While writing my Grandmother an email summarizing my summer internship with Congressman Ron Paul, I realized some of these stories are too good to keep for myself. Having the privilege of being born and raised in Texas, rarely did I have a reason to leave the great state. Considering the most north I had ever traveled was Colorado and the furthest east was Florida, it goes without saying that Washington DC was going to be an eye-opening experience. When I left, I told myself that my only goal was to find out whether I loved politics and wanted to pursue it as a career, or become so disgusted that I could not wait to get home, take a shower, and clean myself of government stink. Believe it or not, what I dreaded most was the requirement of wearing slacks and a tie to work every day. It had only been a few months earlier that I had spent thirty minutes attempting to tie my tie before I got so frustrated that I had to call back home and ask what I was doing wrong. So come that first day of work, I was sure to tie my tie the night before.

Walking down the spacious hallway in the Cannon House Office Building on my first day of work, I told myself to go into this internship with an open mind. Don't let my outside-the-beltway perceptions affect my inside-the-beltway experiences. And with that, I went to work for the federal government. The following are a handful of stories that shaped my feelings toward government, libertarianism, and political discourse.

One of the first events I attended was a lecture given by James Bamford, author of Pretext for War. After listening to him, and before I got an autographed copy of his book, I asked Mr. Bamford a question regarding the motivations behind the terrorists who attack the US. "According to your book, you claim the two most recurring reasons for terrorist attacks on the United States are due to our interventionist foreign policies towards the Middle East and our continuous support for Israel. Although highly flawed, I can remotely see the logic behind intervening in the Middle East, considering our interests in oil and the existence of totalitarian regimes in the area; but I do not see the same connection for our entrenched support for Israel. Why is the strip of land occupied by Israel so important to the United States' interests?" I never received a straight answer from Mr. Bamford that day, which I assumed was probably due to the sensitiveness of the question and the fact that he was standing in front of a full room of congressional staff members. As time passed, I came to notice that, in Washington, all questions pertaining to Israel's influence seem to draw awkward tension between the speaker and the crowd.

Twice I spent late nights hanging out at the Leadership Institute with a couple of staff members and Daniel McCarthy of LRC and American Conservative fame. We spent hours discussing government problems, the cause and effects of inflation, the morality of not giving a straight answer to every question asked, how wasteful the conservative movement has been over the past fifty years, and how there is not a single go-to book to convince college students of the logic and morality of libertarianism, to name a few. A staff member at LI, who has also become a good friend, created the brain exercise of wrapping your mind around the federal government's yearly budget. He initiated the discussion by saying, "Contextualize 2.5 trillion for me. Attempt to picture 2.5 trillion of anything. You can't. Your eyes can't view 2.5 trillion of anything. Are there 2.5 trillion atoms in my cup? Are there 2.5 trillion stars in the sky? Even if this is true, you can't picture all of them at once! Now, realize that this is the federal government's budget for one year. One year! $2.5 trillion!" He makes a mind-numbing point; the federal government spends more money than you can mentally contextualize. Sit back and meditate on the number 2.5 trillion for a while. That is the dollar amount "Sam" gets to play with every year.

A charming look into how little attention our office directs toward mainstream political jargon and how genuine the fight for liberty remains was the resignation of Sandra Day O'Connor and the impending nomination of John Roberts. Expectedly, the buzz around most congressional offices was over who the President would nominate to the Supreme Court. But, in natural fashion, our office placed little worth in this meaningless drama. Instead, the talk was over the Libertarian Party's misguided "Iraq Exit Strategy." It was obvious from the beginning that the President was not going to pick a justice that protected the Constitutional Republic, so why waste time talking about it? The fact that the LP was writing policy and acting like a pseudo-CATO think tank deserved far more attention and outrage than any justice that the President was going to nominate to the Supreme Court. What is the LP doing writing policy, anyway? Especially when they can't even handle their real job of finding effective candidates and providing the candidates with money and resources? Shouldn't it be the role of the candidates to draw up exit strategies, and the role of the party to support the candidate?

One of our responsibilities as interns is to attend and take notes at committee meetings. Congressman Paul serves on three committees: Committee on International Relations, Committee on Financial Services, and Joint Economic Committee. One of the meetings I was privileged to attend addressed the ongoing genocide in Sudan. You must realize, words like "genocide" are not thrown around by the government loosely (remember, this is the same government that views Iraq as a success). But, former Secretary of State, Colin Powell, specifically addressed the situation in Sudan as genocide, provoking both the House and Senate to pass resolutions calling the situation genocide as well. Over 1.2 million people have been displaced from their homes and over 50,000 killed. In response, the United States has looked the other way, choosing to place its resources and efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan instead. The committee meeting was business as usual, with more talk than action, but from the meeting, one statement stuck with me for the rest of the summer. I can't recall who said it, but it put this "war on terror" into perspective: "If we are truly fighting a war on terror, please tell me of a greater act of terror than genocide."

Another committee meeting I attended was a "hearing to receive the testimony of the Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors on monetary policy and the state of the economy." Obviously, that meant testimony from the infamous Alan Greenspan. As I settled in, Mr. Greenspan began rambling. Economic term after economic term, his testimony was turning into a bedtime story, slowly putting me to sleep. Here I was in the presence of probably the most powerful man on the face of this earth, and I could not stay awake. How can he be that dull and speak in that monotone of a voice and still succeed in becoming the person that controls the value of everything everyone has ever worked for (and be married to a not-too-ugly older woman that is nearly half his age)? This is the person that defines the Wizard of Oz analogy of "the voice behind the curtain,” and I could not keep my eyes from crossing. Although I can't recall much of what Mr. Greenspan said, the best part of it all was sitting behind Congressman Paul rather than in the peanut gallery with the rest of the heavy-eyed interns.

In conclusion, I experienced history. My deepest thanks go to everyone who made this internship possible for me. I feel very blessed for the opportunity. These stories will stay with me forever, and that holds the greatest value. In the end, it turns out I thoroughly enjoyed living the professional life and wearing slacks and tie to work every day. You feel more put together and more self-confident. As for accomplishing my goal, not only has my passionate disgust for government increased, I no longer see an excuse for compromise. Give me liberty or give me death. Corruption, sinfulness, and power dominate the political agenda. Don't get me wrong – I firmly believe that most politicians mean well. By no means do I question their intentions, but as proverb reads, "Hell is paved with good intentions, not with bad ones. All men mean well."

September 7, 2005