One Farm to Ruin Them All

I like when Josh disagrees with me. He’s a sophomore where I teach and refuses to accept what I’m saying. This is my quasi-Socratic method: present students with the opposite of what they believe and ask them to prove my idea wrong. I want Josh to think about other sides of arguments and see the grey inside of all black and white. That, and it’s just really fun to challenge thoughtful high school students like Josh.

Yesterday’s discussion centered on the family farm. I asked, why is milk subsidized? Josh said that subsidies protect the family farm and that was that. I asked, so why do we need family farms? I wanted to know. There is a nostalgia about the family farm rooted in the notion that our nation was built on them. Who gives a damn? Nostalgia is nice, but it’s not an argument. Still, Josh was stuck with a sure feeling that the family farm was necessary but with nostalgia as his only argument. He promised to get back to me with a good reason.

Well, Josh, here’s one for free.

On the ride home from school I heard the two words that convinced me of the need for family farms: bird flu. Consider the giant chicken farms run by the likes of Perdue. If bird flu hits those, the devastation will be gigantic. Whole cities of birds will be slaughtered in a desperate attempt to stave off a pandemic. When one giant farm contaminates another, the dominoes fall. After that, from where do we get chicken?

If we rely completely on the giant farms to the exclusion of family farms, we lose the diversity necessary to survive a pandemic. Our security is found on the local family farm that raises only a few chickens. We need the family farm for security.

Josh, I want the family farm to survive too. Just because large corporations can rule the market, it’s not a good idea to always let that happen. I don’t want family farms to compete with corporations any more than local niche stores should compete with Walmart. Family farms should grow natural, organic, whole foods, and provide them to local customers. It’s safer, healthier, and better for everyone.

We should preserve the family farm, but not for nostalgia. I still don’t care that there were American farmers in 1776. There were American whores too, and I don’t hear a loud call for the preservation of that industry. My argument looks to the future. We need family farms to reinvent how we live and eat. The Walmart life is killing America. We need to get back home to the family farm. We must continue to subsidize family farms but demand that they provide what we need. I don’t want cheap chicken so much as I need healthy chicken and security. Family farms can provide all that. I don’t know if they will, but I can’t think of another way to get things done.

There Goes Freedom

In the Thousand Islands region of the St. Lawrence River, Uncle Sam Tour Lines runs a tour-boat they have christened Freedom. My father, who watches boats and ships on the river, alerts us each time the boat goes by.

“Look, kids. There goes Freedom.”

South Dakota today became the first state in the nation to outlaw abortion. It will be legal only when the life of the mother is in question and performing an abortion, even in cases of rape or incest, will be a criminal act.

Look, folks. There goes Freedom.”

I don’t relish the idea of life being extinguished. My wife and I chose to have two wonderful children and would never change that. Neither would we change the planning of our family. Once, in college, we worried that things had gone wrong and knew that we weren’t ready for a child. We worried and talked and decided that if we had to, we would abort the pregnancy and trade those few cells for our lives.

As things turned out, we weren’t pregnant, but if we had been and there had been no right to choose, we would have had the child. We would have sacrificed our possible futures and would never have borne the two children we have now. Who is to say that the life of those few cells is worth more than that of my wife, my two girls, and myself? Thankfully, it is not yet the purview of the lawmakers in South Dakota to decide my fate.

But look, there goes freedom.

I teach high school. In eleven years, I know for sure of two students who have aborted pregnancies. I’m sure there were others. If it was my choice, I would counsel most of them not to have a child. In fact, I do advise that by advising safe sex for those who choose to engage in sex at all. At least one of those two girls who aborted her pregnancy would have failed out otherwise. The father was uninterested fatherhood. He had donated sperm and was done. I don’t care if it was wrong or right to abort those pregnancies. It’s not my place to say. It is a decision each person must make and however they choose, it is our duty to support them.

South Dakota, shame on you. This law will limit young women’s choices and lives. Your actions will not curb abortion, but will likely endanger the health of many. I reject your decision and will fight it. I welcome any South Dakotan to visit the great state of New York where, to date, our health care system is largely unfettered by the trappings of those who believe they know the will of their God.

Look everyone, there goes freedom.