Quentin Hardy on "Parasite States"

Quentin Hardy

Updated with clips from a DOE video at the bottom.

I have been looking for the video or transcript of this November 27th, 2004 airing of Forbes on FOX for ages.  If anybody has the video, I would appreciate a copy.  FOX does not have a video archive with the article.  When I saw it live, I could not believe that I was seeing a mainstream Leftist talking about "Red State parasites".

Quentin Hardy, Silicon Valley Bureau Chief: Well, I doubt that David (Asman). Most immigrants, in general, seem to be going to blue states like California and New York, where people pay more to the federal government than they get back. The red states, the parasite states that take more from the federal government than they give, don’t draw as many immigrants. Now what does this tell you? Immigrants aren't’t (sic) taking as many services as other people do. They put more into the economy, legal or illegal.

The important part here is not the part about immigrants, nor is it Hardy's perennial hypocrisy on "from each according to their ability," the point is what Hardy calls "parasite States." The red states, the parasite states that take more from the federal government than they give, This has been a long standing indictment by the Left against States that have 'benefited' from massive, Democrat initiated, federal programs and dare to show their ingratitude by voting Republican.

Growing up in Tennessee I used to hear this nonsense from my father (hardcore Democrat), and then in college from Leftist faculty members.  The reasoning goes: FDR and LBJ gave all of these magnificent public works to these people, but they show no gratitude at all.  Usually a helping of bumpkin/hillbilly was added to sweeten the argument that only served as identifying the speaker as an ass.

Norris Dam construction: People used to live here

The Leftists of course, never see the downside to the jackbooted statist implementation of these grand plans (TVA, Manhattan Project, National Parks), they only see the results and they cannot even manage to look at the results honestly.  The ungrateful bumpkins happen to know families, now their descendants, that were thrown off of their land for all of these grand projects.

In East Tennessee the federal government came rolling in to make the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, and kicked out families across the Smoky Mountains.  Many from the Cades Cove area left, eventually getting some money for their land, and resettled in the Clinch River Valley.  About ten years later the feds came in again and kicked them out to build Norris Dam and lake.  Of course, in both cases the feds did not come in and negotiate with anybody who already lived there, no they just took their land and gave them arbitrary amounts of money for their property.  Negotiations were made with developers and contractors, of course.

Y-12 under construction. People used to live here too.

Then, about ten years after that the biggie came.  People in the Bear Creek Valley, now know as Oak Ridge, TN, many who had just arrived from Norris ten years earlier, were greeted with notes tacked to their doors telling them they had a short time to vacate.  The bulldozers rolled in and destroyed everything to erect the weapons manufacturing facilities for the Manhattan Project.  The property owners were given some money for their land months later.

War Department Land Grab Notice

If I had left out the government element in this story of the plight of farmers in East Tennessee, one might have thought it a story of big, mean corporations driving people off of their land in search of profits, just like in the movies.  Fact is, no company can do that without the help of the government.  In this case, no corporations were involved, it was all government.  A government with all of the resources in the world to pay farmers a fair, or even a generous price for their land.  If you don't believe me, feel free to find the next showing of watch A Nuclear Family: Y-12 National Security ComplexHow the Manhattan Project changed life in East Tennessee.  If it was on CSPAN I could give you a link to the video, but it is on the Public Broadcasting System, so you are on your own the federal government bought a copy (watch it all here).

Watch the relevant portion here:

Now you know why many in the Tennessee Valley wished the federal government stayed in DC.

The Case of the Killer Cantaloupe

Cantaloupe String Bikini via AllAmericanBikini.Com

Via the Chicago Sun-Times:
Listeria outbreak in cantaloupes is deadliest in a decade By MARY CLARE JALONICK Associated Press September 28, 2011 6:12AM

WASHINGTON — Health officials say as many as 16 people have died from possible listeria illnesses traced to Colorado cantaloupes, the deadliest food outbreak in more than a decade.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Tuesday that 72 illnesses, including 13 deaths, are linked to the tainted fruit. State and local officials say they are investigating three additional deaths that may be connected.

The death toll released by the CDC Tuesday — including newly confirmed deaths in Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska and Texas — surpassed the number of deaths linked to an outbreak of salmonella in peanuts almost three years ago. Nine people died in that outbreak.

The CDC said Tuesday that they have confirmed two deaths in Texas and one death each in in Kansas, Missouri and Nebraska. Last week the CDC reported two deaths in Colorado, four deaths in New Mexico, one in Oklahoma and one in Maryland.

A tragic and timely story for some research on Would You Like Borders With That Socialism?  Note that the source of the contaminated fruit does not appear for ten paragraphs, which fits with a design to induce general panic, rather than helping anybody look for the problem.

Here in the US of A, we have had an expensive and intrusive food bureaucracy since the Wilson administration.  In fact, ranks of the food Nazi regime have been growing ever since, all in the name of "food safety."  The food safety legions are not held responsible for the spread of any disease that they are supposed to be protecting the nation from, they are only responsible for the random punishments.

They are also responsible for armed raids on food producers, like the little raw milk suppliers that are popping up all over the place since its partial 'decriminalization' in recent years.  My first attempts at finding any death statistics from raw milk and raw milk product consumption, as well as other deaths from foodborne pathogens, is going a bit slower than one would imagine if this is such a serious problem.

From the cantaloupe article above:

The outbreak has been traced to Jensen Farms in Holly, Colorado, which recalled the tainted cantaloupes earlier this month. The Food and Drug Administration said state health officials had found listeria in cantaloupes taken from grocery stores in the state and from a victim’s home that were grown at Jensen Farms. Matching strains of the disease were found on equipment and cantaloupe samples at Jensen Farms’ packing facility in Granada, Colorado.

The article is not very clear that this was a voluntary recall.  There is no mention of any government pressure, no phone calls from Washington, DC saying, "You know, that is a pretty farm there, would be a shame if anything happened to it."  No, the farm recalled its 300,000 melon harvest all on its own as soon as it discovered the problem.  The sort of thing the Socialist Statist establishment would have you believe never happens until the government makes it happen.

Sadly, this will never be the face of the modern food Nazi.

Funny thing is, the Leftist/Socialists keep saying that business never does this, yet they have little evidence to prove it is true.  Of course, they have no evidence that any farmer ever got away with intentionally killing people for profit.

UPDATE: The food Nazis have an exhibit in the National Archives - What's Cooking Uncle Sam?

We demand that our Government ensure that it is safe, cheap, and abundant. In response, Government has been a factor in the production, regulation, research, innovation, and economics of our food supply. It has also attempted, with varying success, to change the eating habits of Americans.

Interesting. I think I found a great wealth of misinformation/disinformation for my book.