Former Texas Congressman, Dick Armey was first elected as a Republican to the House in 1984 (a prophetic year for those who have read George Orwell), and in 2002, he left the Congress and joined FreedomWorks, where he now serves as its chairman. Upon joining FreedomWorks, Dick Armey was quoted as saying, "During my time as Majority Leader on Capitol Hill, I came to recognize that grassroots action is the most important factor to winning at politics. That's what FreedomWorks is all about. I know FreedomWorks and its members well from past campaigns on the Flat Tax, Social Security reform, and school choice. In every issue that matters to the U.S. economy, FreedomWorks is right there in the fight. I am very excited to be a part of this great organization."
Armey's biography states that in1958, he went to work climbing power poles for the Rural Electrification Agency (REA), an agency that was created during the administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1935 to bring electricity to rural areas. One cold winter night while atop a 30-foot pole, Armey had an epiphany regarding the value of a college education. At 3 a.m., with the temperature 30 below zero, Armey thought to himself, "I'm not sure I want to be doing this when I'm 40," and decided to go to college.
The following January, Armey states that he enrolled at Jamestown College in Jamestown, North Dakota, a small, private liberal arts college affiliated with the Presbyterian Church. Armey further says that he was about to finish his studies and enter the world of work when an influential professor, Dr. Robert Biggs, suggested to him that "you ought to go to graduate school. You'll be a great economist if you'll just go study."
Acting upon that advice, Armey enrolled in the Master's Degree program at the University of North Dakota in 1963, a public, taxpayer supported university. After receiving his master's degree, he attended the University of Oklahoma where he earned a Ph.D. in economics. The University of Oklahoma is also a public, taxpayer supported institution of higher learning. As an economist, Armey claims that he has been influenced by the ideas if Milton Friedman and Friedrich von Hayek, both of whom endorsed a minimalist role for government and opposed government efforts to regulate economy or to provide public relief, even during periods of economic collapse and high unemployment.
After he got his PhD, Armey then taught for short periods of time at the University of Montana , West Texas State University and Austin College. The University of Montana and West Texas State are both public, taxpayer supported institutions. In 1972, Armey began to teach economics at the University of North Texas where he remained until his election to the Congress. The University of North Texas is also a pulbic, tax-payer supported institution of higher learning.
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Armey claims that he was strong believer in the policies of Ronald Reagan and that he knew Reagan needed support for his policies in Congress. During his eighteen years on the federal payroll as a Congressman, Armey championed efforts to reduce the role of the federal government, railed against "government welfare," endorsed the Republican Contract with America in 1994, supported the shutdown of the federal government in 1994, and voted to impeach President Clinton because of a sexual peccadillo.
On its website, FreedomWorks proclaims that "FreedomWorks members know that government goes to those who show up, and are leading the fight for lower taxes, less government, and more freedom....FreedomWorks recruits, educates, trains and mobilizes millions of volunteer activists to fight for less government, lower taxes, and more freedom....FreedomWorks believes individual liberty and the freedom to compete increases consumer choices and provides individuals with the greatest control over what they own and earn....FreedomWorks' aggressive, real-time campaigns activate a growing and permanent volunteer grassroots army to show up and demand policy change."
The question that few pundits have asked, however, is: how can these sonorous platitudes about the need for "less government, lower taxes and more freedom" be reconciled with the facts of Dick Armey's life? For all of his adult life, save for a short period of time as a student at Jamestown College and a brief teaching stint at Austin College, and now as a fund-raiser and spokesman for Tea Party and their corporate sponsors, Armey's productive life has been spent in the public sector. Armey was primarily educated in the public sector - in public schools and at public universities. Through the generosity of these taxpayer- supported, governmental institutions, Armey was able to be the first in his family to enjoy the benefits of a higher education and realize the American Dream.
For thirty years, from 1972 until he left Congress in 2002, Armey willingly worked without interruption in the despised public sector, where he accepted generous compensation, extensive, subsidized, government- provided medical coverage and he now regularly receives a generous pension paid for by the very voters whom he recruits to rail against the excesses of government and the public sector.
Given these contradictions, there are only two possible conclusions that one can come to about Dick Armey: He is either an unmitigated hypocrite, or he is a secret, closeted socialist who revels in his manipulation of misguided Tea Party members.
Armey's biography states that in1958, he went to work climbing power poles for the Rural Electrification Agency (REA), an agency that was created during the administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1935 to bring electricity to rural areas. One cold winter night while atop a 30-foot pole, Armey had an epiphany regarding the value of a college education. At 3 a.m., with the temperature 30 below zero, Armey thought to himself, "I'm not sure I want to be doing this when I'm 40," and decided to go to college.
The following January, Armey states that he enrolled at Jamestown College in Jamestown, North Dakota, a small, private liberal arts college affiliated with the Presbyterian Church. Armey further says that he was about to finish his studies and enter the world of work when an influential professor, Dr. Robert Biggs, suggested to him that "you ought to go to graduate school. You'll be a great economist if you'll just go study."
Acting upon that advice, Armey enrolled in the Master's Degree program at the University of North Dakota in 1963, a public, taxpayer supported university. After receiving his master's degree, he attended the University of Oklahoma where he earned a Ph.D. in economics. The University of Oklahoma is also a public, taxpayer supported institution of higher learning. As an economist, Armey claims that he has been influenced by the ideas if Milton Friedman and Friedrich von Hayek, both of whom endorsed a minimalist role for government and opposed government efforts to regulate economy or to provide public relief, even during periods of economic collapse and high unemployment.
