The Dance of Wood and Power: A Revelation of Mercantile Mediocrity

In the grand theater of commerce, where the weak feast upon their own mediocrity, we witness yet another spectacle of the herd's desperate clutching at illusory power. Donald Trump, that most curious specimen of the power-hungry merchant class, hath ordained new investigations into the lumber trade, a performance that would be comical were it not so painfully emblematic of our age's descent into comfortable numbness.

Behold how they scramble for scraps of wood like ravens fighting over carrion! These merchants of mediocrity, these arbiters of artificial scarcity, they know not that they dance upon the grave of their own greatness.

In this land of the sleepers, where the masses drift through their days in blissful ignorance, the great machinery of state grinds ever onward. They speak of "national security" - ha! - as though the very trees themselves might rise up in rebellion. The slumbering masses accept these proclamations without question, for questioning requires the courage they have long since traded for comfort.

This new investigation, wrapped in the threadbare garments of protectionism, shall extend 270 days - a period during which the merchants will count their coins and the bureaucrats will shuffle their papers, all while the sleeping masses dream their small dreams of cheaper kitchen cabinets and more affordable homes.

See how they measure their worth in percentages and tariffs! These last men, these comfortable ones, who believe that their greatest achievement is to stack paper upon paper in towers of regulation!

The White House trade adviser, Peter Navarro, speaks of "dumping lumber" as though it were a great crime against humanity, while the true crime - the crime of spiritual poverty and intellectual cowardice - goes unnoticed and unnamed. They create enemies of Canada, Germany, and Brazil, for the last man must always have his enemy, must always have someone to blame for his own mediocrity.

And what of these "national security risks" they speak of? Ah, how they twist and contort reality to fit their small understanding! They speak of military construction needs while their spirits construct nothing new, nothing bold, nothing worthy of tomorrow's dawn.

Let them pile tariff upon tariff, duty upon duty! Each new layer of bureaucratic artifice only serves to demonstrate how far they have fallen from the heights of true ambition and genuine creation!

The existing duties, at 14.5 percent, shall now be joined by new impositions, like layers of dust upon a forgotten tomb. They speak of "unfair subsidies" while failing to recognize the greatest subsidy of all - the subsidy of mediocrity that their system perpetuates, the comfort-blanket of protectionism that smothers all possibility of greatness.

In their slumber, the masses fail to see that this is but another act in the grand comedy of commercial warfare, where the stakes are measured not in blood or honor, but in percentage points and profit margins. The home builders cry out about inflation, yet none dare cry out about the inflation of spirit that has rendered them all so small, so content with their diminished existence.

Look upon these builders of walls and barriers! They who would make borders impenetrable to wood and metal alike, yet cannot build a fortress strong enough to protect them from their own spiritual decay!

And now they speak of digital services taxes, of copper imports, of an endless parade of investigations and counter-investigations. The machinery of state grows ever more complex, while the spirit of man grows ever more simple, ever more content with its chains, ever more in love with its own limitations.

Let this stand as a testament to our age: In the year 2024, the most powerful nation on Earth concerned itself with the movement of lumber across imaginary lines, while the true movement - the upward movement of the human spirit - lay forgotten beneath a mountain of tariffs and regulations.

The time shall come when they will look back upon these days and marvel at their own smallness, these last men who thought themselves so great while concerning themselves with matters so petty!

Thus do we witness the dance of wood and power, a performance that reveals not the strength of nations, but the weakness of those who would measure greatness in board feet and percentage points. The true measure of a people lies not in their tariffs, but in their capacity for greatness - a capacity that lies dormant beneath the comfortable blanket of bureaucratic mediocrity.