Everything I Want To Do Is Illegal
by Joel Salatin · first published 2007
17mentions
8recommended by
15HN commenters
2009–2026first – last mentioned
53% recommend47% neutral
Why HN recommends it
A farmer's first-person account of how regulations burden small local and organic farms while favoring industrial agriculture. It is an inspiring, eye-opening look at food policy.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
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If you've never come across it before, you should really read Joel Salatin's "Everything I Want to Do is Illegal," a farmer's perspective on how regulations crowd out local and organic farmers, destroy farming communities, favor industrialized monoculture-based agriculture, and generally make life less pleasant:…
…food. Federal regulations play a role in this too. Anybody other than a factory farmer is at an immense disadvantage when it comes to meeting the often arbitrary and pointless regulations. Check out "Everything I Want To Do Is Illegal: War Stories From the Local Food Front" by Joe Salatin if you're interested.
on “Pork's Dirty Secret (2006)” ↗…thing we're lacking the capacity for, that is causing this need). Even if you could competently process them, you almost certainly would not be able to legally process them. There's a lovely book called Everything I Want To Do Is Illegal that I think every American who eats food or votes should read.
on “Millions of US farm animals to be culled by suffocation, drowning and shooting” ↗…was not contaminated with bacteria, etc. If you give a damn about any of this check out Mike Ohler's "The Fifty Dollar and Up Underground House Book" for the evils of building codes and Joel Salatin's "Everything I want to do is illegal" for food regulations.
on “Japan's Strict Building Codes Saved Lives” ↗I believe this book may be relevant to your post: "Everything I Want To Do Is Illegal: War Stories from the Local Food Front" https://www.amazon.com/Everything-Want-Do-Illegal-Stories/dp...
on “Were Early Modern People Perpetually Drunk? (2016)” ↗It's also pushed by genuine people. Read Everything I Want To Do Is Illegal by Joel Salatin.
on “Microsoft President: Democracy Is At Stake. Regulate Big Tech” ↗I feel for you. You might enjoy a book from a small farmer called "Everything I Want to Do Is Illegal" by Joel Salatin. He talks about the absurdity of ag regulatory capture and it's effects on small farmers. It's an inspiring call to arms.
on “The Cartel That Controls the US Food System” ↗…de facto system we have today. So if you get the government involved, it'll just become law, and the lone wolves in open source who big tech doesn't want to hire will be fined, sent to jail, etc. Read "Everything I Want To Do Is Illegal" by Joel Salatin.
on “Reflections on Distrusting xz” ↗Read "Everything I Want To Do Is Illegal: War Stories from the Local Food Front" by Joel Salatin to learn about what the government did to farmers. The simple truth is you won't even have the ability to ask to be hired, because it will be illegal…
on “France Endorses UN Open Source Principles” ↗…strange domain mismatches were it has been overfit on unusual cases. Anyone who is more agency seeking than average will likely confront some vogonic laws and develop conflicting feelings. try the book Everything I Want To Do Is Illegal.
on “Polio Is on the Brink of Eradication” ↗…mean to ask me what my aspiration in life is, you might be interested to know that many of my heros were felons. Jesus, Gandhi, John Bunyan,... Peaceful agribuisnessman Joel Salatin said it this way, "Everything I want to do is illegal" http://www.amazon.com/Everything-Want-To-Do-Illegal/dp/09638...
on “What should the next Aaron Swartz do when the DOJ knocks?” ↗This reminds me of the book "Everything I Want To Do Is Illegal" by Joel Salatin.
on “Are my favorite bartenders going to be sent to jail?” ↗…laws that can neither be observed or enforced nor objectively interpreted – and you create a nation of law-breakers – and then you cash in on guilt.” — Ayn Rand (1905–1982), 'Atlas Shrugged' (1957) Everything I Want To Do Is Illegal: War Stories from the Local Food Front by Joel Salatin https://www.amazon.com/Everything-Want-Do-Illegal-Stories/dp...
on “The growing vigilante movement to knock out Flock surveillance cameras” ↗…[1] but I recall seeing an interesting video where he runs larger ruminants (cows) and then chickens (coop on wheels) and then plants the area (the chickens aerate the soil). He also wrote an article "Everything I want to do is illegal" and has several books on the mess of agricultural bureaucracy. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GdQ5y5_0dRc
on “Why I Would Raise Chickens” ↗For some further reading on health food starting from the land: The One Straw Revolution Everything I Want To Do is Illegal The biggest reason this wont happen without an equal political collapse, is that the likes of Kraft-Heinz so dutifully mentioned here, have perfected "food control." Regulatory capture means this kind…
on “The biggest health transformation in US history might start at Dollar General?” ↗