Horror Story, or Think Of It As Insanity In Action

One of the websites I routinely visit is FARK.   The name of the site is a substitute for a word commonly used in barnyards and barracks.  This site functions by providing links to news stories on the net and then providing a forum for members of the site to comment on the story.

Today the site of The Raw Story provides us with a clear example of what is wrong in our nation. 

A flute virtuoso was returning to New York via John F. Kennedy Airport when Customs officials confiscated and destroyed the instruments he was carrying with him.

According to Boujemaa Razgui, the officials told him that his 11 flutes — each of which he had constructed, by hand, himself — “were agricultural products and had to be destroyed.”

What the Hell?

This was nothing but an arbitrary act of destruction by the command of a tax-fed bureaucrat.  It was a naked exercise of destructive power for no valid reason.  This was not an act to protect a right but the willful violation of a right. No one's life was endangered by any of the instruments that were destroyed and no over-subsidized farmer was in danger of being put off his farm by the actions of the flutist.

Seriously,  I once worked on an independently-owned phone bank that raised money for the Republican Party for two weeks.  Yes, only two weeks.  The dialing function was completely automated.  There were two groups of people that I absolutely dreaded coming in contact with were the retired elderly and farmers.  With those two groups, especially the farmers, there was always the demand for  for more money from the taxpayers.  The idea that the taxpayers could no longer bear the burden placed upon them did not enter their heads at all.

It took two weeks before I went to my supervisor and told that I could no longer take the pressure of being polite, if not the appearance of being friendly, to these specific people.

This will NOT be a problem in my current campaign for the office of President as I will be running as the champion of the actual tax paying citizens of our nation.

Returning to the horror at hand, the flutist  created each instrument by hand to play within specific styles of music.  To replace each instrument the victim of this senseless act must again craft them by hand himself.  The time to do this was taken from him by whim as if the proverbial Grim Reaper had shortened his life with the swing of the scythe.

Going to the musical instrument shop simply won't do.