Shutting Down Our Lives

by Gene Callahan, Stu Morgenstern, and Kelly Callahan

We were deeply moved by the site on taxes featured on LewRockwell.com yesterday. We had never really contemplated how much our federal bureaucracy means to us, but this site stirred our sloth-like minds to activity. As we considered that people have put forward radical proposals to shut down various governmental agencies, we realized what grave danger our nation was in from these zealots. What follows is a list of a few federal departments and the dire consequences of their closing.

Department of Agriculture

The immediate results of closing the Department of Agriculture would include cows giving sour milk, grapes withering on the vine, sows becoming barren, and corn plants that yield no ears. Gradually, we would revert to being a society of hunter/gatherers, foraging for berries and snaring the occasional squirrel or former bureaucrat for a treat.

Department of Commerce

All business activity would stop. People would return to producing everything they need for themselves -- food, clothing, shelter, lattes, and new versions of the Windows operating system. Bug counts in Windows would go down, but the quality of cappuccino consumed in the U.S. would decline dramatically.

Department of Education

Sally Struthers would become fabulously wealthy as a pitchman: "Learn to become a truck driver, television repair man, or air conditioning specialist at home, in your spare time."

Department of Energy

Shutting the Department of Energy would result in a future America without fossil fuels or nuclear energy, where people burn logs for heat, and use torches for illumination. As the situation worsened, molecular motion would grind to a halt and the temperature, even in Alabama, would fall towards absolute zero. The bright side of this is that, as America approaches heat death, we would, of course, suck energy from neighboring countries and finally achieve a positive trade balance.

Department of Health and Human Services

The captain of the Love Boat would get his uniform back from the Surgeon General. Political scientists would study the closing of Human Services intently, hoping to discover what "Human Services" are by noting if anything is different with the department closed.

Department of Housing and Urban Development

Appliance sales soar as the demand for large cardboard boxes goes through the roof.

Department of Labor

Newly unemployed socialists would aimlessly wander the street, badgering innocent pedestrians about income inequality. Midget, left-wing "economists" would be forced to write self-congratulatory memoirs to support themselves.

Department of the Interior

Clearly, it would be a tragedy if this department were closed. Everything would seem hollow, a shell of its former self. Surface appearance would dominate, and Stewart Brand would become President of the United States.

Department of Transportation

Bob's Big Boy would be busted, out of business, beyond bankruptcy. A glut of amphetamines would hit the black market. Sales of country music would plummet. Amtrak would shut down within 15 minutes of the department's closing.

Office of Government Ethics and the Office of National Drug Control Policy

The shutting down of these offices would obviously result in a federal government lacking any sense of ethics, and our country being plagued by uncontrollable drug usage. Wait a second ... it seems that these offices have been shut down, and we just haven't been told yet.

August 23, 2000

Gene Callahan is a regular contributor to mises.org, and Stu Morgenstern is contributing editor at The Frumious Bandersnatch.

© 2000, Stu Morgenstern, Gene Callahan, and Kelly Callahan