Wednesday, January 30, 2013

Just as every family has ‘that uncle’, every state has their Bob Marshall, an inane politician


Just as almost every family has that crazy uncle, every legislative body in the U.S. probably has their Bob Marshall, the almost comically inane political representative whose main calling in life seems to be agitating the status-quo with ideas built upon fear and anxiety.

It didn’t take long for Virginia’s own Del. Bob Marshall to ‘Marshall’ his way into the New Year with a bill, House Joint Resolution 590[1], that would study the creation of an alternate Virginia currency in silver and gold coins, and he’s for real.[2]

Marshall stated his paranoid factoid for the day, “The stability of our money system can be undermined in any number of ways.” His bill points to the Great Depression and “hyperinflation” as potential causes.

The irony shouldn’t be lost that just as the overwhelming majority of climate scientists are noting the dangers of human-induced climate change, politicians like Bob Marshall roll their eyes and lambast the idea as incorrect or even “crazy.”[3]

Unsurprisingly, those in the Virginia General Assembly with reason (i.e., the Democrats, at least some of them) have called Marshall’s legislation a “waste of time.”[4] Indeed, this is Marshall’s M.O., wasting Virginia’s time and taxpayer dollars, another irony that shouldn’t be lost!

Isn’t this the Republican Party way, however, to cry to the heavens when they haven’t gotten their way, to suggest that the rules should be changed because they don’t benefit the Republicans at this moment in time? I have a vivid image in my mind of the cartoon baby of my youth whose face turns red and whose cries shriek out whenever the baby hasn’t gotten his way. This is the GOP today.

Beyond the fact that state currencies would disproportionately benefit state elites who would have control over the money, we’ve already experimented with separate currencies and to say the least, it was an epic failure.

But history for Bob Marshall holds a number of inconvenient truths that he and his Republican colleagues seem only too willing to ignore to support their ideological ends.

Yes, let’s have separate state currencies and next, let’s go to war with one another over abortion rights! Wow, does that sound similar to another point in American history?

There will probably always be Bob Marshall’s in the legislature of Virginia, and so I hope there will always be enough sense and factual historical memory to nullify their frantic ideas.



[1] http://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?131+ful+HJ590
[2] http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-state-of-nova/post/in-case-of-emergency-pr-william-delegate-wants-to-study-a-separate-virginia-currency/2013/01/28/b70f43fa-6741-11e2-93e1-475791032daf_blog.html
[3] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0hEeZ2DsZ7o
[4] http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/va-politics/bill-to-create-alternate-currency-for-va-inches-forward/2013/01/25/8753b766-66fd-11e2-93e1-475791032daf_story.html

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