for some of the things that are being quietly done in Washington. Here's a wonderful executive order from the president where (an appointed bureaucrat or campaign contributor) the Secretary of Agriculture will control the domestic distribution of farm equipment and can deem your farm equimpment obsolete and send it off to tractor heaven:
This puts the control of any and all agricultural activities at any time in the hands of the feds, in peacetime and in time of national emergency so long as it's being done in preparation to strengthen or provide improvements to the "national defense". Pretty vague, eh? If the Secretary of Agriculture deems your equipment's function or existence is not in the best interest of the national security, (s)he can make it go away. Maybe the old Farmall M uses twice the fuel as a new tractor would to do the same job. I'd say that reduced fuel consumption would be viewed as "maximizing domestic energy supplies" as per the order, while also "provide[ing] for the modification or expansion of privately owned facilities, including the modification or improvement of production processes" and could possibly viewed as a way to "strengthen domestic capability". This order can be used a backdoor pollution reduction method or as a creative industry-specific stimulus package (ala cash for clunkers, say, cash for pre-1990's tractors or cash for non-ROPS equipped tractors, or perhaps a 100% no-till attainment-tillage elimination program) if they so choose. The feds now can also alter your farming methods or dictate what crops you will produce if they so choose. The Secretary of Defense can shut your irrigation off.
The recent USDA "Census of Agriculture" asks questions pertaining to home butchering of livestock, gardening, home preservation of fruit and vegetables, and other questions about personal use of agricultural products and not really pertaining to sales-related production that I can find no reason for them to need this information other than these items are agricultural in nature and fall under the above executive order. I wonder if needed in strengthening the national defense they will raid the pastures, barns, bins, and now the family pantry and freezer?
Of the last 6 Secretaries of Agriculture, one (Espy) was regularly given "gifts" from large corporations, one (Veneman) overruled hog farmers' free speech when those hog farmers voted by a considerable margin to eliminate the government-manipulated farmer-funded (by legalized theft) naitonal pork checkoff, and one (Glickman)was so deeply rooted in agriculture that after leaving the post he became Chairman and CEO of the Motion Picture Association of America. Definately not the kind of people you want in charge of manipulating agricultural activities.
Powers that were once reserved for a "time of war" are now allowed during "peactime" or during a so-called "national emergency". "Nefarious"? I'd say there's some scary things in this act. Even if nothing comes of it, the opportunity is there. You be the judge.
AG
This post was edited by AG in IN at 13:51:43 05/03/13 3 times.
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