Ron Paul Backs Urban Goating, Discovers Urban Farming

June 10, 2014 in News by The Manimal

Source: US News

The goats are cleaning up Detroit better than the politicians, the ex-congressman argues.

The “Dr. No” of Congress is saying yes to an unusual project in Detroit. Taking to his Ron Paul Channel late Monday, the former Texas congressman and dad to Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., urged his supporters to “vote for the goats.”

The goats he’s referring to were let loose June 5 to graze in the blighted Detroit neighborhood of Brightmoor. The man responsible was hedge fund manager and friend-of-the-liberty-movement Mark Spitznagel, who hoped the presence of the 18 baby goats, noshing on the neighborhood’s overgrowth, would encourage urban farming. But city officials were quick to kick the goats off the land.

“He didn’t get the proper permission,” Paul admitted. “Now that the land belongs to everybody and nobody, the government wants to say whether or not you can clean up the city on your own.”

On Saturday, according to The New York Times, the baby goats were back on a truck and would eventually end up at the butcher’s, unless the city changed course. So Paul asked his supporters to call, tweet and Facebook message Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan, assigning the hashtag #VoteForTheGoats to the cause.

“At least they’re doing something – they are more productive than the politicians,” Paul said. “They’re not going to hurt anybody. They are just going to eat all the grass and the weeds and the garbage.”

Detroit’s bigger mess, the former Republican presidential candidate said, should be blamed on the “40 or 50 or 60 years of socialism” that has pervaded and said that a change in tax code, regulations and “welfare ideas” could lead to regrowth.

But for now, Paul’s focused on the goats. “Somebody ought to start a business called ‘Rent-a-Goat Program’ so everybody can go out and get a goat and clean up the mess,” the libertarian politician said. Paul also admitted he hadn’t known much about urban farming until hearing about Spitznagel’s plan. “He thinks there should be urban farming – who ever heard of such a thing?” Paul said. “Cities are for factories and buildings and concrete.”

But then Paul let the liberty part of the equation sink in and took aim at the government. “They shouldn’t prohibit farming in the city,”