Starbucks, Facebook and your farm

Today, not necessarily by choice but rather by the events of the last couple of weeks, I will continue to pound the pulpit that property rights are so far gone that we, as a nation, have lost sight of what they really are. Thomas Jefferson, who seemed so astute in these matters, said, “The right to sell is one of the rights of property.”

And this bit of advice seems to escape the folks who own and sell things from Starbucks and Facebook. I believe those of us who appreciate farming and land ownership need to take note of what is happening.

I will readily admit that I have no love lost for either one of these companies. Their idea of “public policy” and mine could not be further apart. In fact, I think both companies could have minimized their risk if they were more conservative in their thinking.

If you heard or viewed any of the testimony that Mark Zuckerberg provided in the U.S. Senate hearing, you should be scared into action. I will readily admit that both of my own Sens. Ben Sasse and Deb Fischer, both of Nebraska, were alarming and disappointing with their line of questioning and thought process on the invasion of property rights and privacy. It was like they were working to create perpetual job security for government bureaucrats.

The answer seems pretty clear and concise: Zuckerberg dropped the ball. Facebook is a privately owned company. “Customers” willingly signed up and shared all the information they wanted to. Anyone who was willing to sign up and answer questions on the internet is obviously willing to sacrifice that privacy. It is now a matter of property rights.

As for the Starbucks in Philadelphia, they have just made Zuckerberg look like the poster child for property rights. I have listened to the 911 call to the police from the store manager. She was calm and cool; giving the impression that she was following company policy regarding people who loiter in the establishment without making a purchase. I have no doubt in my mind that the color of their skin was not relevant until the video went public. Then, like a bald eagle soaring above a highway, the opportunists saw rabbit lying there on the road.

Starbucks should have stood behind their store manager for following company policy and calling police because the men were trespassing without permission. I witness this lack of respect for private property on a regular basis. Folks think that all property is like public property and they can access it, have a picnic on it or hunt wildlife anywhere they please. The respect for private property is gone.

Once again I reiterate that Starbucks caused this entire public spectacle. It started a crisis communication plan as if the actions of this manager were intended to be race based. By its own actions, Starbucks flamed the fire of racism by increasing awareness of the incident. If it had a backbone and stood by its own property rights, Starbucks would not be closing 8,000 stores for cultural sensitivity training. So following its own company policy and then not supporting it ends up costing the company millions in lost sales. Let that be a lesson to you.

In closing it should be obvious that I see this type of action spilling over into food production. Do we not keep data bases for our customers? Do we not learn as much as we possibly can about the decision making processes of the people we want to sell to? And yet do we still want people to stay off our land unless they have permission from us?

I know most will ignore and just shrug it off as some urban problem that we can’t do anything about. Instead maybe you should phone Dwight and Steven Hammond of Burns, Oregon, and ask them how that worked for them. Oh wait, you can’t because they are still in prison for not using their private property in a way that the public saw fit. Are you willing to be next?

Editor’s note: Trent Loos is a sixth generation United States farmer, host of the daily radio show, Loos Tales, and founder of Faces of Agriculture, a non-profit organization putting the human element back into the production of food. Get more information at www.LoosTales.com, or email Trent at [email protected].