I Chose Liberty - Ludwig von Mises Institute

Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr. 293
As for his voting record, Ron had a clear standard: if it meant stealing people’s money,
he was against it. If it gave people back the liberty and property the government had taken,
he was for it. Most of the lobbyists eventually stopped visiting our offices.
He was always respected by fellow legislators, but they thought of him as a bit off-kilter.
It was Mr. Paul Goes to Washington. Politicians view their job as trading votes, getting their
share of pork, expanding government, and generally playing the game. They believe they
are being productive when they have helped pass more spending and regulatory legislation,
and the price for their vote gets high indeed.
Ron was the opposite. He was a standing rebuke, not only to his colleagues but to the
entire system. He still is.
Not many people in D.C. understood what Ron was up to. I remember once when a
lobbyist came by and demanded that Ron oppose foreign aid to the Philippines on grounds
that people there killed dogs for food. Ron was glad to support cutting foreign aid for any
reason. He introduced the bill, and overnight he was celebrated by animal-rights activists
all over the country.
Of course, the bill didn’t pass. It’s important to remember that ideology plays a very
small role in legislative affairs except as a kind of public relations gloss. If a farming bill is
passed by a Republican Congress, it is called the “Freedom To Farm Act.” If it is passed by
a Democratic Congress, it is called the “Family Farm Fairness Act.” The text can be identical;
only the coloring changes.
Watching this system up close, all my worst suspicions about government were confirmed.
When I later started the Mises Institute, I swore that it would not function the way
party think-tanks in Britain do: as intellectual veneer to a gruesome system of legislative
exploitation.
Washington has its own version, of course, and if anyone thinks Congressmen or their
aides study some group’s “policy report” on this or that bill, he knows nothing about the
imperial capital of the world. Its animating force is not ideas but graft, lies, and power.
Those policy studies are for PR. On the other hand, there is a cost to treating the policy
game as if it were some sort of intellectual club to which we all belong: it imbues the process
with a moral legitimacy it does not deserve.
A scam was perfected in the early 1980s among leading politicians and the think-tanks.
A group celebrates a politician’s supposed achievements in exchange for which the politician
pretends to be influenced by the group. It’s all a public relations game. This is a major
reason why Murray was never able to work within that system. He had an irrepressible urge
to tell the truth regardless of the consequences. Sure, he was a loose cannon, as any cannon
should be on the ship of an imperial state.
Doherty: What was the genesis of the Mises Institute? How difficult was it to get off
the ground?
Rockwell: When I was in D.C., my happiest moments were receiving calls from students
who wanted to know more about Ron and his ideas. He had a huge amount of support on
Texas campuses. He struck students as smart, principled, and radical. But sending students
speeches and pamphlets only took matters so far. I wanted to do more, but as I looked