Butter Criminals

[Kirk Freeman]

Page 72 of this month's Reason is an article entitled The Butter Battle by Katherine Mangu-Ward.

I believe this article gives an excellent example of how laws are nothing more than economic rent seeking dressed up in "public policy" or "safety". The article details the dangerous rise of margarine and how the dairy lobby responded by taxing margarine so butter would have an advantage until 1950.

Look at the prison photo of the margarine smuggler. From Margarine to lemonade, anarcho-tyranny has been with us a long time.

Margarine Bootleggers Sent to Federal Prison - Reason Magazine

 

[rambone]

The filthy, rotten drug dealer of his day.

"At least I still have my raw milk and a lemonade stand."

 

[CarmelHP]

I've heard my parents and other of the old folks talk about the weird color of the color capsules for margarine and the signs along the highway when about to enter states where margarine was banned, "LAST CHANCE FOR OLEO."

 

[level.eleven]

Along those same lines of rent seeking, Reason answered a question I had been wondering about since researching cruises several years back. Why can't you take a cruise from, say, San Fran to Seattle? Its illegal. Quite an old law at that.

Why You Can't Take a Cruise From Brooklyn to Baltimore, or L.A. to San Francisco - Hit & Run : Reason Magazine

Oh, and Big Butter Jesus was struck by lightning. It was the first thing I thought of with the headline, Butter Criminals.

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUZ3d1tTbWg&feature=player_embedded[/ame]

This guy explained all pretty well in 1850.

http://mises.org/books/thelaw.pdf

 

[Kirk Freeman]

Pffft, L11, don't you understand that they are doing it for your safety . . . and the children.

 

[hornadylnl]

Kirk,

Let me see if I have this straight. The .gov has no business determining whether we buy butter or margerine But they have every right to determine the aesthetics of our properties.

 

[Kirk Freeman]

But they have every right to determine the aesthetics of our properties.

Aesthetics? What colour your house is? Whether you are brick or alum siding like those ordinances around Chicago?

No, throwing trash in the street or your yard is far from aesthetics, that public health/protecting the rights of others.

 

[hornadylnl]

Aesthetics? What colour your house is? Whether you are brick or alum siding like those ordinances around Chicago?

No, throwing trash in the street or your yard is far from aesthetics, that public health/protecting the rights of others.

And that 400# heifer eating a stick of butter or margarine on her food is a matter of public health as well. She's driving up health care costs for everyone. It's a slippery slope.

 

[Kirk Freeman]

Horn, I agree.

You must have laws that protect against the "jerk factor" (I want to use another work but am trying to clean up my act).

The rules must focus on preventing people from hurting the life, liberty and property of others. The rules we complain about often cross the line beyond life, liberty and property. 99% of the law is economic rent seeking, creating barriers to entry into the market and racism.

If the rule says that you must put your trash out at 1:00PM on Sunday (the rule in my neighborhood) then I am all for a minimal enforcement if the rule exists at all.

If the rule says don't throw trash in your yard as you attract dogs, possums, raccoons and bugs (as my neighbor did) then the rule should be enforced.

The butter laws were economic rent seeking and barriers to entry. Some feathering their nests with the power of the law.

 

[hornadylnl]

Kirk, do you live in or are you a part of the downtown neighborhood group in Lafayette?

The HOA nazis could learn a thing or a thousand from the downtown Lafayette Nazis. How many buildings down there have they sued to stop the demolition of now? How many buildings are they fighting to include in their historic preservation district? Isn't the St Mary's association the worst of them?
http://www.tourdelafayette.com/neighborhoods/stmarys/stmarys.html

 

[hornadylnl]

Here's more for you Kirk. I especially like the "will of the people" bit at the end. What about the will of the owner?

Preservation is bigger than a single neighborhood | Journal and Courier | jconline.com

People encroach on the rights of others every single day. I don't understand how someone could be up in arms about one particular type of encroachment while wholeheartedly supporting another.