There are few things I hate more than being a scold. Especially because of all of my condemnation of scolds and scolding, having to be a libertarian scold makes me feel like a hypocrite, and little better than the scolds I criticize. I don't like people who criticize the moral failings of others, especially when the others consist of ordinary citizens simply trying to live their lives in peace.

The problem is, last night I learned about something awful that happened while millions of ordinary citizens who simply tried to live their lives did nothing to stop it. Someone has to be responsible, but who?

I honestly don't know. Not only do I hate to be a scold, I don't know who to scold for this damnable atrocity that befell this country in May and June of 2008 (while I and most bloggers were busy writing post about the impending election).

I refer to the 2008 Farm Bill (also known as the Food, Conservation, and Energy Act of 2008, aka Public Law 110-246). To call it a law would be dishonest in the extreme. To attempt to summarize it would be impossible because of its vastness, so this post will focus on just one minor detail in the bill -- the federalization and criminalization of wood.

Not that anyone could have known. The scanty news reports at the time focused on President Bush's veto of what was described in vague terms as a bipartisan "Farm Bill," and of course because Bush was such a tired and evil man, the only interesting aspect of the bill was the bipartisan override of his tired and evil veto:

But to put Title III into effect, Congress re-passed the entire legislation, including the missing pages, and resent it to Bush. The House voted 306-110 at the end of May. The Senate voted 77-15 for the bill at the beginning of June.

Two-thirds of the $300 billion in spending for the farm bill will go for nutrition programs such as food stamps. Another $40 billion will go toward farm subsidies, and $30 billion is allocated for payments to farms to keep land idle and other environmental programs.

After vetoing the latest version of the farm bill, Bush scolded Congress on Wednesday for not "modifying certain objectionable, onerous and fiscally imprudent provisions. ... I am returning this bill for the same reasons as stated in my veto message."

When he vetoed the first version of the farm bill, Bush said it "continues subsidies for the wealthy and increases farm bill spending by more than $20 billion, while using budget gimmicks to hide much of the increase."

The president said it would hurt efforts to improve American farmers' access to overseas markets.

FWIW, that arch-liberal RINO who's every conservative's favorite demon right now (John McCain) voted against it. And in what right now I see as a laughable understatement, the White House said it was "bloated."

So what was going on when this 663 page monstrosity (which I cannot read for the life of me, even though I probably should) was being pushed through? Why didn't any of the provisions (to say nothing of Bush's exercise of his seldom-used veto powers) merit attention in the press? It's easy to say that they were trying to sneak this through, but the fact is, the political junkies (as well as libertarians like me) were pretty much preoccupied with the impending election. Bush was tired, worn-out, unpopular, passe, and many Republicans were acting as if he was an embarrassment.

I don't know what all is in that bill, but last night when I was researching something else I stumbled upon just one teensy provision of the bill -- an amendment to the Lacey Act which received no media attention at all, and isn't receiving any now.

This amendment deals with illegal plants -- the primary thrust being illegal wood. Henceforth, all wood is to be a federally regulated, suspect substance. Either raw wood, lumber, or anything made of wood, from tables and chairs, to flooring, siding, particle board, to handles on knives, baskets, chopsticks, or even toothpicks has to have a label naming the genus and species of the tree that it came from and the country of origin. Incorrect labeling becomes a federal felony, and the law does not just apply to wood newly entering the country, but any wood that is in interstate commerce within the country. Here are some excerpts from a summary:

The Lacey Act now makes it unlawful to import, export, transport, sell, receive, acquire, or purchase in interstate or foreign commerce any plant, with some limited exceptions, taken in violation of the laws of a U.S. State, or any foreign law that protects plants. The Lacey Act also makes it unlawful to make or submit any false record, account or label for, or any false identification of, any plant.

The definition of the term "plant" includes "any wild member of the plant kingdom, including roots, seeds, parts, and products thereof, and including trees from either natural or planted forest stands."

[...]

Anyone who imports into the United States, or exports out of the United States, illegally harvested plants or products made from illegally harvested plants, including timber, as well as anyone who exports, transports, sells, receives, acquires or purchases such products in the United States, may be prosecuted. In any prosecution under the Lacey Act, the burden of proof of a violation rests on the government.

[...]

Violations of Lacey Act provisions for timber and other plant products, as well as fish and wildlife, may be prosecuted through either civil or criminal enforcement actions. Regardless of any prosecution, the tainted plants may be seized and forfeited.

