March 10, 2008

The state Egg Inspector confronts the supermarket Produce Manager.

"I've just tested your refrigerated egg display. The temperature is 44.5 degrees Fahrenheit. You are in violation of article 7-11-01-03 of the North Dakota Egg Code, which requires a chill temperature of 45 degrees Fahrenheit. That means your egg display is a crime scene. I'll have to cordon off your cold case. Then I'm calling in the Feds."

"What?" the Produce Manager whimpers. "You're making a federal case out of my cold case?"

"I have no choice. You buy eggs from a tri-state area. That's interstate commerce. This cold case is a case for … (dramatic music crescendo) … Inspectorcrat Eggbert Eggleheart!"

"Oh no!"

"Oh yes. He's a hard boiled Federal Egg Inspector. He carries an Egg Inspector, Candler, and Grader license. It is illegal to forcibly interfere with a Federal Egg Inspector. Killing a Federal Egg Inspector will get you the death penalty. He's also exempt from federal gun laws. He packs a Walther EGG."

"You mean he's … he's …"

"Yes. Agent Double-Grade A, License to Chill."

Unfortunately, this is not entirely an exercise in satire. This is the real drill: Alan Korwin, author of Gun Laws of America, noted on his website last June that "22% of federal gun laws now authorize arming staff." Scroll down the screen a bit and he further observes, "Some of the more unusual federal ‘police' forces are the egg inspector police, the print shop police, the EPA police, and one of the newest, the Federal Reserve Board police." All of these absolutely beneficent bureaucracies have been endowed with "broad powers to keep and bear arms in cases where the public is banned from keeping arms."

(Incidentally, it's US Code Title 21 Section 1041 that makes it illegal to forcibly interfere with a federal egg inspector, and extending the death penalty to anyone murdering such a valuable government asset apparently became the law way back in 1991.)

"Wormly, you see that truckload of paper? That's the new budget we just printed here at the Congressional Print Shop. You need to ride shotgun when they take it over to the Bureau of Budget Control."

"Ride shotgun? Why?"

"To protect it from a terrorist attack, of course."

"But why would terrorists want to destroy the budget?"

"Who cares why? Homeland Security awarded us 2.1 million taxbucks for anti-terrorism operations. We bought a .38 police special and a bullet for you and we spent the rest redecorating the Directorcrat's office suite."

"I'll do my duty, sir. Congress won't be able to act without a budget."

"Are you kidding? Nobody knows where all the money goes anyway. If they don't have a budget, those congresscrats will just borrow deeper into the future and spend deeper into the night, that's all."

Across town, Grimley Styffnek stares intently at his own reflection in the bathroom mirror. "I will dedicate myself to my calling," he murmurs quietly. "I will exercise my obligations as a mindless bureaucratic tin soldier of the establishment civil service. I will set the standard for all Federal Reserve Board police officers to come. I don't know exactly what the Federal Reserve Board is except that Wikipedia says it has something to do with our fiat money. I must protect our fiat money at all costs. I must protect the Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board at all costs. I must protect him from Marxists and Maoists and Socialists and Third Worlders and especially those wild-eyed Anarcho-Austrian free market libertarian gold bug economists. If someone picks up a gold standard and tries to strike the Chairman with it I will throw my body in front of whoever that guy is that replaced St. Alan Greenspan. As a dedicated and highly trained mindless bureaucratic tin soldier I must protect the Status Quo at all costs. Whoever this Greek sounding Status Quo guy is."

In a distant corner of Drydirt County, Oklahoma, a woman dressed in khaki steps from behind a tree and points her service revolver at a figure standing in his campsite. "Hold it right there," she snarls. "I saw you scrape those scrambled eggs onto the ground. That's an ecological crime."

"Well," the man snaps, "I'm a Federal Drylands Inspector and I was just..."

The EPA officer's weapon barks once and the Drylands Inspector drops like a rock.

"Had me worried there," the Deputy murmurs as she holsters her piece. "For a second I thought the sonofabitch was one of those damned protected Federal Egg Inspectors."

(Originally published here)

Garry Reed's articles have appeared in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, LP News and other print and online publications.

Copyright -- Garry Reed
The Loose Cannon Libertarian

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