Things have changed in the US since the Covid disaster, chief among them the attitude of the populace. Productive people are now speaking openly about the corruption of American institutions and their desire to return to a more traditional American culture.

The big event at the moment is the US Congress doing their usual: telling people what they want to hear while changing as little as possible.

And so I think it's useful to point out that Congress will be the last institution to reform. Regardless of their smooth words, you should see them no differently than you saw the boss of your least favorite Fed agency during the Biden time.

The Two Fundamentals

The fundamentals by which Congress operates are corrupt and corrupting. I'll be brief.

#1: Donations to Congress run into the billions annually, and there are so many paths this money takes that unraveling it all is exceptionally difficult. And that's not including the favors passed between the members of corporate boards and similar invisible donations.

These donations are 100 percent legal, mind you, regardless that they're trades for favors. In a less byzantine time this would have been called graft, but my point is that congressmen are paid big money to provide favors, which powerfully affects them. (Rand Paul and a few others may be exceptions, but perhaps intermittent exceptions.)

#2: Political parties rule Congress. The 17th Amendment transferred power from the states to the two big political parties who have reigned ever since. (Explained here.) The American people haven't yet come to grips with this and perhaps won't for some time, but Senators and Reps. take their orders from party bosses, nearly always voting as directed by them.

The situation is far more complex than I'm describing here, but that complexity serves mainly to distract from the underlying fact: the two big parties like their game and will undermine changes until the bitter end. And, of course, a tremendous amount of money and power stands behind those two parties.

So…

So, if you're one of the productive people fighting to restore America to a better model – to move back toward a Lockean republic – you have my appreciation. But please don't rest your hopes on Congress being your friend, because it isn't and won't be; it'll be the last to reform. Spend your energies in more useful directions.

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