Prepare To Be Betrayed By Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.
(2010-09-25 at 13:00:35 )

Prepare To Be Betrayed by Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.

It is another revolutionary season in American politics, with voters
preparing to do everything they can within the structure of the law to
throw out the bad guys and the bad system they represent. The focus is
on this amorphous thing called the Tea Party, which embodies a huge range
of political impulses from Libertarian to Authoritarian, united under the
common belief that everything is going wrong in Washington, with a common
goal of upending the status quo.

Candidates that the Republican Party does not like are making big inroads
into the party structure and, quite possibly, the election itself. That
is fun to watch. The wind at their backs is the spectacular - but wholly
predictable - failure of the Obama administrations economic witchcraft.
Trillions and trillions created and spent and yet the suffering endures.

The health-care bill is also a source of American public anger. People
are not deceived into believing that whatever reforms we are getting are
going to fix the problems of the current system; they will make them
worse. As it is, the freedom remaining in the system is the only reason
that the system serves us at all. Take that away, and you take away a
lifeline.

The revolt, then, is in high gear. It is not the first time, and it will
not be the last. The governed have long been very unhappy about the
government, and they periodically wake up and seek to change it. It has
been some 16 years since the last go-round of such revolutionary
sentiment. It is arguably stronger today than it was back in 1994.

The good aspects of this have nothing to do with political outcomes,
despite what people believe. The political environment focuses the mind
on important issues like freedom, economics, culture, power and its uses,
and the role of the state. As they debate with their neighbors, follow
election coverage, listen to the candidates, and watch the process,
people learn and study and, most importantly, think and rethink.

If you begin with a skeptical attitude toward the government, watching
and thinking can lead to a radicalization and ultimate embrace of a
consistent opposition to government involvement. This is why election
season always ends up creating a huge flood of new libertarians who buy
books, feel the inspiration to get active (perhaps for the first time),
and dedicate themselves to reducing the power of the state in whatever
way they can.

If American politics can be said to contribute anything to American
culture, it is this educational aspect that stands out. The elections
focus the mind and lead people to a new consciousness. Ideally, that
consciousness would dawn without politicians and elections and all the
apparatus of the season. And yet people are busy in normal times, dealing
with regular life; it is the very urgency of the election that gives rise
to the concern in the first place.

You might as well know right now, however, that the Tea Party, no matter
how successful it is at the polls in November, will certainly betray the
party of liberty. There are several reasons for this, but the fundamental
one is intellectual. The Tea Party does not have a coherent view of
liberty. Its activists tend to be good on specific economic issues like
taxes, spending, stimulus, and health care. They worry about government
intervention in these areas and can talk a good game.

But just as with old-time conservatives, there are many issues on which
the Tea Party tends toward inconsistency. The military and the issue of
war is a major one. Many have bought into the line that the greatest
threat this country faces domestically is the influx of adherents of
Islam; in international politics, they tend to favor belligerence toward
any regime that is not a captive of U.S. political control.

On immigration, the Tea Party ethos favors national IDs and draconian
impositions on businesses rather than market solutions like cutting
welfare. On social and cultural issues, they can be as confused as the
Christian right, believing that it is the job of government to right all
wrongs and punish sin.

This does not describe them all. A poll taken last spring divides the
activists into two camps: Palin and Paul. Both groups are mad as heck at
the mainstream Republican party, but only the Paul camp has broadened
that anger to the government generally.

Such are the philosophical problems. Just as telling are the structural
problems in politics that lead all political candidates toward the center
as a matter of maximizing votes. It is always the same. They count on
their base to show up and vote for them, however reluctantly. It is the
voters in the middle who get their attention. This is why all candidates
tend to water down their positions after the primaries, that, and to get
funding from the corporatists allied with both parties.

The larger problem occurs once they take office. Here is where the
serious problems begin. They are leaned on by their new colleagues, the
party elites, related financial interests, the press, and the entire
system of which they are now part. Are they going to make themselves
enemies of that system, or are they going to work within the system in
order to achieve reform, and not just for one term but more terms down
the line? Doing a good job means being part of the structure; doing a bad
job means being an enemy of the very system that they now serve.

Which choice do they make? The same choice that everyone else in office
makes (Ron Paul being the lone exception in all of human history). It is
for this reason that newly seated "revolutionary" politicians will betray
those who put them in power. It happens like clockwork, same as day
turns to night.

Some good can still come out of the results, if only because former
ideologues can serve as some resistance to really bad policy. The new
Congress that was seated after the 1994 election certainly curbed the
ambitions of the Clinton administration for a time. But avoiding greater
evil is not the same as doing good. We can state with confidence, all
else being equal, that even the best electoral outcome will not lead to
actual cuts in the power of government over our lives.

That does not mean that all is for naught. What will change the prospects
for freedom in this country is a growing and society-wide awareness of
the issue of freedom and the role of the state in wrecking that freedom,
and the civilization to which it gives rise.

September 22, 2010

Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr., former editorial assistant to Ludwig von
Mises and congressional chief of staff to Ron Paul, is founder and
chairman of the Mises Institute, executor for the estate of Murray N.
Rothbard, and editor of LewRockwell.com. See his books.

Copyright © 2010 by LewRockwell.com. Permission to reprint in whole or
in part is gladly granted, provided full credit is given.