Michael Sokolove has produced a feature for the New York Times Magazine on Dick Armey, former House Majority Leader, who is now out of Congress and has become the motive force behind advocacy group FreedomWorks. Armey is, I suppose, a nice enough fellow at a certain level, although his politics are, to say the least, not the same as mine. “Europe is governed by a concern for the well-being of the collective. That’s what they care about. What makes us different is we begin with the liberty of the individual. We got it right, and they got it wrong.” Makes you wonder why we fought the Cold War against the Soviets instead of the EU — or why, for heaven’s sake, we count these people as allies….
Sokolove notes: “For most of his career, Armey drew his salary and health benefits from the public sector, first as a professor at North Texas State University (now the University of North Texas) and then during his nearly two decades in Congress.” These days, like many men, he is disdainful of the medical system and rarely visits a doctor. “I’ve been very fortunate, very healthy,” he says.
Armey advocates “public-choice theory,” although I would have to question whether he comprehends what I would consider to be the morally corrosive aspects of this school of thought. Sokolove attempts to challenge him over what would happen were he to apply the theory to his own activities. “If politicians primarily serve their own interests, shouldn’t I assume his positions are determined by whatever he stands to gain?”
Replied Armey: “‘My highest secular value is liberty and freedom,’ he said. So as he sees it, even when he is speaking up for himself, he is working for the common good.”
I would say that he doesn’t realize that public-choice theory, strictly applied, would not allow you to appeal to the common good — because it would hold that there is no such thing. It’s just a piece of rhetoric that politicians employ for the sake of self-aggrandizement. Or, as people might say nowadays, “the common good” is just a lot of BS….