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i continue to suspect Mr Girod's jail time is the result of his not appearing in court.
the other charges probably could have been handled with corrections and fines, court orders.

not appearing in court made him a "flight risk."
"ignorance of the law is no excuse," the fact that he did not understand the importance of appearing, did not impress the judge in this instance. another judge MIGHT have been more lenient, but i would not count on it.

appearing is a big deal in courts of law.
the refusal to have legal counsel (to explain the importance of things like, appearing) very likely added to the decision for jail time.

it would be helpful if these things were better explained. clarity often helps understanding.

If he can make large profits and make medical claims, I think he can understand a very basic summons saying "You must appear or you will be arrested."

Judges are generally more lenient on pro se defendants. They aren't lenient on ones like this fellow who fire their attorney for no apparent reason.

This fellow would have benefited from reading his Bible and learning what it says about judges, courts, and the government. Instead, he decided to pursue wealth.

mike wrote:One Mennonite businessman has gone all-in supporting Sam Girod, comparing him to Rosa Parks, Mordecai, Harriet Tubman, and Corrie ten Boom. He paraphrases Martin Luther King Jr. as follows:

I Have A Dream!

I have a dream... that one day... one day in our great country little FDA boys and little FDA girls will join hands with little farmer boys and little herbal salve maker girls. I have a dream that they will together live up to that creed that all men are innocent until proven guilty. I have a dream!

I have a dream that one day farmer Sam's three little herbal salves will not be judged and incriminated by the story of their effectiveness but by the content of their ingredients. I have a dream today!

Sorry, Martin Luther King Jr.... Your original was so much better. I hope you don't mind my playful borrowing.

Uuggg! This type of comparison just drives me crazy. The fact of the matter is that if you want to be in the food business today you must come up to a whole list of standards. Lots of rules. Lots of inspections.
Why should this guy be any different?
What this man does not realize is that if it were easy to be in this business a whole lot more people would be doing it making it a whole lot harder for him to even be noticed. There is no free lunch. There never was.
The long and short of it is that if your product is so great and so good for everyone you should have no problem meeting the lawful requirements you need to come up to, to market that product. Anything less will bring back chaos. For those that would like to go back to the days of the 18th century snake oil salesman I say fine. But I am guessing you have no idea what you are asking for. There is a good reason why life expectancy has jumped almost 15 years just in my life time and it is not by accident.
This comes from someone that sometimes gets very frustrated by all the rules and regulations. But I would never think of openly ignoring them anymore than I would any other laws. There are times when we are called to ignore government laws. When they directly go against Biblical laws. This is not one of them.

appleman2006 wrote:Uuggg! This type of comparison just drives me crazy.

Yeah...Say what you want about FDA regulations, but they're not exactly genocide.

appleman2006 wrote:The long and short of it is that if your product is so great and so good for everyone you should have no problem meeting the lawful requirements you need to come up to, to market that product. Anything less will bring back chaos. For those that would like to go back to the days of the 18th century snake oil salesman I say fine. But I am guessing you have no idea what you are asking for. There is a good reason why life expectancy has jumped almost 15 years just in my life time and it is not by accident.
This comes from someone that sometimes gets very frustrated by all the rules and regulations. But I would never think of openly ignoring them anymore than I would any other laws. There are times when we are called to ignore government laws. When they directly go against Biblical laws. This is not one of them.

This.

RZehr wrote:

mike wrote:One Mennonite businessman has gone all-in supporting Sam Girod, comparing him to Rosa Parks, Mordecai, Harriet Tubman, and Corrie ten Boom. He paraphrases Martin Luther King Jr. as follows:

I Have A Dream!

I have a dream... that one day... one day in our great country little FDA boys and little FDA girls will join hands with little farmer boys and little herbal salve maker girls. I have a dream that they will together live up to that creed that all men are innocent until proven guilty. I have a dream!

I have a dream that one day farmer Sam's three little herbal salves will not be judged and incriminated by the story of their effectiveness but by the content of their ingredients. I have a dream today!

Sorry, Martin Luther King Jr.... Your original was so much better. I hope you don't mind my playful borrowing.

I would find it interesting to visit with this farmer.

I can assure you he is very interesting. He has some very interesting relatives which you know or at least know of.

Biblical Anabaptist wrote:

RZehr wrote:

mike wrote:One Mennonite businessman has gone all-in supporting Sam Girod, comparing him to Rosa Parks, Mordecai, Harriet Tubman, and Corrie ten Boom. He paraphrases Martin Luther King Jr. as follows:

I would find it interesting to visit with this farmer.

