If y'all are of the mind to message congressmen or partake in public comment on policy changes, don't tell them that people benefit from these things. It's not time to reason with them, these people won't see that and the fact is that they're doing this BECAUSE people benefit from it.
If they see ten thousand comments from herbalists and homesteaders telling them that they don't want the fight they're picking and they can't win the fight they're picking, that's the language they'll hear. That's the language they speak.
Die for nettles. Die for asparagus. Be ready to kill a person when he tells you you have too many chickens. They don't want this fight.
How many inches of your culture are you willing to let them chip away at?
New tinctures, soon to be outlawed
That opening bit is a message I shared recently in a group I'm in.
The FDA is looking to reclassify many herbs - nettles, certain tinctures, and asparagus among them - as things that require "more regulation." Several states, with the backing of the USDA, are making laws that restrict animal agriculture and make meat both less available and more expensive. The ATF, dirty bastards * spits *, are trying to reclassify the definition of a firearm to drastically restrict availability of parts to anyone.
Early elder flowers, soon to be outlawed
I can say with authority that it's not the tinctures speaking when I say I'm fed up with the encroachment.
As I've been saying to folks for a year or more, it's high time we all have a stash of seeds, reloading components, and printer filament. The tone of these people that keep chipping away at our world is pompous. They're inflated with themselves. They write these things on their papers, sitting way off in their towers, as if they can enforce them.
Laugh at them and buy seeds.
Laugh at them and buy a 3D printer.
Laugh at them and make friends.
They can't stop you, and they don't want to deal with what happens if they try.
Tomato flowers, soon to be outlawed
Perhaps my radical streak is shining through here. I don't care. This is exactly the posturing that anyone with an inch of self reliant thought needs to be adopting right now. Things have been pushed and pushed and reclassified and redefined, and enough is enough. There's been too much time with too little push back on such cultural points, and it's time we call a spade a spade and recognize that these are cultural infractions. Deliberate encroachments to make the people at large more dependent on someone outside of their community.
My "radicalism" isn't so radical in the lense of life less than a hundred years ago. I don't like the term "radical," because I don't think I am a radical. Someone out there wants me painted as such though, so make up your own mind. In view of the ethical complaints that come from being disconnected from your food producers, I don't think I'm crazy. When you think about the taxes and fees and supply issues, is it silly to give preference to a local feed supplier over an industrial food farmer? Is it crazy to go to your friends and say "I'll trade you some labor and conversation for some of the meat you grow," instead of going to work overtime for food from across the country? Of course, I can explain myself in a way that makes my approach sound good, and so can anyone that wants to live an alternate lifestyle. But nobody's trying to enact policies to "increase regulation" on the modern conveniences we all enjoy, are they? Nobody is regulating Cheetos and coke. They're regulating nettles and mullein. They're not telling us we can't have bacon from the store, processed by a hundred people a thousand miles away. They're telling me I can't raise mine at my home after buying the animals from my friend.
And I'd be just as mad if they told us we can't have Cheetos, coke, and bacon as I am with them saying I can't grow nettles mullein, and pork here at my home.
Will you be mad with me?
Mushrooms on an oak log lining a garden bed
Mushrooms on a hugel bed
In a singularly memorable moment of clarity, some time back, I realized that anything I do is baseless without connection to a place. I called myself out on it every day as I rebuilt my house last summer with the help of my community. I call myself out on it every time I eat something I didn't grow. Wherever the hell I am, wherever you are, if you're not planting seeds, do it. What are you thinking for? What are you living for? What action are you taking? What progress are you making while you depend on people that don't give a damn if you wake up tomorrow? Grow some food in a bucket on your balcony. Go get that Gucci steak from a farmers market. Get involved. In the words of Joel Salatin, "DO SOMETHING." Nothing matters if you have no base. Rights don't matter if you don't do some work. Don't ask permission. You're free, now act like it.
With love and resolve from Texas,
Nate 💚