Obviously, this means that in the future, the Fish and Game guys will be able to accompany SWAT Team raiders to check all wood in homes and businesses for possible violations. Even if they're wrong in their suspicions about the wood, it can still be confiscated. (Might that be a goal? To beef up employment at Fish and Game?)

Just think about the law enforcement possibilities alone. After kicking through and impounding your illegal wooden door, a federalized army of government termites could literally strip all wood paneling and flooring from every raided house as suspicious contraband, and haul away all the furniture, wood carvings, picture frames, tools, musical instruments! I can't think of a better harassment tool. The list of potentially regulated items is mind-boggling:

the scope of products that will require a declaration under the Lacey Act is broad and includes certain live plants, plant parts, lumber, wood pulp, paper and paperboard, and products containing certain plant material or products, which may include certain furniture, tools, umbrellas, sporting goods, printed matter, musical instruments, products manufactured from plant-based
resins, and textiles.

[...]

After September 30, 2009, based on experience with the implementation of the electronic system for declaration data collection, we will phase in enforcement of the declaration requirements for additional chapters containing plants and plant
products covered by the Lacey Act, including (but not limited to) Ch. 12 (oil seeds, misc. grain, seed, fruit, plant, etc.), Ch. 13 (gums, lacs, resins, vegetable saps, extracts, etc.), Ch. 14 (vegetable plaiting materials and products not elsewhere specified or included), Ch. 45 (cork and articles of), Ch. 46 (basket ware and wickerwork), Ch. 66 (umbrellas, walking sticks, riding crops), Ch. 82 (tools), Ch. 93 (guns), Ch. 95 (toys, games and sporting equipment), Ch. 96 (brooms, pencils, and buttons), and Ch. 97 (works of art). We will announce a specific phase-in schedule for those chapters in a subsequent Federal Register notice.

Oh, and you firearm owners out there, let's not forget gun handles!

Ch. 93 Headings (arms and ammunition).
9302 -- Revolvers and pistols.
93051020 --Parts and accessories for revolvers
and pistols.
Ch. 94 Headings (furniture, etc.).
940169 -- Seats with wood frames.
Ch. 95 Headings (toys, games, & sporting
equipment).
950420 -- Articles and accessories for billiards.
Ch. 97 Headings (works of art).
9703 -- Sculptures.

And while the NRA might not have noticed the impending crackdown on gun handles, at least IKEA is starting to speak up.

Between Wood Control and the Consumer Product Safety Nazis, I pity anyone in the secondhand business, including all Ebay and Craigslist sellers as well as people holding garage or yard sales.

In short, I pity the American people. This is not their fault, though, for no one has any control over what is going on. Not even the despicable fools we call "legislators" who cannot read the "laws" they pass because they are not meant to be read. As to the enforcers, they are only doing their job. They have to earn a living. And we are supposed to respect them, because they lay their lives on the line, "protecting" the public! From felonious wood!

Obviously, the full implications of this dramatic loss of freedom are beyond the capacity of a single post. After all, I am just one blogger, doing this by myself, without the kind of access to data that media organizations and think tanks might have. So, I cannot possibly hope to analyze everything. As things stand, I became exhausted last night just reading through the Lacey Act Amendment stuff pertaining to wood -- and that was one mere fraction of an execrable, unreadable monstrosity. I don't mean to whine, but slogging through such horrors is not exactly my idea of Saturday night fun. But who the hell else is going to do it? Flooring and furniture industry blogs? Who the hell reads them except people in the business? They're all greedy tree haters and have no credibility. Besides, all big business is the enemy right now. We need to stand up not only against Big Cereal, but now Big Flooring! Big Siding! Big Furniture! (Is there such an industry as Big Chopstick?)

I realize I'm in full-blown libertarian scold mode, and it probably reflects impotent rage over the fact that this is too little too late. But that goes to my biggest complaint (aside from my discovery of yet another horrific legislative power grab), which simply is this:

How come we were not told about this?

Where were the news media and think tanks when we needed them? It's too late now. Vast power grabs like this are almost never repealed, and certainly won't be in this Congress.

