How did this grand experiment we call America end up being run by a Congress of jerks and an army of incompetent bureaucrats with no common sense or real-world experience?

How did the greatest democracy the world has ever known end up being dictated to by special interest groups and their lobbyists, who routinely represent fewer than 5 percent of all Americans? Since when did the American Way come to be defined as unemployment benefits, political action committees and a “conservation” strategy that can best be defined as “lock it up and let it burn?”

For those of you who think the solution to our dilemma is more government, we take you now to a press conference in Washington, D.C., 20 years from now. Amid a nationwide food shortage, the work of fools is being defended by the Secretary of the FF&D.

No, those aren’t the grades your youngest son brought home on his last report card. It stands for the Food, Fuel and Fish Department, the consortium of bureaucrats, greenies, animal rights groups, unions and government bureaucrats who, like a circular firing squad, take turns blaming each other for their failed policies.

“Mr. Secretary, why are there no eggs on the shelves of grocery stores?”

“I can explain everything. After we outlawed cages for laying hens and turned them loose on open ranges, they kept hiding their eggs. We assigned a task force to the problem and they looked high and low but they couldn’t find any eggs.

“Then, an observant staffer discovered the hens were leaving their sanctuary by flying over the one-foot-tall fences. It turns out that chickens are actually birds. Who knew?”

“Mr. Secretary, why is there no milk, no dairy products of any kind?”

“I sympathize, believe me, I miss my gouda and goat cheese as much as anyone. It’s not because the cows are being mistreated, I assure you. We give them daily massages, did away with those sexist artificial inseminators and had all those hideous bulls slaughtered so they could no longer rape the poor cows.”

“But didn’t you know that a cow had to be bred to one of those hideous bulls in order to give birth to a calf, in order to lactate?”

“What? That sounds absurd.” The Secretary turns to a subordinate from PETA and asks, “Did you know anything about this?”

“Sir, the people are starving. Why is there no bacon to bring home?”

“Because after we outlawed gestation crates the mother hogs kept squishing their babies. Or eating them. It was gross. They acted like pigs.”

“There are reports that people are burning their IKEA furniture for fuel and shooting some of the vast marauding herds of old horses and wolves out West. In light of the food shortage is it now okay to slaughter horses for food or to shoot endangered species to feed your family?”

“Absolutely not! Let me make myself clear. Shooting a wolf will land you in jail.”

“At least they’d get something to eat in prison,” says a hungry journalist. “Can’t a point be made here that the food shortage is a good example of what happens when we let special interests do our farming and ranching for us, instead of farmers and ranchers?

“With all due respect, Mr. Secretary, who will save us from our rescuers?”

“Are you implying that we don’t know what we’re doing, or have no experience? I’ll have you know that I’ve flown over Iowa numerous times and have visited several wineries out in California. And have you seen our award-winning website? I want everyone to know that we’re doing the best we can.”

“With all due respect, Mr. Secretary – that’s precisely what the stakeholders are afraid of.”

The views and opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and not necessarily those of Farm World. Readers may log on to www.LeePitts books.com to order any of Lee Pitts’ books.

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