Is the Swamp Drainable?

BY BILL RICE  APRIL 18, 2024  GOVERNMENT, SOCIETY  8 MINUTE READ

Jeffrey Tucker, perhaps America’s most prominent “adult in the room,” penned another mature and wise column at Brownstone today. 

In this essay, Jeffrey highlights several positive developments he sees in society and opines that society’s elites are increasingly being discredited…and starting to feel the heat. (Perhaps they’re starting to have nightmares of a pitchfork-wielding mob converging on their gated neighborhoods?)

Towards the end of the column, Jeffrey discusses whether any “populist” uprising would actually result in positive changes in society and, if so, how long would it take for citizens to benefit from these fundamental changes.

I think Jeffrey might agree with me that all of the important organizations in the world are now completely captured. What Jeffrey’s really asking is if a toxic swamp – which now engulfs most of the planet’s land mass – could really be drained.

A Few Quick Points…

First, we should all be honest and acknowledge that a full and comprehensive “swamp-draining” has never happened in American history. 

The above stipulated, I still think many citizens would agree the swamp does need to be drained to save the country.

We also know that “draining the swamp” was probably the campaign slogan that allowed Donald Trump to be elected president in 2016…so this is definitely a popular position. (It is NOT a “radical” political viewpoint).

But even President Trump’s most avid supporters would probably agree that said swamp was not drained between 2017-2020.

This truism acknowledged, it’s probably also true that President Trump has several plausible excuses which might explain why this formidable task was not possible. (Basically, from Day One of his presidency, all the gators in the swamp were trying to eat him).

Also, one hopes he sees that the swamp does need to be drained if he gets a swamp-draining mulligan. (Speaking for myself, if a swamp full of gators – or crocodiles, which are more vicious – spent four years trying to eat me, I’d want revenge on those scurvy reptiles).

Whether Trump – or even RFK, Jr. – is elected, my worry is that our political leaders aren’t really committed to draining the swamp to the degree it needs to be drained.

Let’s Think About What This (Unprecedented) Project Would Entail…

One would have to start with Washington D.C., the logistical command center for the global swamp.

Certainly 90 to 95 percent of the senators and members of Congress would have to be banished (as they fund and make possible the swamp and benefit from it).

All the key “career” employees of our million (?) bureaucracies, who apparently can’t be fired, would have to somehow be issued their walking papers.

The Court System is largely captured (and the federal judges have lifetime appointments).

And that’s just a brief primer on our federal government. 

Most cynics now understand that the “crony” business and finance class which mooches off the system – and helps fund it with campaign slush funds – is completely captured as well.

Question: How does a person, even if he has the title of commander-in-chief, purge every CEO and board member of every Fortune 500 company and major bank in the country?

And our swamp drainer extraordinaire couldn’t just purge the corporate leaders because the executives who’d replace them think exactly the same way. (For example, the vice presidents at Disney would be just as wicked as, say, Cinderella’s stepmother.)

And I’m not even mentioning all the Non-Governmental Organizations like the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the World Economic Forum, The Rockefeller Foundation, and the 200 organizations (and growing) that make up the Censorship Industrial Complex.

While we’re draining the swamp, we might as well cancel every mainstream media “news” organization. But even I say it wouldn’t be legal to issue a presidential executive order to, say, shut down the New York Times…even on the accurate grounds it’s a serial spreader of harmful disinformation. (The good news is the mainstream media is dying on its own.)

I’m Getting Tired Even Thinking About This Project…

Our heroic swamp drainers would somehow have to scuttle the Military Industrial Complex, the Science/Medicine Industrial Complex, the Higher Education Complex, Big Pharma, Big Tech, Big Environmentalism…and I haven’t even mentioned the Federal Reserve or the international organizations like the UN and the WHO that are increasingly spreading world-government and communism-light. 

Our Political Leaders Aren’t Thinking Big Enough…

What really concerns me is the idea that what the world needs is just a little more enlightened “reform.” 

The idea seems to be that a new president – with some new 10-point programs and a few changes in personnel – could suddenly make all these organizations sane, or at least mitigate the damage they inflict on society.

In my opinion, this approach is not going to improve the world in any meaningful way.

