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Here’s a letter that I recently sent to a local Washington, DC, radio station:
This afternoon you interviewed a pundit who claims to be “inspired” by the way that Bill and Hillary Clinton, having been so critical of Barack Obama during the presidential primary campaign, now work so agreeably with him. I’m not inspired; I’m suspicious. Were the Clintons being disingenuous during the campaign, or are they being disingenuous now?
Herbert Spencer understood the charade of politics when he wrote the following in 1884: “While before them as candidates, they are, by one or other party, jeered at, lampooned, ‘heckled,’ and in all ways treated with utter disrespect. But as soon as they assemble at Westminster, those against whom taunts and invectives, charges of incompetence and folly, had been showered from press and platform, excite unlimited faith. Judging from the prayers made to them, there is nothing which their wisdom and their power cannot compass.”*
Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux* Herbert Spencer, The Man versus the State, with Six Essays on Government, Society and Freedom [2], ed. Eric Mack, Introduction by Albert Jay Nock (Indianapolis: LibertyClassics, 1981), p. 96.