Arm of the Liberal State Eats Its Young

When surveying the vast expanse of the economic world , there are few more potent icons to act as a rallying call as the "family farm." Like all things with liberals, an activity is only good based on who is engaging in it. So just like free speech is only good depending on who is doing the speaking, farming is only good depending on who is doing the farming. Not all farms are good you see, only the "family farm" is worthy of admiration and, thus, when faced with challenges government protection. "Save the family farm" has thus entered the panoply of lefty "Save the ..." rallying cries and a superstructure of subsidies and regulations have been setup in the name of saving the family farm. One type of family farming that is particularly beloved of the left is dairy farming (don't know why, maybe it is all the lefties in Vermont and Wisconsin or because cows are so cute), so you would think that a left of center government would not be the font of policies that demonstrably harm the sacred family dairy farm. Well, you would be wrong because the mindset of a regulator is programmed to regulate, re-regulate and regulate some more, period, with no thought to the outcomes.

So this spilled milk brouhaha is typically depressing but I don't lament it actually, for this is the process by which liberals become conservatives (allow me to use the crude modern political labels of the day, but I really mean - how "statists" become "classical liberals" also known as libertarians). It is through this kind of display of intervention-inspired stupidity that makes previously politically naive people scratch their heads. This is how utopian dreaming and scheming meets everyday reality and spawns the vast multitudes of "former liberals mugged by reality." It is a necessary birth process that, in fact, mimics the natural birth process - it feels good initiating it, it morphs into prolonged discomfortable, culminates in severe pain, but ultimately is needed if humanity is to persist. I expect that this big government, regulation happy stupidity will ultimately backfire. Too bad for the family dairy farmers in the meantime.