Dear Editor,

I’m in agreement with the goals of George Naylor in his letter (Wants to restore family farms, democracy, Feb. 25 Farm News). But a couple things need to be cleared up.

Just because these “free market corporate backers” of CO2 pipelines label themselves as free market doesn’t mean they are. When there are no tax credits, and green mandates, and each landowner consents to having the pipeline buried on their land, that would be “free market.” Not before.

To take it a bit further, when ethanol is a choice without government mandates or subsidies that would be “free market.” Until then, crony-capitalism (as opposed to real capitalism) forces us to use these products to benefit the investors who use the state for profit. A free market would see consumers choose with no influence from the state.

Mr. Naylor has fallen into line with a majority who have a dangerously flawed understanding of the word “democracy.” Democracy is majority rule. For instance, if a majority of the voters were convinced that factory farming was more efficient, thus providing less expensive food, smaller farmers could be banned as was done in China and the Soviet Union. Democracy is not freedom, it is tyranny by the majority.

Look around and see how easily people are convinced of things that later turn out to be false. That’s why we have a constitution restricting government from acting as an agent of theft.

Fritz Groszkruger