Intellectuals have long been glorified as champions of truth and defenders of society’s highest values. But in Washington, they serve as Leviathan‘s Praetorian Guard. Intellectuals are thriving in DC thanks in large part to the ruinous policy advice they proffer.
The District of Columbia has 120 times more political scientists per capita than the rest of the nation. But rather than producing “good governance,” the 3,200 political scientists and legions of other would-be Brain Trusters provide endless excuses to further extend the federal sway. Intellectuals usually come to Washington to help politicians leash other Americans, not to leash the government. And since they presume their preferred policies are better than freedom, intellectuals propel government programs to force their inferiors to “take their medicine.”
Washington think tanks have proliferated at the same time federal policies have become far more intrusive and harebrained. There are now roughly 400 think tanks in the Washington area, some of which are little more than “cash machines for power” for politicians. Clifford May, the president of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, commented in 2005: “It is the job of think tanks to create political capital. It is the job of politicians to spend it.” May’s think tank extols politicians who advocate bombing Muslim nations. Journalist Ken Silverstein, in an excellent report last year on think tank corruption, noted, “The Lexington Institute, a Virginia-based think tank, has never met a weapons program it didn’t like. That is not surprising since a good chunk of its funding — about $2.5 million in 2010 — comes from defense giants like Boeing, Lockheed and Northrop Grumman.”
Some think tanks are fronts for political operatives. Jack Abramoff, the most powerful lobbyist in Washington, placed an aging beach lifeguard at the head of American International Center, a think tank he created to funnel money to himself and his favorite causes. The scam was fruitful until Abramoff’s other machinations won him admission to federal prison. Newt Gingrich’s boutique think tank, the Center for Health Transformation, pocketed $37 million from health care corporations and industry groups before going bankrupt in 2012 after Gingrich’s presidential campaign floundered. Gingrich used his op-eds and speeches to tout positions favored by his think tank donors and omitted mentioning who was bankrolling his operation.
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http://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/featured-articles/2015/june/08/the-washington-intellectual-gravy-train/