The fact that I was so upset after reading this late last night that I could barely sleep means nothing. And why should it? Our freedom means nothing. The full realization of that can be very unsettling, and the knowledge that there's so little that can be done about it -- that this is the way laws are passed and freedom lost -- it's just hard to live with that, and normal people really need denial in order to cope. The way I try to cope is by resorting to my usual sarcastic asides, knowing that this too, is just another blog post. It will be visible, but only for a few days, as it becomes slowly, inexorably buried under layer after layer of more and more blog posts. And if I hate the constant, relentless loss of freedom, all I can do is continue to write sarcastic blog posts, for even though I realize that none of this is funny, I really don't know what else I can do, other than maybe show up at a Tea Party demonstration and earn the entitlement to be called a racist bigot by the people who are busily cranking out unreadable "laws" like Food, Conservation, and Energy Act of 2008 (Public Law 110-246), which reduces us further to serfdom than any law I can remember reading attempting to read.

And I do mean serfdom. For those old fashioned cranks who like to imagine that a man's home is still his castle, I heartily recommend that they try doing what I tried doing last night when they were having fun at the movies, and try reading this!

This bill is very large, and loading it may cause your web browser to perform sluggishly, or even freeze. This is especially true for old and/or bad browsers. As an alternative you can download the PDF of the bill or read the text on THOMAS.

Bringing up the alleged "text" of the "law" in turn brought up only a gigantic list of links, each of which goes to another gigantic piece of garbled and unreadable text. Yes, the Government Printing Office does have a PDF file, for those who want to contemplate unreadable gobbledygook in its entirety.

I think it is no accident that they make the loss of freedom as boring as it is possible to make it. They think this will make most people go away, and they are right. Only a maniac (or someone with a special interest) would actually spend his time reading this bill. There is probably not one member of Congress who read it, but then, they say that about all the monstrous bills cranked out by this monstrous government which every last one of our founders would decry as precisely what they were trying to avoid when they wrote the Constitution.

Yes, I truly believe that if they were alive today, our founders would say we ought to have another revolution. But it's inflammatory and irresponsible to talk that way, and the problem is, I don't advocate a revolution, because I don't want to see a whole lot of people getting killed, which is what tends to happen in revolutions. The fact is, the votes are not there to get rid of the tyrannical system which calls itself the federal government, and to deny this is, well, denial.

Besides, how can you overthrow a system which has metastasized into a grotesque life form so slippery, multi-tentacled, and all-encompassing that its very morphology evades detection and analysis? Really, the federal government is like a science fiction monster. No one can keep track of things which are not reported or discussed, and which are too complex to be read by human beings. Hell, despite my outrage right now, I was completely silent when this monster was being passed.

What was I doing? Mostly blogging about the impending election. (And of course, the usual things like pit bulls, porn, and responsibility.) But I thought stopping Obama was the most important national issue at the time. Besides, what the hell do I know about farming? That's what I thought the bill was about. No one said anything about federal wood control.

And get this:

Despite my ruined Saturday evening reading about wood control, I still haven't the faintest idea what else might be in there!

Looking back, I'm thinking that had people known what was happening, had enough bloggers sounded the alarm, it might just have made enough of a difference to persuade a few Republicans not to go along with the override of Bush's veto.

As things stand, former President Bush is the only guy who comes out looking good, and not only does he deserve to be thanked, I think that every Republican who voted to override owes him an apology.

But this Farm Bill was such a monster with so many provisions that it defies ordinary analysis. People could have voted for it or against it for innumerable reasons, liberal or conservative. Here's how the vote looked:

Having that many provisions in a bill means that only some provisions attract attention, so voting against wood control could be construed as voting to take food away from infants.

Anyway, I'm exhausted. I have finally succumbed to Orwellian overload, and my scold is over.

Once again, please bear in mind that I specifically do not advocate revolution. But wouldn't it be nice if we could vote for legislators who would simply pledge to vote against any and all legislation?

Who knows, it might be a nice campaign gimmick.

UPDATE (11/19/09): My thanks to Glenn Reynolds for linking this post, and a warm welcome to all.

Comments to this post have now been turned off automatically (and I don't think there is a way to turn them back on), but anyone who wants to say something, please feel free to leave a comment on any of the more recent posts.

This one (on whether lost freedom can ever be regained) is probably as good a place as any.

Thanks for coming!

MORE: Via Glenn Reynolds, I see that the Gibson Guitar plant was raided by the federal wood police recently, so they're not wasting any time.