Man-Bites-Dog Story: A Politician Speaks the Truth
By Robert Higgs • Tuesday July 21, 2009 12:12 PM PDT • 8 Comments
Testifying today before the House Financial Services Committee, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke took some well-deserved flak for the Fed’s power-grasping attempt to gain even greater control over the nation’s financial institutions.
People who have progressed beyond Political Science 101 understand, of course, that congressional hearings are rarely anything more than propaganda theater. From time to time, however, the unfathomable human element bursts through the highly scripted limits, and someone blurts out the truth.
Such was evidently the case today when, according to an Associated Press report, Republican Congressman Spencer Bachus of Alabama declared:
“The Fed has made some big mistakes” . . . . Letting the Fed become the financial supercop would be “just inviting a false sense of security” that would be shattered at taxpayers’ expense, he warned.
So, there you have it. In a topsy-turvy world, a world in which you have scarcely any guide to rely on, the one rule that has served us so magnificently in the past—the rule that if a politician is moving his mouth, he is lying—has been refuted. I remain confident, however, that this extraordinary event will prove to be nothing more than the exception that illustrates the rule.
Tags: Federal Reserve, Integrity, Money and Banking, Politics, Regulation, Surveillance 
Robert Higgs’s comments here are childish and silly. Perhaps he needs to take the spring term course, Politics 102. Some politicians lie most of the time, some rarely, and the rest are to be found at various points in between. In general, Republican politicians have been behaving better, i.e., more truthfully, in opposition than they did when in power. I think we badly need to return to the days of divided government. Both main parties have performed badly when they controlled all the levers of Congressional and Executive power without adequate check.
Richard Schulman | Jul 22, 2009 | Reply
Dear Mr. Schulman,
I do not wish to appear presumptuous, but I suggest that you take your sense of humor in for a blood test. It may just be anemic.
In a more serious vein, I am well aware that Congressman Spencer’s statement is not literally the only truthful one ever made by a politician. Indeed, it is well known that Congressman Ron Paul routinely speaks the truth. However, his habit in that regard is not completely unrelated, I suggest, to the fact that he is considered a complete misfit in the U.S. Congress.
In evaluating politicians, we might well ponder how unsettling it would be if we had to remark of, say, scientists, teachers, clergy, or business associates that some of them lie most of the time, a few rarely, and the rest are somewhere in between.
Robert Higgs | Jul 22, 2009 | Reply
A classic example of a politician lying non-stop was provided by our president in his press conference last night. Dick Morris and Eileen McGann capture the Orwellian side of this performance here.
Unfortunately, a disturbingly large portion of the scientific, teaching, etc., communities DO “lie”—or to be more accurate, misrepresent reality because of belief in false theories. Many scientists, for example, have endorsed the anthropogenic climate-warming speculations of Al Gore and the U.N. bureaucracy, despite contrary evidence and superior alternate scientific explanations. Similarly, a majority of the economics professorion endorses discredited macroeconomic theories and recommends disastrous policies based on this understanding.
Ron Paul’s economic understanding and pronouncements are outstanding. His foreign policy and national security pronouncements, however, are often as simplistic as the run-of-the-mill Democratic “pol” reading from a Moveon.Org script. But calling these latter pronouncements “lies” would be unwarranted.
We need to exert similar discrimination in labeling the behavior of the rest of the political, scientific, and educational classes. Which are the lies, where the individual knows he is speaking an untruth, vs. the pronouncements where the individual thinks he is speaking the truth but in fact is not because he is interpreting the world through a false theory?
Perhaps it would be better to call that Wisdom 102 than Political Science 102.
Richard Schulman | Jul 23, 2009 | Reply
Dr. Higgs should go to Politics 102? I’m glad my office door was closed because I let out a loud “ha” when I read that one. Proof once again that we don’t have enough people reading books in our current age of folly.
Wes Dillard | Jul 23, 2009 | Reply
“His foreign policy and national security pronouncements, however, are often as simplistic as the run-of-the-mill Democratic ‘pol’ reading from a Moveon.Org script.” Your “scared little pussy, the world is gonna get us” attitude is the simplistic outlook that is really bankrupting this country. Blowback is a real concept and if you kill my wife or kids I’m damn sure gonna try to put a bullet in your face. In the vast majority of situations, if we’re friendly to others, they would be friendly to us. Most of the Hitler wanna-be’s I can see are in my own country.
daddysteve | Jul 23, 2009 | Reply
This thread has confirmed my belief that to get up to speed on foreign policy and security affairs, libertarians need to read more Angelo Codevilla and less Lew Rockwell.
Richard Schulman | Jul 25, 2009 | Reply
Richard,
If you want to take jabs at the long time libertarian stance of non-intervention that is fair, but it is not fair to imply that we have not done our homework on foreign policy and that is the reason that we do not agree with you. You are commenting on an institute’s website who houses foreign policy and security experts like Ivan Eland, Charles Pena, and Sheldon Richman. I promise you that their life’s work is “up to speed”. Lew Rockwell heads a great institute, but he is not a libertarian leader on foreign policy issues.
One important thing that many non-libertarians are yet to figure out is that for us, for the most part, we view war as a government action that infringes on our liberty. It is costly and therefore requires taxes and inflation. Large wars such as WWII and Vietnam require compulsory service, which means the government has a claim on your life. Government grows during wars and whenever government grows it will crowd out liberty. Bush had no trouble hiding that when he shredded the 4th amendment. We are not always given honest assessments of the treats we face. The main reason that people like me oppose our foreign policy is that the vast amount of military spending is a huge drag on our economy. You cannot have liberty without economic freedom.
We know that the military industrial (congressional) complex is as real today as it was when President Eisenhower (the last general to be President)coined the term and warned us of it in his farewell address. Wars like Iraq are seen as a good thing for companies Raytheon and Halliburton. These companies need to serve their shareholders; they need to sell products to do so. War is a good thing for them and I doubt that the board of directors meetings includes a discussion on how to achieve peace in the world. The problem that most of us have is the fact there is a huge revolving door between the profiteers, the defense department, think tanks, and lobbyist who all advocate for one thing which is military spending. If we could have some honesty from our government and reduce the number of conflicts of interest that are around every corner, I doubt our foreign policy would be as aggressive.
What I’m trying to say is that, as adults, we do not trust our government and find it hard to believe that we really need to get into a war in which we are not under attack. It surely will not benefit our liberty, so who will it benefit? That is where Dr. Higgs comes in with his research. You should read at least one of his great books!
Wes Dillard | Jul 27, 2009 | Reply
Richard, Ron Paul is not like the Democrats on foreign policy. The Democrats are imperialists, like the Republicans. Obama has expanded the war. That’s the Democratic position, and one completely compatible with big government at home. War and liberty, on the other hand, are mutually exclusive.
Anthony Gregory | Jul 27, 2009 | Reply