I wish the government would but the heck out of the Dairy Farmer's, I am in total agreement with you on this.

And you do know more about the Internet than you let on, I dont even know how to draw a line through words or sentences on my blog lol.

Marie --

You use the word strike, the same way you would use b, i, etc. in the little pointy brackets. :-)

The Democrats are forever trying to impose more government everywhere they can. They seem to view Europe's socialism as enlightened, even as that entire continent deteriorates because of the same policies the Dems are trying to force on us.

The marketplace works extremely well when it's left alone. Tamper with it, and we have Euro style failure. They just don't get it. And the Euros still don't get it either, though their grandchildren will, big time.

Sorry, I don't see this as a poster child for liberal/Democrat misconduct. After all, this bill did pass the House and Senate which were controlled by Republicans who could have deep-sixed this very easily if they were willing to stand up for free enterprise etc.

Rather this is another depressing example of Congress critters surrendering to their big money constitutents in order to squelch an upstart who actually believed in capitalism. In this case, it being California, the major players were Democrats, but we've seen too many other examples of Republicans exhibiting similar duplicity, playing lip service while raking in the bucks backstage. In fact with Republicans, it's worse because it's hypocrisy whereas the Democrats are just doing what one would expect of them.

This is precisely the sort of business-as-usual that got a lot of Republicans tossed out these past elections.

Again, I'm not challenging your basic thesis about liberals; it's just that this particular example doesn't support it. There are many other games going on in Washington and this unfortunate event was part of those games.

Civil Truth --

I suppose I can agree that the game is played on both sides, but in this instance I was actually focusing my thoughts not only about price fixing, which is by no means within the govt's purview, but with the gov't being complicit in punishing someone for choosing to charge less than everybody else.

I can't think of any instances wherein Republicans have initiated penalties for "under charging" to make an example of anyone.

The battle over mandatory fees on pork producers was a somwhat similar instance. Here, the Bush Administration USDA tried to forcibly take money from smaller producers to benefit their larger competitors with better political connections. In this instance, though, the courts were able to intervene.

And if I'm not mistaken, the various takings of private property under eminent domain for the benefit of well-connected developers seems to occur under both Republican and Democratic governance.

Again, my point is not Republicans or Democrats - it's the corrupt culture of politicians practicing idolatry before the altar of money.

Civil Truth --

Thanks for that link, you have cited another example of govt meddling in the private sector, though not, again, fixing prices. You also opened up a real can of worms here, LOL, as that is an excellent site and I intend to do a lot of reading there. It is now a shortcut on my desktop.

I will concede that both sides do go in for the above, but again, the dairy issue is one in which the govt is punishing one solitary individual for exercising his right to charge what he wishes. The pork program was a general charge on what they sold their pork for, on a per $100.00 basis. They weren't telling the farmers how much they have to sell their pork for. Pork prices are still determined by the marketplace, in this case private speculators trading via commodity exchange.

I don't, however, believe the govt has any right to become involved in any private sector business. If a bunch of pork producers want to get together and advertise their product, that's fine. If any individual farmers do not want to contribute, that's fine. The ones who do just have to live with the fact that the nonparticipants will also benefit from the ad campaign.

That kind of thing should be left to the Cosa Nostra, not the U.S. Government.

In the last big eminent domain case, the one in New England last year, the liberal justices voted in favor while the conservative justices wrote dissents.

What really grabbed me was the Court's treatment of the DEA's right to arrest people in California for possession, sales and growing who were licensed under that state's medical marijuana program. That sort of thing should be a state's right, by my thinking. The entire med mj idea is a liberal concept, yet once again, the liberal justices sided with the DEA and against the medical marijuana folks while the conservatives dissented.