Everything I Want to Do Is Illegal!

Everything I Want to Do Is Illegal by Joel Salatin

[xersys]

They want farming to be illegal to force the average man into wage slavery. You cannot own a man that does not require your permission to live.

[tahak]

This book is literally the "do you have a loicence?" meme.

[..]

Number one: In 1945, corporations paid 50 percent of federal taxes. Now they pay about 5 percent.
Number two: in 1900, 90 percent of Americans were self-employed; now it’s about time for making a time machine and going back to 1933.

[vaxrvaxr]

If you can tell something's illegal these days, you should be grateful. Often it's "nobody really knows if it's legal and so far nobody was willing to find out" or "technically everything we do is illegal but nobody cares and it's totally tolerated until someone we don't like does it".

[jackanghoff]

This stuff is even more rage inducing when you see all of the things large meat processing operations are allowed to do. I bought a steak the other day and realized that it wasn’t a piece of meat but several small pieces of meat literally GLUED together. They are allowed to use GLUE to trick you into buying something other than what you thought you were buying, but god forbid an actual person sells you a good piece of meat without a loicense.

[hal]

I used to work in architecture, but switched to cs. I tell you all the zoning regulations, are so much stipulating creativity, new ideas are totally stalled and out of the question, so that everything looks the same. We live in a totally messed up, - overregulated world...

[MAmerica]

That reminds me of how Walmart lobbied for increasing the minimum wage. I am guessing their logic behind that is that it will hurt us, but it will hurt our competition a whole lot more. Very sad.

[vex]

When I was younger, I was full of drive and ideas for businesses. Then I met the reality imposed upon me, and realized that unless I could pull millions out of nowhere...all of those ideas were trash...or effectively illegal, as I'd have to break multiple laws inorder to get started cheaply. It's with everything...and it fxcking sucks.

[osirisgolad]

I've been saying this for years: think about how weird and unnatural we are. You now aren't allowed to do any of the things that are part of your most basic instincts. It's not strange that there are so many wayward young people these days, when human nature is regulated against. Most people don't know how to grow or find food, cure what ails us, many of us don't know how to defend ourselves, how to build shelter, how to find answers to basic problems on our own without having some book or institution tell us the "designated solution". In fact, if you try, you will be told that you are trespassing or otherwise breaking the law. This is what many a people around the world meant when they said "they are taking our land". It's kind of ironic how America was born out of the settlers' desire to escape the system, and now the system is more restrictive than ever. I shudder to think what will happen when AI is put to work to regulate people.

[mantis_toboggan_md]

Government: Empowers corporations & penalizes small businesses

Reddit: See?! Capitalism doesn't work! Communism is the answer!!

[Raccoonov]

Very interesting. I live in Russia, and lots of people are starting to go to rural areas for living, growing own foods, living off-grid and eventually make some money fro that by selling stuff to city dwellers and inviting them to come to these farms and experience this eco lifestyle. And the facts that you've mentioned about the regulations and amusement park taxation etc, this is actually starting to gain traction here in Russia, and what you've said actually helped me to see where it's all going to, and it's kind of really triggering, just as you said, even I'm not an American, but Russian. Thanks for the exposure, Luke! Greatly appeciate! Good luck, man!

[evinhendry]

The regulatory state wasn't created by the people/small business owners to crush large corporations. It was created by large corporations to crush the people and small business owners.

[MyLinuxToyBox]

I worked as a manager in a factory egg farm. We allowed allowed local agriculture classes to make walk through visits. It turned into a major problem with FDA because of contamination. Jeez eggs are in shells how do visitors contaminate them. The weirdness of some of the laws is a pain.

[extragirth]

As somebody who grew up on a poor farm I know exactly what you mean but I also know it's more difficult in USA than it is in Canada where I am from (but it's still pretty bad.) The problem is that America's Agriculture Department is insanely huge compared to other countries, it's why Monsanto has so much power. I even suspect USA treats their Agricultural Department as an extension of their Defense Department.


You would think USA would not have this problem considering how much autonomy every state has but nope, it's all a waste.

[MrEdrftgyuji]

A lot of government regulations and taxes are designed to keep us dependent on employment. In my country (and many others), the income tax rate spikes when you start earning a bit more than what would buy you a reasonable life. Meaning that you have to earn an enormous sum of money to have some left over to save so that you are not dependent on employment income before retirement.

[EhKurd]

Isn’t this true for any type of business? My family had started a small restaurant that ultimately failed and it was like everything was there to fuck you over. You quickly realize if you don’t do illegal things, there’s just no way to succeed. Its despairing to see how the big guys can get away with so much while the small family business are in constant threat of inspectors ruining you.

[horatiopugwash]

Any book with an entire chapter devoted to bacon is a must read in my opinion. 🐷

[jollyonair]

This reminds me very much of music collections agencies in Australia. Over the last few years, I enquired about starting an internet radio station -- legally. The music collection agencies will charge you a quarterly fee based on your total quarterly revenue, but the fee starts from $0 revenue (the first bracket is $0 - $5000). So, what's the fee if you don't yet have any listeners and as such no revenue? Oh, just $4400 per year, and it goes up from there as you build your audience and subsequently earn more revenue. Not so bad once you have a large audience and able to charge for advertising, but the barriers of entry are huge.

[whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat]

_Everything I want to do is illegal_

Wait, that's illegal.

[ryan.]

Muh land of the free is literally the most regulated western country