I am trying hard not to think there is a lie somewhere

Half of the farms in Nebraska are being reported as signing up with premise ID by APHIS. As the title of my posts states, I am having a very hard time trying not to think that there is some lies going on here. Either by the numbers or by how they got all these farmers to sign up.

Something that was quoted in the Farm Futures

"As the number of registered premises continues to grow, it emphasizes the growing support for animal identification, and I applaud these producers for making a choice that is crucial to the health and economic well-being of commercial livestock and poultry industries in the United States."

To me that seems a little patronizing. No I am not seeing doom and gloom in everything. Mr. Bruce Knight is saying that those of us that do not wish to be part of the National herd, care nothing about the well being of our animals, and could he possibly be hinting at that we are unpatriotic?

What could be more American then standing up for your rights? Fighting for your beliefs, freedom of religion, and homesteading? General America didn't want this, corporations that want to sell overseas want this. Most of the illness come from factories, not the small farmers. If they want NAIS, allow the corporations to have it, but keep the rest of America out of it. Allow us to continue selling, buying and trading without chips in our beasts.

One of the arguments I have heard about needing NAIS is that you, the consumers demand a project called COOL. Those of you that don't know what C.O.O.L. is, it stands for County of Origin Labeling. You can read more about C.O.O.L here

Of course what a great idea, labeling something so I know where it comes from. How easy to slap a label onto a product so I know that it was made here in the US, or Canada, or Ireland. NAIS isn't really necessary to this project. But pro-NAIS say that it is. Why? I guess they feel someone could cheat. Well, people cheat all the time, something like NAIS isn't going to keep them honest. How easy it would be to manipulate the system, to mis-label the NAIS tags. A label a code isn't going to tell you the truth about where something is coming from.

I am an American, I am patriotic, and that is why I do not bend over completely to my government. We were taught once to fight injustices, to fight dictatorships, to bend to the will of the countries people. Yet the US government is fighting the people, the people that pay their wages. NAIS is not a way to prevent disease. Inspections of plants, education of what cattle actually eats, sanitary habits for stock yards, these things will prevent disease, just as education on how to properly handle food will. And it would cost us, in taxes and in purchases, a lot less then NAIS.

I readily accept that I may not when this war. I know I am not alone in thinking that this program is appalling. I accept that I may lose my homestead, and possibly go to jail for not complying. The only regret I will ever have for voicing my opinion and standing up for what I feel is right, is the possible "depopulation", that is USDA speak for slaughter, of my beloved pets.

And in losing this battle, we lose the traditions of the homesteader, we will lose more animals to extinction, we will lose our freedoms of choice, we will lose our right to privacy, our right to own personal property. This program could spiral out of control and we could find ourselves in a place far removed of what the US was and has been. By no means am I attempting to be a pessimist, I am just frightened of where we are going.

Another reason for NAIS is to fight terrorism. To me it feels like the terrorists that they fear so much are winning with a mandatory NAIS. We have heard how they don't like how we live, NAIS gives our freedoms over to the government, changing the way we live. Oh I could go on more about this particular reason. But this will suffice for now. We don't fight those that hate us by changing ourselves. We stick up for ourselves, don't we?