At this point in world history, the only reform that might work is to abolish entire agencies.

I mean, does any thinking person really think the CIA can be “reformed?”

The more books and persuasive Substack articles I read, the more convinced I become that the CIA has played a leading role in almost every nefarious event in the world since the agency was created in the late 1940s. No, the agency would have to be disbanded. (It might have to be nuked…“just to be sure.”)

Furthermore, America’s government has at least 15 other “intelligence” agencies. Somehow America grew and prospered from 1776 to 1950 without these agencies. Would Russia, China, or Iran immediately invade America if we shut down all 15 of these agencies? 

The hundreds of thousands of surveillance experts who work at these agencies would say they will, but they’re all wrong and just want to keep their jobs and salaries and increase their power.

I’d even shut down the FBI, even though I know Hollywood routinely produces movies and TV series telling us what a vital, Cracker Jack crime-fighting agency this is.

As I view it, the FBI largely excels in covering up crimes (like the Epstein sex-trafficking and blackmail operation, Hunter Biden and his father’s serial corruption, falsely prosecuting the January 6 protestors, and hyping preposterous assertions like “Russia hacked a presidential election.”)

This agency was led by a power-hungry tyrant (J. Edgar Hoover) for decades just like the NIAID was led by the same type person (Anthony Fauci) for four decades. Both agencies have become more dangerous and the country doesn’t even need them.  (Local and state police forces could investigate kidnapping cases and bank robberies.)

I don’t even think RFK, Jr. is lobbying for the CDC and NIH to be abolished, but – trust me here – as long as these agencies continue to exist, “public health” is only going to become worse.

Gone, Gone, and Gone…

If someone like Ron Paul was president and was given the same powers the WHO’s currently seeking, this president would abolish seven or eight departments of government in one fell swoop. 

If a president can’t fire unionized public workers, he’ll just have to abolish entire agencies and departments, which, granted, has never been done before, but – per my understanding of the Constitution – this is theoretically possible.

The Departments of Education, Homeland Security, Health and Human Services, Commerce, Energy, Labor, and a couple more agencies that weren’t around in 1810 would be…gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, and…gone.

In an era of trillion-dollar deficits, the tax-savings would be immense, but, most importantly, the bureaucrats who staff these massive agencies wouldn’t be able to inflict any more harm on We the Peons.

Children might notice their mother or father lost their jobs, but 95 percent of citizens wouldn’t notice a difference in their daily lives.

America could certainly resign from the UN and NATO and stop paying dues to the WHO. If Bill Gates wants to keep spending hundreds of billions of dollars to fight AIDS in Africa, he’d be free to do that. 

The Davos crowd could keep meeting in Switzerland, but their Climate Change and central bank digital currency plans won’t go anywhere if the US government quits funding the agencies and NGOs that are pushing these programs.

Those agencies also wouldn’t be able to fund the global recruitment and logistical programs that are making possible mass illegal immigration into America.

With 90 percent of Congress hopefully fired by voters, and many departments of government simply abolished, Trump could actually finish the border wall with Mexico in probably six months.

If there is no FBI and CIA and he manages to fire 40 percent of the career prosecutors in the Department of Justice, President Trump might be able to actually drain a significant portion of the swamp in the next five years.

Is America Like the Hotel California?

What he might really be doing is preserving the United States of America.

For a while now, I’ve wondered if states deciding to join our national republic might be similar to guests checking into the Hotel California. Yes, you can check in…but you can never leave.

If “Joe Biden” is reelected and half the country thinks the 2024 presidential election was, again, rigged or “stolen,” there’s no certainty that citizens in all 50 states will choose to remain a part of such a hyper-polarized union.

Then again, they probably would choose to remain. 

If a flu-like virus scares the daylights out of 80 percent of the nation and requires Big Brother interventions at every level of daily life, I doubt the same citizens would want to risk navigating daily life without the comfort and guidance of their federal nanny and protector.

That is, “draining the swamp” is a catchy political slogan, but when a politician starts giving specific examples of how he’s going to do this, the response is going to be “Agghh! You can’t do that!”

I hate to say it, but the Swamp is probably drain-proof.