A most debilitating disease for the health of our Republic is one that could be called Lobbyist Disease (LD). Our freedoms & sovereignty are fatalistically threatened by it on the same level equated by the Lying Media Syndrome and the Hollywood Propaganda Disorder.
Cures for Lobbyist Disease borne by our elected representatives would probably witness some gnashing of teeth and necessitate a very strong will, a trait sorely scarce today among politicians. Much like a drug addiction, Lobbyist Disease addicts might reason that they can’t imagine wanting to quit since they have become so reliant on their ‘help habit.’
LD stems surprisingly not so much from monetary benefits and perks, but it usually appears in the beginning, at least, as an appreciated resource for needed information. There is way too much for newly elected office holders to learn and underpaid and overworked staff, if they exist at all, just can’t help enough. So the disease probably starts quite innocently through accepting much needed information. Relationships and dependences are established and their growth begins as sure as a cancer spreads. Lobbyists ‘information’ takes on an aire of trusted credibility by extremely busy and often ‘naively trusting’ politicians who might think of themselves as beneficiaries but in the reality of matters Constitutional might really be dupes. In actuality they are truly part of our problem in government. These elected officials are too trusting and not doing the hard work of studying original source constitutional facts. They have LD.
We didn’t elect lobbyists for decision making or help in decision making. But what’s a guy to do, right? Our elected representatives are in a deep quagmire of much more activity and overwhelming agendas than caring statesmen can usually deal with. There is a false presumption by far too many Americans today that these elected people in Washington and our state capitals largely help us with our everyday problems and our commerce. Our wealth emerges, not from government offices or politicians’ edicts, but only from that portion of the marketplace that is free.
If you truly understand our wonderful Constitution, most of our federal agencies and bureaucracies shouldn’t even exist, so subsequently, nor should the thousands of highly unconstitutional laws and regulations that are strangling the life out of our commerce and stealing our freedoms.
Lobbyists shouldn’t have the missions they have. Their workload should be restricted by the lack of a marketplace for their services in the government. Instead they should be stroking a vibrant, competitive business community with all their talent.
The prescription for curing Lobbyist Disease should be large daily doses of studying the word of the Constitution which elected officials swore to uphold in all that they do. Morality and limited government is the combination that characterized America and made it the envy of the world before the recent focused drive toward utter socialism and ceding our sovereignty to global power elitists who know best for everyone about everything.
Reversing big government back to minimal standards spelled out in the Constitution and the discipline to follow the serious oaths sworn to it when elected can minimize government activity and any assistance from lobbyists to understand and follow what’s going on. LD can be eradicated and lobbyists can find other work gainfully in the private sector as can most unnecessary government employees. Politicians that refuse to take their prescription need be removed from political life support and replaced with real patriots at the polls ASAP if not recalled sooner.
That my fellow patriots is the prescription for fixing this dreadful dangerous disease. If our elected representatives would study and follow the Constitution, abiding by their oaths they took promising to uphold it, we wouldn’t be even considering most of all the highly unnecessary issues and topics they are asked to take action on. They are truly not topics that our government should be dealing with in the first place.
Some very salient points from the late Secretary of the Treasury, William E. Simon in his book A Time for Truth: “Bureaucracies themselves should be assumed to be noxious, authoritarian parasites on society, with a tendency to augment their own size and power. People must be taught to start calling for a rollback of the bureaucracy, where nothing will be lost but strangling regulation.
“Productivity and the growth of productivity must be the first economic consideration at all times, not the last. That is the source of technological innovation, jobs and wealth. This means that profits needed for investment must be considered a great social blessing, not a social evil.
“The American citizen must be made aware that today a relatively small group of people is proclaiming its purpose to be the will of the People. That elitist approach to government must be repudiated. There is no such thing as the People; it is a collectivist myth. There are only individual citizens with individual wills and individual purposes. It is scarcely astonishing that individuals now feel “alienated” from their government. They are not just alienated from it; they have virtually been expelled from the governmental process.
“Strangely enough it was not until I understood the liberals, who dominate our political life, that I was finally able to understand my own fellow Republicans, with whom I have been on a restless four-year journey. A friend of mine once wisecracked, “A Republican is a Democrat who knows he’s crazy.” And there is truth to his claim. Too often, the Republican tends to buck but ultimately follows Democratic trends. Unlike the Democrat, however, he commits his economic misdeeds in a state of moral depression and is not in the slightest astonished when the disasters occur because he always knew they would.’ – Unquote from William E. Simon
Walter E. Williams is a professor of economics at George Mason University and stated in his article ‘The Role of Money in Politics: Favors and Loot for Sale‘, “The bedrock problem is the awesome power of Congress. We Americans have asked, demanded and allowed congressmen to ignore their oaths of office and ignore the constitutional limitations imposed on them. The greater the congressional power to give handouts and grant favors and make special privileges the greater the value of being able to influence congressional decision-making. There’s no better influence than money.
“You say, ‘Williams, you’ve explained the problem. What’s your solution?’ Maybe we should think about enacting a law mandating that Congress cannot do for one American what it does not do for all Americans. For example, if Congress creates a monopoly for one American, it should create a monopoly for all Americans. Of course, a better solution is for Congress to obey our Constitution.”
Wrapping this up is a slam dunk quote from author and economist Thomas Sowell from his book ‘The Vision of the Anointed,’ “In the anointed we find a whole class of supposedly “thinking people” who do remarkably little thinking about substance and a great deal of verbal expression. In order that this relatively small group of people can believe themselves wiser and nobler than the common herd, we have adopted policies which impose heavy costs on millions of other human beings, not only in taxes but also in lost jobs, social disintegration, and a loss of personal safety. Seldom have so few cost so much to so many.”
Lobbyists helped sell most of these thinking peoples’ brainstorms to unconstitutionally-minded elected officials who have fallen prey to the addiction to Lobbyist Disease. Either politicians take the prescription and start improving from it or they’ve got to be culled at the voting booths immediately. It may be hard to believe this but we won’t survive business as usual.
We must study issues, inform others, follow the Freedom Indexes for the U.S. Congress at TheFreedomIndex@JBS.org and for the state of Idaho at IdahoFreedomIndex.com and fire elected officials who are not following our rule of law through the Constitution. There is no other way to right our absolute mess. Presidents, congressmen and senators created this boondoggle we’ve become and they must pay for it by ending their political careers and be replaced with real accountable patriots who understand the Constitution and take their oaths to it seriously. Our trust and our Constitution have been violated for too long!
