Well shoot....

The farm I was raised on wouldn't bear a lot of resemblance to most of the farms today. The tractors weren't nearly as big: but then I suppose they weren't nearly as expensive, either.

We ate the eggs from our own chickens when they were still laying eggs, and then ate the chickens with some of Mom's dumplings when they stopped. Our beef came from our own cows and our pork came from our own pigs.

We had a pasteurizer for our milk, too. I don't think there was a law that said we had to have it, but apparently Mom thought it was a good idea, and besides, I'd seen enough in the milking parlor to discourage me from drinking milk right from the bucket, anyway.

I know that there are some people out there that prefer to drink raw milk.

Unfortunately, the FDA takes a dim view of such decisions, and recently conducted an armed raid on a farmer that was providing customers with unpasteurized milk.

Now, I don't drink near as much milk as I used to drink, and the milk I do drink will probably be pasteurized and homogenized, but that's just me. If someone decides they want to drink raw milk, that's okay too. I just wish the government didn't feel the need to pull a gun out over it.

It seems a lot of 3 letter government agencies are using a lot of guns anymore. The Department of Education recently purchased some shotguns, apparently in case someone defaults on a student loan.

I'm not sure when we cross the line that makes our country a police state, but I have to believe that armed assaults on raw milk by the Food and Drug Administration, and raids by the Department of Education at least put us a little bit closer.