I like cigars. I hate government. I really really hate when government interferes with cigars. As if the regulations, restrictions and taxes, taxes, and even more taxes aren’t enough, now the FDA is hell-bent on yet more dastardly regulation of the good leaf.

This issue has been on my radar for a while but it was brought back to my attention over the past few weeks via murmurs I hear in the shops I frequent. Then I saw this Facebook post/plea from my friend Patrick Vivalo:

Thank you Patrick (and re-post of Russell Wilder).

I think I signed the petition some time back. And I’m not really into petitions (or remembering them).

The FDA’s new rules would wreak havoc on the cigar business through some of the strangest, communist bullshit imaginable. “New” cigars, meaning those crafted since 2007, would have to be inspected and approved by Big Brother. Older, pre-2007 sticks would be exempt. The approval process (GAWD only knows how that will work) will be both time-consuming and onerously expensive – I’ve heard estimates in the hundreds of thousands per cigar type. And more and worse is to come.

WORLD EXCLUSIVE!!!!! I have the first ever photograph of a prototype FDA cigar inspector. Yes, this dude (or someone like him) will regulate our smokes:

U.S. FDA Office of Idiocy.

I could care less what the stated reasons for this unnecessary intrusion into my hobby are. I suspect the FDA wants to protect all of those children one is constantly tripping over at the local cigar shop – every bit as common as honest politicians and useful regulators!

Reading through the Constitution I found no authority for cigar regulation. I double checked, doubting my own senses. Still not there. In fact the word”cigar” does not appear even once in the text. Believe it or not, the FDA isn’t mentioned either. A reading of what is in there would lead one to think the government does not have legal authority to regulate cigars – or much of anything else. Odd, that. Not to worry; what the feds lack in legality, they make up for with threats and sheer violence. Tyranny, I think they call it.

Patrick and Russell and many others signed the petition. Russell even went to Washington (an act of supreme bravery and sacrifice) on a mission with other industry leaders to protest this meddlesome evil in Congress. I hate to say they failed … but here we are back at the petition again. (Two petitions – one for the criminals in Congress and one for the chief criminal in the Whitehouse.) I fear none of this will work.

A better, more comprehensive approach would be to get an honest member of Congress to initiate legislation to abolish the FDA entirely. Somehow humanity survived without it up until 1906. Given the departure of Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich, it might be just as worthwhile to consult the Wizard of Oz on this matter…

Petitions, Congress, the President, and the various apparati of the bureaucracy are all by-products of the Constitution which established this particular corrupt government in the first place. Like all systems, this one was destined to grow dangerously out of control. Working within the system to fix the system is insane and self-defeating. The Constitution created the government; government killed the Constitution; “let’s have the government follow the Constitution!” Get it? It’s kind of like trying to get to know the termites and reason with them so they won’t eat your house. That won’t work. Tents and gas work.

Thomas Jefferson said, “the tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots & tyrants. It is it’s natural manure.” The tree is all but dead in Amerika despite the copious amounts of unnatural manure lying about D.C. At any rate, our “patriots” are now completely preoccupied with television, chasing fake money, sports, and other triviality. “Ain’t nobody got time for revolution!”

So we humbly petition our masters to mind their own business. These regulatory measures, very likely to come to pass, will not kill the business just yet. Life will go on. Children will be safe. Voodoo, busybody inspectors will be well paid.

You, the non-cigar reader, might pause to wonder why you should care about this issue. It doesn’t concern you directly. Yet, you rest assured the ever-benevolent forces of the state have some new regulatory scheme in mind for what does concern you. “First they came for the cigar lovers…”

Google.