The Other Michele

June 23, 2009

I’ve come to admire Michele Bachmann, especially since she nailed Timothy Geithner to the wall while repeatedly asking him what provision in the Constitution gave the Treasury Department the authority to manage markets and the financial services industry. On that note, I found this story to be delightful. Try to not laugh at the last paragraph.

Outspoken Republican Rep. Michele Bachmann says she’s so worried that information from next year’s national census will be abused that she will refuse to fill out anything more than the number of people in her household.

In an interview Wednesday morning with The Washington Times‘s “America’s Morning News,” Mrs. Bachmann, Minnesota Republican, said the questions have become “very intricate, very personal” and she also fears ACORN, the community organizing group that came under fire for its voter registration efforts last year, will be part of the Census Bureau’s door-to-door information collection efforts.

“I know for my family the only question we will be answering is how many people are in our home,” she said. “We won’t be answering any information beyond that, because the Constitution doesn’t require any information beyond that.”

Shelly Lowe, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Census Bureau, said Mrs. Bachmann is “misreading” the law.

This is a plucky move by Bachmann. The census is a critical pet project for the Obama administration, and forcing people to accept it at face value, without reservation, is important for maintaining eternal citizen obedience to this invasive and unconstitutional endeavor.

Now, before you write me and say, “Ms. DeCoster, those Republicans …. where were they when? ….. how can you? … don’t you know that?…“ forget it, don’t write me and bring that up. I know all that and have written about it elsewhere. Yes, I know that most of the Republicrats didn’t give a tinker’s damn about reckless assaults on liberty while their guy was heading up the plunder party. But Michele Bachmann, like a few others in Congress, has received an education in liberty courtesy of the Ron Paul Revolution. Moreover, educating (and radicalizing) those who have the political power to screw up our lives has been a big part of the Revolution’s success.

We should be delighted each time Republicans sound like libertarians and we should welcome these pivotal moments. We have to keep on pushing the enlightenment process forward. Understand that the election of an arrogant, power-hungry Marxist (who happens to be a Democrat, thereby pissing off the Republicans) is a significant opportunity for us to move in and educate angry conservatives, especially those who are seated closer to the margins. The fact that the Republicans are sounding like classical liberals or libertarians so that they have ammunition to counter the Obama strategy is not a bad thing.

Look at Ron Paul’s HR 1207 bill, the Federal Reserve Transparency Act of 2009. He started with no co-sponsors, the list built slowly, and then it picked up steam until over half of the House of Representatives came to co-sponsor it. Michele Bachmann was an early supporter of that bill, and she has been marvelous on many occasions. I am hoping that she, and others like her, will continue to move forward on many issues critical to the anti-state movement. If we can capitalize on Republican resentment over the Obama regime and its war on freedom and free markets, we need to do it, and as often as we can. Along the way, we should welcome those Republicans who are having a change of heart and supporting Ron Paul’s ideas and his vision. We should even welcome Rush Limbaugh’s occasional lapse into quasi-libertarian belligerence, if it serves to spark further skepticism from his android listeners.

Be mindful that Bachmann is actually intelligent, unlike Sarah Palin, who is a trained monkey and came out of nowhere, thanks to her gender, sprightly sparkle, and the problems with McCain’s uninspiring, snooze-a-rama campaign. Bachmann is also articulate and pretty”which is never detrimental to a woman in politics”and comes across as steady and confident. The attribute of hers that gives me hope is her tendency to reveal recurring signs of un-Republican-like behavior. Questioning the constitutionality of the census and making Timothy Geithner stutter like a pickled parrot are just a couple of strong points in her favor.

Actions in Bachmann’s favor are that she voted against the Wall Street bailouts, opposed the auto industry bailout, questioned Bush’s plan to increase troops in Iraq, opposed greater subsidization of student loans, opposed light bulb tyranny, correctly blamed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac for their part in the economic meltdown, opposes a one-world currency, has spoken out against mandatory government service, and isn”t fooled by the political agenda of the global warming alarmists. Bachmann also understands how Warren G. Harding’s lack of economic intervention in the 1920-21 Depression allowed the economy to rebound quickly (she’s been paying attention to Tom Woods). She has even spoken about the roles of Hoover, FDR, and the Smoot-Hawley tariff in magnifying the Great Depression, in spite of mixing up some of those facts along the way.

Without question, there are many concerns swirling around Bachmann, such as the fact that she comes from a Christian fundamentalist background and has, in spurts, shown support for the Iraq war and large-scale aggression in the Middle East. She also speaks too much about “anti-Americanism.” However, along those same lines, when Bachmann went on MSNBC’s Hardball and said that members of Congress should be “investigated” for anti-American views, perhaps the response from her five democratic colleagues in the Minnesota House delegation was even worse than her own conduct. Those democrats issued a statement that said, “For Michele Bachmann to go on national television and say that members of Congress should be investigated for “anti-American views” calls into her judgment and her ability to work in a bipartisan way to put the interests of our country first in this time of crisis“ [emphasis mine]. To the contrary, her ability to remain independent, and her refusal to follow behind the (bi-)partisan pack, is one of Michele’s great strengths.

Sure, Bachmann’s fundamentalism might presents some problems, and it’s unlikely to change; however, considering we”re facing Obama fast-paced socialization of the country, we should welcome combatants like Michele Bachmann who are willing to step up and challenge the regime on some pivotal issues.

Bachmann regularly attends Ron Paul’s Washington lunches where a small, informal group gathers to hear a variety of radical speakers”such as Tom Woods and James Bovard”who are hand-selected by Ron Paul. She’s read Meltdown, the book by Tom Woods, which succinctly explains the economic collapse from an “Austrian” perspective (and doesn”t blame the whole thing on “greed” or “deregulation”). And according to Woods:

I had a feeling she”d have some interest in the book … because she asked some good questions. She was taking notes. She was asking if this or that point could be found in the book. I thought I recognized a sincere person who wanted knowledge, not the usual politician who couldn”t care less about what the truth is and just wanted to propagandize.

I’d like to see Bachmann continue along her path, learning from Ron Paul and finding her rebel roots. And she appears to be educable! Which is more than you can say for most everyone else in Congress. And she’s not afraid to stand in the firing line on her own. Let’s watch this lady carefully over the next couple of years. There may be many more bright moments.

Ron Paul, who’s long been a man on a lone crusade, needs all the assistance he can get on the House floor. With all the controversy being created by the hubristic Thief-in-Chief, there’s a bustling market for rebellion, and Ron Paul’s Revolution is just now rolling into prime time.