[MRM]

Unpasteurized milk and raw eggs can be very dangerous. A year or so ago guy in Minnesota was caught selling raw milk to a health food related network and a bunch of them caught salmonella. A kid or two died, a bunch went to the hospital with very life threatening illnesses.

Raw milk isn't to be played with. It can and does kill people if you don't keep sanitary to the point that you are cleaner than a hospital. Seriously. It needs to be that clean to be safe. Warm milk is the perfect environment for bugs. If you pay attention, you'll hear about people dying from eating uncooked eggs all the time.

So that's why it's illegal to sell raw milk without a permit that proves you've taken all the proper precautions - you're running the risk of killing your customers.

BUT a SWAT raid is more than just silly. A situation like that would have required precisely three people: An Ag official with a badge to come in and tell people that the stuff was being impounded and the people were being charged, and two assistants to log the stuff into evidence and carry it out.

The militarization of our police is bad policy. It is expensive, it damages the credibility of the cops, it harms the legitimacy of our public institutions, and it creates far more danger to the cops and private citizens than it prevents.

An aging hippy with a raw milk farm probably could have been talked into loading his own stuff onto the inspector's trucks and turning himself in, driving everything to the impound lot, if a reasonably educated cop invested a half hour of conversation with the guy and pointed out the basic tenants of civil disobedience and passive resistance. Shove a gun in his face and even a hippie might not be so laid back anymore.