I keep thinking about Barb and Steve Smith, and how they took six of their children to the court hearing last week seeking a temporary injunction in their suit against New York’s Department of Food and Agriculture.

They school their children at home. (Six live at home, and three others are grown and on their own. The photo at left shows the Smiths with three of their children, Alan, Paddy, and Jacob.)

To the Smiths, one of the unintended benefits of their court case is using their experiences with New York Ag and Markets and the courts as a real-life civics lesson.

I would imagine there were parents who brought children to the hearing in Sacramento a couple weeks ago with a similar intention in mind.

What are the kids learning? Well, one of the things they have to be learning is that when it comes to selecting your food, the government is no friend. In fact, the government is the enemy.

You can get a sense of the simmering feelings of resentment in a recounting of an Ag and Markets inspection at Meadowsweet Farm last October, by Alan Smith, the 18-year-old son of Barb and Steve . His reference to the “White Coats” is a not-too-subtle takeoff on the Red Coats who inspired revolution in America 250 years ago.

Yet even with all his early-life cynicism, Alan still harbored hopes that the courts would offer eventual justice.

“The next morning when I was having breakfast, my parents were discussing how to get a temporary restraining order to keep the White Coats off our farm until the court date. Court? Yes, we’re taking Ag and Markets to court. They recoil at the mention of court, it’s like the word ‘ni.’ I am looking forward to our court date. Sadly it hasn’t been set yet. I’m looking forward to listening to our lawyers crush Ag and Markets with things like charges of harassment and plenty of illegal stuff.”

His family’s lawyer, Gary Cox, did make a powerful argument. But the judge opted out, sending the case to another court.

The kids got to see a perfect illustration of what Don describes so well in his comment on my previous post—the royalty of America pulling up the drawbridges around their moat. Yet how does one go about explaining to children the subtleties described so well in other comments, of arbitrary standards, germ theory, political theatre, and other such influences on this entire situation?

Much as I’d like to see the children shielded from seeing the real behavior of their government, I really do think it’s preferable for them to learn the lessons earlier rather than later, like the adults among us.