THAT IS CRIMINAL.

I want to hear other people’s views on a moral issue: If one’s livelihood is farmer or rancher, and someone — even if it were the government — were to come and try to steal those things on which your family depends for its livelihood, would you or would you not be justified in defending that property with armed force?

Just curious to hear what people think.

on the dishonest side. During the FDR years, crops and livestock were not seized/killed in order to bring wealth to a party or to the government, there is a little more to it.

Roosevelt created a regulation group called the AAA which is not to be confused with the auto club. While eventually deemed unconstitutional, their intent was to regulate the cost of food and farmers were paid to destroy a portion of their crop.

Many rural people lived in severe poverty, especially in the South. Major programs addressed to their needs included the Resettlement Administration (RA), the Rural Electrification Administration (REA), rural welfare projects sponsored by the WPA, NYA, Forest Service and CCC, including school lunches, building new schools, opening roads in remote areas, reforestation, and purchase of marginal lands to enlarge national forests. In 1933, the Administration launched the Tennessee Valley Authority, a project involving dam construction planning on an unprecedented scale in order to curb flooding, generate electricity, and modernize the very poor farms in the Tennessee Valley region of the Southern United States.

Roosevelt was keenly interested in farm issues and believed that true prosperity would not return until farming was prosperous. Many different programs were directed at farmers. The first 100 days produced the Farm Security Act to raise farm incomes by raising the prices farmers received, which was achieved by reducing total farm output. The Agricultural Adjustment Act created the Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA) in May 1933. The act reflected the demands of leaders of major farm organizations, especially the Farm Bureau, and reflected debates among Roosevelt’s farm advisers such as Secretary of Agriculture Henry A. Wallace, M.L. Wilson, Rexford Tugwell, and George Peek.

The aim of the AAA was to raise prices for commodities through artificial scarcity. The AAA used a system of “domestic allotments”, setting total output of corn, cotton, dairy products, hogs, rice, tobacco, and wheat. The farmers themselves had a voice in the process of using government to benefit their incomes. The AAA paid land owners subsidies for leaving some of their land idle with funds provided by a new tax on food processing. The goal was to force up farm prices to the point of “parity”, an index based on 1910–1914 prices. To meet 1933 goals, 10 million acres of growing cotton was plowed up, bountiful crops were left to rot, and six million baby pigs were killed and discarded. The idea was the less produced, the higher the wholesale price and the higher income to the farmer. Farm incomes increased significantly in the first three years of the New Deal, as prices for commodities rose. Food prices remained well below 1929 levels. A Gallup Poll printed in the Washington Post revealed that a majority of the American public opposed the AAA.

So not sure what you grandfather told you, but no one just came in and wiped out 50% of his livestock. If it happened, it happened because he, like almost every other farmer during those times, agreed to be paid for reducing his product. He may not have liked it, may not have agreed with what they were doing, but he would have agreed because of the situation concerning the economy, he would have agreed because of his need to sell, and maybe agreed due to pressure, but he agreed. And he was paid to have his cattle cut in numbers and he was most likely paid to produce useless crops once the AAA was ruled unconstitutional.

We have enough mistakes to look back on during those years without twisting what actually happened. And we have plenty of mistakes to look at now without twisting what is going on now or putting blame where no blame belongs.

FDR was a the forefather of modern American socialism. His policies were dangerous and gave the government far reaching power. He did order Gold and Silver to be turned in or the person would face jail and they would seize it anyways, but you are stretching the truth when it comes to your grandfathers farm and all the other farms in the country. Farmers wanted what FDR brought, they supported it, and few spoke out against it. There was no guarantee they would sell what they had as people were broke, they were constantly complaining they were being forced to sell their product cheap, and then FDR swooped in and offered free money and they ate it up. Now they got paid just to kill their livestock or plow their fields under, they were guaranteed money and a higher price for their remaining crops/livestock, and then they were given free money to grow useless crops which many did not even do even after accepting the money. So whatever story you heard was revisionist history or a guilty conscience not yet willing to admit the crime that was perpetrated against the people of this country by FDR and his very supporting farmers.