Comments about ‘In our opinion: Complete overhaul of farming supports needed’

I just can't imagine what republican leaning farmers are thinking asking taxpayers to help thier business year after year, good times and even more in bad.

How can the cognitive dissonence be any more in the face of taxpayers.

Republicans refuse to allow cuts to the farmer welfare system. Amazing.

If you can get the GOP to drop its stated purpose of trying to ensure the failure of the President, get them to stop the permanent filibuster, and adopt a spirit of legislative compromise, then perhaps we could get some of these things done. The official party of this paper and its owners has been in obstructionist mode, and it is doing no one any good.

There's not going to be much progress here as long as we keep electing the same people. Most of the money in farm subsidies doesn't go to family farmers - it goes to the mmultinational agribusiness conglomerates like Monsanto, Cargill and ADM. Even while decrying the practice, this editorial writes as if this is about cutting subsidies to family farms. It's not, it's about cutting subsidies to corporations that have destroyed family farming through unfair competition, funded by government subsidies.

Government of the people should not favor one group of businesses over another. And it should never favor any business over the welfare of the people.

Yet, in the real world, governments are made up of people seeking wealth and power through commercial operations otherwise known as business.

Farmers are businessmen. The image of the family farm is a fiction used in propaganda to hide the real nature of farming. They are no better or worse than anyone else.

They are deified by their propaganda as the producers of our food. As deities they want special consideration, exemption from laws, and lax regulation. But in fact, they are not deities and as the producers of our food, they should be regulated even more closely than other businesses.

Government of the people, by the people, for the people is probably never going to happen. However working toward that goal will probably advance civilization and we can do that by equalizing the government toward business.

Primary producers need to figure out how to do one thing. Make money. On their own, without transportation subsidies or tax breaks or other welfare.

The ethanol subsidy will cause the deaths of million of children due to starvation it is said. Seems like farmers really don't need subsidies any more.

I like the direction of this editorial, though I do not believe it goes nearly far enough.

The article called to mind a sentiment from a former Secretary of Agriculture memorialized on the cover of Time magazine, April 13, 1953.

"No real American wants to be subsidized."

The Secretary: Ezra Taft Benson

I might add that this sentiment applies to more than farmers. For my part, I DO want to be a real American. I do NOT want to be subsidized, not in my retirement, home loan, education, medical care or any other aspect of my life.

Dear Government,

Kindly keep me safe from thieves, murderers and other thugs including international ones. That is government's proper purview. Yes, it's smaller than you'd like, but it truly is monumentally important.

Pippin.

I do hope you are including your family, your friends, your religious leader, your business competitors, your businessmen who are supplying your needs, your everyday contacts, along with thousands more and even yourself.

Because the true facts of life are that you will be governed by someone for all your life. You can have the protection from these people and groups by your elected government or by the imposition of leaders that you had not hand in selecting. It’s your choice.

Ultra Bob,

You have equated a subsidy with a trade. I TRADE with family, friends, my employer, my religious contacts, and many hundreds of other individuals, voluntarily. I do not expect them to provide me with goods or services or instruction or praise or affection without a fair trade from me. I do not expect them to subsidize me and I do not wish to subsidize them with the government serving as middleman. If I wish to help someone I will do so and that too I will consider a trade; helping someone whom I well esteem is a kind of trade. Helping a rotter whom I do not well esteem because a portion of my pay check was expropriated is not a trade, but a plunder cleverly disguised with the word "subsidy" or even worse, "charity".

You seem to believe that I am opposed to choosing leaders by vote. I most certainly am not. Neither do I oppose the existence of government; I was clear on that point in my original comment.

Pippin.

I think you and I are pretty close to agreement on everything except the notion of being fair.

I don’t believe there is anything in the makeup of human beings that has any resemblance to notion of fair. I think human beings like animals, plants and all life forms are selfish, greedy, and would only be “fair” when forced by external means.