News of Wisconsin’s first conviction of a farmer for failure to register their premise is hitting the wires[1, 2]. The fine is about $400 and he has sixty-days to appeal. Remember how the USDA said that NAIS is voluntary and their little parenthetical disclaimer of “at the federal level.“
October 24, 2009
WI Conviction on Non-Premise ID
|
Pastured Pigs & Piglets |
Personal Pencil Portraits |
12 Comments »
RSS feed for comments on this post.
Comments can be left at the second link.
Comment Barbara — October 24, 2009 @ 7:38 pm
I suggest everyone write or call the town mayors/town councils, etc of the areas where the Amish man and the other couple were arrested and complain loudly about his religious rights/their constitutional rights being violated. Also call the WI senators and congressmen to let them know how you feel about the way they treat their citizens. I have also sent emails to horse owners in WI to let them know how they may be in trouble and to fight this. Gosh, if gays and pornographers can get their rights to be the way they are, then we must fight to keep our rights!
Comment esbee — October 25, 2009 @ 5:45 am
Now it gets scary! People in the right facing “authority” in the wrong. Now I know what the blacks like
Rosa Parks went through over the unfair law of sitting at the back of the bus. I guess we animal owners are the new second class citizens. I suggest Christians (and others) read The Hiding Place by Cory Ten Boom. She and her family were imprisoned for hiding Jews during WWII but she has a wonderful testimony of how God kept her and taught her through this terrible time. She was released from the concentration camp on a clerical error one day before the rest of her group were gassed. Very inspiring book. “There is no pit so deep that God is not deeper still.”
Comment esbee — October 25, 2009 @ 5:53 am
I just left this comment at
link
The judge’s decision to enforce the letter of the law instead of the validity of the law, is another nail in the coffin of a free society. If she had been a judge 150 years ago, she would have returned an escaped slave to his owner using the same logic.
Comment Barbara — October 25, 2009 @ 7:01 am
Next stop, an appeal to the supreme court..all the lower level judge could determine was that a state law had been broken and thus the civil forfeiture. The supreme court will have to decide whether or not that law is constitutional. There is a precedent in one other type of property that you convey title to the state on, when you pay for license and title on your car, truck or motorcycle. Some people contend that this is not constitutional either. In the case of your property/house I suspect that castle law takes precedence, and that those people who have the police come in and seize their records without warrant or due process are indeed having their constitutional rights violated. We shall see what happens. In the case of the R-calf people who were found against, they did not claim the religious angle. The Amish may fair differently in court based on that. As I said, we have to wait and see. The enforcement thus far has been on those who have taken a stand against the DATCP and refused to register in the face of hand delivered summons for non compliance. I suspect they will go after people with animals that go to market in the food chain before they go after horse people for non compliance. There are no horse slaughter facilities in the USA.
Comment Grizz — October 25, 2009 @ 7:30 am
Let us keep in mind that this was a minor $400 fine, not the loss of their house or farm or something like that. The term civil forfiture is getting thrown around making it sound like they had their farm taken. The law is bad. The judge’s job is to enforce the law. The law needs to change.
Comment Ed — October 25, 2009 @ 7:55 am
Ed,
A $400 fine is still a lot of money for some people. I would be quite upset if I had to fork over $400 for defending my rights. Just because they didn’t lose their home for the first offense doesn’t make it OK. They are being forced to register or face higher penalties.
Comment Barbara — October 25, 2009 @ 9:50 am
It is not the fine but the law that is the problem. People in Vermont stood up and said where do I write the check when the government threatened a $1000 fine for people who refused premise registration. The result was the program was dinged in Vermont. The Agriculture department abandoned it and the legislators told them to leave the farmers alone. If the people of Wisconsin are not going to organize against this then it is their own fault. Maybe this will be their wake up call that they have to fight this at the state level. Other states have fought it and won. This is unfortunate what is happening in Wisconsin but Paul G needs to stop blaming people in other states for what is their own problem. We can not all drop our farming and drive to Wisconsin to fight his battles. Paul has alienated a lot of people with his blame games.
Comment Janice — October 25, 2009 @ 4:06 pm
Amen, Janice, Amen.
Comment Henwhisperer — October 28, 2009 @ 6:56 pm
While contacting senators and congress critters in regard to nais is a good Idea, and I have done so in the past. I will not bother to do so now. All of my representatives are on board with NAIS, and they are all bought out. I get form letters back from them touting the necessity of the program to keep our food supply safe. It’s the same old BS. I wish Kohl and his boyfriend would just stay in Wyoming where he has vast land holdings and quit playing politics in Wisconsin. He sucks!
Comment Grizz — October 31, 2009 @ 10:07 am
It is minor, however, it is also the “first offense” and things escalate from here.
If the case is lost on an appeal, and if they continue to refuse to register, penalties can and WILL reach the point of loss of freedom and land.
Also apparently, the state feels that the Amish are the only ones entitled to a religious defense against the program - leaving all other believers of whatever version out in the cold - despite federal and state constitutional amendments to the contrary.
The state has no jurisdiction in this matter. None.
According to WI law, the state cannot force (mandate) someone to register a premise that is not already on the title to their land. They must get voluntary, informed consent. They can’t. It is not possible to do without letting the proverbial cat out of the bag.
A) This proves that premise ID changes title, it is NOT an easement and it DOES infringe on private property ownership
and
B) This is why the judge did not require Pat and Melissa to register their property, instead choosing only to issue a fine.
The fine was actually $200. Court costs accounted for the other $190. Basically the state and the county split that $400 50/50. However, we must remember that the law itself is illegal, and therefore this is nothing shy of extortion.
The defense attorney should be shot, not the judge.
Another point is that - while the judge has to rule by the letter of the law, if there were a jury involved, and they were properly informed, that judge could be over-ruled. Idaho is currently the only state with a law against jury nullification.
That said, there won’t be any jury at an appeal, either…
Walter - thanks for posting this. So many places refused to put up scanned court docs as well as other public-record information that this and the other hearings that is really refreshing!
Its nice to know there is someone that will post things without coming up with lame excuses or simply ignoring reality in favor of other people’s “advice.”
Sue
Comment Sue — November 1, 2009 @ 2:04 am
i think the horse owners of WI have no idea about NAIS and what it will do to them…i sent several emails to horse owners about what is happening in their state and i got back one angry email saying not to involve them in my politics…i sent them one more email apologizing to explain why I felt the need to warn them. But for those who do oppose NAIS is WI, if they are reading this to still write and call their elected officials, mayors, and other officials and threaten to move out of the state with a cost of how much the state will be losing in taxes and other monies spent by those families. Come to Texas, where they still remember the Alamo!
Comment esbee — November 1, 2009 @ 6:34 am