Tim,
Ron Paul stood on the floor of the House making his impassioned and principled speech and proposed a bill that he KNOWS will not be passed through into law. As you say, legislative victories are not the only way to create change. In fact as I see it, legislative victories are a good measure of how insidious and corrupt a politician is. How much has this congressmen been influenced by lobbyists?
I was speaking with a pilot friend of mine the other day and he said that the pilots union is using this video in a message to all the pilots who are members. The pilots are being told under no circumstances should they go through a scanner or be humiliated in front of the long line of customers as their junk is touched. This video has generated over 250,000 views on youtube.
In this Bloomberg article, a poll taken on Dec 4-7 shows that the 39 percent of Americans want to see more oversight of the Fed and 16 percent want to see it abolished outright (I'm in that 16 percent).
My point is this: two or four years ago nobody was talking about the Federal Reserve. Since Ron Paul's book "End the Fed" debuted at number six on the New York Times Bestsellers list, awareness of our dubious and secret central bank has bloomed, as has the likelihood of real change. In fact, as it states in the Bloomberg piece, "Ron Paul was picked to head the House Financial Services subcommittee that oversees the central bank." Very good.
Ron Paul has gotten very little legislation passed through both houses over his terms as a congressman. But to me, those tiny numbers say there is at least one Statesman who is able to resist the powerful pull of lobbyists.
Can you think of a legislator with copious "notches on their bedpost" who you see as having helped us?
I think Tim's original post hits upon an honest yet misguided frustration that many have toward Mr. Paul. They see all his libertarian fan-boys worshiping him and then sneer "yeah that's all well and good but he never get's any of his 'principled' bills passed and instead has spent 30+ being 'principled' but 'irrelevant' while the serious grownups in congress have had to actually run the country".
ReplyDeleteNonsense.
Any and all pieces of legislation that don't directly undo previous interventionist laws and regulations only add to the existing problems they were claiming to fix.
People's misunderstanding of Mr. Paul's "effectiveness" is rooted in their ignorance public choice economics.
The proper way view all this is that Mr. Paul is one of the only ones to not contribute to our problems.
Instead, he has always used his office and legislation to first teach and raise awareness.
Ineffective by useless conventional measurements? Absolutely! But he's the only one who at least hasn't been destructive.
Which do you prefer?
A few quick points.
ReplyDeleteShannon said, "Any and all pieces of legislation that don't directly undo previous interventionist laws and regulations only add to the existing problems they were claiming to fix."
That sure does make my question sound relevant. If undoing existing laws requires another act of Congress, then isn't it fair to look at how successful lawmakers have been at achieving that goal?
The example of the Fed that you bring up, Gardner, is a great example of this exact issue. I may be wrong, but according to my understanding, it will take an act of Congress to "end the Fed."
I asked the question out of curiosity, but it seems to have struck a nerve. I acknowledged in my original post that legislative victories are not the only way to create change, but an idea will remain an idea until it is acted upon. Perhaps Mr. Paul prefers to build ideas and let others take the lead when it comes to passing legislation--that's fine. But, at some point, if you agree with the ideas that he is proposing don't you hope to see them implemented?
Finally, Gardner, I'm surprised you asked about "copious notches on their bedpost." You know Ben Franklin lays claim to that record.
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ReplyDelete"That sure does make my question sound relevant. If undoing existing laws requires another act of Congress, then isn't it fair to look at how successful lawmakers have been at achieving that goal?"
ReplyDeleteThen yes Tim, in that sense you are correct. Nobody (including Ron Paul) has ever succeeded at reducing the net size of the U.S. Government. In recent decades. This is why many libertarians feel that politics is strategically a complete waste of time.
It's not that Government keeps growing and civil liberties keep shrinking simply because nobody explained free market economics eloquently enough to lawmakers and bureaucrats.
Rather, it's that those lawmakers and bureaucrats are simply operating in an environment of perverse incentives that all but guarantee they will do the wrong thing.
But your original point is correct. Ron Paul the congressman is unlikely to "save us", because the chances of people listening to him and then implementing his bills into laws are (although better now than ever before)very slim to none. The best I can do is repeat what I said before, at least he isn't actively contributing to our problems (even if he is failing to reverse them) like every one else is.
Real change (in the correct direction) only comes when the government is forced to do so by the climate of opinion amongst the public,economic laws asserting reality on them, or by the market changing the government's incentives through technological innovation as I think woodegg846 correctly pointed out in a previous post.