Joel Salatin: Illegal to Drink Milk from Your Own Cow in Tenn?

Posted here by permission from Joel Salatin. Originally published at TheLunaticFarmer.com on January 10, 2019, under the title “Tennessee: Illegal to Drink Milk from Your Own Cow”. Be sure to read other posts by Joel. Click to see “What You Can Do“

Just when you think you’re making progress in the food freedom arena, along comes a kind, sincere-minded loving zealot to throw a monkey wrench in things.

Such is the case in Tennessee, where Senator Briggs, a medical doctor, has filed Senate Bill 15 [SB 15] to criminalize drinking the milk from your own cow. An ecoli outbreak in Knox County apparently triggered the Draconian response from this well-meaning doctor. Of course, as is common in these cases, the outbreak was never actually tied to raw milk, but government bureaucrats color any opportunity to question and science generally flies out the window.

The bill “prohibits a person who owns a partial interest in a hoofed mammal from using the milk of the animal for the person’s personal consumption or other personal use.” If you ever wanted to see a bill targeted specifically at food freedom, this one is the prime example. Aimed squarely at herdshare, which has been the work-around for raw-milk prohibitive states, it also denies a person who owns a cow or a goat (any hoofed animal) the freedom to consume the milk from their own animal.

“Partial interest” would include both partial and full interest; in other words, if I have a goat that I want to milk and it’s mine alone, I certainly have a partial interest; lots more than partial, but at least partial. You don’t have to be a lawyer or linguist to appreciate the broad reach of this terminology. Every homesteader and farmsteader who has a goat or cow for their own personal milk consumption would be a criminal under this statute.

The sad part is that this doctor is a kind, well-meaning fellow. He doesn’t want to see anyone else get hurt. Therein lies the crux of the problem. It isn’t the government’s responsibility to keep people from getting hurt. If we really want to keep people from getting hurt, we should fill in all the backyard swimming pools, where we know 50 children will drown this year, just like every year. We would outlaw skiing, race car driving, and certainly football. We would outlaw pets because they scratch, bite and sometimes kill.

Safety is highly subjective. I don’t think it’s safe to drink 3 cans of Coca-cola a day, but that’s legal. I don’t think it’s safe to eat veggie burgers, but people do. If we’re going to pick and choose everything that could be unsafe and outlaw it, we might as well all go live in a bubble room and put on respirators. We pick and choose risks. Some eat at McDonald’s; others don’t. Some take the flu vaccine; others don’t. The critical thing to understand is that if the government is responsible for my health, then it necessarily has a fiduciary responsibility to penetrate every health-impactful decision I make in order to protect itself from economic liability.

It comes down to who owns the person. As long as the state owns the person, which is where America is right now, nothing is beyond the regulatory purview of the police, the ultimate enforcer of the laws. As the state micromanages our lives, the need for more police to enforce those regulations increases. The more police, the less freedom. Any society needing more police per capita is a society heading toward tyranny.

So here’s to hoping the good folks of Tennessee raise their milk glasses to liberty and defeat the good senator’s bill, regardless of how well intended. It’s a diabolical attack on freedom and personal autonomy.

Can you think of any food that should be illegal? Yeah, I didn’t think so.

WHAT YOU CAN DO
SB15 has been referred to the Senate Commerce and Labor Committee. Email committee members asking them to refuse any hearing on SB15 and to vote NO on the bill.

1. Email these Honorable Senators (PLEASE DO NOT CALL); you may copy/paste the entire block to email the whole committee:

sen.paul.bailey@capitol.tn.gov; sen.art.swann@capitol.tn.gov; sen.jon.lundberg@capitol.tn.gov; Sen.Raumesh.Akbari@capitol.tn.gov; sen.dolores.gresham@capitol.tn.gov; sen.jack.johnson@capitol.tn.gov; sen.frank.niceley@capitol.tn.gov; sen.steve.southerland@capitol.tn.gov; sen.bo.watson@capitol.tn.gov

2. Please call and email sponsors of the legislation, asking them to withdraw their respective bills.

sen.richard.briggs@capitol.tn.gov

• Contact Senator Briggs (615-741-1766, his staffer is Sarah Adair) and ask him to withdraw SB15.

rep.patsy.hazlewood@capitol.tn.gov
Contact Representative Patsy Hazelwood (615-741-2746, staffer is Kyle Faulkner), the sponsor of the companion bill banning herdshares in the General Assembly (the bill doesn’t have a number as of yet) and tell her to withdraw the herdshare bill.