As for smearing Austrian economists, you only have to see what they’ve done to Rand Paul (Ron Paul’s son, who’s now running for Senate in Kentucky. He just recently won the Republican nomination for that state). He’s being smeared now as a racist. He’s a “pure” libertarian and doesn’t want the government to be involved in how we run our businesses. Then Rachel Maddow, a MSNBC pundit, interviewed him and said, “Are you saying we should allow business owners to discriminate against black people? Are you saying a white restaurant owner should be allowed to say, ‘No, I don’t serve black people?’” His reply was along the lines, “Well, we need to be careful about letting the government dictate what we can and can’t do as we quickly come into free speech difficulties. But no, I support the civil rights acts and do not believe in discrimination. Also, this is a political red herring. This is ‘gotcha’ stuff. I’m here to cut taxes and change how economics is being done in Washington. I’m against the insane spending and bailouts. I want to end the wars.” Even so, they still smear him as a racist when he obviously isn’t. Progressives foment at the very mentioning of his name acting like he heads the KKK. Then a black senator was interviewed who went on and on about how awful Rand Paul is and how racist he is. “Can you believe how this guy had a nomination celebration in a private club, where half of the people who voted for him wouldn’t even be allowed inside?” I just thought, “Oh c’mon. This is RIDICULOUS.”

Another recent smear against him was about the BP oil spill. Rand Paul said, “Look, accidents happen. BP didn’t want this to happen. They’re getting nothing out of this.” He was basically saying that they’re losing money AND having to fight off a negative publicity campaign. What benefit do they receive from any of this? But the liberal pundits are going after him, acting like he doesn’t care about the environment. “See, this guy doesn’t believe in regulations which stop oil spills from happening.”

Now first off, what regulations are currently in place for oil well regulation? Have an expert engineer on there, tell what regulations are currently in place, and what ones we need. Give us some specifics and a historical perspective. But who are these pundits to tell us whether or not we do or do not have proper regulations in place? I hate these idiots who act like they’re experts on everything.

I saw Chris Matthews on Jay Leno being interviewed and he was acting like he’s some sort of oil well expert. He said something about how these oil companies are so cheap that they try to save money in every possibly way, how they won’t fill their holes correctly and use water instead of dirt. Twenty years back Matthews did a “big story” researching it all. Of course he was “abhorred” at what he found. I thought, “People, who is Chris Matthews to tell us about specific engineering problems related to oil wells?” But he played the crowd and they all bought into it. They all started clapping after he made his statement. Then the video comments were like, “Everything he said is true.” But how do they know? I seriously doubt it.

That oil that’s leaking is worth a fortune. There’s a good reason it’s called black gold. As greedy as these corporations are, they’re not going to let a single drop leak out of there if they can prevent it. The corporations aren’t going to skimp considering how much money they’ll lose if the well fails. This whole incident is an accident, and really President Obama is jumping on the bandwagon, using this crisis to get the crowds worked up saying, “We have to do something!” And didn’t he just a few months ago SUPPORT off-shore drilling? Where were all his newly proposed regulations then? Huh? I swear, people don’t even have a memory and don’t think at all. Obama’s now putting all kinds of taxes on oil, which might not be a bad thing considering we need to get off oil and give incentives for other energy technologies. Still, people don’t get what’s being done to them. This is an instance of not letting a crisis go to waste.

As you hinted at, I believe many people in Washington KNOW this stuff is bullshit, but since it’s so good for their personal interests, it gets promoted. They get all kinds of “reputable” professors and economists (hired guns, of course) to promote their ideas and provide the public with reasons why this or that policy must happen.

Then Joe Normal at home sits back and says “Well whatever. I’m glad SOMEBODY knows whats going on and working on a fix.”

Meanwhile anyone who goes against them with Austrian economics gets labeled a loon. Not directly, because they can’t directly attack the ideas. But they attack the person. They’ll dig something out of your past and make it the big issue in the news, thus discrediting everything you’re saying about economics.

What we really need to do is study these smear tactics over the past 50 years and then unite into some kind of well-funded organization who knows exactly how to deal with them.