I was watching the testimony of the banking CEOs before congress today. I came to the conclusion that congressmen think they are movie stars, and they are obsessed with saying things that they think will make them look good and strong on camera. In their minds, I suspect they think they are changing the world. I suspect the reality is that they look like a bunch of complete buffoons to anyone who craves governmental-substance.
I don't even remember who I was listening to (the TV was on in the background at work), but one guy went off on some dumb tirade about being able to change the world like Abe Lincoln or something. The representatives treated the CEOs like children. There was a lot of hand-raising, and the industry chiefs really didn't say much of anything really important.
The U.S., I think, has passed into failed-nation status. My gut feeling is that the transition to failed-nation status started roughly around when the people started to elect senators directly.
The fact of the matter is that the intelligent in this country HAVE to buy lobbyists and influence to protect their interests. Preserving freedom has never been the goal; rather, the goal has been to protect private interests from the public. (In some cases, the goal has really been to swindle the public.) The public simply will not elect a person who loves freedom, and that's because the public is mostly composed of individuals who have no qualms about imposing their will on others. Businesses have to protect themselves from the public. The ends justify the means in a brutish man's mind, and the public more or less is a collective of brutish men. There is, in fact, a tyrannical component to the public, and politicians do love pandering to that tyrannical component. If the federal government officials are so silly as to try to act like stars on TV during hearings, our federal government will inevitably become more of an ultra nanny-state.
DC will never change unless the public is changed.
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