Let me explain that remark. The federal government won't even let States let their residents drink raw milk from wherever they please to get it, or let most stores sell it. Different States have different philosophies. Of course you're allowed to keep a cow, milk it, and enjoy the product. This has led to the formation of "cow cooperatives," whose members technically jointly own the cow(s) and get the milk from them, in return for paying up-front for the roughage, the pasturing, and all the other expenses.

The only reason most milk sold in stores must be heat-treated ("pasteurized") is that large dairy farms typically are not sanitary in their milking operations. They leave the milking-machine intakes drag the ground, for instance--and you can imagine the contamination that can then result. And all the milk goes into the same truck. Nobody enforces anything remotely like a standard of cleanliness.

The problem: milk has good germs in it, and when you heat-treat it, you kill off the good with the bad. This is a classic baby-and-bathwater toss.

So what Rep. Paul is saying is that people everywhere should be able to get their milk, heat-treated or not, as they wish, and rely on the reputation of the store for cleanliness and avoidance of contamination. In short, Rep. Paul wants to restore freedom to the milk market, so that small-scale dairy farmers can deliver a clearly superior product and compete effectively with the Big Boys who always seem better able, in terms of unit cost, to comply with "regulations."

A lot of people won't understand this.

I bet Gary Johnson agrees.

In our Topsy Turvy world, coming soon is "What is not forbidden, is mandatory."

If you live long enough, I guess you have all kind of experiences that strangely become appropriate in different situations. When I was 19, I had a brand new Ford Mainline 4door (their cheapest model) whose down payment I made with $400 in quarters and half dollars. I decided to travel the USA that summer. The damn thing broke down in South Dakota right outside a privately owned dairy farm. The owner hauled my car into his barn in which he had just about every tool needed to fix anything with a gasoline engine. Long story short, I visited his milking barn. It was 3/4 machine and 1/4 hand milking. And it was Clean. I mean really clean. Excessively clean. By the way,he and one other man and his teen age son ran the whole place, milking, delivering, growing feed and food and livestock for the family. Talk about your work ethic. And by the way, he fixed my car after he finished his 6 am breakfast. (Loose distributor cap).

How about let's add to it:

- The right to drive your car and pickup whomever you would like for whatever price you agree on without getting a taxi license?
- The right to use your home to board any random person who needs a place to stay without getting a hotel license and paying the exhorbitant fees?
- The right to be in business without an annual license? )If a business wants to pay for certifications or associations to improve their brand, that's free, but not mandatory.)
- The right to do what I want with my own money and not have it confiscated and given to other people!
- The right to give to my children the fruits of my labors - whatever they may be - without inheritance taxes!

Should I keep going? There is too much money-grubbing in government today...

I agree, but is this really what Paul wants to spend his effort on? It might be used as part of a broader example of government over reach and a need for say the REINS Act or my improved version entitled the Regulatory Bill of Rights, but as a stand alone issue it is nonsense.