Caretakers or Conquerers?

When President Trump’s Republican acolytes primaried long-time US Congressman Thomas Massie (R-KY) and defeated him in the most expensive Congressional primary race in history (about $30 million) in May, pundits offered their assumptions and agendas.

The Trumpites said he wasn’t nice playing their ball game (I’m being diplomatic) and therefore deserved to be sidelined. They couldn’t abide a rogue Republican, even if he did vote with the president 92 percent of the time. Opposing the war in Iran was over the top.

Massie matched the Trumpites dollar for dollar in the campaign because as heir to the Ron Paul movement, he has many friends beyond his rural Congressional district. They supported him in this toe-to-toe duel, grateful for a champion who dared to question mainstream narratives.

These narratives, as it turns out, are many and his district has supported him on maverick positions in the past. He opposed virtually everything Dr. Anthony Fauci said. He opposed lockdowns. He opposed mandatory mRNA jabs. He opposed the inflationary Covid relief bill. All of this was tolerated and applauded by the majority of his constituents.

But daring to question obliterating the Persians (Iran) without constitutionally-mandated Congressional approval was too much and his country boys and girls turned him out. Why was the anti-war position intolerable?

For the answer, I’ll go back 30 years when organic farming was in its infancy. As a nonchemical farmer, I was in the vanguard of this movement and privy to the early arguments pitting compost against chemicals. As a country boy farmer myself, I have many friends and relatives in the chemicals-will-save-us camp.

As the arguments between the compost-vs-chemical camps became more defined, I noticed a profound philosophical difference. As with most altercations, it takes awhile for the two sides to get to the nub of their disagreement. Over time, ancillary things give way to the core issue.

In the compost-vs-chemical debate, the core issue was nurturing versus conquering. The chemical folks argued that they needed to conquer the weeds, weather, and worms. My compost-loving group diametrically opposed the Conquistador approach and argued that the goal was nurturing, promoting plant diversity, appreciating weather limitations, and loving earthworms.

The difference in approach moved me to develop a five-minute theatrical gig titled “Organic Farmers are Sissies.” I riffed on this masculine, macho mentality to conquer with chemicals rather than coming alongside natural patterns as a masseuse. It generated a lot of laughs in the organic farming community while pinpointing the nub of the philosophical difference.

“Men want to feel pig iron under their thighs. They want to come into the house smelling like diesel and grease so their wives can swoon ‘what a man.’ It’s just not manly to come in and explain to your beloved ‘I’ve made the cows happy. That’s just not manly.” This was all part of my act.

What made it funny was the truth underlying it. What does that have to do with Massie’s rejection? I believe the American country-boy mystique is wrapped up in conquering things. Trump enjoys overwhelming support in rural America. Country folks like to fight. Hatfields and McCoys. 

President Obama and his wife Michelle planted a White House garden – nonchemical, by the way; fertilized with compost. President Trump hosts fighting on the lawn. Pointing this out does not mean I like Obama more than Trump; the lesson here is that what people do manifests how they think.

The American historical mystique is that our nation conquered the wilderness, subduing the Native Americans, and carved abundance out of scarcity. This permeates the rural mind. Those of us who view nature as boss and try to work within it win without conquering; we win by complementing. Attend any nonchemical agriculture conference and the operative phrase is “Work with.” At conventional chemical agriculture symposiums, presentations view nature as an enemy, something to “Work against.”

For the record, pre-European North America teemed with abundance, arguably producing more plant and animal life than it does today. It contained more than double the hydration, both above and below ground. It was not a place of scarcity. But this is not the mentality of chemical-industrial agriculture.

Wild birds cause avian influenza. Those pesky mallards should be shot. In contrast, nonchemical, pastured livestock farmers like me dare to suggest we raise chickens in a habitat that makes them happy, rather than crammed in 20,000-bird fecal particulate Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs). How about we honor the pigness of the pig rather than trying to eliminate the stress gene so we can further disrespect and abuse pigs but they will no longer care?

As we return to the political climate and Massie, then, I suggest that his extremely rural voters, at their core, came to view him as a sissy because he dared to question obliterating an ancient civilization. The desire to fight, to “teach them a lesson they won’t forget,” grows abundantly in the hillbilly breast. 

The narrative that unless you maintain 350 military bases around the world to meddle in everyone else’s garden, to point out their weeds, to smack them in the head if they plant something different – unless you walk around with your fists curled you’re a sissy, was an assumption Massie could not overcome. The notion that a nation should hoe its own garden categorizes me as a sissy, a wimp, a pushover. 

And that, my friends, country folks can’t abide. To be sure, if a neighbor comes in and tramps through my garden, I’ll fight to defend it from abuse. But to change the Department of Defense to the Department of War is a terrible, bullyish idea. Big-talking, swaggering, swashbucklers are energized and enthusiastic about a good brawl. I’m energized by happy cows and tomatoes, earthworm procreation, and proliferating pollinators. That makes me a sissy, and I wear the moniker proudly.

What do I fight for? I fight for the right to sell raw milk to a neighbor without asking a bureaucrat’s permission. I fight for the right to not have glyphosate contaminating my drinking water. I fight for the right to attend school without vaccination. I fight for the right to own my land rather than being a renter through property tax extortion.

Americans, we have a lot of noble things to fight for. My country colleagues can get their thrills from watching tomatoes grow in a garden, pigs dancing in a silvopasture, and worms copulating through compost. Massie dared to demand adherence to the Constitution. Asking for a more studied, strategic debate appeared timid and weak rather than what it really was: working within the constitutional system. It was the difference between patient compost and impatient chemicals. It was the difference between “Working with” and “Working against.”

I must end the column here because my compost is calling for some sissy nurturing.