TIME TO STAND
Okay, everyone, it's time to stand up. Monday 10 a.m., Sept. 22 at Campbell County Courthouse, in Virginia a small farm family will stand before a judge to defend their right to operate a Private Membership Association. They offer raw milk, raw milk products, and pork to some 300 club members and make their fulltime living from their small farm.
Around the country I'm seeing Private Membership Associations (PMAs) being attacked by government regulators in the newest permutation of the freedom-of-food-choice battle. We have freedom of choice in the bedroom, bathroom, and womb, but not in the kitchen.
Triple Oaks Farm in Long Island, Virginia is operated by Bryson and Mackenzie Lipscomb. They started three and a half years ago as a herd share operation but due to its clunkiness upgraded to a PMA about a year ago. In December, 2024 they received a cease and desist order from the local health department which they ignored but now they've been petitioned for an immediate and permanent injunction by the state. Bryson is a military veteran who willingly put his life on the line to protect America and is now in a war with his country over the right to sell his farm products. Every vet should descend on this court battle to support this family.
No attorney will represent them because lawyers can lose their licenses to practice if they dare to defend PMAs. The Lipscombs will be representing themselves pro se although their PMA documentation was drawn up with the counsel of ProAdvocate, one of the leading PMA developers in America. In a PMA, members pay a membership fee which then entitles them to the benefits of the PMA. They operate outside public commerce. They were started in the deep south after 1964 to enable white-only country clubs to prohibit blacks from their golf courses. They were successful. These precedents are now being applied to keep government agents from intervening in private food transactions like they were prohibited from enforcing the Civil Rights Act half a century ago.
Plank 15 and 16 of the petition are as follows:
15. Triple Oaks and the Lipscombs produce, provide, sell, offer for sale and stores (sic) milk and milk products without a valid permit issued by the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services (VDACS) in violation of 2VACS-531-50.
16. Triple Oaks and the Lipscombs also offer to sell, sell (sic) barter, trade, or accept goods or services in exchange for unpasteurized, raw milk and milk products intended for human consumption in violation of 2VACS-490-75.
Issued July 9 by Jason Miyares, Virginia Attorney General, the petition is titled Shelton, Commissioner of VDH vs. Triple Oaks, LLC et. al. Put yourself in the Lipscomb's shoes. How would you like to face down the entire legal apparatus of the state without legal counsel at your side? Go ahead, think about that for a minute.
Wouldn't it be wonderful for 1,000 people to descend on that little county courthouse at 10 a.m. Sept. 22 to let our government know food choice is a basic human right. The government wants nothing more than to proceed quietly through these deliberations. If the Lipscombs lose, it will be a significant legal precedent that ALL PMAs are a charade for retail sales. The right to pursue private contractual agreements, enshrined in the U.S. Constitution, is under attack here and this represents yet another aggressive move by government to steal property and deny food choice.
Worst case scenario, the Lipscombs revert to the herd share model. Isn't this all silly? Their 300 members have, are, and will continue to get raw milk, regardless of the outcome. If raw milk is so dangerous, as the petition claims in Plank 29, it should be categorically outlawed.
29. Consumption of raw, unpasteurized milk or milk products can expose people to harmful pathogens such as campylobacter, cryptosporidium, E. coli, listeria, brucella, and salmonella. Then it cites CDC reports as evidence. Right. The CDC--we all trust Fauci and company, don't we? What a joke.
Notice the state doesn't care a lick about the people procuring these raw milk products. They can acquire them, eat them, feed them to their kids, give them to neighbors. The ONLY prohibition is on the farmer who sells them. Clearly, this is not about food safety; if it were, parents would be enjoined from acquiring these hazardous things and certainly prohibited from feeding them to their children. The seller is the only one in jeopardy; how handy. Because the buyers are many; sellers are few. Much easier to pick off the sellers.
Food freedom is the revolution of our day. In 1776, it was taxes and representation. In 1860 it was federal versus state's rights. In 1960 it was civil rights. In 1980 it was home schooling. Perhaps I'm missing some, but you get the idea. Today it's food. Next might be health care, but right now, it's an enslaved food system.
Are you in?
