Sunday, November 30, 2008

Reader Advice Wanted

I thought I would seek some advice from my readers. Here is the situation:

I have been busy trying to set up the Emerson Institute for Freedom and Culture ( www.emersoninstitute.org ) this year, and I just received 501(c)(3) status, meaning we are now able to solicit funds and really get the EIFC started. The Emerson Institute is a free market think tank focused on supporting the arts and humanities. I see it as a privately-funded organization within the arts and humanities spontaneous order whose purpose is to support those artists who understand the world as a hierarchy of self-organizing systems, of which the free market economic system is a naturally-occurring member. We already have a journal (see website), whose website is going to get a renovation soon. To get this thing well-funded so we can get started transforming the culture in a positive manner, it will take up much of my time. This will essentially be a full-time job.

I live in the Texas 32nd Congressional district, and Pete Sessions (R) is our Congressman. I consider his vote against the bailout, then for it when some money came his political way, to be a prime example of the kind of corruption we desperately need to fight against. And it shows his incredible ignorance of economics. Now he is coming up with the lame excuse that he really didn't want to vote for it, but he had to. Nobody ever "has" to vote for something they are honestly against. These sorts of things show the kind of man -- and the ideology of the man -- Pete Sessions is. For these reasons, I have been considering running against Pete Sessions in the GOP primary. However, this too will be a full-time job. I want to be fair to my supporters.

And speaking of being fair to my supporters, if I should run -- I have also been applying for academic positions across the country. If I should get one of those jobs, I will have to move out of the district. Since we are talking about academic jobs, there's not a high probability of my getting hired, especially since I am applying for primarily English positions and my Ph.D. is in the humanities and my work deals with scientific approaches to understanding literature (when I'm not presenting conference papers on spontaneous orders, that is). Scientific approaches to understanding literature are not exactly popular (let alone my politics) in English departments. So there is a very high level of uncertainty.

So, it comes down to this: with the information provided, does it seem reasonable for me to run in the primary against Pete Sessions (please ignore any considerations of my ability to actually defeat Pete Sessions)? Any and all advice is welcome.

2 comments:

John said...

Politics is a better pick if you're going to win. Emerson is a better pick if you're going to lose.

Troy Camplin said...

Well, obviously, if I knew I was going to win, I'd run. But even if I lose, my running might get Session's attention and move him in my direction. I don't care why people vote for the right things, just so long as they do.