Two Rotten Branchesby
Dmitry Chernikov
Every time there is a congressional election, the senators promise to "fight" for their state. Thus, Chuck Shumer and Hillary Clinton, when the circumstances call for it, devotedly proclaim their resolve to wage battle on behalf of New York. There are two ways to interpret such bellicosity. One, the state of New York is literally at war with the other states of the Union. Two, there is a need for some of the resources hoarded by the federal pirates to be distributed among the shipmates, and a quarrel usually arises regarding who should be getting how much. The "fight" involves attempting to snatch as much loot for the senators' own friends in each state at the expense of all other states. It is useful to keep in mind that this is one essential function of the Congress: to transfer wealth forcibly from those who cannot defend themselves from being robbed to the members of the political elite. The second and no less important function of the Congress is to empower the executive branch. "Live and let (the federal bureaucrats) live," is the motto of the congressional hippies. The vast majority of congressmen never even read the bills presented to them. They merely rubber-stamp whatever the federals demand, precisely as matters stood in the Soviet Union. We should not fault them for this, however, for as a rule, congressmen are benighted and corrupt creatures and cannot help themselves. The third function of the Congress is to allocate the resources to various government bureaus and contractors engaged in Projects That Are Too Important To Be Left To The Market. It must be torture for the congressmen to sacrifice one such Important Project in order to finance another. Poor guys. Now it is clear why the government needs every red cent you have! A critic may, of course, object that the "real" job of the Congress is to look after the "general welfare." It may never occur to such a critic that the best thing the congressmen could do to promote general welfare would be immediately to abdicate or, what amounts to the same thing, be recalled never to return. Does this position appear to be "extreme"? If so, then let our critic examine the recent legislation and attempt to identify the last decree that truly was in the interest of the common good. It is unlikely that this attempt will succeed.
Permit me to continue this with a personal anecdote which will illustrate (or so I hope) a curious point about the institution of the United States presidency. A number of years ago I was a computer programmer with an insurance company in New York. As per the peculiar custom of most businesses, I spent a certain amount of my time sitting in meetings. My mind wondered easily during these sessions, and to amuse myself I was given to assigning nicknames to the people present (most of whom I did not know) based on their appearance and demeanor. Thus there came in being "Blueblood" and "Fugitive" and "Esmeralda," and a host of other sundry odd and busy characters. Now at the head of the table there always sat a rather stuffy black fellow who never said a word except to announce the start and the end of each meeting. He was impeccably dressed and bore himself in a way that suggested that we had better, if we know what's good for us, defer to this Lord High Executioner. "Respectable" was the best word to describe him, and, indeed, he seemed keenly aware of his own importance. As a result of such apparently supreme self-confidence, he projected a pleasant aura of someone who was perfectly content to be completely ignored when it came to the actual business. I consequently dubbed him "Brezhnev." This brings us to the presidency, or, at least, to the presidency as it was envisioned by the Founders, even those who advocated a "strong" executive branch. The president, in the Founders' understanding, was to preside at government meetings. He was to be a decorated peacock, a figurehead who was merely to sit there looking pompous and otherwise doing little of interest. His job was to reserve the conference room and order lunches if the meeting ran overtime. He was to be a glorified secretary, an emcee keeping minutes, banging his gavel importantly, and sending invitations via his butler or Microsoft Outlook. The president was to be a tourist attraction, a curiosity who for some mysterious reason decided that he wanted to be a symbol, a living monument, as it were – an eccentric who lived in a "white house" (he was lucky it was not "periwinkle house" or "gingerbread house") to be gawked at by all. My, how things have changed. Today the president is at least nominally in charge of a vast bureaucracy, a mind-boggling budget, the federal and secret police, and a massive military. His one word can send the stock market into tailspin and foreign governments into panic. His actions and intentions dominate the news. His power to destroy any private individual or company is unquestionable. His "right" to manipulate and plunder the economy is eagerly and clumsily exercised. In foreign affairs the president is effectively unrestrained. He is a "leader" who is leading us who knows where, and if he starts wars and centralizes power, "intellectuals" will fawn over him, as though they were poets describing the beauty of Helen of Troy. In November, 2001, when I visited Washington, D.C. on business, I was stunned by the town's appearance as a fortress, the American Kremlin, similarly grim and gray and dull and hostile.
December 20, 2005 Dmitry Chernikov [send him mail] is a graduate student in philosophy at Kent State University. Copyright © 2005 LewRockwell.com |
How
this change came about is a tragic tale. But it is surely foolish
to permit this state of affairs to continue. If general happiness
(obviously, an impractical abstraction) holds anyone's interest,
I recommend that the entire executive branch, starting with the
president, be reduced to its proper level of the symbol (so that
the public's craving for such symbols may be satisfied), invisible
and utterly unimportant for the citizens' everyday lives. (It is,
I believe, unnecessary to de-mythologize the presidency, to take
away its symbolic powers. It is only necessary to strip it from
its actual powers. Let the people look for meaning in the persona
of the president as the citizens of other nations do in their monarchs.
Let them live vicariously through princes and princesses as they
do now through movie stars if they so choose.) Until that happens,
as it must sooner or later, we can only hope that George Bush will
look to Thomas Jefferson for an example, don a bathrobe and slippers
and, not having the temperament for philosophical discussions, at
least confine himself to entertaining foreign dignitaries and "dignitaries"
with Texas barbecue and hookers and leave the rest of the world
alone.