I can assure you he is very interesting. He has some very interesting relatives which you know or at least know of.

Far from an unbiased observer, certainly.
From Mr. Shanks website:
"Quick Facts: Our 'healing foods' are all...
- GMO Free
- Soy Free
- Humanely Raised
- Organically Pastured
- Artificial Hormone Free
- Antibiotic Free
- Grass Fed

http://www.yourfamilyfarmer.com/about-us-farmers

I think his feeling about label laws would flip if the big food companies disregarded the laws, and labeled all their food GM-Cage-Raised-Soy-Fed-Growth-Hormoned-Medicated, food as GMO, Soy, Artificial Hormone, Antibiotic Free, Humanely Raised, Organically Pastured, Grass Fed.

What is good for the GMO-Soy-Antibiotic-Artificial-Hormone-Free-Organically-Pastured-Grass-Fed-Humanely-Raised goose is good for the GMO-Soy-Antibiotic-Artificial-Hormone-Free-Organically-Pastured-Grass-Fed-Humanely-Raised gander.

Very interesting website.

I give them high marks for the way they handled their 2012 milk contamination incident. And if the pictures are an accurate reflection of their operation, they run a very good clean operation. Far better than some of the ones I have seen.

I really was disappointed though when I read some of his more recent blogs. I have no problem with farmers that choose to go this way as an alternative marketing method. But when you have to run down the rest of the food industry to hopefully make yourself look better using methods that border on just plan simple old scare tactics? That is when you loose me.

When I saw the first blog posts and the pictures I was so impressed and thought this is really something I can support and appreciate and then I had to read those latest blogs. Plus he goes and mentions that Joel S. guy as a kind of hero. Really lost me there.

So disappointing because I thought I might of found another organic farmer I really could appreciate and endorse.

Mr. Shank didn't seem to think transparency in labeling was as "hard as you think" last August.

http://www.yourfamilyfarmer.com/fresh-t ... sters-code

"But, Labeling is the Big Problem" I hear you say. "We don't know which foods are GMO because GMO corporations keep us in the dark! They do not want to label GMO foods! And when they are forced to label, they do it in such a way that it is still hard to decipher."

You are partly right. Food made with GMOs is not clearly labeled. Even though Monsanto and friends insisted they are proud of their accomplishment and there is nothing at all to hide, their hiding actions speak so loud that we can't believe what their mouth is saying.

But Transparency in labeling is not as hard as you think! There is another way of labeling! Almost all foods which are NON-GMO are very clearly labeled. So there, Monsanto, you can refuse 'GMO presence labeling' all you want to but we organic and sustainable farmers can always do 'GMO absence labeling.' It gets the same message communicated either way! "

A non-believer made the point to me that Mr Girod may actually be responsible for someone's death by falsely claiming (based on only anecdotal evidence) that his salve cures cancer. Rather than getting proper diagnosis and treatment someone will use his salve (on themselves or a family member) and someone will die from a treatable disease.

There was a case of a Dentist/Chiropractor "curing" an Amish man of AIDS (acquired through a blood transfusion) This dentist went so far as to tell him that he could get married and safely have children. The Amish man, his wife and their infant child all died of AIDS.

Health fraud is not a victimless crime, and it is not a good witness for Christians to be caught up in it.

Wayne in Maine wrote:A non-believer made the point to me that Mr Girod may actually be responsible for someone's death by falsely claiming (based on only anecdotal evidence) that his salve cures cancer. Rather than getting proper diagnosis and treatment someone will use his salve (on themselves or a family member) and someone will die from a treatable disease.

There was a case of a Dentist/Chiropractor "curing" an Amish man of AIDS (acquired through a blood transfusion) This dentist went so far as to tell him that he could get married and safely have children. The Amish man, his wife and their infant child all died of AIDS.

Health fraud is not a victimless crime, and it is not a good witness for Christians to be caught up in it.

Very good and important points. In the website listed above the farmer has a list of suggested health practitioners. He laments the fact that some doctors are very leery of raw milk and alternative medicine claims and all that go with it. I wonder if he would be willing to put himself into their place and have to deal with patients that come to them as a last resort after they have tried all the alternative medicine methods they could find and the doctor finds they are way too far along to be able to help even though had they come right away he may of been able to help. This happens all the time. I believe we have to be very very careful about making health claims. This is a life and death matter.