by Michelle Sabrosky
A post in Casper Classifieds today (1/19/19) came from a gentleman known as “Tamale Mike.” He has been selling tamales on Facebook, and was recently informed by an attorney that he was under investigation.
Tamale Mike’s post stated,
“To those that are selling food on fb. Be very carful [sic] to whom you are selling them. There is a snitch(es) out there some where [sic]. I received a letter from a lawyer yesterday that said “The investigation may include purchases under the supervision of the PD without your knowledge”…”
I will get into the Food Freedom Act and the Cottage Act here in a bit, but first let’s discuss liberty for a moment. Victims of a government school education have never been taught what liberty is and is not; what a free society looks like, and what it does not look like. And you thought this article was about tamales…
The proper and only role of government is to protect our rights. That is all. They did not give us our rights. They do not get to take away our rights. Its role is to protect our fundamental God-given rights.
It is NOT the role of government to protect me from myself.
The passage of the Food Freedom Act meant that the brown shirts could no longer come in like a SWAT team and ruin your life over raw milk and organically homegrown eggs from your backyard chickens.
The Food Freedom Act; however, did nothing about beef and pork products, because, well, the State of Wyoming still feels the need to protect us from ourselves. -In that case, the beef and pork tamales I bought from some random dude on Facebook self-identify as my own chicken (or the chicken of the guy from whom I bought the tamales, whichever satisfies the food police clad in full SWAT gear wielding tactical thermometers).
The Cottage Act, which passed first, in theory was a step in the right direction, but it required a license to sell food from your home. Instead of protecting your rights, the government (Federal, state, or local) stole them and decided they would sell them back to you by way of license or permit, so they can properly tax you… We can’t have the government not benefitting from your labor, now can we?
When homemade tamales are outlawed, only outlaws will buy and sell homemade tamales because prohibition always, always, always creates underground transactions. It creates “criminals”, when technically no crimes are being committed, because no just law is being broken.
In “The Law” Frédéric Bastiat pointed out the following, emphasis added by yours truly:
‘We hold from God the gift which includes all others. This gift is life — physical, intellectual, and moral life.
“But life cannot maintain itself alone. The Creator of life has entrusted us with the responsibility of preserving, developing, and perfecting it. In order that we may accomplish this, He has provided us with a collection of marvelous faculties. And He has put us in the midst of a variety of natural resources. By the application of our faculties to these natural resources we convert them into products, and use them. This process is necessary in order that life may run its appointed course.
“Life, faculties, production — in other words, individuality, liberty, property — this is man. And in spite of the cunning of artful political leaders, these three gifts from God precede all human legislation, and are superior to it.
“Life, liberty, and property do not exist because men have made laws. On the contrary, it was the fact that life, liberty, and property existed beforehand that caused men to make laws in the first place.” –
– Frederic Bastiat, The Law, 1850, pp 1-2
Who is being harmed by people selling food out of their own home without a government permission slip? If people begin to get food poisoning, capitalism will intervene as word gets around. People will no longer be interested in buying food from that individual. It isn’t lucrative to poison people who are paying you to make their food.
Nobody’s liberty is being hampered by an individual making a product and selling it to people on Facebook. The government; however, feels robbed by being denied a benefit because of the culinary financial transactions taking place without their permission. In other words, they didn’t benefit from licenses and permits, and they don’t benefit from sales tax. The Horror!
As for me and my house, we enjoy undocumented tamales that identify as being in compliance with state laws and local ordinances, because they simply just taste better.
Make no mistake, liberty isn’t single issue. Replace “tamales” with “guns” or “CBD oil”. It is not what is being regulated, but the fact that it is being regulated. This isn’t about what permit or license is required, it is the fact that the government is requiring you to obtain its permission.
My next article will be on CBD oil and Hemp products, and the “conservative” legislators who are pro big (regulatory) government when it fits their agenda.
For now, I have undocumented “back-yard chicken” tamales to eat.
LOVE THIS ARTICLE! Thanks Michelle!