The White Coats Are Coming! Teaching Kids About the Raw Milk Mess

I keep thinking about Barb and Steve Smith, and how they took six of their children to the court hearing last week seeking a temporary injunction in their suit against New York’s Department of Food and Agriculture.

They school their children at home. (Six live at home, and three others are grown and on their own. The photo at left shows the Smiths with three of their children, Alan, Paddy, and Jacob.)

To the Smiths, one of the unintended benefits of their court case is using their experiences with New York Ag and Markets and the courts as a real-life civics lesson.

I would imagine there were parents who brought children to the hearing in Sacramento a couple weeks ago with a similar intention in mind.

What are the kids learning? Well, one of the things they have to be learning is that when it comes to selecting your food, the government is no friend. In fact, the government is the enemy.

You can get a sense of the simmering feelings of resentment in a recounting of an Ag and Markets inspection at Meadowsweet Farm last October, by Alan Smith, the 18-year-old son of Barb and Steve . His reference to the “White Coats” is a not-too-subtle takeoff on the Red Coats who inspired revolution in America 250 years ago.

Yet even with all his early-life cynicism, Alan still harbored hopes that the courts would offer eventual justice.

“The next morning when I was having breakfast, my parents were discussing how to get a temporary restraining order to keep the White Coats off our farm until the court date. Court? Yes, we’re taking Ag and Markets to court. They recoil at the mention of court, it’s like the word ‘ni.’ I am looking forward to our court date. Sadly it hasn’t been set yet. I’m looking forward to listening to our lawyers crush Ag and Markets with things like charges of harassment and plenty of illegal stuff.”

His family’s lawyer, Gary Cox, did make a powerful argument. But the judge opted out, sending the case to another court.

The kids got to see a perfect illustration of what Don describes so well in his comment on my previous post—the royalty of America pulling up the drawbridges around their moat. Yet how does one go about explaining to children the subtleties described so well in other comments, of arbitrary standards, germ theory, political theatre, and other such influences on this entire situation?

Much as I’d like to see the children shielded from seeing the real behavior of their government, I really do think it’s preferable for them to learn the lessons earlier rather than later, like the adults among us.

Comments

[kathryn]

I am encouraged by the Smith's inculsion of their chidlren in the process they are going through, and say KUDOS to them for creating an awareness of reality. And, of course, raising a Monty Pythin fan or two:-)
One of the purposes of government education, IMO, is to create an expectant(of what the government can do for you) and subserbient population. Discouraging entrepreneurship is part and part of the indoctrination, and the reading material quite commonly presented does not offer encouragement to think outside parameters of "public safety","security" and "benefits". The next generation does need to be made aware of what is true and right, and what real community and work consists of. Why do home schoolers seem to be ahead of governmemt schoolers in maturity and ability to logivally reason? The answers have been known for many decades, not becasue of WHAT and HOW they are taught, but that they are given the opportunity to produce in a menaingful way, and the time to make decisions, face real consequences, and reflect on the why of the situation. Homeschoolers have the chance to communicate in a non-peer structured envoronment in real life situations, since they are THERE wth the family.Homeschooling is not the only way to reach kids, but a great and painless way to do it. Just as local, community based foods are the top of the line typically, so are those local community based kids. And to toot our horn here, VICFA secretary and my daughter Laura just got her acceptance letter to University of Virginia Law school. We are plumb proud of our homegrown gal.

[Don Neeper]

What, no new blog entry today? A slow news day, perhaps? :-)