Consumers Be Damned: Senator Shelby, Captain Queeg and the Politics of No

While a number of needless regulations are out there, they’re not all frivolous, counterproductive and/or destructive. Payday lending, debt collection and debt settlement practices, the horrifying lack of financial literacy among American citizens, and several other problems within the ambit of the CFPB are sources of great abuse, and great financial loss, for many innocent consumers. More uniform, thoughtful and tough federal regulation is a better answer, and is perhaps the only answer for certain areas of unconscionable commercial conduct, such as the continuing victimization of military personnel by financial predators and scam artists.

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In Herman Wouk’s The Caine Mutiny, Captain Queeg is removed from command when he freezes during a typhoon. The subordinate responsible is court-martialed. At trial, Queeg shows himself to be quite insane and the subordinate is acquitted. More importantly, however, we learn that if the crew had chosen to support the captain rather than oppose him at every turn, things might well have turned out differently.

The GOP wants America to believe that President Obama is the second coming of Captain Queeg, an insane man who is incapable of steering our nation through the myriad typhoons of the 21st century. In the Wouk novel, one way that Queeg demonstrated his madness was to conduct an exhaustive all-night search for some nonexistent strawberries in a warzone. Obama’s unceasing effort to work with those whose sole mission in life is to destroy his Presidency is the only hint of “madness” in our leader—and things certainly would be different if the crew at least would try to cooperate with the captain.

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Enter Senator Shelby. Although he never mentioned the word “filibuster” at the hearing, it was certainly implied. The word filibuster is derived from the Spanish “filibustero”—meaning “pirate,” an entirely appropriate frame to better understand the dogma of those for whom pro-consumer means anti-business.

More than a century ago, Thomas B. Reed, former Republican U.S. Representative and Speaker from Maine, made the following observation about his fellow Congressional colleagues, “They never open their mouths without subtracting from the sum of human knowledge.” He ultimately resigned citing profound opposition to the Spanish American War—which was, of course, replete with “filibusteros.”

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