After he got his PhD, Armey then taught for short periods of time at the University of Montana , West Texas State University and Austin College. The University of Montana and West Texas State are both public, taxpayer supported institutions. In 1972, Armey began to teach economics at the University of North Texas where he remained until his election to the Congress. The University of North Texas is also a pulbic, tax-payer supported institution of higher learning.
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Armey claims that he was strong believer in the policies of Ronald Reagan and that he knew Reagan needed support for his policies in Congress. During his eighteen years on the federal payroll as a Congressman, Armey championed efforts to reduce the role of the federal government, railed against "government welfare," endorsed the Republican Contract with America in 1994, supported the shutdown of the federal government in 1994, and voted to impeach President Clinton because of a sexual peccadillo.
On its website, FreedomWorks proclaims that "FreedomWorks members know that government goes to those who show up, and are leading the fight for lower taxes, less government, and more freedom....FreedomWorks recruits, educates, trains and mobilizes millions of volunteer activists to fight for less government, lower taxes, and more freedom....FreedomWorks believes individual liberty and the freedom to compete increases consumer choices and provides individuals with the greatest control over what they own and earn....FreedomWorks' aggressive, real-time campaigns activate a growing and permanent volunteer grassroots army to show up and demand policy change."
The question that few pundits have asked, however, is: how can these sonorous platitudes about the need for "less government, lower taxes and more freedom" be reconciled with the facts of Dick Armey's life? For all of his adult life, save for a short period of time as a student at Jamestown College and a brief teaching stint at Austin College, and now as a fund-raiser and spokesman for Tea Party and their corporate sponsors, Armey's productive life has been spent in the public sector. Armey was primarily educated in the public sector - in public schools and at public universities. Through the generosity of these taxpayer- supported, governmental institutions, Armey was able to be the first in his family to enjoy the benefits of a higher education and realize the American Dream.
For thirty years, from 1972 until he left Congress in 2002, Armey willingly worked without interruption in the despised public sector, where he accepted generous compensation, extensive, subsidized, government- provided medical coverage and he now regularly receives a generous pension paid for by the very voters whom he recruits to rail against the excesses of government and the public sector.
Given these contradictions, there are only two possible conclusions that one can come to about Dick Armey: He is either an unmitigated hypocrite, or he is a secret, closeted socialist who revels in his manipulation of misguided Tea Party members.
You are incorrect that Friedrich von Hayek opposed public assistance and government regulation. In "The Road to Serfdom" he argued for a guaranteed annual income, stating that someone who has to work to survive is a slave. He specifically supported public housing and free public schools were every child had the same oportunities. He also stated that there is no such thing as a laissez-faire government, that all governments regulate some things. A good government regulates the correct things (such as weights and measures) and leaves things that are not moral issues to the free market (like say the color of clothing or clothing made in one factory over another).
In fact, he helped create the intellectual basis for the mixed economies that are prevalent in Europe. Now it is my understanding that he may have gone batshit crazy in his seventies, but he did not win the Nobel Prize for the work he did then.
When I checked out this book from the library, their copy had not been read in more than ten years. It was also out of print even though it was being extensively referenced by neoconservatives.
Helen, Thank you for your comments; but I respectfully disagree.
Hayek was a strong support of the 19th century Austrian School of Marginal Utilitarian Economics. In his book, "The Road to Serfdom," he explicitly opposed government planning. His support for public schools, public housing and a limited number of other public goods places him - on the ideological map -essentially where Milton Friedman [who also advocated a guaranteed income] was. Hayek, like John Locke and subsequent liberal thinkers, believed that relations among people were essentially contractual and market-driven, and that society is merely an aggregation of individual interests.
As Hayek lamented in Chapter 1 of his book, "...We still think of the ideals which guide us, and have guided us for the past generation, as ideals only to be realized in the future and are not aware of how far we in the past twenty-five they have already transformed us...We still believe that until quite recently we were governed by nineteenth-century ideas or the principle of laissez-faire...But although until 1931 England and America had followed only slowly on the path on which others had led, even by then they moved so far that only those whose memory goes back to the years before the last war know what a liberal has been like." (p12)
Hayek - like Herbert However - understood that he,too, was a liberal; both he and Hoover, however, mistakenly believed that Roosevelt's New Deal was inspired by socialism. Neither Hayek nor Hoover understood that Roosevelt, too, was a liberal who sought to preserve liberalism and its economic manifestation - capitalism - rather than to undermine it.
Hence, I return to the thesis of my book: America remains a profoundly liberal nation. Because of the ideological stranglehold that the liberalism of John Locke continues to exert upon our culture, we are all liberals. There are no "conservatives," properly speaking; only unabashed, reactionary liberals - e.g., Glenn Beck and Dick Armey - and disaffected liberals who suspect -as do I - that the liberal paradigm no longer explains social reality but has created its own antithesis: unrestrained selfishness, anti-social violence and lawlessness, profound economic inequality, plutocracy, and an inability to make the 87,525 units of local government, along with the state and federal governments and the administrative agencies accountable to all of us as their citizens, rather than to the powerful and their lobbyists. As the adage says, "Them that already has, gets."